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Thy root is ever in its grave ;—

And thou must die :

Sweet Spring! full of sweet days and roses;
A box, where sweets compacted lie;
My music shews ye have your closes :-
And all must die.

Only a sweet and virtuous soul,
Like season'd timber, never gives;
But, tho' the whole world turn to coal,
Then chiefly lives.

LIFE.

I MADE a posy, while the day ran by :
'Here will I smell my remnant out, and tie
'My life within this band.'

But Time did beckon to the flowers, and they
By noon most cunningly did steal away,
And wither'd in my hand.

My hand was next to them, and then my heart.
I took, without more thinking, in good part
Time's gentle admonition;
Who did so sweetly death's sad taste convey,
Making my mind to smell my fatal day,
Yet sug'ring the suspicion.

Farewell, dear flow'rs! sweetly your time ye spent ; Fit, while ye liv'd, for smell or ornament;

And, after death, for cures.

I follow straight, without complaints or grief;
Since, if my scent be good, I care not if
It be as short as yours.

SUNDAY.

O DAY most calm, most bright! The fruit of this, the next world's bud; Th' indorsement of supreme delight, Writ by a friend, and with his blood; The couch of time; care's balm and bay :The week were dark but for thy light; Thy torch doth shew the way.

The other days and thou

Make up one man; whose face thou art,
Knocking at heav'n with thy brow:
The worky days are the back-part;
The burden of the week lies there,
Making the whole to stoop and bow,
Till thy release appear.

Sundays the pillars are

On which heav'n's palace arched lies:
The other days fill up the spare
And hollow room with vanities.
They are the fruitful bed and borders,
In God's rich garden; that is bare,

Which parts their ranks and orders

This day my Saviour rose,

And did enclose this light for his;
That, as each beast his manger knows,
Man might not of his fodder miss.
Christ hath took in this piece of ground,
And made a garden there, for those

Who want herbs for their wound.

Thou art a day of mirth :

And, where the week-days trail on ground,
Thy flight is higher, as thy birth.
Oh, let me take thee at the bound,
Leaping with thee from sev'n to sev❜n;
Till that we both, being toss'd from earth,
Fly hand in hand to heav'n!

THE QUIP.

THE merry World did, on a day,
With his train-bands and mates agree
To meet together, where I lay;
And all in sport to jeer at me.

First, Beauty crept into a rose ;

Which when I pluckt not, Sir,' said she, 'Tell me, I pray, whose hands are those ?' -But thou shalt answer, Lord, for me.

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Then Money came; and, chinking still, 'What tune is this, poor man?' said he : 'I heard in music you had skill.' -But thou shalt answer, Lord, for me.

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Then came brave Glory puffing by,
In silks, that whistled, Who but he ?'
He scarce allow'd me half an eye.
-But thou shalt answer, Lord, for me.

Then came quick Wit and Conversation;
And he would needs a comfort be,
And, to be short, make an oration.
-But thou shalt answer, Lord, for me.

Yet, when the hour of thy design
To answer these fine things shall come,
Speak not at large; say I am thine :
And then they have their answer home.

MARY MAGDALEN.

WHEN blessed Mary wip'd her Saviour's feet,
(Whose precepts she had trampled on before,)
And wore them for a jewel on her head;
Shewing, his steps should be the street,
Wherein she henceforth evermore,

With pensive humbleness, would live and tread:

She being stain'd herself, why did she strive
To make him clean, who could not be defiled?
Why kept she not her tears for her own faults,

And not his feet? Though we could dive
In tears, like seas; our sins are piled
Deeper than they, in words, and works, and thoughts.

Dear soul, she knew who did vouchsafe and deign
To bear her filth; and that her sins did dash
Ev'n God himself: wherefore she was not loth,
As she had brought wherewith to stain,
So to bring in wherewith to wash.
And yet, in washing one, she washeth both.

GEORGE SANDYS.

BORN 1577-DIED 1643.

GEORGE SANDYS, youngest son of the Archbishop of York, was born at Bishopthorp, 1577. He was in all points an accomplished man, and was one of the gentlemen of the privy chamber to Charles the First. He wrote many paraphrases of the Psalms, and of other poetical portions of Scripture in Job, Lamentations of Jeremiah, and Ecclesiastes. The specimen given below has a general resemblance to Addison's well-known hymn in the Spectator, said to be written by a gentleman upon the conclusion of his travels-the same hymn that Burns mentions as having struck his boyish fancy:

For though in dreadful whirls we hung,

High on the broken wave;

I knew thou wert not slow to hear,
Nor impotent to save.

.EXTRACT FROM AN ADDRESS

MAX."

66

DEO OPT.

OH! who hath tasted of thy clemency
In greater measure, or more oft than I?

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