The lean wind robbed him of his pride;
Keen grew the sting of his offence;
And like a lamp within him died
The flame of his magnificence.
The drifting phantoms of the mere Were death to pleasure and to pride; The joy he had of Guinevere
Faded into the dark and died.
Oh loss of hope with loss of day
In mist and shadow of the mere!Where with him, with him, all the way,
Went the sad eyes of Guinevere.
From An Ode to Sir Lucius Cary and Sir H. Morison "
It is not growing like a tree
In bulk, doth make man better be;
Or standing long an oak, three hundred year,
To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sear:
A lily of a day
Is fairer far in May,
Although it fall and die that night,—
It was the plant and flower of Light.
In small proportions we just beauties see,
And in short measures life may perfect be.
Ben Jonson [1573?-1 637)
SWEET is the rose, but grows upon a brier;
Sweet is the juniper, but sharp his bough;
Sweet is the eglantine, but pricketh near;
Sweet is the fir-bloom, but his branches rough;
Sweet is the cypress, but his rind is tough;
Sweet is the nut, but bitter is his pill;
Sweet is the broom-flower, but yet sour enough;
And sweet is moly, but his root is ill:
So every sweet with sour is tempered still.
That maketh it be coveted the more;
For easy things, that may be got at will,
Most sorts of men do set but little store.
Why then should I account of little pain,
That endless pleasure shall unto me gain?
Edmund Spenser [1552?-1599]
LIKE to the falling of a star,
Or as the flights of eagles are,
Or like the fresh spring's gaudy hue,
Or silver drops of morning dew,
Or like a wind that chafes the flood,
Or bubbles which on water stood:
Even such is Man, whose borrowed light
Is straight called in and paid to night.
The wind blows out, the bubble dies,
The spring entombed in autumn lies;
The dew's dried up, the star is shot,
The flight is past, -and man forgot.
Henry King [1592-1669]
WHETHER men do laugh or weep,
Whether they do wake or sleep,
Whether they die young or old,
Whether they feel heat or cold;
There is underneath the sun
Nothing in true earnest done.
All our pride is but a jest,
None are worst and none are best,
Grief and joy, and hope and fear
Play their pageants everywhere:
Vain Opinion all doth sway,
And the world is but a play.
Powers above in clouds do sit,
Mocking our poor apish wit,
That so lamely with such state
Their high glory imitate.
No ill can be felt but pain,
And that happy men disdain.
Philip Rosseter [1575?-1623]
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;
Times go 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 favors 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.
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