My lusts they do me leave, For Age with stealing steps Hath claw'd me with his crowch, The wrinkles in my brow, The furrows in my face, Say, limping Age will hedge (b) him now, Where Youth must give him place. The harbinger of Death To me I see him ride: The cough, the cold, the gasping breath A pickaxe and a spade, And eke a shrouding-sheet, A house of clay for to be made Methinks I hear the clerk, That knolls the careful knell ; And bids me leave my woful wark Ere Nature me compel. (a) So ed. I.-Ed. 1567, "are." My keepers knit the knot That Youth did laugh to scorn, Thus must I Youth give up, Lo here the bared (c) skull ! By whose bald sign I know For Beauty with her band These crooked cares hath wrought, And shipped me into the land From whence I first was brought. And ye that 'bide behind, Have ye none other trust! As ye of clay were cast by kind, ROBERT GREEN. ROBERT GREEN, said to be the first English poet who wrote for bread, died in 1592. The date of his birth is uncertain. (c) Ed. 1567, "barehead." I THE PENITENT PALMER'S ODE. WHILOM, in the winter's rage, When he thought on years mispent ; "I thought my mistress' hairs were gold, "That wrapped me in vain delight: "Were stales that drew me on to sin. "Her face was fair, her breath was sweet, "All her looks for love was meet: "But love is folly: this I know: "And beauty fadeth like to snow. "O why should man delight in pride, "Whose blossom like a dew doth glide ? "When these supposes touch'd my thought, "That world was vain, and beauty nought, "I 'gan sigh, and say, alas, "Man is sin, and flesh is grass!" ROBERT SOUTHWELL. BORN 1560-EXECUTED 1595. ROBERT SOUTHWELL, an English jesuit, was educated at Rome, and was afterwards attached to the household of the Countess of Arundel. He died a martyr to his religion in 1595, in the reign of Elizabeth. "It is not possible," says Mr Campbell," to read his volume without lamenting that its author should have been either the instrument of bigotry, or the object of persecution." His poems, which are all upon moral or religious subjects, are worthy of being known to the admirers of sacred verse. SCORN NOT THE LEAST. WHERE words are weak, and foes encountering strong, Where mightier do assault than do defend, The feebler part puts up enforced wrong, And silent sees that speech could not amend. Yet, higher powers must think, though they repine, When sun is set, the little stars will shine. * The merlin cannot ever soar on high, Nor greedy greyhound still pursue the chase; The tender lark will find a time to fly, And fearful hare to run a quiet race: He that high growth on cedars did bestow, Gave also lowly mushrooms leave to grow. In Haman's pomp poor Mardocheus wept, TIMES GO BY TURNS. THE lopped tree in time may grow again, The driest soil suck in some moistening shower: Time goes by turns, and chances change by course, From foul to fair, from better hap to worse. The sea of Fortune doth not ever flow ; She draws her favours to the lowest ebb: Her tides have equal times to come and go; Her loom doth weave the fine and coarsest web : No joy so great but runneth to an end, Not always fall of leaf, nor ever spring, The roughest storm a calm may soon allay. Thus, with succeeding turns, God tempereth all, The man may hope to rise, yet fear to fall. A chance may win that by mischance was lost; That net that holds no great, takes little fish; |