But silly we, like foolish children, rest

Well pleased with coloured vellum, leaves of gold,
Fair dangling ribands, leaving what is best;
On the great Writer's sense ne'er taking hold;
Or, if by chance we stay our minds on ought,
It is some picture on the margin wrought.

HIDDEN IN LIGHT.

Beneath a sable vail and shadows deep
Of unaccessible and dimming light,

In silence, ebon clouds more black than night,
The World's great King his secrets hid doth keep :
Through whose thick mists when any mortal wight
Aspires, with halting pace
and eyes that weep,
To pry and in His mysteries to creep,

With thunders He, and lightnings, blasts their sight.
O Sun invisible! that dost abide

Within thy bright abysms, most fair, most dark,
Where with thy proper1 rays thou dost thee hide,
O ever shining, never full seen, mark!

To guide me in life's night, Thy light me show:
The more I search of Thee, the less I know.

SAFE AND ALL SCARLESS.

As when it happeneth that some lovely town
Unto a barbarous besieger falls,

Who both by sword and flames himself installs,
And, shameless, it in tears and blood doth drown;
Her beauty spoilt, her citizens made thralls,
His spite yet cannot so her all throw down
But that some statue, pillar of renown,

Yet lurks unmaimed within her weeping walls :

So, after all the spoil, disgrace, and wreck,

That time, the world, and death, could bring combined,

Amid that mass of ruins they did make,

Safe and all scarless yet remains my mind.

From this so high transcendent rapture springs
That I, all else defaced, not envy kings.

FROM THE RIVER OF FORTH FEASTING.

THE SONG OF THE RIVER TO THE KING.1

O, long, long, haunt these bounds, which by thy sight Have now regained their former heat and light!

Here grow green woods; here silver brooks do glide; Here meadows stretch them out, with painted pride Embroidering all the lands: here hills aspire

To crown their heads with the ethereal fire-
Hills, bulwarks of our freedom, giant walls,

Which never friends did slight, nor swords made thralls;
Each circling flood to Thetis tribute pays;
Men here in health outlive old Nestor's days;
Grim Saturn yet amongst our rocks remains,
Bound in our caves with many-metalled chains ; .
Our flocks fair fleeces bear, with which for sport
Endymion of old the Moon did court;
High-palmèd harts amidst our forests run,

And, not impaled, the deep-mouthed hounds do shun;
The rough-foot hare safe in our bushes shrouds,
And long-winged hawks do perch amidst our clouds.
The wanton wood-nymphs of the verdant spring,
Blue, golden, purple flowers shall to thee bring;
Pomona's fruits the panisks ;2 Thetis' girls,
The Thule's amber with the ocean's pearls ;
The Tritons, herdsmen of the glassy field,
Shall give thee what far distant shores can yield;
The Serian fleeces, Erythrean gems,
Vast Plata's silver, gold of Peru streams,
Antarctic parrots, Ethiopian plumes,
Sabæan odours, myrrh, and sweet perfumes :
And I myself,3 wrapt in a watchet gown,
Of reeds and lilies on mine head a crown,
Shall incense to thee burn, green altars raise,
And yearly sing due Pæans to thy praise.
Ah! why should Isis only on thee shine?
Is not thy Forth, as well as Isis, thine?
Though Isis vaunt she hath more wealth in store,
Let it suffice, thy Forth doth love thee more.

1 James VI. of Scotland.

2 Little wood-gods. 3 i.e. the River Forth.

JOHN FORD.
(1586-1640.)

THE following songs are taken from a play called The Sun's Darling, 1633, written conjointly by Ford and Dekker. Ford was one of the most remarkable of the minor Elizabethan dramatists. By profession he was a barrister of Gray's Inn ; and this portrait of him has come down to us in a contemporary satire :

"Deep in a dump John Ford was got,

With folded arms and melancholy hat."

Of Dekker we know still less; but our songs, which may have been written by either of them, represent their authors as writers of grace and vivacity, with moods of rollicking mirth.

THE DEATH OF SPRING.

Here lies the blithe Spring,
Who first taught birds to sing,
Yet, in April, herself fell a-crying;
Then, May growing hot,

A sweating sickness she got,
And, the first of June, lay a-dying.

Yet no month can say

But her merry daughter May
Stuck her coffin with flowers great plenty.
The cuckoos sang in verse

An epitaph o'er her hearse;

But, assure you, the lines were not dainty.

A SONG OF SPRING.

Haymakers, rakers, reapers, and mowers,
Wait on your Summer-queen;

Dress up with musk-rose her eglantine bowers;
Daffodils, strew the green.

Sing, dance, and play;
'Tis holiday;

The Sun does bravely shine

Rich as a pearl
Comes every girl.

This is mine, this is mine, this is mine;
Let us die ere away they be borne.

Bow to the sun, to our queen, and that fair one
Come to behold our sports:

Each bonny lass here is counted a rare one,
As those in a prince's courts.
These and we

With country glee

Will teach the woods to resound,
And the hills with echoes hollow:
Skipping lambs

Their bleating dams

'Mongst kids shall trip it round;
For joy thus our wenches we follow.

Wind, jolly huntsmen, your neat bugles shrilly;
Hounds, make a lusty cry;

Spring up, you falconers, the partridges freely;
Then let your brave hawks fly.
Horses, amain

Over ridge, over plain,

The dogs have the stag in chase:
'Tis a sport to content a king.

So, ho, ho! through the skies
How the proud bird flies,

And, sousing, kills with a grace!

Now the deer falls; hark, how they ring!

GEORGE WITHER.

(1588-1667.)

GEORGE WITHER was a native of Hampshire, and one of the most abundant writers of verse in James's reign. His first essay was a poem on Prince Henry's death in 1612; in the following year he was imprisoned in the Marshalsea for having written a satire called Abuses Stript and Whipt. Whilst in prison he wrote a pastoral poem entitled The Shepherd's Hunting. Wither's Motto, Nec habeo, nec careo,

with the title Juvenilia, was printed in 1622; and in the same year he produced Faire Virtue, the Mistress of Philarete, written by Himselfe. Wither's most pleasant verses were produced during the first half of his life. He sided strongly with the Parliament against Charles, fought under Cromwell, and was owner of some land in Surrey during the Protectorate. At the Restoration in 1660 he lost all he had won, and was again for some time in prison. His literary activity appears to have been, from first to last, incessant; and he is remembered now-a-days as pre-eminently the Puritan poet, whose irrepressible Muse made herself heard even amid the din of civil war.

CHRISTMAS.

So now is come our joyfullest part;
Let every man be jolly;

Each room with ivy-leaves is dressed,
And every post with holly.

Though some churls at our mirth repine,

Round your foreheads garlands twine,
Drown sorrow in a cup of wine,
And let us all be merry!

Now all our neighbours' chimneys smoke,
And Christmas-blocks are burning;
Their ovens they with baked meat choke,
And all their spits are turning.

Without the door let Sorrow lie;
And, if for cold it hap to die,
We'll bury it in a Christmas pie
And evermore be merry!

Rank misers now do sparing shun;
Their hall of music soundeth;

And dogs thence with whole shoulders run;
So all things there aboundeth.

The country folks themselves advance

With crowdy-muttons out of France;

And Jack shall pipe, and Jill shall dance,
And all the town be merry!

Good farmers in the country nurse
The poor that else were undone ;
Some landlords spend their money worse,