6 Witch.
I had a dagger: what did I with that?
Killed an infant to have his fat:
A piper it got, at a church-ale:

I bade him again blow wind i' the taile.
7 Witch.

A murderer yonder was hung in chaines;
The sunne and the wind had shrunke his
I bit off a sinew; I clipp'd his haire; [veines:
I brought off his ragges, that danc'd i' the ayre.
8 Witch.

The scrich-owles egges, and the feathers:
blacke,
[backe,
The bloud of the frogge, and the bone in his
I have been getting; and made of his skin
A purset, to keep sir Cranion in.

9 Witch.

And I h' beene plucking (plants among)
Hemlock, henbane, adders tongue,
Night-shade, moone-wort, libbards bane;
And twise by the dogges was like to be tane.
10 Witch.

I from the jaws of a gardiner's bitch [ditch:
Did snatch these bones, and then leap'd the
Yet went I back to the house againe,
Kill'd the blacke cat, and here is the braine.
11 Witch.

I went to the toade, breeds under the wall,
I charmed him out, and he came at my call;
I scratch'd out the eyes of the owle before;
I tore the batts wings: what would you have
more?

Dame.

Yes: I have brought, to helpe your vows,
Horned poppie, cypresse boughes,
The fig-tree wild that grows on tombes,
And juice that from the larch-tree comes,
The basiliskes bloud, and the vipers skin;
And now our orgies let's begin.

109. The Fairies Farewell. This humorous old song fell from the hand of the witty Dr. Corbet, afterwards bishop of Norwich, &c. In his Poetica Stromata it is called "A proper new Ballad, intituled, The Fairies Farewell, or God-a-mercy Will: to be sung or whistled to the tune of the Meadow Brow, by the learned; by the unlearned, to the tune of Fortune." FAREWELL, rewards and Fairies!

Good housewives now may say; For now foule sluts in dairies

Doe fare as well as they ;

And though they sweepe their hearths no less
Than mayds were wont to doe,
Yet who of late for cleanliness.
Finds six-pence in her shoe?
Lament, lament, old abbies,

The fairies lost command!

They did but change priests babies,

But some have chang'd your land;
And all your children stoln from thence
Are now growne Puritanes,
Who live as changelings ever since,
For love of your demaines.

At morning and at evening both

You merry were and glad,
So little care of sleepe and sloth
These prettie ladies had.
When Tom came home from labor,
Or Ciss to milking rose,
Then merrily went their tabour,
And nimbly went their toes.
Witness those rings and roundelayes
Of theirs, which yet remaine,
Were footed in queen Maries dayes
On many a grassy playne.
But since of late Elizabeth
And later James came in,
They never danc'd on any heath,
As when the time had been.
By which wee note the fairies
Were of the old profession;
Their songs were Ave Maries,

Their dances were procession.
But now, alas! they all are dead,
Or gone beyond the seas,
Or farther for religion fled,

Or else they take their ease.
A tell-tale in their company

They never could endure; And whoso kept not secretly

Their mirth, was punish'd sure: It was a just and Christian deed

To pinch such blacke and blue:
O how the common-welth doth need
Such justices as you!

Now they have left our quarters;
A Register they have,
Who can preserve their charters;

A man both wise and grave.
An hundred of their merry pranks
By one that I could name
Are kept in store; con twenty thanks
To William for the same.
To William Churne of Staffordshire,
Give laud and praises due,
Who every meale can mend your cheare
With tales both old and true;
To William all give audience,
For all the fairies evidence
And pray yee for his noddle;
Were lost, if it were addle.

110. Unfading Beauty. This little beautiful Sonnet is reprinted from a smal volume of "Poems by Thomas Carew, Esq. one of the gentlemen of the privie-chamber, and sewer in ordinary to his majesty Charles I. Lond. 1640." This elegant, and almost forgotten writer, whose poems have been deservedly revived, died in the prime of his age, in 1639.

In the original follows a third stanza, which, not being of general application, nor of equal merit, I have ventured to omit.

HEE that loves a rosie cheeke,

Or corall lip admires,
Or from star-like eyes doth seek
Fuell to maintaine his fires;
As old time makes these decay,
So his flames must waste away.

One would think she might like to retire
To the bow'r I have labor'd to rear ;
Not a shrub that I heard her admire,
But I hasted and planted it there.
O how sudden the jessamine strove
With the lilach to render it gay!
Already it calls for my love,

To prune the wild branches away.

groves,

What strains of wild melody flow!
How the nightingales warble their loves,
From thickets of roses that blow!
And when her bright form shall appear,
Each bird shall harmoniously join

In a concert so soft and so clear,

As she may not be fond to resign.

I have found out a gift for my fair,

I have found where the wood-pigeons breed; But let me that plunder forbear:

She will say 'twas a barbarous deed.
For he ne'er could be true, she averr'd,
Who could rob a poor bird of its young;
And I lov'd her the more when I heard

Such tenderness fall from her tongue.
I have heard her with sweetness unfold
How that pity was due to a dove,
That it ever attended the bold;

And she call'd it the sister of love.
But her words such a pleasure convey,
So much I her accents adore,
Let her speak, and whatever she say,
Methinks, I should love her the more.
Can a bosom so gentle remain

Unmov'd, when her Corydon sighs?
Will a nymph that is fond of the plain,
These plains and this valley despise ?
Dear regions of silence and shade!

