While each conceit an ugly figure bears,

Which were not evil, well viewed in reason's light.
Our only eyes, which dimmed with passion be,
And scarce discern the dawn of coming day—
Let them be cleared, and now begin to see
Our life is but a step in dusty way:
Then let us hold the bliss of peaceful mind;
Since this we feel, great loss we cannot find.

TRUE BEAUTY VIRTUE IS.

It is most true that eyes are formed to serve
The inward light, and that the heavenly part
Ought to be King, from whose rules who do
swerve,

Rebels to nature, strive for their own smart.
It is most true, what we call Cupid's dart
An image is, which for ourselves we carve,
And, fools, adore in temple of our heart,

Till that good god make church and churchmen

starve.

True, that True Beauty Virtue is indeed, Whereof this Beauty can be but a shade Which elements with mortal mixture breed. True, that on earth we are but pilgrims made, And should in soul up to our country move: True; and yet true-that I must Stella love.

And of some sent from the sweet enemy-France;-
Horsemen my skill in horsemanship advance;
Townsfolk my strength; a daintier judge applies
His praise to sleight, which from good use doth rise;
Some lucky wits impute it but to chance;
Others, because of both sides I do take
My blood from them who did excel in this;
Think Nature me a man of arms did make.
How far they shot awry! The true cause is,
Stella looked on, and from her heavenly face
Shot forth the beams that made so fair my race.

INVOCATION TO SLEEP.

Come, Sleep, O Sleep, the certain knot of peace,
The baiting-place of wit, the balm of woe,
The poor man's wealth, the prisoner's release,
The indifferent judge between the high and low!
With shield of proof shield me from out the prease'
Of those fierce darts Despair at me doth throw;
Oh, make in me those civil wars to cease;

I will good tribute pay if thou do so.
Take thou of me smooth pillows, sweetest bed;
A chamber, deaf to noise and blind to light;
A rosy garland, and a weary head.
And if these things, as being thine by right,
Move not thine heavy grace, thou shalt in me
Livelier than elsewhere Stella's image see.

ETERNAL LOVE.

Leave me, O Love which reachest but to dust,
And thou, my Mind, aspire to higher things;
Grow rich in that which never taketh rust:
Whatever fades but fading pleasure brings.
Draw in thy beams, and humble all thy might
To that sweet yoke where lasting freedoms be;
Which breaks the clouds, and opens forth the light
That doth both shine and give us sight to see!
Oh, take fast hold; let that light be thy guide
In this small course which birth draws out to death;
And think how evil becometh him to slide,
Who seeketh heaven and comes of heavenly breath.
Then farewell, world; thy uttermost I see:
Eternal Love, maintain thy Life in me!

A DITTY.

My true-love hath my heart, and I have his,
By just exchange one to the other given:
I hold his dear, and mine he cannot miss;
There never was a better bargain driven:
My true-love hath my heart, and I have his.

His heart in me keeps him and me in one,
My heart in him his thoughts and senses guides;
He loves my heart, for once it was his own,
I cherish his because in me it bides:
My truc-love hath my heart, and I have his.

ON OBTAINING A PRIZE AT A TOURNAMENT.

Having this day my horse, my hand, my lance
Guided so well that I obtained the prize,
Both by the judgment of the English eyes

Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke.

Greville (1554-1628) was born at Alcaster, in Warwickshire. He was the school-mate and intimate friend of Sir Philip Sidney, and a court favorite during the reigns of Elizabeth, James, and Charles I. At the age of seven

1 Press, crowd.

ty-four he was assassinated by a crazy servant. Southey calls Greville "the most difficult" of English poets, and says: "No other writer of this or any other country appears to have reflected more deeply on momentous subjects." Charles Lamb says of his verse: "Whether we look into his plays, or his most passionate love-poems, we shall find all frozen and made rigid with intellect." His eulogy on Philip Sidney is a noble tribute, full of condensed thought.

REALITY OF A TRUE RELIGION.
FROM THE "TREATISE OF RELIGION."

