Stay, stay,

Until the hastening day

Has run

But to the even-song;

And having prayed together, we
Will go with you along!

We have short time to stay as you;
We have as short a spring;

As quick a growth to meet decay,

As you or anything:

We die,

As your hours do; and dry
Away

Like to the summer's rain,

Or as the pearls of morning-dew,
Ne'er to be found again.

TO PRIMROSES, FILLED WITH MORNING DEW.

WHY do ye weep, sweet babes? Can tears

Speak grief in you,

Who were but born

Just as the modest morn

Teemed her refreshing dew ?

Alas! you have not known that shower

That mars a flower,

Nor felt the unkind

Breath of a blasting wind;
Nor are ye worn with years,
Or warped as we,

Who think it strange to see
Such pretty flowers, like to orphans young,
Speaking by tears before ye have a tongue.

Speak, whimpering younglings, and make known

The reason why

Ye droop and weep;

Is it for want of sleep,

Or childish lullaby ?

Or that ye have not seen as yet

The violet?

Or brought a kiss

From that sweet heart to this?

No, no; this sorrow shown
By your tears shed,

Would have this lecture read

"That things of greatest, so of meanest worth,
Conceived with grief are, and with tears brought forth."

GEORGE HERBERT.

George Herbert was a clergyman whom a few felicitous poems and a saintly life have made immortal in the religious world. "Holy George Herbert" is the reverent and affectionate title by which he was known. He was born in 1593, and died in 1632. A memoir of him is included in the well-known "Lives" by Izaak Walton. Much as we admire the sweet serenity of some of the stanzas, we can but wonder at the tasteless comparison to "seasoned timber" in the last. Similar inequalities are found in all his poems.

SUNDAY.

O DAY most calm, most bright!
The fruit of this, the next world's bud,
The indorsement of supreme delight,
Writ by a Friend, and with his blood;
The couch of time, care's balm and bay;
The week were dark, but for thy light;
Thy torch doth show the way.

The other days and thou
Make up one man; whose face thou art,
Knocking at heaven with thy brow:
The workydays are the back-part;
The burden of the week lies there,
Making the whole to stoop and bow,
Till thy release appear.

Man had straight forward gone
To endless death: but thou dost pull
And turn us round, to look on One,
Whom, if, we were not very dull,

We could not choose but look on still;
Since there is no place so alone,
The which he doth not fill.

Sundays the pillars are,
On which heaven's palace archéd lies:
The other days fill up the spare
And hollow room with vanities.
They are the fruitful beds and borders
In God's rich garden: that is bare,

Which parts their ranks and orders.

The Sundays of man's life,
Threaded together on Time's string,
Make bracelets to adorn the wife
Of the eternal glorious King.
On Sunday heaven's gate stands ope;
Blessings are plentiful and rife -
More plentiful than hope.

This day my Saviour rose,
And did enclose this light for his;
That, as each beast his manger knows,
Man might not of his fodder miss.
Christ hath took in this piece of ground,
And made a garden there for those

Who want herbs for their wound.

Thou art a day of mirth:
And where the week-days trail on ground,
Thy flight is higher, as thy birth :
O let me take thee at the bound,
Leaping with thee from seven to seven,
Till that we both, being tossed from earth,
Fly hand in hand to heaven !

VIRTUE.

SWEET day! so cool, so calm, so bright,
The bridal of the earth and sky:
The dews shall weep thy fall to night;
For thou must die.

A

Sweet rose! whose hue, angry and brave,
Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye,
Thy root is ever in its grave,

And thou must die.

Sweet spring! full of sweet days and roses,
A box where sweets compacted lie,

Thy music shows ye have your closes,

And all must die.

Only a sweet and virtuous soul,

Like seasoned timber, never gives;

But, though the whole world turn to coal,

Then chiefly lives.

EDMUND WALLER.

Edmund Waller was born in 1605, and died in 1687. He inherited an ample fortune, and was long in public service, and, having no fixed principles, was on both sides of the great contest between the King and Commons. Nothing in his character or career calls for much attention from the student. His poems are now little read; for smooth versification is not so rare as it was two centuries ago, and mere polish is a poor substitute for manly feeling and noble thought.

A SONG.

Go, lovely rose !

Tell her that wastes her time and me,
That now she knows,

When I resemble her to thee,
How sweet and fair she seems to be.

Tell her, that's young,

And shuns to have her graces spied,
That, hadst thou sprung
In deserts, where no men abide,
Thou must have uncommended died.

Small is the worth

Of beauty from the light retired;
Bid her come forth,
Suffer herself to be desired,
And not blush so to be admired.

Then die! that she

The common fate of all things rare
May read in thee,
How small a part of time they share
That are so wondrous sweet and fair!

OLD AGE AND DEATH.

THE seas are quiet when the winds give o'er;
So calm are we when passions are no more.
For then we know how vain it was to boast
Of fleeting things, too certain to be lost.
Clouds of affection from our younger eyes
Conceal that emptiness which age descries.

The soul's dark cottage, battered and decayed,
Lets in new light through chinks that time has made:
Stronger by weakness, wiser men become,
As they draw near to their eternal home.
Leaving the old, both worlds at once they view,
That stand upon the threshold of the new.

Jeremy Taylor, probably the brightest ornament of the English church, was the son of a barber at Cambridge; born in 1613; was educated at Caius College, and was advanced to places of dignity on account of his brilliant talents and pure and noble life. He died in Ireland, in 1667, having been appointed Bishop of Down and Dromore upon the Restoration. His sermons, which are numerous, are still read with delight by the clergy, and by all educated men. They abound in felicitous images and apt quotations, and show an unaffected piety, a lively sensibility to the beauties of nature, together with a marvellous sense of melody in the construction of his exquisitely balanced sentences. But the many unworthy similes, the many forced allusions, and the too profuse display of Greek learning, that are visible in almost every sermon, are sufficient to deter all but resolute readers. The work by which he is most widely known in the Christian world is entitled "Holy Living and Dying."

ON PRAYER.

PRAYER is an action of likeness to the Holy Ghost, the spirit of gentleness and dove-like simplicity; an imitation of the Holy Jesus, whose spirit is meek, up to the greatness of the biggest example; and a conformity to God, whose anger is always just, and marches