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Now, one the better, then, another best;
Both tugging to be victors, breast to breast,
Yet neither conqueror, nor conquered:
So is the equal poise of this fell war.
Here on this molehill will I sit me down.
To whom God will, there be the victory!
For Margaret my queen, and Clifford too,
Have chid me from the battle; swearing both
They prosper best of all when I am thence.
Would I were dead! if God's good will were so:
For what is in this world but grief and woe? 20
O God! methinks it were a happy life,
To be no better than a homely swain:
To sit upon a hill, as I do now,

25

To carve out dials quaintly, point by point,
Thereby to see the minutes how they run:
How many make the hour full complete;
How many hours bring about the day,
How many days will finish up the year,
How many years a mortal man may live.
When this is known, then to divide the times: 30
So many hours must I tend my flock;
So many hours must I take my rest;
So many hours must I contemplate;
So many hours must I sport myself;

So many days my ewes have been with young;
So many weeks ere the poor fools will yean; 36
So many years ere I shall shear the fleece;
So minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, and

years,

Pass'd over to the end they were created,
Would bring white hairs unto a quiet grave. 40
Ah, what a life were this! how sweet! how lovely!
Gives not the hawthorne bush a sweeter shade
To shepherds, looking on their silly sheep,
Than doth a rich embroider'd canopy
To kings, that fear their subjects' treachery? 45
O, yes it doth; a thousand-fold it doth.

And to conclude, the shepherd's homely curds,

His cold thin drink out of his leather bottle,
His wonted sleep under a fresh tree's shade,
All which secure and sweetly he enjoys,

Is far beyond a prince's delicates,

His viands sparkling in a golden cup,
His body couched in a curious bed,

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When, care, mistrust, and treason wait on him.

4

(From II Henry IV., Act III., i., 1597-98) How many thousand of my poorest subjects Are at this hour asleep! O sleep, O gentle sleep, Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thes, 6 That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down, And steep my senses in forgetfulness? Why rather, sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs, Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee, And hush'd with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber,

Than in the perfum'd chambers of the great, Under the canopies of costly state,

And lull'd with sounds of sweetest melody?

10

Or close the wall up with our English dead!
In peace, there's nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility:
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage:
Then lend the eye a terrible aspèct;
Let it pry through the portage of the head,
Like the brass cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm
it,

As fearfully as does a galled rock

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O'erhang and jutty his confounded base,
Swill'd with the wild and wasteful ocean.
Now set the teeth, and stretch the nostril wide;
Hold hard the breath, and bend up every
spirit

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To his full height! On, on, you nobless Eng

lish,

150

(From The Tempest, Act IV., i., 1610) Our revels now are ended: these our actors, As I foretold you, were all spirits, and Are melted into air, into thin air; And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself, Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve; And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, 155 Leave not a wrack behind: We are such stuff As dreams are made on, and our little life Is rounded with a sleep.

Thomas Nash

c. 1567-1601

DEATH'S SUMMONS

(From Summer's Last Will and Testament, 1600)
Adieu, farewell, earth's bliss,
This world uncertain is:
Fondare life's lustful joys,
Death proves them all but toys.
None from his darts can fly:
I am sick, I must die.

Lord, have mercy on us!

Rich men, trust not in wealth,
Gold cannot buy you health;
Physic himself must fade;

All things to end are made;

The plague 2 full swift goes by:
I am sick, I must die.

Lord, have mercy on us!

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ISABELLA'S PLEA FOR MERCY

(From the same, Act II., ii.)

He's sentenc'd; 'tis too late.

Too late? why, no, I, that do speak a word,
May call it back again: Well believe this,
No ceremony that to great ones 'longs,

Not the king's crown, nor the deputed sword, 60
The marshal's truncheon, nor the judge's robe,
Become them with one half so good a grace
As mercy does.

If he had been as you, and you as he,
You would have slipp'd like him; but he, like

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Alas! Alas! 72 Why, all the souls that were, were forfeit once; And He that might the vantage best have took Found out the remedy; How would you be, If He, which is the top of judgment, should

Hath no ears for to hear

1 Foolish.

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30

London was suffering from the plague in 1598, wher the play from which this song is taken was produced.

The want of term is town and city's harm;1
Close chambers we do want to keep us warm.
Long banished must we live from our friends?
This low-built house will bring us to our ends.
From winter, plague and pestilence, good
Lord, deliver us!

Down-a-down, hey, down-a-down.
Hey derry derry down-a-down.
Ho! well done, to me let come,
Ring compass, gentle joy!2
Troll the bowl, the nut-brown bowl,
And here kind mate to thee!

Cold's the wind, and wet's the rain,
Saint Hugh! be our good speed;
Ill is the weather that bringeth no gain,
Nor helps good hearts in need.

John Donne

1573-1631

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15

AN ELEGY UPON THE DEATH OF THE LADY MARKHAM

(First published 1633)

5

Man is the world, and death the ocean
To which God gives the lower parts of man.
This sea environs all, and though as yet
God hath set marks and bounds 'twixt us and it,
Yet doth it roar and gnaw, and still pretend
To break our bank, whene'er it takes a friend:
Then our land-waters (tears of passion) vent;
Our waters then above our firmament-
Tears, which our soul doth for her sin let fall,—
Take all a brackish taste, and funeral.
And even those tears, which should wash sin,
are sin.

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We, after God, new drown our world again.
Nothing but man of all envenom'd things,
Doth work upon itself with inborn stings.
Tears are false spectacles; we cannot see
Through passion's mist, what we are, or what

she.