Soft scenes of contentment and ease! Where I could have pleasingly stray'd, If aught in her absence could please. But where does my Phillida stray? And where are her grots and her bowers? Are the groves and the valleys as gay,

And the shepherds as gentle, as ours? The groves may perhaps be as fair,

And the face of the valleys as fine; The swains may in manners compare, But their love is not equal to mine.

3. SOLICITude.

Why will you my passion reprove,
Why term it a folly to grieve,
Ere I show you the charms of my love?
She is fairer than you can believe.
With her mien she enamours the brave;
With her wit she engages the free;
With her modesty pleases the grave;
She is every way pleasing to me.
O you that have been of her train,

Come and join in my amorous lays!
I could lay down my life for the swain

That will sing but a song in her praise

And his crook is bestudded around; And his pipe-O may Phillis beware Of a magic there is in the sound! "Tis his with mock passion to glow; "Tis his in smooth tales to unfold, "How her face is as bright as the snow, And her bosom, be sure, is as cold; How the nightingales labor the strain, With the notes of his charmer to vie ; How they vary their accents in vain,

Repine at her triumphs, and die."

To the grove or the garden he strays,
And pillages every sweet;
Then, suiting the wreath to his lays,
He throws it at Phillis's feet.
"O Phillis," he whispers, "more fair,

More sweet, than the jessamine's flow'r! What are pinks in a morn, to compare ? What is eglantine after a shower?

Then the lily no longer is white;
Then the rose is depriv'd of its bloom;
Then the violets die with despite,

And the woodbines give up their perfume." Thus glide the soft numbers along,

And he fancies no shepherd his peer;
Yet I never should envy the song,
Were not Phillis to lend it an ear.

Let his crook be with hyacinths bound,
So Phillis the trophy despise ;
Let his forehead with laurels be crownd',
So they shine not in Phillis's eyes.
The language that flows from the heart
Is a stranger to Paridel's tongue';
Yet may she beware of his art!

Or sure I must envy the song.

4. DISAPPOINTMENT.

Ye shepherds, give ear to my lay,
And take no more heed of my sheep :
They have nothing to do but to stray,
I have nothing to do but to weep.
Yet do not my folly reprove:

She was fair, and my passion begun ;
She smil'd, and I could not but love;
She is faithless, and I am undone.
Perhaps I was void of all thought;
Perhaps it was plain to foresee,
That a nymph so complete would be sought
By a swain more engaging than me.
Ah! love ev'ry hope can inspire:
It banishes wisdom the while;
And the lip of the nymph we admire
Seems for ever adorn'd with a smile!

She is faithless, and I am undone ;
Ye that witness the woes I endure,
Let reason instruct you to shun

What it cannot instruct you to cure.
Beware how you loiter in vain

Amid nymphs of a higher degree : It is not for me to explain

How fair and how fickle they be. Alas! from the day that we met,

What hope of an end to my woes, When I cannot endure to forget

The glance that undid my repose? Yet time may diminish the pain:

The flow'r, and the shrub, and the tree, Which I rear'd for her pleasure in vain,

In time may have comfort for me. The sweets of a dew-sprinkled rose,

The sound of a murmuring stream, The peace which from solitude flows,

Henceforth shall be Corydon's theme. High transports are shown to the sight,

But we are not to find them our own. Fate never bestow'd such delight,

As I with my Phillis had known.

O ye woods, spread your branches apace;
To your deepest recesses I fly;

I would hide with the beasts of the chase,
I would vanish from every eye.
Yet my reed shall resound through the grove
With the same sad complaint it begun;
How she smil'd, and I could not but love;
Was faithless, and I am undone !

Sweet music went with us both all the wood through,

The lark, linnet, throstle, and nightingale too;
Winds over us whisper'd, flocks by us did bleat,
And chirp went the grasshopper under our feet.
But now she is absent, though still they sing on,
The woods are but lonely, the melody's gone!
Her voice in the concert, as now I have found,
Gives every thing else its agreeable sound.

Will no pitying power that hears me complain,
Or cure my disquiet, or soften my pain?
To be cur'd, thou must, Colin, thy passion re-
move,

But what swain is so silly to live without love?
No, deity, bid the dear nymph to return;
For ne'er was poor shepherd so sadly forlorn.
Ah! what shall I do? I shall die with despair:
Take heed, all ye swains, how ye love one so fair.

114. A pastoral Ballad. RowE.
DESPAIRING beside a clear stream,
A shepherd forsaken was laid;
And, while a false nymph was his theme,
A willow supported his head.
The wind that blew over the plain,

To his sighs with a sigh did reply;
And the brook, in return to his pain,
Ran mournfully murmuring by.
"Alas! silly swain that I was!"

