Promise and keep your vows,

Or vow you never!

Love's doctrine disallows
Troth-breakers ever.

You have broke promise twice,
Dear! to undo me.
If you prove faithless thrice,
None then will woo ye.

TO DAISIES.

Shut not so soon! the dull-eyed Night
Has not as yet begun
To make a seizure on the light
Or to seal up the sun.

No marigolds yet closed are,

No shadows great appear,
Nor doth the early shepherd's star

Shine like a spangle here.

Stay but until my Julia close

Her life-begetting eye:

And let the whole world then dispose
Itself to live or die.

JAMES SHIRLEY.

1596-1667.

DEATH THE CONQUEROR.

Victorious men of earth! no more
Proclaim how wide your empires are!

Though you bind in every shore

And your triumphs reach as far

As night or day,

Yet you, proud monarchs! must obey And mingle with forgotten ashes when

Death calls ye to the crowd of common men.

Devouring Famine, Plague, and War,

Each able to undo mankind,
Death's servile emissaries are ;

Nor to these alone confined,
He hath at will

More quaint and subtle ways to kill :
A smile or kiss, as he will use the art,
Shall have the cunning skill to break a heart.

EARTHLY GLORIES.

The glories of our blood and state
Are shadows, not substantial things :
There 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 strung nerves at last must yield:
They tame but one another still.
Early or late

They stoop to Fate

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 their dust.

THE PASSING-BELL.

Hark, how chimes the Passing-Bell!
There's no music to a knell.

All the other sounds we hear
Flatter and but cheat our ear.
This doth put us still in mind
That our flesh must be resign'd
And, a general silence made,
The world be muffled in a shade.
He that on his pillow lies,
Tear-embalm'd before he dies,
Carries like a sheep his life
To meet the sacrificer's knife;
And for eternity is press'd,
Sad bell-wether to the rest.

THE LOOKING-GLASS.

When this crystal shall present
Your beauty to your eye,
Think! that lovely face was meant

To dress another by.

For not to make them proud

These glasses are allow'd

To those are fair,

But to compare

The inward beauty with the outward grace, And make them fair in soul as well as face.

TO ONE SAYING SHE WAS OLD.

Tell me not Time hath play'd the thief
Upon her beauty! My belief

Might have been mock'd, and I had been
An heretic, if I had not seen.

My Mistress is still fair to me,

And now I all those graces see
That did adorn her virgin brow:
Her eye hath the same flame in't now
To kill or save,—the chemist's fire
Equally burns, so my desire;

Not any rose-bud less within

Her cheek; the same snow on her chin;
Her voice that heavenly music bears
First charm'd my soul, and in my ears
Did leave it trembling; her lips are
The self-same lovely twins they were ;—
After so many years I miss

No flower in all my Paradise.

Time! I despise thy rage and thee:
Thieves do not always thrive, I see.

WILLIAM STRODE.
1600 ?-1644.

A COMMENDATION OF MUSIC.

When whispering strains do softly steal With creeping passion through the heart, And when at every touch we feel

Our pulses beat and bear a part,—

When threads can make

A heart-string quake,-
Philosophy

Can scarce deny

The soul consists of harmony.

When unto heavenly joys we feign
Whate'er the soul affecteth most,
Which only thus we can explain
By music of the winged host,—
Whose lays we think

Make stars to wink,

Philosophy

Can scarce deny

Our soul consists of harmony.

O lull me, lull me, charming Air!

My senses rock with wonder sweet!
Like snow on wool thy fallings are ;
Soft, like a spirit, are thy feet.
Grief who needs fear

That hath an ear?

Down let him lie,

And slumbering die,

And change his soul for harmony!

THOMAS RANDOLPH.

1605-1634-5.

TO MR. ANTHONY STAFFORD.

To hasten him into the country.

Come, spur away!

I have no patience for a longer stay,

But must go down,

And leave the chargeable noise of this great town:

I will the country see

Where old Simplicity,

Though hid in grey,

Doth look more gay

Than Foppery in plush and scarlet clad.

Farewell, you city wits! that are

Almost at civil war :

'Tis time that I grow wise when all the world goes mad.

More of my days

I will not spend to gain an idiot's praise;

Or to make sport

For some slight puny of the Inns of Court.