15

Of which this flesh was) her soul shall inspire 25 Flesh of such stuff, as God, when His last fire

1 Pass round the wine, or drink.

2 Let the bowl, (the gentle joy) come to me; let it circle or ring the compass, or circle, formed by those about the table. To ring compass, was therefore equivalent to let the bowl go round, or circulate freely.

Annuls this world, to recompense it, shall Make and name them th' elixir of this all. They say the sea, when th' earth it gains, loseth too;

30

If carnal Death, the younger brother, do
Usurp the body; our soul, which subject is
To th' elder Death by sin, is free by this;
They perish both, when they attempt the just;
For graves our trophies are, and both Death's
dust.

So, unobnoxious now, she hath buried both; 35
For none to death sins, that to sin is loath,
Nor do they die, which are not loath to die;
So she hath this and that virginity.
Grace was in her extremely diligent,
That kept her from sin, yet made her repent. 40
Of what small spots pure white complains!
Alas!

How little poison cracks a crystal glass!
She sinn'd, but just enough to let us see
That God's word must be true,-all sinners be.
So much did zeal her conscience rarify,
That extreme truth lack'd little of a lie,
Making omissions acts; laying the touch

45

But we, by a love so far refin'd

That ourselves know now what it is, Inter-assured of the mind

Careless eyes, lips, and hands, to miss.

Our two souls therefore, which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,

Like gold to airy thinness beat.

If they be two, they are two so
As stiff twin compasses are two;
Thy soul, the fixt foot, makes no show,
To move, but doth if th' other do.

And though it in the centre sit.

Yet when the other far doth roam, It leans and harkens after it,

And grows erect, as that comes home.

Such wilt thou be to me, who must Like th' other foot, obliquely run; Thy firmness makes my circle just, And makes me end where I begun.

SONG

(From Poems, with Elegies on the Author's Death, 1633)

Sweetest Love, I do not go

For weariness of thee,

Nor in hope the world can show
A fitter Love for me;

But since that I

Must die at last, 'tis best

61

Thus to use myself in jest,

(Sometimes called "Upon Parting from his Mistris," written, 1612?)

As virtuous men pass mildly away,
And whisper to their souls to go,

Whilst some of their sad friends do say,

"Now his breath goes," and some say, "No;"

So let us melt, and make no noise,

No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move;
"Twere profanation of our joys,
To tell the laity our love.

Moving of th' earth brings harm and fears,
Men reckon what it did, and meant;

Thus by feigned death to die.

Yesternight the sun went hence,

And yet is here to-day;
He hath no desire nor sense,
Nor half so short a way.
Then fear not me;
But believe that I shall make
Hastier journeys, since I take

More wings and spurs than he.

Nor a lost hour recall.

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Ben Jonson

1573-1637

TO THE MEMORY OF MY BELOVED MASTER WIL LIAM SHAKESPEARE, AND WHAT HE HATH LEFT US

(From First Folio edition of Shakespeare, 1623) To draw no envy, Shakespeare, on thy name, Am I thus ample to thy book and fame; While I confess thy writings to be such, As neither Man nor Muse can praise too much. 'Tis true, and all men's suffrage. But these ways

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11

Were not the paths I meant unto thy praise;
For silliest ignorance on these may light,
Which, when it sounds at best, but echoes right;
Or blind affection, which doth ne'er advance
The truth, but gropes, and urgeth all by chance;
Or crafty malice might pretend this praise,
And think to ruin where it seemed to raise.
But thou art proof against them and, indeed, 15
Above the ill fortune of them, or the need.
I therefore will begin: Soul of the age!
The applause, delight, the wonder of our stage!
My SHAKESPEARE, rise! I will not lodge thee by1
Chaucer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie
A little further, to make thee a room:
Thou art a monument without a tomb,
Thou art alive still while thy book doth live,
And we have wits to read, and praise to give.
That I not mix thee so my brain excuses,

20

25

I mean with great but disproportioned Muses;
For if I thought my judgment were of years,2
I should commit thee surely with thy peers,
And tell how far thou didst our Lyly outshine,
Gr sporting Kyd, or Marlowe's mighty line. 30
And though thou hadst small Latin and less
Greek,

From thence to honour thee I would not seek For names, but call forth thund'ring Eschylus,*

Euripides, and Sophocles to us,

Pacuvius, Accius, him of Cordova dead,
To life again, to hear thy buskin 5 tread,
And shake a stage; or when thy socks were on,
Leave thee clone for a comparison

35

Of all that insolent Greece or haughty Rome Sent forth, or since did from their ashes come. Triumph, my Britain, thou hast one to show, 41 To whom all scenes of Europe homage owe.

1 Chaucer, Spenser and Beaumont are buried near each other in the Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey. Proximity to the tomb of Chaucer, the first great English poet, was considered as a great honor. Spenser bad been granted this in 1599, and Beaumont in 1616.

2 One that would last, or go down to posterity. A satirical play upon the dramatist's name, since Thomas Kyd was anything but "Sporting," being chiefly known as the author of tragedies.

4 The three great poets, Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, represent three stages in the development of the Greek tragic drama; so Pacurius, Accius, and "him of Cordova" (Seneca) stand in a similar manner for Roman tragedy-writing at successive epochs.

The ancients are summoned to hear Shakespeare both as a tragic and a comic writer; the buskin, or shoe worn by Greek and Roman actors in tragedy, stands for tragedy; as the sock worn for comedy, means comedy.