1030. THE ENGLISH AND THE SEA
OTHERS may use the ocean as their road,
Only the English make it their abode,
Whose ready sails with every wind can fly,
And make a covenant with the inconstant sky;
Our oaks secure as if they there took root,
We tread on billows with a steady foot.
E. WALLER (A War with Spain).
1031. ON A GIRDLE
THAT which her slender waist confined
Shall now my joyful temples bind :
No monarch but would give his crown
His arms might do what this has done.
It was my heaven's extremest sphere,
The pale which held that lovely dear:
My joy, my grief, my hope, my love
Did all within this circle move.
A narrow compass! and yet there
Dwelt all that's good, and all that's fair :
Give me but what this riband bound,
Take all the rest the sun goes round. E. WALLER.
THE seas are quiet when the winds give o'er ;
So calm are we when passions are no more;
For then we know how vain it was to boast
Of fleeting things so certain to be lost.
Clouds of affection from our younger eyes
Conceal that emptiness which age descries.
The soul's dark cottage, battered and decayed,
Lets in new light through chinks that time hath made;
Stronger by weakness, wiser men become
As they draw near to their eternal home:
Leaving the Old, both worlds at once they view
That stand upon the threshold of the New.
1033. TO MR. HENRY LAWES
WHO HAD NEWLY SET A SONG OF MINE IN THE YEAR 1635
VERSES make heroic virtue live;
But you can life to verses give.
As when in open air we blow,
The breath, though strained, sounds flat and low;
But if a trumpet takes the blast,
It lifts it high and makes it last;
So in your airs our numbers dressed
Make a shrill sally from the breast
Of nymphs, who, singing what we penned,
Our passions to themselves commend ;
While love, victorious with thy art,
Governs at once their voice and heart.
1034. TO THE YOUNGER LADY LUCY SYDNEY
WHY came I so untimely forth
Into a world which, wanting thee,
Could entertain us with no worth,
Or shadow of felicity?
That time should me so far remove
From that which I was born to love.
Yet, fairest Blossom! do not slight
That eye which you may know so soon;
The rosy morn resigns her light
And milder splendours to the noon :
If such thy dawning beauty's power
Who shall abide its noon-tide hour?
Hope waits upon the flowery prime;
And summer though it be less gay,
Yet is not looked on as a time
Of declination or decay;
For with a full hand she doth bring
All that was promised by the spring. E. WALLER.
Of all the torments, all the cares,
With which our lives are cursed;
Of all the plagues a lover bears,
Sure, rivals are the worst!
By partners in each other kind,
Afflictions easier grow;
In love alone we hate to find
Companions of our woe.
Sylvia, for all the pangs you see
Are labouring in my breast,
I beg not you would favour me,
Would you but slight the rest.
How great soe'er your rigours are
With them alone I'll cope :-
I can endure my own despair,
But not another's hope.
W. WALSH.
1036. TO HIS MISTRESS
AGAINST MARRIAGE
YES, all the world must sure agree,
He who's secured of having thee,
Will be entirely blest:
But 'twere in me too great a wrong,
To make one who has been so long
My queen, my slave at last.
Nor ought those things to be confined,
That were for public good designed :
Could we, in foolish pride,
Make the sun always with us stay,
"Twould burn our corn and grass away,
To starve the world beside.
Let not the thoughts of parting fright,
Two souls, which passion does unite ;
For while our love does last,
Neither will strive to go away;
And why the devil should we stay,
When once that love is past?
THE SOLDIER WORN WITH WARS
THE soldier, worn with wars, delights in peace;
The pilgrim, in his ease, when toils are past;
The ship, to gain the port, when storms do cease;
And I rejoice, from love discharged at last!
Whom while I served, peace, rest, and land I lost,
With grievesome wars, with toils, with storms betost.
Sweet liberty now gives me leave to sing.
What world it was, where love the rule did bear!
How foolish chance, by lots, ruled every thing!
How error was mainsail! each wave a tear!
The master, Love himself! Deep sighs the wind!
Cares rowed with vows the ship Unmerry Mind.
False hope as helm oft turned the boat about.
Inconstant faith stood up for middle mast.
Despair the cable, twisted all with doubt,
Held griping grief, the pikèd anchor, fast;
Beauty was all the rocks. But I, at last,
Am now twice free; and all my love is past!
T. WATSON.
THE HARDY SOLDIER
TO THE RIGHT HON. JOHN, LORD CUTTS,
AT THE SIEGE OF NAMUR
Он, why is man so thoughtless grown?
Why guilty souls in haste to die?
Venturing the leap to the worlds unknown,
Heedless, to arms and blood they fly.
'Are lives but worth a soldier's pay?
Why will ye join such wide extremes,
And stake immortal souls, in play
At desperate chance, and bloody games?
'Valour's a nobler turn of thought,
Whose pardoned guilt forbids her fears;
Calmly she meets the deadly shot,
Secure of life beyond the stars:
'But Frenzy dares eternal Fate;
And, spurred with Honour's airy dreams, Flies to attack the infernal gate
And force a passage to the flames.' Thus, hovering o'er Namuria's plains, Sang heavenly Love, in Gabriel's form. Young Thraso left the moving strains, And vowed to pray before the storm.
Anon, the thundering trumpet calls.
'Vows are but wind!' the hero cries,
Then swears by Heaven, and scales the walls,
Drops in the ditch, despairs, and dies.
1040. TRUE GREATNESS
WERE I so tall to reach the pole
Or grasp the ocean with my span,
I must be measured by my soul:
The mind's the standard of the man.
1041. THE DAY OF JUDGEMENT
WHEN the fierce north wind with his airy forces
Rears up the Baltic to a foaming fury;
And the red lightning with a storm of hail comes
Rushing amain down,
How the poor sailors stand amazed and tremble!
Whilst the hoarse thunder, like a bloody trumpet,
Roars a loud onset to the gaping waters
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