Thy tinsel bosom seems a mint

Of new-coined treasure;

A paradise, that has no stint,

No change, no measure:

A painted cask, but nothing in't,

Nor wealth, nor pleasure:

Vain earth that falsely thus comply'st

With man; vain man! that thou rely'st

On earth; vain man, thou dot'st; vain earth, thou ly'st.
What mean dull souls, in this high measure,
To haberdash

In earth's base wares, whose greatest treasure
Is dross and trash ?

The height of whose enchanting pleasure
Is but a flash?

Are these the goods that thou supply'st

Us mortals with ? Are these the high'st?

Can these bring cordial peace? false world, thou ly'st.

Delight in God only.

I love and have some cause to love-the earth.
She is my Maker's creature; therefore good:
She is my mother, for she gave me birth;

She is my tender nurse-she gives me food;

But what's a creature, Lord, compared with Thee?
Or what 's my mother or my nurse to me?

I love the air: her dainty sweets refresh

My drooping soul, and to new sweets invite me;
Her shrill-mouthed quire sustains me with their flesh,
And with their polyphonian notes delight me:
But what's the air or all the sweets that she
Can bless my soul withal, compared to Thee?

I love the sea she is my fellow-creature,
My careful purveyor; she provides me store:
She walls me round; she makes my diet greater;
She wafts my treasure from a foreign shore:

But, Lord of oceans, when compared with Thee,
What is the ocean or her wealth to me?

To heaven's high city I direct my journey,
Whose spangled suburbs entertain mine eye;
Mine eye, by contemplation's great attorney,
Transcends the crystal pavement of the sky:

But what is heaven, great God, compared to Thee?
Without thy presence, heaven 's no heaven to me.
Without thy presence, earth gives no refection;
Without thy presence, sea affords no treasure;
Without thy presence, air 's a rank infection;
Without thy presence, heaven itself no pleasure:
If not possessed, if not enjoyed in Thee,
What's earth, or sea, or air, or heaven to me?
The highest honours that the world can boast,
Are subjects far too low for my desire;
The brightest beams of glory are-at most-
But dying sparkles of thy living fire:

The loudest flames that earth can kindle, be
But nightly glowworms, if compared to Thee.

Without thy presence, wealth is bags of cares;
Wisdom, but folly; joy, disquiet-sadness:
Friendship is treason, and delights are snares;
Pleasures but pain, and mirth but pleasing madness;
Without thee, Lord, things be not what they be.
.Nor have they being, when compared with Thee.

In having all things, and not Thee, what have I?
Not having Thee, what have my labours got?
Let me enjoy but Thee, what further crave I?
And having Thee alone, what have I not?
. I wish nor sea nor land; nor would I be
Possessed of heaven, heaven unpossessed of Thee.

Decay of Life.

The day grows old, the low-pitched lamp hath made
No less than treble shade,

And the descending damp doth now prepare

To uncurl bright Titan's hair;

Whose western wardrobe now begins to unfold

Her purples, fringed with gold,

To clothe his evening glory, when the alarms

Of rest shall call to rest in restless Thetis' arms.

Nature now calls to supper, to refresh
The spirits of all flesh;

The toiling ploughman drives his thirsty teams,
To taste the slippery streams:

The droiling swincherd knocks away, and feasts
His hungry whining guests:

The boxbill ousel, and the dappled thrush,

Like hungry rivals meet at their beloved bush.

DR. HENRY KING.

DR. HENRY KING (1592-1669), who was chaplain to ames I. and did honour to the church preferment which was bestowed upon him, was best known as a religious poet. He was the author of Sermons,' 1621-65; and of poems, elegies, &c. 1657. His language and imagery are chaste and refined. Of his lighter verse, the following song may suffice:

The Dirge.

What is the existence of man's life,
But open war, or slumbered strife;
Where sickness to his sense presents
The combat of the elements;
And never feels a perfect peace

Till Death's cold hand signs his release.

It is a storm-where the hot blood
Outvies in rage the boiling flood;
And each loose passion of the mind
Is like a furious gust of wind,
Which beats his bark with many a wave,
Till he casts anchor in the grave.

It is a flower-which buds, and grows
And withers as the leaves disclose;
Whose spring and fall faint seasons keep,
Like fits of waking before sleep;
Then shrinks into that fatal mould
Where its first being was enrolled.

It is a dream-whose seeming truth
Is moralised in age and youth;
Where all the comforts he can share,
As wandering as his fancies are;
Till in a mist of dark decay,
The dreamer vanish quite away.

