Now kings and queens poor sheepcotes have, The honest men now play the knave, Then, wherefore, in these merry days, No, let us sing some roundelays, To make our mirth the fuller: And while we thus inspired sing, THE SHEPHERD'S RESOLUTION. SHALL I, wasting in despaire, Dye, because a woman's faire? Or make pale my cheeks with care 'Cause another's rosie are? Be she fairer than the day, Or the flow'ry meads in May; If she be not so to me, What care I how faire she be? Shall my foolish heart be pined If she be not so to me, Shall a woman's virtue move Me to perish for her love? 'Cause her fortune seems too high, Thinke what with them they would doe, Great, or good, or kinde, or faire, VANISHED BLESSINGS. 'HE voice which I did more esteem TH Than music in her sweetest key, Those eyes which unto me did seem More comfortable than the dayThose now by me, as they have been, Shall never more be heard or seen; But what I once enjoyed in them Shall seem hereafter as a dream. All earthly comforts vanish thus; So little hold of them have we, If present mercies we despise ; Or mind not how there may be made A thankful use of what we had. THE CHRONICLE. BY ABRAHAM COWLEY.-1618-67. [ABRAHAM COWLEY was born in London, in 1618, after his father's death. He was educated first at Cambridge, and afterwards, when he was ejected from that University on account of his loyalty, at Oxford. He showed great zeal in the royal cause, forwarded it by every means in his power, and was an exile for twelve years. After the Restoration he was neglected by the Court, on account of some of his poems, and went to reside at a farm which had been obtained for him from the Queen, by the Duke of Buckingham, and finally settled at Chertsey, on the banks of the Thames. He died in 1667, and was interred in Westminster Abbey. Cowley was a poet from his earliest years, and published a volume at thirteen. His anacreontic pieces are the best which he wrote. Charles II. made a late and poor reparation for the neglect with which he had been treated, by declaring that "he left not a better man behind him in England;" but he was one of those few fortunate poets who attained to independence, and, in their lifetime, acquired honour and fame.] MARGARITA first possest, If I remember well, my breast. But when a while the wanton maid With my restless heart had play'd, Martha took the flying ball. Martha soon did it resign To the beauteous Catherine. Beauteous Catherine gave place Eliza till this hour might reign, Mary then, and gentle Anne, Alternately they sway'd; And sometimes Mary was the fair, Another Mary then arose, Had not Rebecca set me free. |