ON THE TOMBS IN WESTMINSTER.

MORTALITY, behold-and fear

What a change of flesh is here!
Think how many royal bones

Sleep within these heap of stones:
Here they lie, had realms and lands,

Who now want strength to stir their hands;
Where, from their pulpits seal'd with dust,
They preach-in greatness is no trust.
Here's an acre sown indeed
With the richest, royal'st seed,

That the earth did e'er suck in

Since the first man died for sin :

Here the bones of birth have cried,
Though gods they were, as men they died:
Here are sands, ignoble things,

Dropt from the ruin'd sides of kings.

Here's a world of pomp and state

Buried in dust, once dead by fate.

THOMAS CAREW.

BORN 1589; DIED 1639.

THIS author was one of the most accomplished gentlemen of the court of Charles I. In grace, playfulness, and polish, he excelled most of the contemporary versifiers: in the coldness of his conceits, the licentiousness of his language, and the entire absence of a noble object, he is but one among "the mob of gentlemen," who, in that age, wrote with ease." Besides his miscellaneous poems he wrote, by command of the king, a masque, entitled "Cœlum Britannicum;" which, in parts, rises to a higher strain than those elegant but often unworthy effusions of a mind capable of better things.

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THOMAS CAREW.

EPITAPH ON MARIA WENTWORTH,

DAUGHTER OF THE EARL OF CLEVELAND.

AND here the precious dust is laid, Whose purely temper'd clay was made So fine, that it the guest betray'd.

Else the soul grew so fast within,
It broke the outward shell of sin,
And so was hatch'd a cherubin.

In height, it soar'd to God above;
In depth, it did to knowledge move;
And spread, in length, to general love.

Before, a pious duty shin'd
To parents; courtesy, behind;
On either side an equal mind.

Good to the poor; to kindred dear; To servants kind; to friendship clear: To nothing but herself, severe.

So though a virgin, yet a bride
To every grace, she justified
A chaste polygamy-and died.

Learn from hence, reader, what small trust
We owe this world; where virtue must,
Frail as our flesh, crumble to dust.

TO MR. GEORGE SANDYS,

ON HIS TRANSLATION OF THE PSALMS.

I PRESS not to the choir, nor dare I greet
The holy place with my unhallowed feet;
My unwash'd muse pollutes not things divine,
Nor mingles her profaner notes with thine:
Here, humbly waiting at the porch, she stays,
And with glad ears sucks in thy sacred lays.
So, devout penitents of old were wont,

Some without door, and some beneath the font,
To stand and hear the church's liturgies,
Yet not assist the solemn exercise:

Sufficeth her, that she a lay-place gain,

To trim thy vestments, or but bear thy train : Though nor in tune, nor wing, she reach thy lark,

Her lyric feet may dance before the ark.

Who knows, but that her wandering eyes that

run,

Now hunting glow-worms, may adore the sun:
A pure flame may, shot by Almighty power
Into her breast, the earthly flame devour:
My eyes in penitential dew may steep

That brine, which they for sensual love did weep.
Perhaps my restless soul, tired with pursuit
Of mortal beauty, seeking without fruit

Contentment there, which hath not, when enjoy'd,
Quench'd all her thirst, nor satisfied, though cloy'd;