more

The fruitful seed of Heaven did brooding lie, “When my new mind had no infusion known, And nothing but the Muse's fleece was dry. Thou gav'st so deep a tincture of thine own, It did all other threats surpass,

That ever since I vainly try When God to his own people said,

To wash away the inherent dye: (The men whom through long wanderings he had Long work perhaps may spoil thy colours quite;

led)

But never will reduce the native white. That he would give them even a heaven of To all the ports of honour and of gain

brass;

I often steer my course in vain : They look'd up to that heaven in vain,

Thy gale comes cross, and drives me back again. That bounteous Heaven, which God did not Thou slack'nest all my nerves of industry,

restrain

By making them so oft to be Upon the most unjust to shine and rain. The tinkling strings of thy loose minstrelsy.

Whoever this world's happiness would see, “The Rachel, for which twice seven years and Must as entirely cast off thee,

As they who only heaven desire
Thou didst with faith and labour serve,

Do from the world retire.
And didst (if faith and labour can) deserve, This was my error, this my gross mistake,
Though she contracted was to thee,

Myself a demi-votary to make.
Given to another thou didst see,

Thus, with Saphira and her husband's fate, Given to another, who had store

(A fault which I, like them, am taught too late,) Of fairer and of richer wives before,

For all that I gave up I nothing gain, And not a Leah left thy recompense to be! And perish for the part which I retain. Go on; twice seven years more thy fortune try; Twice seven years more God in his bounty may “Teach me not then, 0 thou fallacious Muse! Give thee, to fling away

The Court, and better king, t' accuse: Into the Court's deceitful lottery;

The heaven under which I live is fair, But think how likely 'tis that thou

The fertile soil will a full harvest bear: With the dull work of thy unwieldy plough,

Thine, thine is all the barrenness; if thou Should'st in a hard and barren season thrive,

Mak’st me sit still and sing, when I should plough Should'st even able be to live; Thou to whose share so little bread did fall,

Our patient sovereign did attend

His long misfortune's fatal end; In that miraculous year, when manna rain'd on

How cheerfully, and how exempt from fear, all.”

On the Great Sovereign's will he did depend; Thus spake the Muse, and spake it with a smile, To wait on his, 0 thou fallacious Muse!

I ought to be accurs'd, if I refuse That seem'd at once to pity and revile.

Kings have long hands, they say; and though And to her thus, raising his thoughtful head,

I be The melancholy Cowley said:

So distant, they may reach at length to me. "Ah, wanton foe! dost thou upbraid

However, of all princes, thou The ills which thou thyself hast made?

Should'st not reproach rewards for being small Whei the cradle innocent I lay,

or slow; Thou, wicked spirit! stolest me away,

Thou who rewardest but with popular breath, And my abused soul didst bear

And that too after death!”
Into thy new-found worlds, I know not where

Thy golden Indies in the air;
And ever since I strive in vain

My ravish'd freedom to regain;
Still I rebel, still thou dost reign;
Lo! still in verse against thee I complain.
There is a sort of stubborn weeds,

Resolved to love.
Which, if the earth but once, it ever, breeds;

No wholesome herb can near it thrive, I wonder what the grave and wise
No useful plant can keep alive:

Think of all us that love;
The foolish sports I did on thee bestow,

Whether our pretty fooleries Make all my art and labour fruitless now;

Their mirth or anger move; Where once such fairies dance, no grass doth They understand not breath that words doe want;

Our sighs to them are insignificant.

One of them saw me th' other day,

They drink and dance by their own light, Touch the dear hand which I admire,

They drink and revel all the night. My soul was melting strait away,

Nothing in Nature's sober found, And dropt before the fire.

But an eternal Health goes round. This silly wise man who pretends to know, Fill up the bowl, then, fill it high, Ask’t why I look'd so pale, and trembled so? Fill all the glasses there, for why

Should every creature drink but I;
Another from my mistress' dore

Why, men of morals, tell me why.
Saw me with eyes all watry come,
Nor could the hidden cause explore,
But thought some smoak was in the room:
Such ign’rance from unwounded Learning came,
He knew tears made by smoak, but not by flame.

2.

The Grasshopper.
If learn'd in other things you be,

Happy insect! what can be
And have in love no skill,
For God's sake keep your arts from me,

In happiness compard to thee?

Fed with nourishment divine,
For I'll be ignorant still.
Study or action others may embrace;

The dewy Morning's gentle wine!
My love's my business, and my books her face.

Nature waits upon thee still
And thy verdant cup does fill;

'Tis fill'd wherever thou dost tread, These are but trifles, I confess,

Nature's selfe's thy Ganymede.
Which me, weak mortal! move;

Thou dost drink, and dance and sing,
Nor is your busie seriousness
Less trifting than my love

Happier than the happiest king!

All the fields which thou dost see, The wisest king who from his sacred breast

All the plants belong to thee;
Pronounc'd all vanity, chose it for the best.

All that summer-hours produce,
Fertile made with early juice:
Man for thee does sow and plow;
Farmer be, and landlord thou!
Thou dost innocently jóy,

Nor does thy luxury destroy.
Anacreontics.

