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III.

INVOCATION TO SLEEP. 1

Care-charming Sleep, thou easer of all woes,
Brother to Death, sweetly thyself dispose
On this afflicted prince; fall like a cloud
In gentle showers; give nothing that is loud
Or painful to his slumbers ;-easy, sweet,
And as a purling stream, thou son of night,
Pass by his troubled senses; sing his pain
Like hollow murmuring wind or silver rain;
Into this prince gently, oh, gently slide,
And kiss him into slumbers like a bride!

FROM 'THE QUEEN OF CORINTH.'
[By Fletcher.]

Weep no more, nor sigh, nor groan;
Sorrow calls no time that's gone;
Violets plucked the sweetest rain
Makes not fresh nor grow again;
Trim thy locks, look cheerfully;
Fate's hid ends eyes cannot see;
Joys as winged dreams fly fast,
Why should sadness longer last?
Grief is but a wound to woe;
Gentlest fair, mourn, mourn no mo.

FROM 'THE NICE VALOUR,'

[By Fletcher.]

Hence, all you vain delights,
As short as are the nights

Wherein you spend your folly!
There's nought in this life sweet,
If man were wise to see 't,

But only melancholy;
O sweetest melancholy!

Welcome, folded arms and fixed eyes,
A sigh that piercing mortifies,

A look that's fasten'd to the ground,
A tongue chain'd up without a sound!
Fountain heads and pathless groves,
Places which pale passion loves!
Moonlight walks, when all the fowls
Are warmly hous'd save bats and owls!
A midnight bell, a parting groan,
These are the sounds we feed upon;

Then stretch our bones in a still gloomy valley;
Nothing's so dainty sweet as lovely melancholy.

THOMAS DEKKER.

[IN a tract dated 1637, Dekker speaks of himself as a man of threescore years. This is the only clue to his age that has been discovered. He was born in London and apparently lived all his life there, as playwright, pamphleteer, and miscellaneous literary hack. His plays were published separately at various dates from 1600 to 1636. He frequently worked with other dramatists, Webster, Middleton, Massinger, Ford, etc.]

Dekker had several qualities which made him a desirable coadjutor in play-writing. He was a master of the craft of the stage. A man of quick sympathies, unconquerable buoyancy of spirit, infinite readiness and resource, he had lived among the people who filled the theatres, and took a genuine delight in moving them by the exhibition of common joys and sorrows. His whole heart went with his audience, and, though he had not the loftiness of aim of his greatest contemporaries, none of them had a finer dramatic instinct. He knew London as well as Dickens, and had something of the same affection for its oddities and its outcasts. The humour which lights up its miseries, the sunshine which plays over its tears, the simple virtues of the poor and unfortunate, patience, forgiveness, mirthfulness, were the favourite themes of this tender-hearted dramatist. His plays are full of life and movement, of pathos that is never maudlin and humour that is never harsh. Vice always gets the worst of it, hardness of heart above all never goes unpunished, but relenting leniency always comes in to keep retribution within gentle bounds. Virtue is always triumphant, but it is discovered in the most fantastic shapes and the least conventional habiliments. It needs some charity to tolerate such heroes and heroines as Simon Eyre, the mad shoemaker, Candido, the patient citizen, Orlando Friscobaldo, Bellafronta, and other types of strangely disguised goodness, but the dramatist's own love for them, with all their absurd eccen

tricities, is infectious. He laughs at them heartily, and carries us with him in his humour, but he knows how to change the key and soften laughter into tenderness.

Dekker's verse is naturally graceful and copious, keeping unforced pace with the abundance of matter supplied by his fertile invention. He was not a careful writer. He probably 'never blotted a line,' and one cannot read his plays without wishing that he had 'blotted a thousand.' His intellect had not the intense chemical energy of Shakespeare's, through which no thought could pass unchanged; and he did not strain after originality as some of his great compeers did, Webster, Jonson, Ford, and Chapman. He poured out in an easy stream whatever came readiest, and his best passages do not run far without being marred by some poor commonplace, tumbled out as it entered the mint, without any new stamp impressed upon it. It is in his songs, interspersed at too rare intervals through his plays, that Dekker appears at his best. He had the most exquisite gift of song. Few of his contemporaries had a harder life, but all the miscellaneous drudgery through which he had to toil for a precarious livelihood failed to destroy his elasticity and spirits, and his songs rise from the earth like bird-songs, clear, fresh, spontaneous. There is genuine lyrical rapture in the notes. Like most town-bred poets, he had a passion for the country, and his fancy is never more happy than when dwelling on rustic delights.

W. MINTO.

CONTENT.

[From Patient Grissil.]

Art thou poor, yet hast thou golden slumbers?
O sweet Content!

Art thou rich, yet is thy mind perplexed?
O Punishment!

Dost laugh to see how fools are vexed
To add to golden numbers golden numbers?

O sweet Content, O sweet, O sweet Content!

Work apace, apace, apace, apace,

Honest labour bears a lovely face.

Then hey noney, noney; hey noney, noney.

Canst drink the waters of the crisped spring?
O sweet Content!

Swim'st thou in wealth, yet sink'st in thine own tears?
O Punishment !

Then he that patiently Want's burden bears
No burden bears, but is a king, a king.

O sweet Content, O sweet, O sweet Content!

Work apace, apace, etc.

LULLABY.

[From Patient Grissil.]

Golden slumbers kiss your eyes,
Smiles awake you when you rise.
Sleep, pretty wantons, do not cry,
And I will sing a lullaby.

Rock them, rock them, lullaby.

Care is heavy, therefore sleep you.

You are care, and care must keep you.

Sleep, pretty wantons, do not cry,

And I will sing a lullaby,

Rock them, rock them, lullaby.

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