Freedom. STONE walls do not a prison mak When, like committed linnets, I SIR W. LOVELACE. Df Solitude. HAIL, old patrician trees, so great and good! 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, Who these fond artists does despise, Here let me careless and unthoughtful lying, A silver stream shall roll his waters near, Ah! wretched and too solitary he, O solitude! first state of human kind! As soon as two, alas! together joined, 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), Making it move well managed by thy art, 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 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, COWLEY. Divine Love.-David and Jonathan. WHAT art thou, Love Divine! mysterious thing? 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 With thousand joys, cluster around thine head, Than consciences of thine own martyrs are, * * Such, and no other, were the quiet darts Which sweetly touched this noblest pair of hearts, It was most his to whom it least was meant ; O, ye bless'd one! whose love on earth became COWLEY. Life. "NASCENTES MORIMUR." WE call this life; but Life's a name This wretched inn, where we scarce stay to bait, 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; |