For sure in all kinds of hypocrisy

No bodies yet are found of constant being;
No uniform, no stable mystery,

No inward nature, but an outward seeming;
No solid truth, no virtue, holiness,

But types of these, which time makes more or less.

And from these springs strange inundations flow,
To drown the sea-marks of humanity,
With massacres, conspiracy, treason, woe,
By sects and schisms profaning Deity:

Besides, with furies, fiends, earth, air, and hell,
They fit, and teach confusion to rebel.

But, as there lives a true God in the heaven,
So is there true religion here on earth:
By nature? No, by grace; not got, but given;
Inspired, not taught; from God a second birth;
God dwelleth near about us, even within,
Working the goodness, censuring the sin.

Such as we are to him, to us is he;

Without God there was no man ever good;
Divine the author and the matter be,

Where goodness must be wrought in flesh and blood:

Religion stands not in corrupted things,

But virtues that descend have heavenly wings.

FROM "LINES ON THE DEATH OF PHILIP SIDNEY."

Silence augmenteth grief, writing increaseth rage, Stalled are my thoughts, which loved and lost the

wonder of our age,

Yet quickened now with fire, though dead with frost ere now,

Enraged I write I know not what: dead, quick, I know not how.

Chapman (1557-1634) wrote translations, plays, and poems. His translation of Homer, in fourteen-syllable rhymed measure, is a remarkable production. From Lord Houghton's edition of the Poctical Works of John Keats, we learn that the fine folio edition of Chapman's translation of Homer had been lent to Mr. Charles Cowden Clarke, and he and Keats sat up till daylight over their new acquisition; Keats shouting with delight as some passage of especial energy struck his imagination. At ten o'clock the next morning, Mr. Clarke found this sonnet by Keats on his breakfast-table.

"Much have I travelled in the realms of gold,
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
Round many western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told,
That deep-browed Homer ruled as his demesne:
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
Till I heard Chapman speak out lond and bold:

Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
He stared at the Pacific-and all his men
Looked at each other with a wild surmise-
Silent, upon a peak in Darien."

In his youth Chapman had for contemporaries and fellow-workers Spenser, Sidney, Shakspeare, Daniel, and Marlowe. He regarded poesy as a "divine discipline," rather than as a pastime, and in his most elevated mood he appears dignified, self-reliant, reflective, and, above all, conspicuously honest.

OF SUDDEN DEATH.

What action wouldst thou wish to have in hand
If sudden death should come for his command?
I would be doing good to most good men
That most did need, or to their children,
And in advice (to make them their true heirs)
I would be giving up my soul to theirs.

To which effect if Death should find me given,
I would, with both my hands held up to heaven,
Make these my last words to my Deity:
"Those faculties Thou hast bestowed on me
To understand Thy government and will,
I have, in all fit actions, offered still
To Thy divine acceptance; and, as far
As I had influence from Thy bounty's star,
I have made good Thy form infused in me;
The anticipations given me paturally
I have, with all my study, art, and prayer,
Fitted to every object and affair

My life presented and my knowledge taught.
My poor sail, as it hath been ever fraught
With Thy free goodness, hath been ballast too
With all my gratitude. What is to do,
Supply it, sacred Saviour; Thy high grace
In my poor gifts, receive again, and place
Where it shall please Thee; Thy gifts never die,
But, having brought one to felicity,
Descend again, and help another up."

THE HIGHEST STANDARD.

Thou must not undervalue what thou hast,
In weighing it with that which more is graced.
The worth that weigheth inward should not long
For outward prices. This should make thee strong
In thy close value: naught so good can be
As that which lasts good betwixt God and thee.
Remember thine own verse: Should hearen turn hell
For deeds well done, I would do ever well.

GIVE ME A SPIRIT.

Give me a Spirit that on life's rough sea
Loves to have his sails filled with a lusty wind,
Even till his sail-yards tremble, his masts crack,
And his rapt ship run on her side so low
That she drinks water, and her keel ploughs air:
There is no danger to a man that knows
What life and death is; there's not any law
Exceeds his knowledge, neither is it needful
That he should stoop to any other law:
He goes before them, and commands them all,
That to himself is a law rational.

