When immelodious winds but made thee move,
And birds on thee their ramage did bestow.

Sith that dear voice which did thy sounds approve,
Which used in such harmonious strains to flow,
Is reft from earth to tune those spheres above,
What art thou but a harbinger of woe?

Thy pleasing notes be pleasing notes no more,
But orphan wailings to the fainting ear;

Each stop a sigh, each sound draws forth a tear;
Be therefore silent as in woods before:

Or if that any hand to touch thee deign,
Like widow'd turtle still her loss complain.

TO THE NIGHTINGALE.

Sweet bird, that sing'st away the early hours,
Of winters past or coming void of care,

Wel! pleased with delights which present are,

Fair seasons, budding sprays, sweet-smelling flowers
To rocks, to springs, to rills, from leafy bowers
Thou thy Creator's goodness dost declare,
And what dear gifts on thee he did not spare,
A stain to human sense in sin that lowers.
What soul can be so sick, which by thy songs

(Attired in sweetness) sweetly is not driven
Quite to forget earth's turmoils, spites, and wrongs,
And lift a reverent eye and thought to heaven?
Sweet artless songster, thou my mind dost raise
To airs of spheres, yes, and to angel's lays.

RICHARD CRASHAW. Died 1650.1

RICHARD CRASHAW, a religious poet, an accomplished scholar, and a power ful and popular preacher, was born in London, but the date of his birth is unknown. His father was an author, and a preacher of the Temple church, London. He took his degree at Cambridge, where he published his sacred poems of "Steps to the Temple." In the year 1644 he was ejected from his living on refusing to subscribe to the Covenant, and soon afterwards he professed his faith in the Roman Church. Through the influence of his friend Cowley, the poet, he was introduced to the exiled Queen Henrietta, who obtained for him a small office at Rome, where he died about the year 1650. The poems of Crashaw are not much known, but they "display delicate fancy, great tenderness, and singular beauty of diction." "He has," says Headley, "originality in many parts, and as a translator is entitled to the highest praise.2 To his attainments, which were numerous and elegant, all nis biographers have borne witness." The lines on a prayer-book, Coleridge considers one of the best poems in our language.

1 Poet and Saint! to thee alone are given

The two most sacred names of earth and heaven.-COWLEY. 2 Pope, in his "Eloisa to Abelard, has borrowed largely from this poet.

LINES ON A PRAYER-BOOK SENT TO MRS. R.
Lo! here a little volume, but large book,
(Fear it not, sweet,
It is no hypocrite,)

Much larger in itself than in its look.
It is, in one rich handful, heaven and all-
Heaven's royal hosts encamp'd thus small;
To prove that true, schools used to tell,

A thousand angels in one point can dwell

It is love's great artillery,

Which here contracts itself, and comes to lie

Close couch'd in your white bosom, and from thence. As from a snowy fortress of defence,

Against the ghostly foe to take your part,

And fortify the hold of your chaste heart.
It is the armory of light:

Let constant use but keep it bright,
You'll find it yields

To holy hands and humble hearts,
More swords and shields

Than sin hath snares or hell hath darts.

Wakeful and wise,

Here is a friend shall fight for you.
Hold but this book before your heart,
Let prayer alone to play his part.
But oh! the heart

That studies this high art

Must be a sure housekeeper,

And yet no sleeper.

Dear soul, be strong,

Mercy will come ere long,

And bring her bosom full of blessings--
Flowers of never-fading graces,

To make immortal dressings,

For worthy souls whose wise embraces
Store up themselves for Him who is alone
The spouse of virgins, and the virgin's son.

But if the noble Bridegroom, when He come,
Shall find the wandering heart from home,
Leaving her chaste abode

To gad abroad

Amongst the gay mates of the god of flies;'
To take her pleasure and to play,

And keep the devil's holiday;

To dance in the sunshine of some smiling
But beguiling

Sphere of sweet and sugar'd lies;

1 Beelzebub.

The following is a portion of his version of the twenty-third Psaim: "Thongh I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil." It is highly spirited and beautiful.

Come now all ye terrors, sally,

Muster forth into the valley

Where triumphant darkness hovers
With a sable wing, that covers

Brooding Horror. Come, thou Death,
Let the damps of thy dull breath
Overshadow e'en the shade,
And make darkness' self afraid:
There my feet, e'en there shall find
Way for a resolved mind.

Still my Shepherd, still my Gorl,
Thou art with me, still thy rod
And thy staff, whose influence

Gives direction, gives defence.

