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Sweet spring! full of sweet days and roses

A box where sweets compacted lie-
My music shows ye have your closes,

And all must die.

Only a sweet and virtuous soul,

Like season'd timber, never gives;
But though the whole world turn to coal,
Then chiefly lives.

GEORGE HERBERT, 1593-1632.

FROM THE "HOLY DYING."

But as when the sun approaches toward the gates of the morning, he first opens a little eye of heaven, and sends away the spirits of darkness, and gives light to a cock, and calls up the lark to matins, and by-and-by gilds the fringes of a cloud, and peeps over the eastern hills, thrusting out his golden horns-like those which decked the brows of Moses, when he was forced to wear a vail, because himself had seen the face of God; and still, while a man tells the story, the sun gets up higher till he shows a fair face and full light, and then he shines one whole day, under a cloud often, and sometimes weeping great and little showers, and sets quickly: so is a man's reason and his life."

BISHOP JEREMY TAYLOR.

SIMILE.

As when the cheerful sun elamping wide,
Glads all the world with his uprising ray,

And woos the widowed earth afresh to pride,
And paints her bosom with the flowery May-
His silent sister steals him quite way.

Wrapp'd in a sable cloud, from mortal eyes

The hasty stars at noon begin to rise,

And headlong to his early roost the sparrow flies.

But soon as he again disshadowed is,

Restoring the blind world his blemish'd sight-
As though another world were newly his;
The cozened birds busily take their flight,
And wonder at the shortness of the night,

So Mercy once again herself displays,
Out from her sister's cloud, and open lays

Those sunshine looks, whose beams would dim a thousand days

GILES FLETCHER.

THE SUN.

But yonder comes the powerful King of Day,
Rejoicing in the east. The lessening cloud,
The kindling azure, and the mountain's brow,
Illum'd with fluid gold, his near approach
Betoken glad. Lo! now apparent all,

Aslant the dew-bright earth, and colored air,
He looks in boundless majesty abroad,

And sheds the shining day, that burnish'd plays
On rocks, and hills, and towers, and wandering streams,
High-gleaming from afar. Prime cheerer, light!
Of all material beings, first and best!

Efflux divine! Nature's resplendent robe!
Without whose vesting beauty all were wrapp'd
In unessential gloom; and thou, O Sun,
Soul of surrounding worlds! in whom best seen
Shines out thy Maker! may I sing of thee?

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The vegetable world is also thine,

Parent of Seasons! who the pomp precede

That waits thy throne, as through thy vast domain.
Annual, along the bright ecliptic road,

In world-rejoicing state, it moves sublime.
Meantime th' expecting nations, circled gay
With all the various tribes of foodful earth,
Implore thy bounty, or send grateful up

A common hymn; while 'round thy beaming car,
High seen, the seasons lead in sprightly dance.
Harmonious limit; the rosy-finger'd hours,
The zephyrs floating loose, the timely rains,
Of bloom ethereal the light-footed dews,
And, softened into joy, the surly storms.
Here, in successive turn, with lavish hand

.Shower every beauty, every fragrance shower,

Herbs, flowers, and fruits; till, kindling at thy touch,

From land to land is flush'd the vernal year.

JAMES THOMSON, 1700-1749.

THE SUN.

Thou lookest on the earth, and then it smiles;

Thy light is hid, and all things droop and mourn. Laughs the wild sea around her budding isles,

When through their heaven thy changing car is borne; Thou wheel'st away thy flight, the woods are shorn Of all their waving locks, and storms awake

All that was once so beautiful is torn

By the wild winds which plow the lonely lake,

And in their maddening rush the crested mountains shake.

The earth lies buried in a shroud of snow;
Life lingers and would die, but thy return
Gives to their gladden'd hearts an overflow

Of all the power that brooded in the urn

Of their chill'd frames, and then they proudly spurn All bands that would confine, and give to air

Hues, fragrance, shapes of beauty, till they burn,

When, on a dewy morn, thou dartest there

Rich waves of gold to wreathe with fairer light the fair.