Robert Greene.

If only for one stanza that he wrote, Robert Greene (1560-1592), playwright and poet, deserves a mention. He was born in Norfolk, got a degree at Cambridge in 1578, travelled in Italy and Spain, and wasted his patrimony in dissipation. Returning home, he betook himself to literature as a means of livelihood. He died in great poverty and friendlessness. From his last book, "The Groat's-worth of Wit bought with a Million of Repentance," we quote the following:

Masques; and in prose a "Defence of Rhyme" (1601) and a "History of England" (1613). The modern character of his English, as well as of his thinking, has been often noted by critics. "For his diction alone," says Southey, "he would deserve to be studied, even though his works did not abound in passages of singular beauty." He justly felicitated himself in his later days that he had never written unclean verses; that never had his

"Harmless pen at all

Distained with any loose immodesty,
Nor never noted to be touched with gall,
To aggravate the worst man's infamy;
But still have done the fairest offices
To Virtue and the time."

Daniel became "poet-laureate voluntary" at the death of Spenser, but was soon superseded by Ben Jonson as poet-laureate by appointment. There seems to have been ill-feeling between the two; for Jonson says of him: "He was a good, honest man, had no children, and was no poet." The slur is undeserved. Some years before his death Daniel retired to a farm, where he ended his days. His "Epistle to the Countess of Cumberland " is a noble specimen of meditative verse. It was much admired by Wordsworth, whose indebtedness to it, in tone at least, may be traced in his "Character of the Happy Warrior."

EPISTLE TO THE COUNTESS OF CUMBER-
LAND.

He that of such a height hath built his mind,
And reared the dwelling of his thoughts so strong,
As neither hope nor fear can shake the frame
Of his resolved powers; nor all the wind
Of vanity or malice pierce to wrong
His settled peace, or to disturb the same:
What a fair seat hath he, from whence he may
The boundless wastes and wilds of man survey!

And with how free an eye doth he look down
Upon these lower regions of turmoil!
Where all the storms of passion mainly beat
On flesh and blood: where honor, power, renown,
Are only gay afflictions, golden toil;
Where greatness stands upon as feeble feet,
As frailty doth; and only great doth seem
To little minds, who do it so esteem.

He looks upon the mightiest monarch's wars
But only as on stately robberies;
Where evermore the fortune that prevails
Must be the right; the ill-succeeding mars
The fairest and the best faced enterprise.
Great pirate Pompey lesser pirates quails:
Justice, he sees (as if seducéd), still

Conspires with power, whose cause must not be ill.

He sees the face of right t' appear as manifold
As are the passions of uncertain man;
Who puts it in all colors, all attires,

To serve his ends, and make his courses hold.
He sees, that let deceit work what it can,
Plot and contrive base ways to high desires,
That the all-guiding Providence doth yet
All disappoint, and mocks the smoke of wit.

Nor is he moved with all the thunder-cracks
Of tyrants' threats, or with the surly brow
Of Power that proudly sits on others' crimes,-
Charged with more crying sins than those he
checks.

The storms of sad confusion, that may grow
Up in the present for the coming times,
Appall him not that hath no side at all,
But of himself, and knows the worst can fall.

Although his heart (so near allied to earth)
Cannot but pity the perplexéd state
Of troublous and distressed mortality,
That thus make way unto the ugly birth
Of their own sorrows, and do still beget
Affliction upon imbecility,-

Yet, seeing thus the course of things must run,
He looks thereon not strange, but as fore-done.

And whilst distraught ambition compasses,
And is encompassed; whilst as craft deceives,
And is deceived; whilst man doth ransack man,
And builds on blood, and rises by distress;
And the inheritance of desolation leaves
To great-expecting hopes,-he looks thereon
As from the shore of peace, with unwet eye,
And bears no venture in impiety.

