Here, the air and nimble fire
Would shoot up to meet desire.
Sullen humour leave her blood,
Mix not with the purer flood,
But let pleasures swelling here
Make a spring-tide all the year.
Love, a thousand sweets distilling,
And with pleasure bosoms filling,
Charm all eyes, that none may find us,
Be above, before, behind us!
And, while we thy raptures taste,

Compel Time himself to stay;

Or by fore-lock hold him fast,
Lest occasion slip away.

The Garden.

THIS garden does not take my eyes, Though here you show how art of men

Can purchase nature at a price

Would stock old Paradise again.

These glories while you dote upon,
I envy not your spring, nor pride.
Nay, boast the summer all your own!
My thoughts with less are satisfied.

Give me a little plot of ground,

Where, might I with the Sun agree, Though every day he walk the round, My garden he should seldom see.

Those tulips, that such wealth display
To court my eye, shall lose their name;
Though now they listen, as if they
Expected I should praise their flame.

But I would see myself appear
Within the violet's drooping head,
On which a melancholy tear

The discontented Morn hath shed.

Within their buds let roses sleep,
And virgin lilies on their stem,
Till sighs from lovers glide, and creep
Into their leaves to open them.

I' th' centre of my ground, compose
Of bays and yew my summer room,
Which may, so oft as I repose,

Present my arbour, and my tomb.

*

No birds shall live within my pale

To charm me with their shames of art,

Unless some wandering nightingale
Come here to sing and break her heart;

Upon whose death I'll try to write

An epitaph in some funeral stone,
So sad and true, it may invite

Myself to die, and prove mine own.

[From "The Contention of Ajax and Ulysses for the Armor "of Achilles."]

THE glories of our blood and state
Are shadows, not substantial things;

Their is no armour against fate;
Death lays his icy hand on kings.

Sceptre and crown

Must tumble down,

And in the dust be equal made

With the poor crooked scythe and spade.

Some men with swords may reap the field,

And plant fresh laurels where they kill;
But their strong nerves at last must yield;
They tame but one another still.

Early or late,

They stoop to fate,

4

And must give up their murmuring breath, When they, pale captives, creep to death.

The garlands wither on your brow:

Then boast no more your mighty deeds! Upon death's purple altar now

See where the victor-victim bleeds!
Your heads must come

To the cold tomb;

Only the actions of the just

Smell sweet, and blossom in the dust.

THOMAS MAY,

A celebrated poet and historian, born about 1596, in Sussex, of a worshipful but decayed family, says Fuller: bred fellow-commoner in Sidney College, Cambridge, and afterwards resident in Westminster and about the court. He died suddenly in 1652, and lies buried in Westminster Abbey. See his character in lord Clarendon's History. His English Version of Lucan's Pharsalia, and his Latin Supplement to the same, have been much esteemed. He translated also Virgil's Georgics (1628, small 12mo.) and selected epigrams of Martial (1629, small 12mo.): besides which he wrote metrical histories of Henry II. (1633, 12mo.) and Edward III. (1635, 12mo.) a History of the Parliament, in prose, both Latin and English, and five plays.

SONG.

[From "The Old Couple," 1658, 4to.]

DEAR, do not your fair beauty wrong,
In thinking still you are too young!
The rose and lillies in your cheek
Flourish, and no more ripeness seek.

Your cherry lip, red, soft, and sweet,
Proclaims such fruit for taste most meet:
Then lose no time! for Love has wings,
And flies away from aged things.