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My lusts they do me leave,
My fancies all be (a) fled;
And tract of time begins to weave
Gray hairs upon my head.

For Age with stealing steps

Hath claw'd me with his crowch,
And lusty Life away she leaps,
As there had been none such.

The wrinkles in my brow,

The furrows in my face,

Say, limping Age will hedge (b) him now, Where Youth must give him place.

The harbinger of Death

To me I see him ride:

The cough, the cold, the gasping breath
Doth bid me to provide

A pickaxe and a spade,

And eke a shrouding-sheet,

A house of clay for to be made
For such a guest most meet.

Methinks I hear the clerk,

That knolls the careful knell ; And bids me leave my woful wark Ere Nature me compel.

(a) So ed. I.-Ed. 1567, "are."
(b) So ed. I.-Ed. 1567, "lodge,"

My keepers knit the knot

That Youth did laugh to scorn,
Of me that clean shall be forgot,
As I had not been born.

Thus must I Youth give up,
Whose badge I long did wear:
To them I yield the wanton cup
That better may it bear.

Lo here the bared (c) skull !

By whose bald sign I know
That stooping Age away shall pull
Which youthful years did sow.

For Beauty with her band

These crooked cares hath wrought,

And shipped me into the land

From whence I first was brought.

And ye that 'bide behind,

Have ye none other trust!

As ye of clay were cast by kind,
So shall ye waste to dust.

ROBERT GREEN.

ROBERT GREEN, said to be the first English poet who wrote for bread, died in 1592. The date of his birth is uncertain.

(c) Ed. 1567, "barehead."

I

THE PENITENT PALMER'S ODE.

WHILOM, in the winter's rage,
A Palmer old and full of age,
Sat, and thought upon his youth,
With eyes' tears, and heart's ruth,
Being all with cares y-blent,

When he thought on years mispent ;
When his follies came to mind,
How fond love had made him blind,
And wrapp'd him in a field of woes,
Shadowed with pleasure's shows;
Then he sigh'd, and said, "Alas!
"Man is sin, and flesh is grass.

"I thought my mistress' hairs were gold,
"And in their locks my heart I fold;
"Her amber tresses were the sight

"That wrapped me in vain delight:
"Her ivory front, her pretty chin,

"Were stales that drew me on to sin.

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"Her face was fair, her breath was sweet,

"All her looks for love was meet: "But love is folly: this I know: "And beauty fadeth like to snow. "O why should man delight in pride, "Whose blossom like a dew doth glide ? "When these supposes touch'd my thought, "That world was vain, and beauty nought, "I 'gan sigh, and say, alas,

"Man is sin, and flesh is grass!"

ROBERT SOUTHWELL.

BORN 1560-EXECUTED 1595.

ROBERT SOUTHWELL, an English jesuit, was educated at Rome, and was afterwards attached to the household of the Countess of Arundel. He died a martyr to his religion in 1595, in the reign of Elizabeth. "It is not possible," says Mr Campbell," to read his volume without lamenting that its author should have been either the instrument of bigotry, or the object of persecution." His poems, which are all upon moral or religious subjects, are worthy of being known to the admirers of sacred

verse.

SCORN NOT THE LEAST.

WHERE words are weak, and foes encountering strong,

Where mightier do assault than do defend, The feebler part puts up enforced wrong,

And silent sees that speech could not amend. Yet, higher powers must think, though they repine, When sun is set, the little stars will shine.

*

The merlin cannot ever soar on high,

Nor greedy greyhound still pursue the chase; The tender lark will find a time to fly, And fearful hare to run a quiet race: He that high growth on cedars did bestow, Gave also lowly mushrooms leave to grow.

In Haman's pomp poor Mardocheus wept,
Yet God did turn his fate upon his foe:
The Lazar pin'd, while Dives' feast was kept,
Yet he to heaven, to hell did Dives go.
We trample grass, and prize the flowers of May,
Yet grass is green when flowers do fade away.

TIMES GO BY TURNS.

THE lopped tree in time may grow again,
Most naked plants renew both fruit and flower;
The sorriest wight may find release of pain,

The driest soil suck in some moistening shower: Time goes by turns, and chances change by course, From foul to fair, from better hap to worse.

The sea of Fortune doth not ever flow ;

She draws her favours to the lowest ebb: Her tides have equal times to come and go;

Her loom doth weave the fine and coarsest web :

No joy so great but runneth to an end,
No hap so hard but may in fine amend.

Not always fall of leaf, nor ever spring,
Not endless night, yet not eternal day;
The saddest birds a season find to sing,

The roughest storm a calm may soon allay. Thus, with succeeding turns, God tempereth all, The man may hope to rise, yet fear to fall.

A chance may win that by mischance was lost; That net that holds no great, takes little fish;

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