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That fair Syrian shepherdess,
Who, after years of barrenness,
The highly-favoured Joseph bore
To him that served for her before;
And at her next birth, much like thee,
Through pangs fled to felicity,
Far within the bosom bright
Of blazing Majesty and Light:
There with thee, new welcome Saint,
Like fortunes may her soul acquaint,—
With thee there clad in radiant sheen,
No Marchioness, but now a Queen.

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SONG ON MAY MORNING.

Now the bright morning star, day's harbinger,
Comes dancing from the East, and leads with her
The flowery May, who from her green lap throws
The yellow cowslip, and the pale primrose.

Hail, bounteous May! that dost inspire
Mirth, and youth, and warm desire;
Woods and groves are of thy dressing;
Hill and dale doth boast thy blessing.
Thus we salute thee with our early song,
And welcome thee, and wish thee long.

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WHAT needs my Shakspeare for his honoured bones

The labour of an age in pilèd stones?

Or that his hallowed reliques should be hid

Under a starry-pointing pyramid?

Dear son of Memory! great heir of Fame!

What need'st thou such weak witness of thy name?

Thou, in our wonder and astonishment,

Hast built thyself a live-long monument.

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For whilst, to the shame of slow-endeavouring Art,
Thy easy numbers flow; and that each heart
Hath, from the leaves of thy unvalued book,
Those Delphic lines with deep impression took,
Then thou, our fancy of itself bereaving,
Dost make us marble with too much conceiving;
And, so sepulchred, in such pomp dost lie,
That kings for such a tomb would wish to die.

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ON THE UNIVERSITY CARRIER,

Who sickened in the time of his vacancy, being forbid to go to London,
by reason of the plague.

HERE lies old Hobson; Death hath broke his girt,
And here, alas! hath laid him in the dirt;
Or else, the ways being foul, twenty to one,
He's here stuck in a slough, and overthrown.
'Twas such a shifter, that, if truth were known,
Death was half glad when he had got him down;
For he had, any time this ten years full,
Dodged with him betwixt Cambridge and the Bull:
And surely Death could never have prevailed
Had not his weekly course of carriage failed;

But lately finding him so long at home,

And thinking now his journey's end was come,
And that he had ta'en up his latest inn,

In the kind office of a chamberlain

Showed him his room where he must lodge that night,
Pulled off his boots, and took away the light:

If any ask for him, it shall be said,

Hobson has supped, and's newly gone to bed.

IO

ANOTHER ON THE SAME.

HERE lieth one, who did most truly prove
That he could never die while he could move;
So hung his destiny, never to rot

While he might still jog on and keep his trot,

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Made of sphere-metal, never to decay

Until his revolution was at stay.

Time numbers motion, yet, without a crime
'Gainst old Truth, motion numbered out his time:
And, like an engine moved with wheel and weight,
His principles being ceased, he ended straight.
Rest, that gives all men life, gave him his death,
And too much breathing put him out of breath;
Nor were it contradiction to affirm,

Too long vacation hastened on his term.
Merely to drive the time away he sickened,

Fainted, and died, nor would with ale be quickened;
Nay, quoth he, on his swooning bed out-stretched,
If I mayn't carry, sure I'll ne'er be fetched;

But vow, though the cross doctors all stood hearers,
For one carrier put down to make six bearers,
Ease was his chief disease; and, to judge right,
He died for heaviness that his cart went light:

His leisure told him that his time was come,

And lack of load made his life burdensome,

That even to his last breath-there be that say't—

As he were pressed to death, he cried, "More weight;"
But, had his doings lasted as they were,

He had been an immortal carrier.
Obedient to the moon, he spent his date
In course reciprocal, and had his fate

Linked to the mutual flowing of the seas;

Yet, strange to think, his wain was his increase:

His letters are delivered all and gone,

Only remains the superscription.

ON THE NEW FORCERS OF CONSCIENCE,
UNDER THE LONG PARLIAMENT.

BECAUSE you have thrown off your prelate lord,

And with stiff vows renounced his liturgy,
To seize the widowed whore Plurality

From them whose sin ye envied, not abhorred;

IO

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Dare ye for this adjure the civil sword

To force our consciences that Christ set free,
And ride us with a classic hierarchy

Taught ye by mere A. S. and Rotherford?
Men whose life, learning, faith, and pure intent

Would have been held in high esteem with Paul,
Must now be named and printed Heretics,
By shallow Edwards and Scotch what-d'ye-call:
But we do hope to find out all your tricks,
Your plots and packing, worse than those of Trent ;
That so the Parliament

May, with their wholesome and preventive shears,
Clip your phylacteries, though bauk your ears,
And succour our just fears,

When they shall read this clearly in your charge,

New Presbyter is but Old Priest writ large.

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O NIGHTINGALE! that on yon bloomy spray
Warblest at eve, when all the woods are still;
Thou with fresh hope the lover's heart dost fill,
While the jolly Hours lead on propitious May.
Thy liquid notes that close the eye of day,
First heard before the shallow cuckoo's bill,
Portend success in love. O! if Jove's will
Have linked that amorous power to thy soft lay,
Now timely sing, ere the rude bird of hate

Fortell my hopeless doom in some grove nigh;
As thou from year to year hast sung too late
For my relief, yet hadst no reason why:
Whether the Muse, or Love call thee his mate,
Both them I serve, and of their train am I.

IO

ON HIS BEING ARRIVED TO THE AGE OF TWENTY-THREE.

How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth,
Stolen on his wing my three and twentieth year!
My hasting days fly on with full career,
But my late spring no bud or blossom show'th.
Perhaps my semblance might deceive the truth,
That I to manhood am arrived so near;
And inward ripeness doth much less appear,
That some more timely-happy spirits indu'th.

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