Up with the day, the Sun thou welcom'st then,

Sport'st in the gilt plaits of his beams,

And all these merry days mak'st merry men

Thyself and melancholy streams.

But ah! the sickle! golden ears are cropt;

Ceres and Bacchus bid good-night; Sharp frosty fingers all your flowers have topt,

And what scythes spared winds shave off quite.

Poor verdant fool! and now green ice, thy joys

Large and as lasting as thy perch of grass

Bid us lay in 'gainst winter rain, and poise

Their floods with an o'erflowing glass.

Thou best of men and friends, we will create

A genuine summer in each other's breast;

And spite of this cold time and frozen fate,

Thaw us a warm seat to our rest.

Our sacred hearths shall burn eternally

As vestal flames; the North-wind, he

Shall strike his frost-stretched wings, dissolve, and fly

This Etna in epitome. Dropping December shall come weeping in,

Bewail th' usurping of his reign; But when in showers of old Greek* we begin,

Shall cry, he hath his crown again!

Night as clear Hesper shall our tapers whip

From the light casements where we play,

And the dark hag from her black mantle strip,

And stick there everlasting day.

*Greek wine.

Thus richer than untempted kings

are we,

That asking nothing, nothing need;

Though lord of all what seas embrace, yet he

That wants himself is poor indeed. RICHARD LOVELACE.

TO JOANNA.

As it befell,

One summer morning we had walked abroad

At break of day, Joanna and myself. 'Twas that delightful season when the broom,

Full-flowered, and visible on every steep,

Along the copses runs in veins of gold.

Our pathway led us on to Rotha's banks;

And when we came in front of that tall rock

That eastward looks, I there stopped short, and stood

Tracing the lofty barrier with my eye From base to summit; such delight I found

To note in shrub and tree, in stone and flower,

That intermixture of delicious hues, In one impression, by connecting force

Of their own beauty, imaged in the heart.

When I had gazed perhaps two minutes' space,

Joanna, looking in my eyes, beheld That ravishment of mine, and laughed aloud.

The Rock, like something starting from a sleep,

Took up the Lady's voice, and laughed again;

That

ancient Woman seated on Helm-crag

Was ready with her cavern; Hammar-scar,

And the tall Steep of Silver-how, sent forth

A noise of laughter; southern Loughrigg heard,

And

Fairfield answered with a mountain tone;

Helvellyn far into the clear blue sky

Carried the Lady's voice, -old Skid

daw blew

His speaking-trumpet; back out of the clouds

Of Glaramara southward came the

voice;

And Kirkstone tossed it from his misty head.

"Now whether" (said I to our cordial friend,

66

Who in the hey-day of astonishment Smiled in my face), this were in simple truth

A work accomplished by the brotherhood

Of ancient mountains, or my ear was touched

With dreams and visionary impulses To me alone imparted, sure I am That there was a loud uproar in the hills."

And while we both were listening, to my side

The fair Joanna drew, as if she wished

To shelter from some object of her fear.

And hence long afterwards, when eighteen moons

Were wasted, as I chanced to walk alone

Beneath this rock, at sunrise, on a calm

And silent morning, I sat down, and there,

In memory of affections old and true, I chiselled out in those rude charac

ters

Joanna's name deep in the living stone;

And I and all who dwell by my fireside

Have called the lovely rock, "Joanna's Rock."

WORDSWORTH.

IL PENSEROSO.

HENCE, vain deluding joys,

The brood of Folly without father bred,

How little you bestead,

Or fill the fixed mind with all your toys!

Dwell in some idle brain,

And fancies fond with gaudy shapes possess,

As thick and numberless

As the gay motes that people the sunbeams,

Or likest hovering dreams

The fickle pensioners of Morpheus' train.

But hail thou Goddess, sage and holy,

Hail divinest Melancholy,
Whose saintly visage is too bright
To hit the sense of human sight,
And therefore to our weaker view
O'erlaid with black, staid Wisdom's
hue;

Black, but such as in esteem
Prince Memnon's sister might be-

seem,

Or that starr'd Ethiop queen that

strove

To set her beauty's praise above The Sea-Nymphis, and their powers offended:

Yet thou art higher far descended; Thee bright-hair'd Vesta, long of

yore,

To solitary Saturn bore;

His daughter she (in Saturn's reign,
Such mixture was not held a stain).
Oft in glimmering bowers and glades
He met her, and in secret shades
Of woody Ida's inmost grove,
While yet there was no fear of Jove.
Come, pensive Nun, devout and pure,
Sober, steadfast, and demure,
All in a robe of darkest grain,
Flowing with majestic train,
And sable stole of cyprus-lawn,
Over thy decent shoulders drawn.
Come, but keep thy wonted state,
With even step, and musing gait,
And looks commercing with the
skies,

Thy rapt soul sitting in thine eyes:
There held in holy passion still,
Forget thyself to marble, till

With a sad leaden downward cast Thou fix them on the earth as fast: And join with thee calm Peace, and

Quiet,

Spare Fast, that oft with Gods doth diet,

And hears the Muses in a ring
Aye round about Jove's altar sing:
And add to these retired Leisure,
That in trim gardens takes his pleas-

ure;

But first, and chiefest, with thee bring,