"Ah, death! once greatest ill, now only blessing, "Frail flesh, why would'st thou keep a hated guest, And him refuse whom thou hast oft invited! Life thy tormenter, death thy sleep and rest. Mount now, my soul, and seat thee in thy throne: Thou shalt be one with him, by whom thou first wast one. "Why should'st thou love this star, this borrow'd light, And not that Sun, at which thou oft hast guessed, But guess'd in vain? which dares thy piercing sight, Which never was, which cannot be expressed? Why lov'st thy load, and joy'st to be oppressed? Seest thou those joys? those thousand thousand [embraces." Mount now, my soul, and leap to those outstretch'd graces? Thus said, and while the body slumb'ring lay, K There happy goes he, heav'nly fires admiring, Whose motion is their bait, whose rest is restless jeering. And now the courts of that thrice blessed King Ne'er spent in spending, feeding, never cloying: Weak pen to write! for thought can never feign tain them. them: The mind that all can hold, yet cannot half con There doth it blessed sit, and looking down, Scorns Earth, where even kings most serve by reigning; Where men get wealth, and Hell; so lose by gaining. Ah, blessed soul! there sit thou still delighted, LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH. BORN 1552.-DIED 1618. It is difficult exactly to estimate the poetical character of this great man, as many of the pieces that are ascribed to him have not been authenticated. Among these is the "Soul's Farewell," which possesses a fire of imagination that we would willingly ascribe to him; but his claim to it, as has been already mentioned, is exceedingly doubtful. The tradition of his having written it on the night before his execution is highly interesting to the fancy, but, like many fine stories, it has the little defect of being untrue, as the poem was in existence more than twenty years before his death. has accordingly been placed in this collection, with several other pieces to which. his name has been conjecturally affixed, among the anonymous poetry of that period. It Sir Walter was born at Hayes Farm, in Devonshire, and studied at Oxford. Leaving the university at seventeen, he fought for six years under the Protestant banners in France, and afterwards served a campaign in the Netherlands. He next distinguished himself in Ireland, during the rebellion of 1580, under the lord deputy Lord Grey de Wilton, with whom his personal disputes eventually promoted his fortunes; for being heard in his own cause, on returning to England, he won the favour of Elizabeth, who knighted him, and raised him to |