Such music (as 'tis said)
Before was never made,

But when of old the sons of morning sung,
While the Creator great

His constellations set,

The lonely mountains o'er,

And the resounding shore,

A voice of weeping heard and loud lament; From haunted spring and dale,

Edg'd with poplar pale,

The parting genius is with sighing sent; [keep. With flower-inwoven tresses torn,

And the well-balanc'd world on hinges hung; And cast the dark foundations, deep,

And bid the weltering waves their oozy channel

Ring out, ye crystal spheres,
Once bless our human ears,

If ye have power to touch our senses so;
And let your silver chime

Move in melodious time;

And let the base of Heaven's deep organ blow; And with your ninefold harmony,

Make up full consort to the angelic symphony.

For, if such holy song
Enwrap our fancy long,

Time will run back, and fetch the age of gold; And speckled Vanity

Will sicken soon and die,

And leprous Sin will melt from earthly mould;

And Hell itself will pass away,

[mourn. The nymphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets In consecrated earth,

The Lars, and Lemures, moan with midnight In urns, and altars round,

A drear and dying sound

Affrights the Flamens at their service quaint;
And the chill marble seems to sweat,

While each peculiar Power foregoes his wonted seat-
Peor and Baälim

Forsake their temples dim,

With that twice-batter'd god of Palestine;
And mooned Ashtaroth,

Heaven's queen and mother both,

Now sits not girt with taper's holy shine;
The Libyc Hammon shrinks his horn,

[mourn

And leave her dolorous mansions to the peering day. In vain the Tyrian maids their wounded Thammuz

Yea, Truth and Justice then

Will down return to men,

Orb'd in a rainbow; and, like glories wearing, Mercy will sit between,

Thron'd in celestial sheen,

With radiant feet the tissued clouds down steering;

And Heaven, as at some festival,

And sullen Moloch, fled,

Hath left in shadows dread

His burning idol all of blackest hue-;

In vain with cymbals' ring

They call the grisly king,

In dismal dance about the furnace blue ::
The brutish gods of Nile as fast,

Will open wide the gates of her high palace hall. Isis, and Orus, and the dog Anubis, haste.

The wakeful trump of doom must thunder through The sable-stoled sorcerers bear his worshipt ark.

But now begins; for, from this happy day, The old Dragon, under ground

In straiter limits bound,

Not half so far casts his usurped sway;
And, wroth to see his kingdom fail,
Swinges the scaly horror of his folded tail.

The oracles are dumb,

No voice or hideous hum

Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving. Apollo from his shrine

Can no more divine,

With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving. No nightly trance, or breathed spell,

g

Pillows his chin upon an orient wave,

The flocking shadows pale

Troop to the infernal jail,

Each fetter'd ghost slips to his several' grave; And the yellow-skirted' Fayes

[maze.

Fly after the night-steeds, leaving their moon-lov'd

But see, the Virgin blest

Hath laid her babe to rest;

Time is, our tedious song should here have ending: Heaven's youngest-teemed star

Hath fix'd her polish'd car,

Her sleeping Lord with handmaid lamp attending And all about the courtly stable

Inspires the pale-ey'd priests from the prophetic cell. Bright-harness'd angels sit in order serviceable..

EDMUND WALLER.

EDMUND WALLER, born at Coleshill, Hertford

H

Waller had a brother-in-law, named Tomkyns shire, in March, 1605, was the son of Robert Wal- who was clerk of the queen's council, and possessler, Esq., a gentleman of an ancient family and good ed great influence in the city among the warm fortune, who married a sister of the celebrated John loyalists. On consulting together, they thought it Hampden. The death of his father during his infancy would be possible to raise a powerful party, which left him heir to an estate of 3500l. a year, at that might oblige the parliament to adopt pacific measperiod an ample fortune. He was educated first at ures, by resisting the payment of the taxes levied Eton, whence he was removed to King's College for the support of the war. About this time Sir in Cambridge. His election to parliament was as Nicholas Crispe formed a design of more dangerous early as between his sixteenth or seventeenth year; import, which was that of exciting the king's and it was not much later that he made his appear- friends in the city to an open resistance of the auance as a poet and it is remarkable that a copy of thority of parliament; and for that purpose he obverses which he addressed to Prince Charles, in his tained a commission of array from his majesty. eighteenth year, exhibits a style and character of This plan appears to have been originally unconversification as perfectly formed as those of his nected with the other; yet the commission was maturest productions. He again served in parlia-made known to Waller and Tomkyns, and the whole ment before he was of age; and he continued his was compounded into a horrid and dreadful plot. services to a later period. Not insensible of the Waller and Tomkyns were apprehended, when the value of wealth, he augmented his paternal fortune pusillanimity of the former disclosed the whole by marriage with a rich city heiress. In the long secret. "He was so confounded with fear," (says intermissions of parliament which occurred after Lord Clarendon,) "that he confessed whatever he 1628, he retired to his mansion of Beaconsfield, had heard, said, thought, or seen, all that he knew where he continued his classical studies, under the of himself, and all that he suspected of others, withdirection of his kinsman Morley, afterwards bishop out concealing any person, of what degree or qualiof Winchester; and he obtained admission to a ty soever, or any discourse which he had ever upon society of able men and polite scholars, of whom any occasion entertained with them." The concluLord Falkland was the connecting medium. sion of this business was, that Tomkyns, and Cha