It is a dial-which points out
The sunset, as it moves about;
And shadows out in lines of night
The subtle stages of Time's flight;
Till all-obscuring earth hath laid
His body in perpetual shade.

It is a weary interlude-
Which doth short joys, long woes, include;
The world the stage, the prologue tears,
The acts vain hopes and varied fears;
The scene shuts up with loss of breath,
And leaves no epilogue but death.

GEORGE WITHER.

GEORGE WITHER (1588-1667) was a voluminous author, in the midst of disasters and sufferings that would have damped the spirit of any but the most adventurous and untiring enthusiast. Some of his happiest strains were composed in prison; his limbs were incarcerated within stone walls and iron bars, but his fancy was among the hills and plains, with shepherds hunting, or loitering with Poesy by rustling boughs and murmuring springs. There is a freshness and natural vivacity in the poetry of Wither, that renders his early works a perpetual feast.' We cannot say that it is a feast where no crude surfeit reigns,' for he is often harsh, obscure, and affected; but he has an endless diversity of style and subjects, and truc poetical feeling and expression. Wither was a native of Hampshire, and received his education at Magdalen College, Oxford. He first appeared as an author in the year 1613, when he published a satire, entitled 'Abuses Stript and Whipt.' For this he was thrown into the Marshalsea, where he composed his fine poem, the 'Shepherds' Hunting.' the abuses satirised by the poet had accumulated and brought on the Civil War, Wither took the popular side, and sold his paternal estate to raise a troop of horse for the parliament. He rose to the rank of a major, and in 1612, was made governor of Farnham Castle, afterwards held by Denham. Wither was accused of deserting his appointment, and the castle was ceded the same year to Sir William Waller. During the struggles of that period, the poet was made prisoner by the royalists, and stood in danger of captital punishment, when Denham interfered for his brother-bard, alleging, that as long as Wither lived, he (Denham) would not be considered the worst poet in England. The joke was a good one, if it saved Wither's life; but George was not frightened from the perilous contentions of the times.

When

He was afterwards one of Cromwell's majors-general, and kept watch and ward over the royalists of Surrey. From the sequestrated estates of these gentlemen, Wither obtained a considerable fortune; but the Restoration came, and he was stripped of all his possessions. He remonstrated loudly and angrily; his remonstrances were voted libels, and the unlucky poet was again thrown into prison. He published various treatises, satires, and poems during this period, though he was treated with great rigour. He was released, under bond for good behaviour, in 1663, and survived nearly four years afterwards, dying in London on the 2d of May 1667.

Wither's fame as a poet is derived chiefly from his early produc tions, written before he had imbibed the sectarian gloom of the Puritans, or become embroiled in the struggles of the Civil War. A collection of his poems was published by himself in 1622, with the title, Mistress of Philarete;' his 'Shepherds' Hunting,' being certain eclogues written during the time of the author's imprisonment in the Marshalsea, appeared in 1633. His 'Collection of Emblems, Ancient and Modern, quickened with Metrical Illustrations,' made their appearance in 1635. His satirical and controversial works were numerous but are now forgotten. Some authors of our own day-Southey in particular-have helped to popularise Wither, by frequent quotation and culogy; but Mr. Ellis, in his 'Specimens of Early English Poets,' was the first to point out that playful fancy, pure taste, and artless delicacy of sentiment, which distinguish the poetry of his early youth.' His poem on Christmas affords a lively picture of the manners of the times His 'Address to Poetry, the sole yet cheering companion of his prison solitude, is worthy of the theme, and superior to most of the effusions of that period. The pleasure with which he recounts the various charms and the 'divine skill' of his Muse, that had derived nourishment and delight from the meanest objects' of external nature-a daisy, a bush, or a tree; and which, when these picturesque and beloved scenes of the country were denied him, could gladden even the vaults and shades of a prison, is one of the richest offerings that have yet been made to the pure and hallowed shrine of poesy. The superiority of intellectual pursuits over the gratifications of sense, and all the malice of fortune, has never been more touchingly or finely illustrated.

The Companionship of the Muse.-From the 'Shepherds' Hunting." See'st thou not in clearest days, Oft thick fogs cloud heaven's rays; And the vapours that do breathe From the earth's gross womb beneath, Seem they not with their black steams To pollute the sun's bright beams, And yet vanish into air, Leaving it, unblemished, fair? So, my Willy, shall it be

With detraction's breath and thee:

It shall never risc so high
As to stain thy poesy.
As that sun doth oft exhale
Vapours from its rotton vale;
Poesy so sometime drains
Gross conceits from muddy brains;
Mists of envy, fogs of spite,
"Twixt men's judgments and her light:
But so much her power may do,

That she can dissolve them too.