TRIUMPHING chariots, statues, crowns of bays, Sky-threatening arches, the rewards of worth; Books heavenly-wise in sweet harmonious lays, Which men divine unto the world set forth; States which ambitious minds, in blood, do raise From frozen Tanais unto sun-burnt Gange; A GOOD that never satisfies the mind, A beauty fading like the April showers, A pleasure passing ere in thought made ours, A vain delight our equals to command, A SWEET PASTORAL. GOOD Muse, rock me asleep With some sweet harmony! The weary eye is not to keep Thy wary company. Sweet love, begone awhile! Thou know'st my heaviness; Beauty is born but to beguile My heart of happiness. See how my little flock, The bushes and the trees, Sweet Philomel, the bird The flowers have had a frost; Each herb hath lost her savor; And Phillida, the fair, hath lost The comfort of her favor. HYMN TO INTELLECTUAL BEAUTY. Now all these careful sights That how to hope upon delights And, therefore, my sweet Muse, Thou know'st what help is best; Do now thy heavenly cunning use To set my heart at rest. And in a dream bewray NICHOLAS BRETON. HYMN TO INTELLECTUAL BEAUTY. THE awful shadow of some unseen power Floats, though unseen, among us-visiting This various world with as inconstant wing As summer winds that creep from flower to flower; 655 Why fear, and dream, and death, and birth Cast on the daylight of this earth Such gloom; why man has such a scope For love and hate, despondency and hope. No voice from some sublimer world hath ever To sage or poet these responses given; Therefore the names of demon, ghost, and heaven, Remain the records of their vain endeavorFrail spells, whose uttered charm might not avail to sever From all we hear and all we see Doubt, chance, and mutability. Thy light alone, like mist o'er mountains driven, Or music by the night wind sent Through strings of some still instrument, Or moonlight on a midnight stream, Gives grace and truth to life's unquiet dream. Love, hope, and self-esteem, like clouds depart And come, for some uncertain moments lent. Man were immortal and omnipotent Like moonbeams, that behind some piny Didst thou, unknown and awful as thou art, mountain shower, It visits with inconstant glance Like clouds in starlight widely spread, Like aught that for its grace may be Dear, and yet dearer for its mystery. Spirit of beauty, that dost consecrate Keep with thy glorious train firm state with in his heart. Thou messenger of sympathies That wax and wane in lover's eyes! Thou that to human thought art nourishment, With thine own hues all thou dost shine While yet a boy I sought for ghosts, and sped Why aught should fail and fade that once is Of life, at that sweet time when winds are |