THE BURIAL OF AN INFANT.

Blest infant bud, whose blossom-life

Did only look about, and fall
Wearied out in a harmless strife
Of tears, and milk, the food of all;

Sweetly didst thou expire: thy soul
Flew home unstain'd by his new kin;
For ere thou knew'st how to be foul,
Death wean'd thee from the world, and sin.

Softly rest all thy virgin-crumbs

Lapt in the sweets of thy young breath,
Expecting till thy Saviour comes

To dress them, and unswaddle death!

THE WORLD.

I saw Eternity the other night,

Like a great ring of pure and endless light,
All calm, as it was bright;

And round beneath it, Time in hours, days, years,
Driv'n by the spheres

Like a vast shadow mov'd; in which the world
And all her train were hurl'd.

The doting lover in his quaintest strain

Did there complain;

Near him, his lute, his fancy, and his slights,
Wit's sour delights,

With gloves, and knots, the silly snares of pleasure,
Yet his dear treasure,

All scatter'd lay, while he his eyes did pour

Upon a flower.

The darksome statesman, hung with weights and woe,
Like a thick midnight-fog, mov'd there so slow,
He did not stay, nor go;

Condemning thoughts-like sad eclipses-scowl
Upon his soul,

And clouds of crying witnesses without

Pursued him with one shout.

Yet digg'd the mole, and lest his ways be found,
Worked under ground,

Where he did clutch his prey; but one did see
That policy;

Churches and altars fed him; perjuries
Were gnats and flies;

It rain'd about him blood and tears, but he
Drank them as free.

The fearful miser on a heap of rust

Sate pining all his life there, did scarce trust
His own hands with the dust,

Yet would not place one piece alone, but lives
In fear of thieves.

Thousands there were as frantic as himself,
And hugg'd each one his pelf;

The downright epicure plac'd heav'n in sense,
And scorn'd pretence;

While others, slipt into a wide excess,

Said little less;

The weaker sort, slight, trivial wares enslave,
Who think them brave;

And poor despised Truth sate counting by
Their victory.

Yet some, who all this while did weep and sing,
And sing, and weep, soar'd up into the ring;
But most would use no wing.

O fools-said I-thus to prefer dark night
Before true light!

To live in grots, and caves, and hate the day
Because it shews the way,

The way, which from this dead and dark abode
Leads up to God;

A way where you might tread the sun, and be
More bright than he !

But as I did their madness so discuss

One whisper'd thus,

'This ring the Bridegroom did for none provide, But for His bride.'

BEYOND The Veil.

They are all gone into the world of light!
And I alone sit lingering here;
Their very memory is fair and bright,
And my sad thoughts doth clear.

It glows and glitters in my cloudy breast,
Like stars upon some gloomy grove,

Or those faint beams in which this hill is drest,
After the sun's remove.

I see them walking in an air of glory,

Whose light doth trample on my days:
My days, which are at best but dull and hoary,
Mere glimmering and decays.

O holy Hope! and high Humility,

High as the heavens above!

These are your walks, and you have shew'd them me,

To kindle my cold love.

Dear, beauteous Death! the jewel of the just,

Shining no where, but in the dark;

What mysteries do lie beyond thy dust;

Could man outlook that mark!

He that hath found some fledg'd birds' nest, may know

At first sight, if the bird be flown;

But what fair well or grove he sings in now,
That is to him unknown.

And yet as angels in some brighter dreams

Call to the soul, when man doth sleep:

So some strange thoughts transcend our wonted themes And into glory peep.

If a star were confin'd into a tomb,

The captive flames must needs burn there;
But when the hand that lock'd her up, gives room,
She'll shine through all the sphere.

O Father of eternal life, and all

Created glories under Thee!

Resume thy spirit from this world of thrall

Into true liberty.

Either disperse these mists, which blot and fill
My perspective-still-as they pass:

Or else remove me hence unto that hill,
Where I shall need no glass.

JAMES SHIRLEY.

[SHIRLEY was born in London about the year 1596, and lived through the Civil War and Commonwealth into the Restoration, dying in 1667. His copious dramatic activity began in 1625, in which year he produced the comedy entitled Love's Tricks. Before this, in 1618, he had published an imitation of Venus and Adonis under the title of Echo. His plays were produced in rapid succession up to 1641. In 1646 he published a volume of poems, chiefly erotic, and two small volumes of Masques etc. in 1653 and 1659.]

Shirley was essentially an imitative not an original genius. His claim to a place among the great poets of his age rests solely upon his wonderful manipulative dexterity, his power of assimilating and reshaping the creations of his great predecessors. Towards the close of a grand period, perhaps even while its leading spirits are in full creative swing, two distinct tendencies manifest themselves. Men of independent mind separate themselves from the main current, and cast about for fields which the masters have left unoccupied. Men of more pliant and docile intellect follow humbly in the footsteps of the masters, and seize freely upon the wealth which they have accumulated. Shirley belonged to the latter class. He did not try to invent new types, or to say what had not been said before; but stored his mind with the thoughts and the imagery of his predecessors, and reproduced them with joyous facility. We may admire the fluency, the elegance, and the force of Shirley's verse, the ease and naturalness of his dramatic situations, but the attentive reader of his predecessors is never called upon to admire anything new. Fletcher was his chief model and exemplar, but he laid them all freely under contribution. The chief critical pleasure in reading him is the pleasure of memory.

W. MINTO.