The shepherd gladly heareth thee,
1.

More harmonious than he.
Drinking.

Thee country hindes with gladness hear,

Prophet of the ripened year! The thirsty earth soaks ip the rain,

Thee Phoebus loves, and does inspire; And drinks, and gapes fu drink again.

Phoebus is himself thy sire. The plants suck in the earth, and are

To thee of all things upon earth, With constant drinking fresh and fair.

Life is no longer than thy mirth, The sea itself, which one would think

Happy insect! happy thou, Should have but little need of drink,

Dost neither age nor winter know: Drinks ten thousand rivers up,

But when thou'st drunk, and danc'd, and sung So fill'd that they o'erflow the cup.

Thy fill, the flow'ry leaves among, The busie sun (and one would guess

(Voluptuous, and wise withall, By's drunken fiery face no less)

Epicurean animal!)
Drinks up the sea, and when h’as done, Sated with thy summer feast,
The moon and stars drink up the sun.

Thou retir'st to endless rest.

Lovelace.

Richard Lovelace ward 1618 in Woolwich geboren, erhielt eine vortreffliche Erziehung und bezog 1634 die Universität Oxford, einer der schönsten und liebenswürdigsten Jünglinge seiner Zeit. Nachdem er hier zwei Jahre verweilt, und Magister artium geworden, nahm er Kriegsdienste und wurde wegen seiner Treue fiir Karl I. in den Kerker geworfen, aus dem er sich nur für schweres Geld befreite. Er diente darauf im französischen Heere, wo er ein Reginient befeliligte und bei Dünkirchen verwundet wurde. 1648 nach England zurückkehrend gerieth er von Neuem in Gefangenschaft, und ward erst nach der IIinrichtung Karls I. wieder losgelassen. Arm, elend und in tiefen Trübsinn versunken, irrte er nun in London umher, bis ihn der Tod 1658 von seinen Leiden erlöste.

Seine Gedichte erschienen zuerst unter dem Titel: Lucasta, zu Ehren der Dame seines Herzens Lucy Sacheverell, 1650 und wurden 1659 durch seinen Bruder von Neuem herausgegeben. Sie sind meist lyrisch, leiden an den Geschmacksfehlern seiner Zeit, zeichnen sich aber durch Adel der Gesinnung, warmes , natürliches Gefühl, Anmuth und Eleganz vortheilhaft aus.

When (like committed linnets) I

With shriller throat shall sing
The sweetness, mercy, majesty,

And glories of my King;
When I shall voyce aloud, how good

He is, how great should be;
Enlarged winds that curle the flood,

Know no such libertie.

Stone walls doe not a prison make,

Nor iron bars a cage;
Minds innocent and quiet take

That for an hermitage;
If I have freedome in my love,

And in my soule am free;
Angels alone that soar above

Injoy such libertie.

M ar v ell.

Andrew Marvell ward am 15. November 1620 zu Kingston upon Hull, wo sein Vater dissentirender Prediger war, geboren. Er studirte in Cambridge, bereiste darauf einen grossen Theil von Europa and kehrte 1645 nach England zurück, wo er lange in Zurückgezogenheit lebte, dann Milton's Gehilfe im Staatsdienste und 1660 Deputirter für Hull im Parlamente wurde. Unter Karl I., der ihm sehr wohl wollte, schlug er, obwohl arm, jedes Amt und jede Gratification

Er starb, vielleicht vergiftet, plötzlich am 16. August 1678 in London.

Marvell erwarb sich zu seiner Zeit, durch satirische Pamphlete, in welchem er vorzüglich die Gegner des Parlamentes angriff, ausserordentlichen Ruf. Als Dichter zeichnet er sich durch Phantasie, Originalität, Wärme und echtes Gefühl sehr vortheilhaft aus. Seine Poesieen und Briefe nebst einer Nachricht über sein Leben von Cooke, erschienen gesammelt, London 1726, 2 Bde. in 12.

aus.

W

The Picture of T. C. in a Prospect of O then let me in time compound,
Flowers.

And parly with those conquering eyes;

Ere they have try'd their force to wound, See with what simplicity

Ere with their glancing wheels, they drive This nymph begins her golden days!

In triumph over hearts that strive, In the green grass she loves to lye,

And them that yield but more despise. And there with her fair aspect tames

Let me be laid, The wilder flow’rs, and gives them names:

Where I may see the glorys from some shade. But only with the roses plays And them does tell

Mean time, whilst every verdant thing What colours best become them, and what smell.

Itself does at thy beauty charm,

Reform the errors of the spring : Who can foretell for what high cause,

Make that the tulips may have share This darling of the Gods was born!

Of sweetness, seeing they are fair; Yet this is she whose chaster laws

And roses of their thorns disarm : The wanton Love shall one day fear,

But most procure,
And, under her command severe,

That violets may a longer age endure.
See his bow broke, and ensigns torn.
Happy who can

But 0, young beauty of the woods,
Appease this virtuous enemy of man !

Whom Nature courts with fruits and flow'rs,