XV.

ANONYMOUS.

STANZAS.

WHAT if a day, a month, or a yeare, Croune thy delights with a thousand wisht contentings,

May not the chance of a night, or an howre, Crosse those delights with as many sad tormentings?

Fortune, honoure, beautie, youth,
Are but blossomes dying;
Wanton pleasure, doting love,
Are but shadowes flying.
All our joyes

Are but toyes,

Idle thoughts deceaving:
None hath power

Halfe an howre

Of his live's bereaving.

The earth's but a pointe of the world, and a man
Is but a poynte of the earth's compared center:
Shall then a pointe of a pointe be so vayne
As to delight in a sillie poynt's adventer?
All's in hazard that we have,
There is nothing byding;

Dayes of pleasures are like streames
Through fayre medowes gliding.
Weale or woe,
Tyme doth goe,

There is no returning.
Secret fates

Guide our states

Both in myrth and mourning.

What shall a man desire in this world,

Since there is nought in this world that's worth desiring?

Let not a man cast his eyes to the earth,

But to the heavens, with his thoughts high aspiring.
Thinke that living thou must dye,

Be assured thy dayes are tolde:
Though on earth thou seeme to be,
Assure thyself thou art but molde.
All our health

Brings no wealth,

But returnes from whence it came;
So shall we

All agree,

As we be the very same.

VERSES ON THE DEATH OF R. W.

SUCH is the verse compos'd in mournefull teene, Sadlie attyr'd in sorrowe's liverie:

So sings poore Philomele, woods' ravisht queene, Progne's mad furie, Itis' tragedie,

Pandion's death, and Tereus' trecherye ;

Such songs in Canens' scalding tears were fram'd
When Tibur's streames were last heard Picus nam'd.

And such be myne, most meet for funerall;
A sable outside fits a mourning heart,
And inward grief doth outward senses call
In sorrow's quire to beare a weeping part.
Teares be my inke, sad ensigne of my smart;
My words be sighs, the caracters of woe,
Which all mishaped like themselves doe show.
First shall I mourne thy too, too suddeyn death,
Deare to my soule as to myselfe, which then,

Which then, alas! smothered thy feeble breath,
When life had newly tane possession.

In spring of years Death winter hastned on;
And enviouse of thy well-deserved prayse,
Made winter's youth an end of winter's dayes.
Like a fayre apple, which some ruder hand
Ungently plucks, before it ripened be;
Or tender rose, enclosed in verdant band,
New peeping forth from rugged rinde we see,
To garnish out his fruitfull nurserye ;

Till nipt by northerne blast, it hangs the head,
All saplesse, livelesse, foule, and withered:

Such be thy lookes, pale Death's usurped right,
Such be the roses that adorn'd thy face,
Such the bright lamps that gave thy bodie light,
Such the all-pleasing, simple, modest grace,
Which had theyr lodging in so sweet a place.
Ah! but thy better part far lovelyer is,
Copartner now of Heaven's eternal blisse.
Thee why doe I with womanish lament,
Unseemlie teares, bewayle my losse in thee?
Stay but a while, and all my store is spent-
Affection needs must beare a part with me,
Since I must share my part with miserie.
Goe, blessed soule as ever cut the sky,
As e'er increased heaven's melodie.

Joy in thy selfe as thy Redeemer's merit!
And now I take my loving last farewell:
Rest to thy bones, blisse to thy gloriouse spirit.
Thy memorie within this heart shall dwell,
And therein shrin'd, nought shall thee thence
expell.

Take, mother earth, into thy frozen wombe

This livelesse corse-thus earth to earth must come.

THEN withered the primrose of delight,
Hanging the head ore sorrowe's garden wall,
When you might see all pleasures shun the light,
And love obscuer, at Eliza's fall-

Her fall from life to death: oh! stay not there; Though she were dead, the shril-tong'd trump of heaven

Rais'd her again: think that you see her heere,
E'en heere,-oh, where? not heere; shee's hence
For sweet Eliza in Elizium lives, [bereaven;
In joy beyond all thought. Then weepe no more,
Your sighing weedes put off; for weeping gives
(Wayling her losse) as seeming to deplore
Our future toward fortunes: mourne not, then;
You cease awhile, but now you weepe agen.

Why should a soule in passion be denied
To have true feelings of her essence misse?
My soule hath lost herself; now deified,

I needes must moane her losse, 'tho crown'd with blisse.

Then give me leave, for I must weepe awhile,
Till sorrow's deluge have a lower ebbe :

Let lamentation never finde a stile

To passe this dale of woe, untill the webbe
Appointed for my latest mourning weed
Be spun and woven with a heavie band;

Then will I cease to weepe,-I will indeed,
And every beating billowe will withstand.
'Twill not be long before this web be spun,
Dy'd blacke, worne out, and then my teares be
done.

Of April's month the eight and twentith day,
M. six hundred and three, by computation,
Is the prefixed time for sorowe's stay;

That past, my mourning weedes grow out of fashion.

Shall I by prayer hasten on the time?
Faine would I so, because mine eyes are drie.
What cannot prayers doo for soules divine,
Although the bodies be mortallitie?

Divine she is, for whom my muse doth mourne,
Though lately mortall: now she sits on hie,
Glorious in heaven, thither by angells borne,
To live with Him in bliss eternally.

Then come, faire day of joyfull smiling sorrow;
Since my teares dry, come, happie day, to-morrow.
Ye heralds of my heart, my heavie groanes,
My teares which, if they could, would showre like
raine,-

My heayie lookes, and all my surdging mones,-
My moaning lamentations that complayne,-
When will you cease? or shall paine never ceasing
Seaze on my heart? oh, mollifie your rage,
Least your assaults, with over-swift increasing,
Procure my death, or call on tymeles age.
She lives in peace whome I doe mourne for so;
She lives in heaven, and yet my soule laments.
Since shee's so happie, I'le converte my woe,
To present joy turne all my languishments;
And with my sorrowes see the time doth wast,
The day is come, and mid-day wel-nigh past.