The vales are thine; and when the touch of spring
Thrills them, and gives them gladness in thy light,

They glitter as the glancing swallow's wing

Dashes the water in his winding flight,

And leaves behind a wave that crumbles bright,

And widens outward to the pebbled shore

The vales are thine; and when they wake from night,

The dews that bend the grass-tips, twinkling o'er
Their soft and oozy beds, look upward, and adore.

The hills are thine; they catch the newest beam,
And gladden in thy parting, where the wood
Flames out in every leaf, and drinks the stream
That flows from out thy fullness, as a flood
Bursts from an unknown land, and rolls the food

Of nations in its waters; so thy rays

Flow and give brighter tints than ever bud,

When a clear sheet of ice reflects a blaze

Of many twinkling gems, as every gloss'd bough plays.

Thine are the mountains, where they purely lift
Snows that have never wasted in a sky
Which hath no stain; below the storm may drift
Its darkness, and the thunder-gust roar by;
Aloft in thy eternal smile they lie,

Dazzling, but cold; thy farewell glance looks there;
And when below thy hues of beauty die,

Girt round them, as a rosy belt, they bear
Into the high, dark vault a brow that still is fair.

JAMES G. PERCIVAL

DELIGHT IN GOD.

I love, and have some cause to love, the earth;
She is my Maker's creature, therefore good.
She is my mother, for she gave me birth.

She is my tender nurse; she gives me food.
But what's a creature, Lord, compar'd to thee?

Or what's my mother or my nurse to me?

I love the air; her dainty sweets refresh

My drooping soul, and to new sweets invite me;
Her shrill-mouth'd choir sustains me with their flesh,
And with their polyphonian notes delight me.
But what's the air, or all the sweets that she
Can bless my soul withal, compar'd to thee?

I love the sea; she is my fellow-creature

My careful purveyor; she provides me store;
She walls me round; she makes my diet greater;
She wafts my treasure from a foreign shore.
But, Lord of oceans, when compar'd with thee,
What is the ocean, or her wealth to me?

To heaven's high city I direct my journey,
Whose spangled suburbs entertain mine eye;
Mine eye, by contemplation's great attorney,
Transcends the crystal pavement of the sky.
But what is heav'n, great God, compar'd to thec?
Without thy presence, heaven's no heaven to me.

Without thy presence, earth gives no reflection;
Without thy presence, sea affords no treasure ;
Without thy presence, air's a rank infection;

Without thy presence, heav'n's itself no pleasure;

If not possess'd, if not enjoy'd in thee,
What's earth, or sea, or air, or heav'n to me?

The highest honors that the world can boast

Are subjects far too low for my desire;
The brightest beams of glory are, at most,
But dying sparkles of thy living fire.
The loudest flames that earth can kindle, be
But nightly glow-worms if compar'd to thee.
Without thy presence, wealth is bags of cares;
Wisdom, but folly; joy, disquiet-sadness:
Friendship is treason, and delights are snares;
Pleasures but pain, and mirth but pleasing madness.
Without thee, Lord, things be not what they be,
Nor have they being, when compar'd with thee.

In having all things, and not thee, what have I ?
Not having thee, what have my labors got ?
Let me enjoy but thee, what further crave I ?
And having thee alone, what have I not?

I wish nor sea, nor land, nor would I be

Possess'd of heav'n, heav'n unpossess'd of thee!

FRANCIS QUARLES, 1592-1664.

NOON.

FROM THE SPANISH.

The sun, 'midst shining glory now concealed

Upon heaven's highest seat,

Darts straightway down upon the parched field,

His fierce and burning heat;

And on revolving noonday calls, that he

His flushed and glowing face

May show the world, and, rising from the sea,
Aurora's reign displace.

The wandering wind now rests his weary wings,

And, hushed in silence, broods;

And all the vocal choir of songsters sings

Among the whispering woods.

And sweetly warbling on his oaten pipe,
His own dear shepherd-maid,

The herd-boy leads along his flock of sheep
To the sequestered shade;

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