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Whilft thou, bright Saint, high fitft in glory,

Next her much like to thee in story,

That fair Syrian shepherdess,

Who after years of barrennefs,

The highly favour'd Joseph bore

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To him that ferv'd for her before,

And at her next birth much like thee,
Through pangs fled to felicity,
Far within the bofom bright

Of blazing Majesty and Light:

There with thee, new welcome faint,

Like fortunes may her foul acquaint,
With thee there clad in radiant sheen,
No Marchionefs, but now a Queen.

IX. Song. On May morning.

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

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Hail bounteous May that dost inspire Mirth and youth and warm defire; Woods and groves are of thy dreffing, Hill and dale doth boast thy bleffing. Thus we falute thee with our early song, And welcome thee, and wish thee long.

X. On Shakespeare, 1630.

ΤΟ

WHAT needs my Shakespeare for his honor'd bones The labor of an age in piled stones,

Or that his hallow'd reliques should be hid

Under a star-ypointing pyramid?

Dear fon of Memory, great heir of Fame,

What need'st thou fuch weak witnefs of thy name?

Thou in our wonder and astonishment!

Haft built thyself a live-long monument.

For whilft to th' fhame of flow-endevoring Art

Thy easy numbers flow, and that each heart. IQ
Hath from the leaves of thy unvalued book

Thofe Delphic lines with deep impreffion took,
Then thou our fancy of itself bereaying,

Doft make us marble with too much conceiving;
And fo feplúcher'd in fuch pomp doft lie,
That kings for fuch a tomb would wish to die.

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XI. On the univerfity carrier, who fickened in the time of his vacancy,being forbid to go to London, by reafon of the plague.

HERE lies old Hobfon; Death hath broke his girt,
And here alas, hath laid him in the dirt,
Or elfe the ways being foul, twenty to one,
He's here stuck in a slough, and overthrown.
'Twas fuch a fhifter, that if truth were known,
Death was half glad when he had got him down;
For he had any time this ten years full

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Dodg'd with him, betwixt Cambridge and the Bull.
And furely Death could never have prevail'd,
Had not his weekly course of carriage fail'd;

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 chamberlin

ΤΟ

Show'd him his room where he must lodge that night, Pull'd off his boots, and took away the light:

If any ask for him, it shall be said,

Hobfon has fupt, and's newly gone to bed.

XII. Another on the fame.

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,
Made of sphere-metal, never to decay
Until his revolution was at stay.

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Time numbers motion, (yet without a crime
'Gainst old Truth) motion number'd out his time:
And like an engin mov'd with wheel and weight,
His principles being ceas'd, he ended strait.
Reft 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 hasten'd on his term.

ΤΟ

Merely to drive the time away he sicken'd,

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Fainted, and died, nor would with ale be quicken'd;
Nay, quoth he, on his fwooning bed out-stretch'd,
If I may'nt carry, fure I'll ne'er be fetch'd,
But vow, though the cross doctors all stood hearers,
For one carrier put down to make fix bearers.
Eafe was his chief disease, and to judge right,
He dy'd for heaviness that his cart went light:
His leifure told him that his time was come,
And lack of load made his life burthenfome,
That ev'n to his last breath (there be that fay't) 25
As he were prefs'd to death, he cry'd 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
Link'd to the mutual flowing of the feas,
Yet (ftrange to think) his wain was his increase:
His letters are deliver'd all and gone,

Only remains this fuperfcription.

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And work my flatter'd fancy to belief,

That Heav'n and Earth are color'd with my woe;
My forrows are too dark for day to know:

The leaves should all be black whereon I write, 34 And letters where mytearshave wash'd a wannishwhite. VI.

See, see the chariot, and those rushing wheels,
That whirl'd the prophet up at Chebar flood,
My fpirit fome transporting cherub feels,
To bear me where the towers of Salem stood,
Once glorious towers, now funk in guiltless blood; 40
There doth my soul in holy vision fit
In pensive trance, and anguish, and ecstatic fit.

VII.

Mine eye hath found that sad sepulchral rock
That was the casket of Heav'n's richest store,
And here though grief my feeble hands uplock, 45
Yet on the foften'd quarry would I score

My plaining verse as lively as before;

For fure fo well instructed are my tears, That they would fitly fall in order'd characters.

VIII.

Or fhould I thence hurried on viewless wing,
Take up a weeping on the mountains wild,
The gentle neighbourhood of grove and spring
Would foon unbofom all their echoes mild,
And I (for grief is easily beguil'd)

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