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TRUE LOVE.

LET me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove.-

O no! it is an ever fixed mark

That looks on tempests, and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark

Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle's compass come; Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom :— If this be error, and upon me proved, I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

SIR HENRY WOTTON.

Born, 1568; Died, 1639.

THE HAPPY LIFE.

How happy is he born and taught
That serveth not another's will;
Whose armour is his honest thought,
And simple truth his utmost skill :

Whose passions not his masters are,
Whose soul is still prepared for death,

Not tied unto the world with care
Of public fame or private breath :

Who envies none that chance doth raise,
Or vice; who never understood
How deepest wounds are given by praise,
Nor rules of state, but rules of good:

Who hath his life from rumours freed,
Whose conscience is his strong retreat;
Whose state can neither flatterers feed,
Nor ruin make oppressors great:

Who God doth late and early pray
More of His grace than gifts to lend;

And entertains the harmless day

With a religious book or friend!

This man is freed from servile bands
Of hope to rise, or fear to fall;
Lord of himself, though not of lands,
And having nothing, yet hath all.

BEN JONSON.

Born, 1574; Died, 1637.

ON LUCY, COUNTESS OF BEDFORD.

THIS morning, timely wrapt with holy fire,

I thought to form unto my zealous Muse, What kind of creature I could most desire

To honour, serve, and love; as poets use.
I meant to make her fair, and free, and wise,
Of greatest blood, and yet more good than great;

I meant the day-star should not brighter rise,
Nor lend like influence from his lucent seat.

I meant she should be courteous, facile, sweet,

Hating that solemn vice of greatness, pride; I meant each softest virtue there should meet, Fit in that softer bosom to reside.

Only a learned and a manly soul

I purposed her; that should with even powers, The rock, the spindle, and the shears control

Of destiny, and spin her own free hours.

Such when I meant to feign, and wish'd to see, My Muse bade Bedford write, and that was she!

EPITAPH ON THE COUNTESS-
DOWAGER OF PEMBROKE.
UNDERNEATH this sable hearse
Lies the subject of all verse,
Sydney's sister, Pembroke's mother:
Death, ere thou hast slain another,
Fair, and wise, and good as she,
Time shall throw his dart at thee!

THE NOBLE NATURE.

It is not growing like a tree

In bulk, doth make man better be ; Or standing long an oak, three hundred year, To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sere : A lily of a day

Is fairer far in May,

Although it fall and die that night,—
It was the plant of light.

In small proportions we just beauties see
And in short measures life may perfect be.

GEORGE SANDYS.

Born, 1577; Died, 1643.

PARAPHRASE OF THE CXLVIII. PSALM.

You who dwell above the skies,
Free from human miseries,

You whom highest heaven embowers,
Praise the Lord with all your powers.
Angels, your clear voices raise;
Him, you heavenly armies, praise.
Sun and moon, with borrow'd light,
All you sparkling eyes of night,
Waters hanging in the air,

Heaven of heavens, His praise declare :

His deserved praise record,

His who made you by His word,

Made you evermore to last,

Set your bounds not to be past.
Let the earth His praise resound,
Monstrous whales and seas profound;

Vapours, lightning, hail and snow;
Storms which when He bids them blow;

Flowery hills, and mountains high;

Cedars, neighbours to the sky;
Trees, that fruit in season yield;
All the cattle of the field;
Savage beasts, all creeping things;
All that cut the air with wings.

You who awful sceptres sway,
You inuréd to obey;

Princes, judges of the earth,
All of high and humble birth;
Youths and virgins flourishing
In the beauty of your spring;
You who bow with age's weight,
You who were but born of late;
Praise His name with one consent;
O, how great! how excellent!
Than the earth profounder far,
Higher than the highest star.
He will His to honour raise ;
You His saints, resound His praise;
You who are of Jacob's race,

And united to His grace. Hallelujah!

PHINEAS FLETCHER.

Born, 1584; Died, 1650.

TO FIND GOD.

WEIGH me the fire; or canst thou find
A way to measure out the wind;
Distinguish all those floods that are
Mixt in that watery theatre,

And taste thou them as saltless there
As in their channel first they were.
Tell me the people that do keep
Within the kingdoms of the deep ;

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