The jewels she, and the foil they,
So sweet to look Anne hath a way;
She hath a way,

Anne Hathaway;

To shame bright gems, Anne hath a way.

But were it to my fancy given

To rate her charms, I'd call them heaven;
For though a mortal made of clay,
Angels must love Anne Hathaway;
She hath a way so to control,
To rapture, the imprisoned soul,
And sweetest heaven on earth display,
That to be heaven Anne hath a way;

She hath a way,

Anne Hathaway;

To be heaven's self, Anne hath a way.

To nature, the best judge of what was fit;
The deepest, plainest, highest, clearest pen;
The voice most echoed by consenting men;
The soul which answered best to all well said
By others, and which most requital made;
Tuned to the highest key of ancient Rome,
Returning all her music with his own;
In whom, with nature, study claimed a part,
And yet who to himself owed all his art :
Here lies Ben Jonson! every age will look
With sorrow here, with wonder on his book.
JOHN CLEVELAND.

MILTON! thou shouldst be living at this hour:
England hath need of thee: she is a fen
Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen,
Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower,
Have forfeited their ancient English dower
Of inward happiness. We are selfish men;
Oh! raise us up, return to us again;
And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power.
Thy soul was like a star, and dwelt apart :
Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea:
Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free,
So didst thou travel on life's common way,
In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart
The lowliest duties on herself did lay.

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

TO THE MEMORY OF BEN JONSON.

THE Muse's fairest light in no dark time,
The wonder of a learned age; the line

Which none can pass the most proportioned wit,

This poem has sometimes, but surely without much reason, been attributed to Shakespeare.

ODE TO BEN JONSON.
Aн Ben!
Say how or when
Shall we, thy guests,
Meet at those lyric feasts,
Made at the Sun,

The Dog, the Triple Tun;
Where we such clusters had
As made us nobly wild, not mad;
And yet each verse of thine
Outdid the meat, outdid the frolic wine.

My Ben!

Or come again,

Or send to us

Thy wit's great overplus;

But teach us yet

Wisely to husband it,

Lest we that talent spend:

And having once brought to an end

That precious stock, the store

Of such a wit, the world should have no more.

ROBERT HERRICK

PRAYER TO BEN JONSON.

WHEN I a verse shall make,
Know I have prayed thee,
For old religion's sake,
Saint Ben, to aid me.

Make the way smooth for me,
When I, thy Herrick,

Honoring thee, on my knee
Offer my lyric.

Candles I'll give to thee,

And a new altar;

And thou, Saint Ben, shalt be

Writ in my psalter.

ROBERT HERRICK.

VENUS (loquitur). Paris, Anchises, and Adonis three,

Three only, did me ever naked see;
But this Praxiteles - when, where, did he?

SIR PHILIP SIDNEY.

A SWEET, attractive kind of grace,
A full assurance given by looks,
Continual comfort in a face,

The lineaments of Gospel books!

I trow, that countenance cannot lie
Whose thoughts are legible in the eye.

Was ever eye did see that face,

Was ever ear did hear that tongue,
Was ever mind did mind his grace,
That ever thought the travel long?

But eyes and ears, and every thought,
Were with his sweet perfections caught.

MATTHEW ROYDEN.

EPITAPH ON THE COUNTESS OF PEMBROKE.

UNDERNEATH this marble hearse
Lies the subject of all verse,
Sydney's sister, - Pembroke's mother.
Death, ere thou hast slain another
Fair and wise and good as she,
Time shall throw a dart at thee!

Marble piles let no man raise
To her name in after days;
Some kind woman, born as she,
Reading this, like Niobe
Shall turn marble, and become
Both her mourner and her tomb.

BEN JONSON.

ZIMRI.

GEORGE VILLIERS, DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM. 1682.

