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Freedom.

STONE walls do not a prison mak
Nor iron bars a cage;
Minds innocent and quiet take
That for a hermitage.
If I have freedom in my love,
And in my soul am free,
Angels alone that soar above,
Enjoy such liberty.

When, like committed linnets, I
With shriller throat shall sing
The sweetness, mercy, majesty,
And glories of my King;
When I shall voice aloud how good
He is, how great should be,
Enlarged winds, that curl the flood,
Know no such liberty.

SIR W. LOVELACE.

Df Solitude.

HAIL, old patrician trees, so great and good!
Hail, ye plebian underwood!

Where the poetic birds rejoice,

And for their quiet nests and plenteous food

Pay with their grateful voice.

Hail, the poor muse's richest manor-seat !

Ye country houses and retreat,

Which all the happy spirits love,

That for you oft they quit their bright and great Metropolis above.

Here Nature does a house for me erect,
Nature! the fairest architect,

Who these fond artists does despise,
That can the fair and living trees neglect,
Yet the dead timber prize.

Here let me careless and unthoughtful lying,
Hear the soft winds above me flying,
With all their waving boughs dispute,
And the more tuneful birds to both replying,
Nor be myself, too, mute.

A silver stream shall roll his waters near,
Gilt with the sunbeams here and there,
On whose enamelled bank I'll walk,
And see how prettily they smile,
And hear how prettily they talk.

Ah! wretched and too solitary he,
Who loves not his own company !
He'll feel the weight of it many a day,
Unless he calls in sin or vanity
To help to bear it away.

O solitude! first state of human kind!
Which bless'd remained till man did find
Even his own helper's company:

As soon as two, alas! together joined,
The serpent made up

three.

Though God Himself, through countless ages, thee

His sole companion chose to be,

Thee, sacred solitude! alone,

Before the branchy head of number's tree

Sprang from the trunk of one;

Thou, (though men think thine an unactive part),
Dost break and tame the unruly heart,
Which else would know no settled pace,

Making it move well managed by thy art,
With swiftness and with grace.

Thou, the faint beams of reason's scattered light, Dost, like a burning glass, unite,

Dost multiply the feeble heat,

And fortify the strength, till thou dost bright
And noble fires beget.

COWLEY.

The Scriptures.

THE Holy Book, like the eighth sphere doth shine.

With thousand lights of truth divine;

So numberless the stars, that, to our eye,

It makes all but one galaxy:

Yet reason must assist too; for in seas

So vast and dangerous as these,

Our course by stars above we cannot know,
Without the compass too below.

COWLEY.

Divine Love.-David and Jonathan.

WHAT art thou, Love Divine! mysterious thing?
From what hid stock does thy strange nature spring?
'Tis thou that mov'st the world through every part,
And hold'st the vast frame close, that nothing start
From the due place and office first ordained;
By thee were all things made, and are sustained.

Sometimes we see thee fully, and can say

From hence thou took'st thy rise, and went'st that

way;

But oftener the short beams of reason's eye
See only there thou art, not how, nor why.
Even creatures void of life obey thy laws,
And seldom we, they never, know the cause.
In thy large state, life gives the next degree,
Where sense and good apparent places thee;
But thy chief palace is man's heart alone;
Here are thy triumphs and full glories shown:
Divine desires, and rest, about thee flee,
Union, inheritance, zeal and ecstacy,

With thousand joys, cluster around thine head,
O'er which a gall-less dove her wings doth spread;
A gentle lamb, purer and whiter far

Than consciences of thine own martyrs are,
Lies at thy feet; and thy right hand does hold
The mystic sceptre of a cross of gold.

*

*

Such, and no other, were the quiet darts

Which sweetly touched this noblest pair of hearts,
No weight of birth did on one side prevail;
Two twins less even lie in Nature's scale:
They mingled fates, and both in each did share;
They both were servants, they both princes were.
If any joy to one of them was sent,

It was most his to whom it least was meant ;
And fortune's malice betwixt both was crossed,
For striking one, it wounded the other most.
Such sacred love does heaven's bright spirits fill,
Where love is but to understand and will,
With swift and unseen motions, such as we
Somewhat express in heightened charity.

O, ye bless'd one! whose love on earth became
So pure, that still in heaven 'tis but the same!
There now ye sit, and with the heavenly race
Gazing upon great Love's mysterious face,
Ye pity this base world, where friendship's made
A bait for sin, or else at best a trade.

COWLEY.

Life.

"NASCENTES MORIMUR."

WE call this life; but Life's a name
That nothing here can truly claim :

This wretched inn, where we scarce stay to bait,
We call our dwelling place;

We call one step a race;

But angels in their full-enlightened state,

Angels who live, and know what 'tis to be,

Who all the folly of our language see,

Who speak things, and our words their ill-drawn

picture scorn,

When we, by a foolish figure say,

Behold an old man dead! then they

Speak properly, and cry, Behold a man-child born.

My eyes are opened, and I see

Through the transparent fallacy:

Because we seem wisely to talk

Like men of business, and for business walk

From place to place,

And mighty voyages we take,

And mighty journeys seem to make

O'er sea and land, the little point that has no space;

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