Waller became a widower at the age of twenty-loner, another conspirator, were hanged, and that five: he did not, however, spend much time in Waller was expelled the House, tried, and conmourning, but declared himself the suitor of Lady demned; but after a year's imprisonment, and a fine Dorothea Sydney, eldest daughter of the Earl of of ten thousand pounds, was suffered to go into Leicester, whom he has immortalized under the exile. He chose Rouen for his first place of foreign poetical name of Saccharissa. She is described by exile, where he lived with his wife till his removal him as a majestic and scornful beauty; and he to Paris. In that capital he maintained the appearseems to delight more in her contrast, the gentler ance of a man of fortune, and entertained hospitaAmoret, who is supposed to have been a Lady So- bly, supporting this style of living chiefly by the phia Murray. Neither of these ladies, however, sale of his wife's jewels. At length, after the lapse was won by his poetic strains; and, like another of ten years, being reduced to what he called his man, he consoled himself in a second marriage. rump jewel, he thought it time to apply for perWhen the king's necessities compelled him, in mission to return to his own country. He obtained 1640, once more to apply to the representatives this license, and was also restored to his estate, of the people, Waller, who was returned for Ag- though now diminished to half its former rental. mondesham, decidedly took part with the members Here he fixed his abode, at a house built by himwho thought that the redress of grievances should self, at Beaconsfield; and he renewed his courtly precede a vote for supplies; and he made an ener- strains by adulation to Cromwell, now Protector, getic speech on the occasion. He continued during to whom his mother was related. To this usurper three years to vote in general with the Opposition the noblest tribute of his muse was paid. in the Long Parliament, but did not enter into all When Charles II. was restored to the crown, their measures. In particular, he employed much and past character was lightly regarded, the stains cool argument against the proposal for the abolition of that of Waller were forgotten, and his wit and of Episcopacy; and he spoke with freedom and poetry procured him notice at court, and admission severity against some other plans of the House. to the highest circles. He had also sufficient inIn fact, he was at length become a zealous loyalist terest to obtain a seat in the House of Commons, in his inclinations; and his conduct under the dif- in all the parliaments of that reign. The king's ficulties into which this attachment involved him gracious manners emboldened him to ask for the became a source of his indelible disgrace. A short vacant place of provost of Eton college, which was narrative will suffice for the elucidation of this granted him; but Lord Clarendon, then Lord Chancellor, refused to set the seal to the grant, alleging

maiter.

that by the statutes laymen were excluded from died at Beaconsfield in October, 1687, the 83d year that provostship. This was thought the reason why of his age. He left several children by his second Waller joined the Duke of Buckingham, in his wife, of whom, the inheritor of his estate, Edmund, hostility against Clarendon. after representing Agmondesham in parliament, became a convert to Quakerism.

On the accession of James II., Waller, then in his 80th year, was chosen representative for Saltash. Waller was one of the earliest poets, who obHaving now considerably passed the usual limit of tained reputation by the sweetness and sonorousness human life, he turned his thoughts to devotion, and of his strains; and there are perhaps few masters composed some divine poems, the usual task in at the present day who surpass him in this parwhich men of gaiety terminate their career. He ticular.

TO AMORET.

FAIR! that you may truly know,
What you unto Thyrsis owe;
I will tell you how I do
Sacharissa love, and you.

Joy salutes me, when I set
'My blest eyes on Amoret:
But with wonder I am strook,
While I on the other look.

If sweet Amoret complains,
I have sense of all her pains:
But for Sacharissa I

Do not only grieve, but die.
All that of myself is mine,
Lovely Amoret! is thine,
Sacharissa's captive fain
Would untie his iron chain;

And, those scorching beams to shun,
To thy gentle shadow run.

If the soul had free election
To dispose of her affection;

I would not thus long have borne
Haughty Sacharissa's scorn:
But 'tis sure some power above,
Which controls our wills in love!
If not a love, a strong desire
To create and spread that fire
In my breast, solicits me,
Beauteous Amoret! for thee.

"Tis amazement more than love,
Which her radiant eyes do move:
If less splendor wait on thine,
Yet they so benignly shine,
I would turn my dazzled sight
To behold their milder light.
But as hard 'tis to destroy
That high flame, as to enjoy:
Which how eas❜ly I may do,
Heaven (as eas'ly scal'd) does know!
Amoret! as sweet and good
As the most delicious food,
Which, but tasted, does impart
Life and gladness to the heart.
Sacharissa's beauty's wine,
Which to madness doth incline:
Such a liquor, as no brain
That is mortal can sustain.
Scarce can I to Heaven excuse
The devotion, which I use

Unto that adored dame:

For 'tis not unlike the same,
Which I thither ought to send.
So that if it could take end,
"Twould to Heaven itself be due,
To succeed her, and not you:
Who already have of me
All that's not idolatry:

Which, though not so fierce a flame,
Is longer like to be the same.

Then smile on me, and I will prove
Wonder is shorter-liv'd than love.

TO AMORET.

AMORET, the Milky Way,

Fram'd of many nameless stars!

The smooth stream, where none can say,
He this drop to that prefers!

Amoret, my lovely foe!

Tell me where thy strength does lie?
Where the power that charms us so?
In thy soul, or in thy eye?

By that snowy neck alone,

Or thy grace in motion seen,
No such wonders could be done;

Yet thy waist is straight, and clean,
As Cupid's shaft, or Hermes' rod :
And powerful too, as either god.

OF LOVE.

ANGER, in hasty words, or blows,
Itself discharges on our foes;
And sorrow too finds some relief
In tears, which wait upon our grief:
So every passion but fond love,
Unto its own redress does move:
But that alone the wretch inclines
To what prevents his own designs;
Makes him lament, and sigh, and weep,
Disorder'd, tremble, fawn, and creep;
Postures which render him despis'd,
Where he endeavors to be priz'd: