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THE GRASSHOPPER.

[Ode to Mr. Charles Cotton.]

Oh! thou that swingst upon the waving ear
Of some well-filled oaten beard,
Drunk every night with a delicious tear,

Dropt thee from heaven, where thou wert reared;

The joys of earth and air are thine entire,

That with thy feet and wings dost hop and fly,
And, when thy poppy works, thou dost retire
To thy carved acorn-bed to lie.

Up with the day, the Sun thou welcomest then,
Sport'st in the gilt plaits of his beams,
And all these merry days mak'st merry men,
Thyself, and melancholy streams.

But ah! the sickle! Golden ears are cropped;
Ceres and Bacchus bid good night;

Sharp frosty fingers all your flowers have topped,

And what scythes spared, winds shave off quite. Thou best of men and friends! we will create A genuine summer in each other's breast, And spite of this cold time and frozen fate, Thaw us a warm seat for our rest.

Our sacred hearths shall burn eternally,

As vestal flames; the North Wind, he
Shall strike his frost-stretched wings, dissolve and fly
This Ætna in epitome.

Night, as clear Hesper, shall our tapers whip
From the light casements where we play,
And the dark hag from her black mantle strip,
And stick there everlasting day.

Thus richer than untempted kings are we,
That asking nothing, nothing need;
Though lord of all that seas embrace, yet he
That wants himself is poor indeed.

TO LUCASTA.

Lucasta, frown, and let me die!
But smile, and, see, I live!
The sad indifference of your eye
Both kills and doth reprieve;
You hide our fate within its screen;
We feel our judgment, e'er we hear;

So in one picture I have seen

An angel here, the devil there!

LORD HERBERT

OF CHERBURY.

[EDWARD HERBERT, Lord Herbert of Cherbury, elder brother of the poet George Herbert, was born in 1581, and closed a life full of incident and interest in Queen Street, London, August 20, 1648.]

The world has long done justice to Lord Herbert's famous treatise De Veritate, to his admirable Life of Henry VIII, to his singularly interesting Autobiography; but no one has yet been found to vindicate his claim to a place among English poets. His poems first appeared in a little volume which was published in 1665, nearly eighteen years after his death; and, as we gather from the preface, were collected by Henry Herbert, uncle to the second Lord Herbert of Cherbury, to whom they are dedicated. They consist of Sonnets, Epitaphs, Satires, Madrigals, and Odes in various measures. Herbert is, like his more distinguished brother, a disciple of the Metaphysical School, though his poems, unlike those of George, are not of a religious character. With much of that extravagance which deforms the lyric poetry of his contemporaries, Lord Herbert has in a large measure grace, sweetness, and originality. He never lacks vigour and freshness. His place is, with all his faults, beside Donne and Cowley. His versification is indeed as a rule far superior to theirs. It is uniformly musical, and his music is often at once delicate and subtle. Though he did not invent the metre, he certainly discovered the melody of that stanza with which Tennyson's great poem has familiarised us, and he has as certainly anticipated some of its most beautiful effects. He is never likely to hold the same place among English poets as his brother, but we do not hesitate to say that no collection of representative English poets should be considered complete which does not contain the poetical works of Lord Herbert of Cherbury.

J. CHURTON Collins.

AN ODE UPON A QUESTION MOVED WHETHER LOVE SHOULD CONTINUE FOR EVER.

Having interr'd her Infant-birth

The watery ground that late did mourn
Was strew'd with flowers for the return
Of the wish'd bridegroom of the earth.

The well-accorded birds did sing

Their hymns unto the pleasant time,
And in a sweet consorted chime
Did welcome in the cheerful spring.

To which, soft whistles of the wind,
And warbling murmurs of a brook,
And varied notes of leaves that shook,
An harmony of parts did bind.

When with a love none can express
That mutually happy pair,

Melander and Celinda fair,

The season with their loves did bless.

Long their fix'd eyes to Heaven bent
Unchanged, they did never move;
As if so great and pure a love
No glass but it could represent.

When with a sweet though troubled look
She first brake silence, saying, 'Dear friend,
O that our love might take no end,
Or never had beginning took.'

*

Then with a look, it seem'd, denied
All earthly power but hers, yet so
As if to her breath he did owe
This borrow'd life, he thus replied:

‘O no, Belov'd, I am most sure
These vertuous habits we acquire
As being with the soul entire
Must with it evermore endure.

Else should our souls in vain elect,
And vainer yet were Heaven's laws,
When to an everlasting cause
They give a perishing effect.

Nor here on earth then, nor above,
One good affection can impair;
For where God doth admit the fair,
Think you that He excludeth Love?

These eyes again thine eyes shall see,
These hands again thine hand enfold,
And all chaste blessings can be told
Shall with us everlasting be.

For if no use of sense remain

When bodies once this life forsake, Or they could no delight partake, Why should they ever rise again?

And if every imperfect mind

Make love the end of knowledge here, How perfect will our love be where All imperfection is refin'd.

Let then no doubt, Celinda, touch,
Much less your fairest mind invade ;
Were not our souls immortal made,
Our equal loves can make them such.

So when from hence we shall be gone,
And be no more, nor you, nor I;
As one another's mystery

Each shall be both, yet both but one.

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