ROBERT HERRICK: 1591-1674. Herrick, one of the most exquisite of our early lyrical poets, was educated for the church, and was presented by Charles I. to the vicarage of Dean Prior in Devonshire. From this he was ejected during the Civil War, but was replaced in it at the Restoration. TO BLOSSOMS. Fair pledges of a fruitful tree, Why do ye fall so fast? Your date is not so past, But you may stay yet here awhile What, were ye born to be An hour or half's delight, And so to bid good-night? But you are lovely leaves, where we TO DAFFODILS. Fair daffodils, we weep to see Until the hast'ning day Has run But to the even-song; And having prayed together, we Will go with you along! Gather the rose-buds while ye may, And this same flower that smiles to-day The glorious lamp of heav'n, the sun, The age is best which is the first, When youth and blood are warmer; But being spent, the worse and worst Times still succeed the former. Then be not coy, but use your time, Cowley, the last and greatest of the metaphysical poets, was the son of a stationer in London. He was educated at Cambridge and at Oxford. Cowley attached himself to the king's party during the Civil War, and accompanied the queen to France, where he was employed in deciphering the correspondence between her and the king. He returned to England in 1656, and at the Restoration, finding his services neglected and unrewarded, he retired to Chertsey, on the banks of the Thames, where he spent the rest of his life. His works consist of Anacreontics (light, gay trifles, in the manner of the Greek poet Anacreon); elegiac poems; an epic named The Davideis; a long poem descriptive of plants; and a few epistles and miscellanies. (For a specimen of Cowley's prose, see Readings in English Prose, page 44.) THE GRASSHOPPER. Happy insect! what can be All the plants belong to thee; 1 Cup-bearer. Ganymede was cup-bearer to Zeus. Thou dost innocently enjoy ; Thee country hinds with gladness hear, Thee Phoebus loves, and does inspire; To thee, of all things upon earth, Life is no longer than thy mirth. Happy insect! happy thou, Dost neither age nor winter know. But when thou 'st drunk, and danced, and sung Thy fill, the flowery leaves among Voluptuous and wise withal, Epicurean animal ! Satiated with thy summer feast, Thou retir'st to endless rest. FROM THE HYMN TO LIGHT. Say, from what golden quivers of the sky Swiftness and Power by birth are thine From thy great Sire they come, thy Sire, the Word Divine. Thou in the moon's bright chariot, proud and gay, Dost thy bright world of stars survey, And all the year dost with thee bring Of thousand flow'ry lights thine own nocturnal spring. Thou, Scythian-like, dost round thy lands above And still, as thou in pomp dost go, The shining pageants of the world attend thy show. Nor amidst all these triumphs dost thou scorn And with those living spangles gild (O greatness without pride!) the bushes of the field. SIR JOHN DENHAM: 1615-1668. Denham is known chiefly by his Cooper's Hill, a poem descriptive of the scenery of the river Thames. THE THAMES. From Cooper's Hill. My eye, descending from the Hill, surveys Hasting to pay his tribute to the sea, Though with those streams he no resemblance hold, The mower's hopes, nor mock the ploughman's toil; But godlike his unwearied bounty flows; First loves to do, then loves the good he does. So that to us no thing, no place, is strange, While his fair bosom is the world's exchange. O, could I flow like thee, and make thy stream Though deep yet clear; though gentle yet not dull; |