(Thus, sadly complaining, he cried ;) "When first I beheld that fair face,

'Twere better by far I had died. She talk'd, and I bless'd her dear tongue; When she smil'd, it was pleasure too great; I listen'd, and cried, when she sung; Was nightingale ever so sweet! How foolish was I to believe

She could doat on so lowly a clown, Or that her fond heart would not grieve To forsake the fine folk of the town! To think that a beauty so gay,

head:

[look,

But now, when he's fawning, I, with a sour Cry, "Sirrah!" and give him a blow with my

crook :

So kind and so constant would prove;
Or go clad, like our maidens, in gray,
Or live in a cottage on love!
"What though I have skill to complain,

Though the muses my temples have crown'd;
What though, when they hear my soft strain,
The virgins sit weeping around;
Ah, Colin! thy hopes are in vain,
Thy pipe and thy laurel resign;
Thy fair one inclines to a swain

Whose music is sweeter than thine. "All you, my companions so dear, Who sorrow to see me betray'd, Whatever I suffer, forbear,

Forbear to accuse the false maid. Though through the wide world I should range, Twas hers to be false, and to change; "Tis in vain from my fortune to fly;

'Tis mine to be constant, and die.

"If, while my hard fate I sustain, In her breast any pity is found;

Let her come, with the nymphs of the plain,
And see me laid low in the ground:
The last humble boon that I crave

Is, to shade me with cypress and yew; And, when she looks down on my grave, Let her own that her shepherd was true. "Then to her new love let her go,

And deck her in golden array; Be finest at ev'ry fine show,

And frolic it all the long day: While Colin, forgotten and gone,

No more shall be talk'd of or seen,
Unless when, beneath the pale moon,
His ghost shall glide over the green,"

115. A Fairy Tale. PARnell.
IN Britain's isle, and Arthur's days,
When midnight fairies daune'd the maze,
Liv'd Edwin of the Green;
Edwin, I wis, a gentle youth,
Endow'd with courage, sense, and truth,

Though badly shap'd he been.

His mountain back mote well be said
To measure height against his head,
And lift itself above;
Yet, spite of all that Nature did
To make his uncouth form forbid,

This creature dar'd to love.

He felt the charms of Edith's eyes,
Nor wanted hope to gain the prize,

Could ladies look within;

But one Sir Topaz dress'd with art,
And, if a shape could win a heart,
He had a shape to win.
Edwin, if right I read my song,
With slighted passion paced along

All in the moony light;
'Twas near an old enchanted court,
Where sportive fairies made resort,
To revel out the night.

His heart was drear, his hope was cross'd, 'Twas late, 'twas far, the path was lost

That reach'd the neighbor town:
With weary steps he quits the shades,
Resolv'd, the darkling dome he treads,
And drops his limbs adown.
But scant he lays him on the floor,
When hollow winds remove the door,
A trembling rocks the ground:
And, well I ween to count aright,
At once an hundred tapers light

On all the walls around.

Now sounding tongues assail his ear,
Now sounding feet approachen near,

And now the sounds increase:
And, from the corner where he lay,
He sees a train, profusely gay,

Come prankling o'er the place.
But (trust me gentles) never yet,
Was dight a masquing half so neat,

Or half so rich, before;
The country lent the sweet perfumes,
The sea the pearl, the sky the plumes,
The town its silken store.

Now, whilst he gaz'd, a gallant, dress'd
In flaunting robes above the rest,
With awful accent cried:
"What mortal, of a wretched mind,
Whose sighs infect the balmy wind,
Has here presum'd to hide ?"
At this the swain, whose vent'rous soul
No fears of magic art control,

Advanc'd in open sight;

"Nor have I cause of dread," he said, "Who view, by no presumption led, Your revels of the night."

""Twas grief, for scorn of faithful love, Which made my steps unweeting rove

Amid the nightly dew." ""Tis well," the gallant cries again, "We fairies never injure men Who dare to tell us true. "Exalt thy love-dejected heart; Be mine the task, or ere we part, To make thee grief resign; Now take the pleasure of thy chaunce; Whilst I with Mab, my partner, daunce, Be little Mable thine."

He spoke, and, all a sudden, there
Light music floats in wanton air;

The Monarch leads the Queen:
The rest their fairie partners found:
And Mable trimly tript the ground
With Edwin of the Green.

The dauncing past, the board was laid,
And siker such a feast was made
As heart and lip desire:
Withouten hands the dishes fly,
The glasses with a wish come nigh,
And with a wish retire.

But now, to please the fairie king,
Full every deal they laugh and sing,

And antic feats devise;
Some wind and tumble like an ape,
And other some transmute their shape,
In Edwin's wond'ring eyes.
Till one, at last, that Robin hight,
Renown'd for pinching maids at night,
Has bent him up aloof;
And full against the beam he flung,
Where by the back the youth he hung,
To sprawl unneath the roof.

From thence, "Reverse my charm,” he cries "And let fairly now suffice,

The gambol has been shown." But Oberon answers, with a smile, "Content thee, Edwin, for a while,

The vantage is thine own."-

Here ended all the phantom-play;
They smelt the fresh approach of day,
And heard a cock to crow;
The whirling wind, that bore the crowd,
Has clapp'd the door, and whistled loud,
To warn them all to go.