Thus, madam, fares that man that hath prepared
A rest for his desires; and sees all things
Beneath him; and hath learned this book of man,
Full of the notes of frailty; and compared
The best of glory with her sufferings:
By whom, I see, you labor all you can
To plant your heart, and set your thoughts as

near

His glorious mansion as your powers can bear.

Which, madam, are so soundly fashionéd
By that clear judgment that hath carried you
Beyond the feeble limits of your kind,

As they can stand against the strongest head
Passion can make; inured to any hue

The world cau cast; that cannot cast that mind

Out of her form of goodness, that doth see
Both what the best and worst of earth can be.

Which makes, that whatsoever here befalls,
You in the region of yourself remain ;
(Where no vain breath of th' impudent molests)
That lieth secured within the brazen walls

Of a clear conscience, that (without all stain)
Rises in peace, in innocency rests;
Whilst all what Malice from without procures;
Shows her own ugly heart, but hurts not yours.

And whereas none rejoice more in revenge
Than women use to do, yet you well know
That wrong is better checked by being contemned
Than being pursued; leaving to Him to avenge
To whom it appertains: Wherein you show
How worthily your clearness hath condemned
Base malediction, living in the dark,

That at the rays of goodness still doth bark:

Knowing the heart of man is set to be
The centre of this world, about the which
These revolutions of disturbances
Still roll where all th' aspects of misery
Predominate: whose strong effects are such
As he must bear, being powerless to redress:
And that unless above himself he can
Erect himself, how poor a thing is man.

And how turmoiled they are that level lie
With earth, and cannot lift themselves from thence;
That never are at peace with their desires,
But work beyond their years; and even deny
Dotage her rest, and hardly will dispense
With death; that when ability expires,
Desire lives still: so much delight they have
To carry toil and travail to the grave!

Whose ends you see, and what can be the best
They reach unto, when they have cast the sum
And reckonings of their glory. And you know
This floating life hath but this port of rest:
A heart prepared that fears no ill to come.
And that man's greatness rests but in his show,
The best of all whose days consumed are
Either in war or peace-conceiving war.

This concord, madam, of a well-tuned mind
Hath been so set by that all-working hand

Of Heaven, that though the world hath done his worst

To put it out by discords most unkind,

Yet doth it still in perfect union stand
With God and man: nor ever will be forced
From that most sweet accord; but still agree
Equal in fortune's inequality.

And this note, madam, of your worthiness
Remains recorded in so many hearts,
As time nor malice cannot wrong your right
In th' inheritance of fame you must possess:
You that have built you by your great deserts
(Out of small means) a far more exquisite
And glorious dwelling for your honored name,
Than all the gold that leaden minds can frame.

FAIR IS MY LOVE.

Fair is my love, and cruel as she's fair;
Her brow shades frown, altho' her eyes are sunny;
Her smiles are lightning, though her pride despair;
And her disdains are gall, her favors honey.

A modest maid, decked with a blush of honor, Whose feet do tread green paths of youth and love;

The wonder of all eyes that look upon her:
Sacred on earth, designed a saint above;
Chastity and Beauty, which are deadly foes,
Live reconciled friends within her brow;
And had she Pity to conjoin with those,
Then who had heard the plaints I utter now?
For had she not been fair, and thus unkind,
My muse had slept, and none had known my mind.

EARLY LOVE.

Ah, I remember well (and how can I
But evermore remember well?) when first
Our flame began, when scarce we knew what was
The flame we felt; when as we sat and sighed,
And looked upon each other, and conceived
Not what we ailed, yet something we did ail,
And yet were well, and yet we were not well,
And what was our disease we could not tell.
Then would we kiss, then sigh, then look; and
thus,

In that first garden of our simpleness,

We spent our childhood. But when years began
To reap the fruit of knowledge-ah, how then
Would she with sterner looks, with graver brow,
Check my presumption and my forwardness!
Yet still would give me flowers, still would show
What she would have me, yet not have me know.