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DR. HENRY KING. 1591-1669.

SIC VITA.

LIKE to the falling of a star,
Or as the flights of eagles are;
Or like the fresh spring's gaudy hue,
Or silver drops of morning dew;
Or like the wind that chafes the flood,
Or bubbles which on water stood:
Ev'n such is man, whose borrow'd light
Is straight call'd in, and paid to night.
The wind blows out, the bubble dies;
The spring entomb'd in autumn lies:
The dew dries up, the star is shot;
The flight is past-and man forgot.

THE DIRGE.

WHAT is the existence of man's life
But open war or slumber'd strife?
Where sickness to his sense presents
The combat of the elements,
And never feels a perfect peace
Till death's cold hand signs his release.

It is a storm-where the hot blood
Outvies in rage the boiling flood:
And each loud passion of the mind
Is like a furious gust of wind,

Which beats the bark with many a wave,
Till he casts anchor in the grave.

It is a flower-which buds, and grows,
And withers, as the leaves disclose;
Whose spring and fall faint seasons keep,
Like fits of waking before sleep,
Then slips into that fatal mould
Where its first being was enroll'd.

It is a dream-whose seeming truth
Is moralized in age and youth;
Where all the comforts he can share
As wand'ring as his fancies are,
Till in a mist of dark decay
The dreamer vanish quite away.

It is a dial-which points out
The sunset as it moves about;
And shadows out in lines of night
The subtle stages of Time's flight,
Till all-obscuring earth hath laid
His body in perpetual shade.

It is a weary interlude

Which doth short joys, long woes, include:
The world the stage, the prologue tears;
The acts vain hopes and varied fears;
The scene shuts up with loss of breath,
And leaves no epilogue but Death!

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HENCE, loathed Melancholy,

Of Cerberus and blackest Midnight born,

In Stygian cave forlorn,

'Mongst horrid shapes, and shrieks, and sights un

Find out some uncouth cell,

[holy!

Where brooding Darkness spreads his jealous

And the night-raven sings;

[wings,

There underebon shades, and low-brow'd rocks,

As ragged as thy locks,

In dark Cimmerian desert ever dwell.

But come, thou goddess fair and free,
In heaven ycelp'd Euphrosyne,
And by men heart-easing Mirth;
Whom lovely Venus at a birth,
With two sister Graces more,
To ivy-crowned Bacchus bore:
Or whether (as some sages sing)
The frolic wind that breathes the spring,
Zephyr with Aurora playing,

As he met her once a-maying;
There on beds of violets blue,
And fresh-blown roses wash'd in dew,
Fill'd her with thee, a daughter fair,
So buxom, blithe, and debonair.

Haste thee, nymph, and bring with thee Jest and youthful jollity,

Quips, and cranks, and wanton wiles,
Nods, and becks, and wreathed smiles,
Such as hang on Hebe's cheek,
And love to live in dimple sleek:
Sport that wrinkled Care derides,
And Laughter holding both his sides.
Come, and trip it, as you go,
On the light fantastic toe;

And in thy right hand lead with thee
The mountain-nymph, sweet Liberty;
And, if I give thee honour due,
Mirth, admit me of thy crew,
To live with her and live with thee,
In unreproved pleasures free.
To hear the lark begin his flight,
And, singing, startle the dull night,
From his watch-tower in the skies,
Till the dappled dawn doth rise;
Then to come, in spite of sorrow,
And at my window bid good-morrow,
Through the sweet-brier, or the vine,
Or the twisted eglantine:

While the cock, with lively din,
Scatters the rear of darkness thin,
And to the stack or the barn-door
Stoutly struts his dames before;
Oft listening how the hounds and horn
Cheerly rouse the slumbering morn,
From the side of some hoar hill,
Through the high wood echoing shrill.
Some time walking, not unseen,
By hedge-row elms, on hillocks green,
Right against the eastern gate
Where the great Sun begins his state,
Robed in flames and amber light,
The clouds in thousand liveries dight;
While the ploughman, near at hand,
Whistles o'er the furrow'd land,
And the milkmaid singeth blithe,
And the mower whets his scythe,
And every shepherd tells his tale
Under the hawthorn in the dale.

Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures
Whilst the landscape round it measures;

Russet lawns and fallows gray,

Where the nibbling flocks do stray;
Mountains, on whose barren breast
The labouring clouds do often rest;
Meadows trim with daisies pied,
Shallow brooks and rivers wide:
Towers and battlements it sees
Bosom'd high in tufted trees,
Where perhaps some beauty lies,
The cynosure of neighbouring eyes.
Hard by a cottage chimney smokes,
From betwixt two aged oaks,
Where Corydon and Thyrsis, met,
Are at their savoury dinner set,
Of herbs and other country messes,
Which the neat-handed Phillis dresses;

And then in haste her bower she leaves,
With Thestylis to bind the sheaves;
Or, if the earlier season lead,

To the tann'd haycock in the mead.
Sometimes with secure delight
The upland hamlets will invite,
When the merry bells ring round,
And the jocund rebecks sound
To many a youth and many a maid,
Dancing in the checker'd shade;
And young and old come forth to play
On a sunshine holyday,

Till the livelong daylight fail :
Then to the spicy nut-brown ale,
With stories told of many a feat,
How faery Mab the junkets eat;
She was pinch'd and pull'd, she said;
And he, by friar's lantern led,

Tells how the drudging goblin sweat
To earn his cream-bowl duly set,
When in one night, ere glimpse of morn,
His shadowy flail hath thresh'd the corn,
That ten day-labourers could not end;
Then lies him down the lubber fiend,
And, stretch'd out all the chimney's length,
Basks at the fire his hairy strength;
And crop-full out of door he flings,
Ere the first cock his matin rings.
Thus done the tales, to bed they creep,
By whispering winds soon lull'd asleep.
Tower'd cities please us then,

And the busy hum of men,

Where throngs of knights and barons bold,
In weeds of peace high triumphs hold,
With store of ladies, whose bright eyes
Rain influence, and judge the prize
Of wit or arms, while both contend
To win her grace whom all commend.

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