SOME of their chiefs were princes of the land
In the first rank of these did Zimri stand;
A man so various, that he seemed to be
Not one, but all mankind's epitome:
Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong;
Was everything by starts, and nothing long;
But, in the course of one revolving moon,
Was chymist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon;
Then all for women, painting, rhyming, drinking,
Besides ten thousand freaks that died in thinking.
Blest madman, who could every hour employ,
With something new to wish or to enjoy !
Railing and praising were his usual themes;
And both, to show his judgment, in extremes:
So over-violent or over-civil,

That every man with him was god or devil.
In squandering wealth was his peculiar art;
Nothing went unrewarded but desert.
Beggared by fools, whom still he found too late;
He had his jest, and they had his estate.
He laughed himself from court, then sought relief
By forming parties, but could ne'er be chief;
For, spite of him, the weight of business fell
On Absalom, and wise Achitophel.
Thus, wicked but in will, of means bereft,
He left no faction, but of that was left.

CHARLES XII.

JOHN DRYDEN.

ON what foundations stands the warrior's pride, How just his hopes, let Swedish Charles decide: A frame of adamant, a soul of fire,

No dangers fright him, and no labors tire;
O'er love, o'er fear, extends his wide domain,
Unconquered lord of pleasure and of pain.
No joys to him pacific scepters yield,

War sounds the trump, he rushes to the field; Behold surrounding kings their power combine, And one capitulate, and one resign;

Peace courts his hand, but spreads her charms in vain;

Swift and resist less through the land he past,
Like that bold Greek who did the East subdue,
And made to battles such heroic haste,
As if on wings of victory he flew.

remain,

On Moscow's walls till Gothic standards fly,
And all be mine beneath the polar sky."
The march begins in military state,
And nations on his eye suspended wait;
Stern famine guards the solitary coast,
And winter barricades the realms of frost.
He comes, nor want nor cold his course delay;
Hide, blushing glory, hide Pultowa's day!
The vanquished hero leaves his broken bands,
And shows his miseries in distant lands;
Condemned a needy supplicant to wait,
While ladies interpose and slaves debate.
But did not chance at length her error mend?
Did no subverted empire mark his end?
Did rival monarchs give the fatal wound,
Or hostile millions press him to the ground?
His fall was destined to a barren strand,
A petty fortress, and a dubious hand;

Still, by new maps, the island might be shown, Of conquests, which he strewed where'er he came, Thick as the galaxy with stars is sown.

SAMUEL JOHNSON.

OLIVER CROMWELL.

How shall I then begin, or where conclude,
To draw a fame so truly circular?
For in a round what order can be showed,
Where all the parts so equal perfect are?

His grandeur he derived from Heaven alone;

For he was great, ere fortune made him so: And wars, like mists that rise against the sun, Made him but greater seem, not greater grow.

No borrowed bays his temples did adorn,

But to our crown he did fresh jewels bring; Nor was his virtue poisoned soon as born,

With the too early thoughts of being king.

Fortune that easy mistress to the young,

But to her ancient servants coy and hardHim at that age her favorites ranked among, When she her best-loved Pompey did discard.

He, private, marked the fault of others' sway
And set as sea-marks for himself to shun :
Not like rash monarchs, who their youth betray
By acts their age too late would wish undone.

By intuition, in his own large breast, Where all the rich ideas of them lay,

That were the rule and measure to the rest.

Such was our prince; yet owned a soul above The highest acts it could produce to show : Thus poor mechanic arts in public move,

Whilst the deep secrets beyond practice go.

Nor died he when his ebbing fame went less, But when fresh laurels courted him to live: He seemed but to prevent some new success, As if above what triumphs earth could give. His latest victories still thickest came,

As, near the center, motion doth increase; Till he, pressed down by his own weighty name, Did, like the vestal, under spoils decease. JOHN DRYDEN.

TO THE LORD-GENERAL CROMWELL.

CROMWELL, our chief of men, who through a cloud,
Not of war only, but detractions rude,
Guided by faith and matchless fortitude,
To peace and truth thy glorious way hast plowed;
And on the neck of crownèd fortune proud
Hast reared God's trophies, and his work pur-
sued,

While Darwen stream, with blood of Scots imbued,