PHINEAS FLETCHER. 1584-1650.

PHINEAS FLETCHER was the brother of Giles Fletcher, and born about the year 1584. He took his degree at Cambridge, and after completing his studies for the ministry, was presented with the living of Hilgay, in Norfolk, in 1621, which he held for twenty-nine years; and it is supposed that he died there in 1650.

His chief poem is entitled "The Purple Island," which title, on being first heard, would suggest ideas totally different from what is its real subject. The truth is, it is a sort of anatomical poem, the "Purple Island" being nothing less than the human body, the veins and arteries of which are filled with the purple fluid coursing up and down; so that the first part of the poem, which is anatomically descriptive, is not a little dry and uninteresting. But after describing the body, he proceeds to personify the passions and intellectual faculties. "Here," says Headley, "fatigued attention is not merely relieved, but fascinated and enraptured; there is a boldness of outline, a majesty of manner, a brilliancy of coloring, and an air of life, that we look for in vain in modern productions, and that rival, if not surpass, what we meet with of the kind even in Spenser, from whom our author caught his inspiration." This is rather extravagant, and yet a few passages can be selected from Phineas Fletcher, that, for beauty, are scarcely exceeded by any poetry in the language.

THE SHEPHERD'S LIFE.1

Thrice, oh thrice happy, shepherd's life and state,
When courts are happiness' unhappy pawns!

His cottage low, and safely humble gate

Shuts out proud Fortune, with her scorns and fawns:
No feared treason breaks his quiet sleep:

Singing all day, his flocks he learns to keep;
Himself as innocent as are his simple sheep.

No Serian worms he knows, that with their thread
Draw out their silken lives; nor silken pride:
His lambs' warm fleece well fits his little need,
Not in that proud Sidonian tincture dyed:

No empty hopes, no courtly fears him fright;
Nor begging wants his middle fortune bite:
But sweet content exiles both misery and spite.

Instead of music and base flattering tongues,
Which wait to first salute my lord's uprise;
The cheerful lark wakes him with early songs,
And birds' sweet whistling notes unlock his eyes:
In country plays is all the strife he uses,
Or sing, or dance unto the rural Muses;
And, but in music's sports, all difference refuses.

1 These beautiful lines seem to have suggested the plan of that most exquisite little piece called The Hamlet by Thomas Warton, which contains a selection of beautiful rural images, such as perhaps to other poem of equal length in our language presents us with. See it in the selections from Warton.

His certain life, that never can deceive him,

Is full of thousand sweets and rich content:

The smooth-leaved beeches in the field receive him
With coolest shades, till noontide's rage is spent:
His life is neither tost in boisterous seas

Of troublous world, nor lost in slothful ease:

Pleased and full bless'd he lives, when he his God can please

His bed of wool yields safe and quiet sleeps,
While by his side his faithful spouse hath place:
His little son into his bosom creeps,

The lively picture of his father's face:

Never his humble house or state torment him;

Less he could like, if less his God had sent him;

And when he dies, green turfs with grassy tomb content him

ENVY.1

Envy the next, Envy with squinted eyes;

Sick of a strange disease, his neighbor's health;
Best lives he then, when any better dies;

Is never poor, but in another's wealth:

On best men's harms and griefs he feeds his fill;
Else his own maw doth eat with spiteful will:

Ill must the temper be, where diet is so ill.

Each eye through divers optics slyly leers,
Which both his sight and object's self belie;

So greatest virtue as a moat appears,

And molehill faults to mountains multiply.

When needs he must, yet faintly, then he praises;

Somewhat the deed, much more the means he raises
So marreth what he makes, and praising, most dispraises.

DECAY OF HUMAN GREATNESS

Fond man, that looks on earth for happiness,
And here long seeks what here is never found!
For all our good we hold from Heaven by lease,
With many forfeits and conditions bound.
Nor can we pay the fine, and rentage due;
Though now but writ, and seal'd, and given anew,
Yet daily we it break, then daily must renew.

Why shouldst thou here look for perpetual good,
At every loss against Heaven's face repining?

Do but behold where glorious cities stood,

With gilded tops and silver turrets shining;
There now the hart fearless of greyhound feeds,

And loving pelican in safety breeds:

There screeching satyrs fill the people's empty steads,2

Where is th' Assyrian lion's golden hide,

That all the East once grasp'd in lordly paw?

1 "In his description of Envy, Fletcher is superior to Spenser."--Retrospective Review ii. 343. 2 Places.