SLEEP, Silence' child! sweet father of soft rest!
Prince, whose approach peace to all mortals brings,
Indifferent host to shepherds and to kings,
Sole comforter of minds with grief oppressed:
Lo! by thy charming rod, all breathing things
Lie slumb'ring, with forgetfulness possessed!
And yet o'er me to spread thy drowsy wings
Thou spar'st, alas! who cannot be thy guest.
Since I am thine, O come! but with that face
To inward light, which thou art wont to show,
With feigned solace ease a true-felt woe;
Or if, deaf god, thou do deny that grace,
Come as thou wilt, and what thou wilt bequeath!
I long to kiss the image of my death.
I KNOW that all beneath the moon decaies,
And what by mortals in this world is brought,
In Time's great periods shall return to nought;
That fairest states have fatal nights and days.
I know that all the Muse's heavenly lays,
With toil of spright which are so dearly bought,
As idle sounds, of few, or none, are sought,
That there is nothing lighter than vain praise.
I know frail beauty, like the purple flower,
To which one morn oft birth and death affords ;
That love a jarring is of mind's accords,
Where sense and will bring under reason's power:
Know what I list, all this cannot me move,
But that, alas! I both must write and love.
Look how the flower which ling'ringly doth fade,
The morning's darling late, the summer's green,
Spoiled of that juice which kept it fresh and green,
As high as it did raise, bows low the head;
Right so my life, contentments being dead,
Or in their contraries but only seen,
With swifter speed declines than erst it spread,
And blasted, scarce now shows what it hath been.
As doth the pilgrim therefore whom the night
Hastes darkly to imprison on his way,
Think on thy home, my soul, and think aright
Of what yet rests thee of life's wasting day:
Thy sun posts westwards, passèd is thy morn,
And twice it is not given thee to be born.
BENEATH a sable veil, and shadows deep,
Of inaccessible and dimming light,
In silence, ebon clouds more black than night,
The world's great Mind his secrets hid doth keep:
Through those thick mists when any mortal wight
Aspires, with halting pace, and eyes that weep,
Το pry, and in his mysteries to creep,
With thunders he and lightnings blasts their sight.
O Sun invisible, that dost abide
Within thy bright abysmes, most fair, most dark,
Where with thy proper rays thou dost thee hide,
O ever-shining, never full-seen mark,
To guide me in life's night, thy light me show:
The more I search of thee the less I know.
SONNET ADDRESSED TO THE NIGHTINGALE.
SWEET bird, that sing'st away the early hours,
Of winter's past, or coming, void of care,
Well-pleased with delights which present are,
Fair seasons, budding sprays, sweet-smelling flow'rs:
To rocks, to springs, to rills, from leafy bowers,
Thou thy Creator's goodness dost declare,
And what dear gifts on thee he did not spare,
A stain to human sense in sin that lowers.
What soul can be so sick, which by thy songs,
Attired in sweetness, sweetly is not driven
Quite to forget earth's turmoils, spites, and wrongs,
And lift a reverend eye and thought to heaven?
Sweet artless songster, thou my mind doth raise
To airs of spheres, yea, and to angel's lays.
More oft than once Death whispered in mine ear,
'Grave what thou hear'st in diamond and in gold;
I am that monarch whom all monarchs fear,
Who have in dust their far-stretched pride uprolled.
All, all is mine, beneath moon's silver sphere;
And nought, save Virtue, can my power withhold;
This, not believed, experience true thee told,
By danger late when I to thee came near.
As bugbear then my visage I did show,
That of my horrors thou right use might'st make,
And a more sacred path of living take:
Now still walk armèd for my ruthless blow;
Trust flattering life no more, redeem time past,
And live each day as if it were thy last.
As when it happeneth, that some lovely town
Unto a barbarous besieger falls,
Who there by sword and flames himself instals,
And, cruel, it in tears and blood doth drown;
Her beauty spoiled, her citizens made thralls,
His spite yet so cannot her all throw down,
But that some statue, arch, fane of renown,
Yet lurks unmaimed within her weeping walls;
So after all the spoil, disgrace and wreck,
That time, the world, and death, could bring combined,
Amidst that mass of ruins they did make,
Safe and all searless yet remains my mind;
From this so high transcending rapture springs,
That I, all else defaced, not envy kings.
A GOOD that never satisfies the mind,
A beauty fading like the April flowers,
A sweet with flouds of gall that runs combined,
A pleasure passing ere in thought made ours,
An honour that more fickle is than wind,
A glory at opinion's frown that lowers,
A treasury which bankrupt time devours,
A knowledge than grave ignorance more blind;
A vaine delight our equalls to command,
A stile of greatnesse, in effect a dreame,
A swelling thought of holding sea and land,
A servile lot, deck't with a pompous name;
Are the strange ends we toil for here below,
Till wisest death make us our errors know.
On this fair volume, which we, World, do name,
If we the sheets and leaves could turn with care
Of Him who it corrects, and did frame,
We clear might read the art and wisdom rare,
Find out His power, which wildest powers doth tame,
His providence, extending everywhere,
His justice, which proud rebels doth not spare,
In every page, no period of the same:
But silly we, like foolish children, rest
Well pleased with coloured vellum, leaves of gold,
Fair dangling ribbands, leaving what is best,
On the great writer's sense ne'er taking hold;
Or if by chance we stay our minds in aught,
It is some picture on the margin wrought.
THE weary mariner so fast not flies
An howling tempest, harbour to attain;
Nor shepherd hastes, when frays of wolves arise,
So fast to fold, to save his bleating train;
As I, winged with contempt and just disdain,
Now fly the world and what it most doth prize,
And sanctuary seek, free to remain
From wounds of abject times and envy's eyes.
Once did this world to me seem sweet and fair,
While senses' light mind's prospective kept blind:
Now like imagined landscape in the air-
And weeping rainbows-her best joys I find,
Or if aught here is had that praise should have,
It is a life obscure, and silent grave.
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