[GEORGE HERBERT, born, 1592-3; died, 1634. He was Public Orator at Cambridge from 1619 to 1627, and was Rector of Bemerton, in Wiltshire, in 1631. His poems were first published, 1633.] [THOMAS CAREW, Sewer in Ordinary to Charles I., was born about 1589, and died in 1639. He published Coelum Brittanicum, 1623, and Poems, 1640.] MEDIOCRITY IN LOVE REJECTED. GIVE me more love, or more disdain; The torrid or the frozen zone Brings equal ease unto my pain; The temperate affords me none: Either extreme, of love or hate, Is sweeter than a calm estate. Give me a storm; if it be love- Disdain, that torrent will devour Then crown my joys, or cure my pain; Give me more love, or more disdain. Ask me no more, whither doth haste Ask me no more, where those stars light, That downwards fall in dead of night; For, in your eyes they sit, and there Fixèd become, as in their sphere. Ask me no more, if east or west, MURDERING BEAUTY. I'LL gaze no more on her bewitching face, Since ruin harbors there in every place; For my enchanted soul alike she drowns With calms and tempests of her smiles and frowns. I'll love no more those cruel eyes of hers, Which, pleas'd or anger'd, still are murderers: For if she dart (like lightning) through the air Her beams of wrath, she kills me with despair; If she behold me with a pleasing eye. I surfeit with excess of joy, and die. A PRAYER TO THE WIND. Go, thou gentle whispering wind, There perfume thyself, and bring UNGRATEFUL BEAUTY. KNOW, Celia, since thou art so proud, 'Twas I that gave thee thy renown: Thou hadst, in the forgotten crowd Of common beauties, liv'd unknown, Had not my verse exhal'd thy name, And with it impt the wings of Fame. That killing power is none of thine, Thou art my star, shin'st in my skies; Then dart not from thy borrowed sphere Lightning on him that fix'd thee there. Tempt me with such affrights no more, I'll know thee in thy mortal state. Wise poets, that wrap truth in tales, Knew her themselves through all her veils. RED AND WHITE ROSES. READ in these roses the sad story, Of my hard fate, and your own glory : In the white you may discover The paleness or a fainting lover; In the red the flames still feeding On my heart with fresh wounds bleeding. The white will tell you how I languish, And the red express my anguish : The white my innocence displaying, The red my martyrdom betraying: The frowns that on your brow resided, Have those roses thus divided. O! let your smiles but clear the weather, And then they both shall grow together. THE PRIMROSE. Ask me why I send you here This primrose all bepearl'd with dew; THE PROTESTATION. No more shall the meads be deck'd with flowers, Nor sweetness dwell in rosy bowers; The fish shall in the ocean burn, Love shall his bow and shaft lay by, Love shall no more inhabit earth, ABRAHAM COWLEY. 1618-1667. [ABRAHAM COWLEY was the posthumous son of a London stationer, and was born in the latter part of the year 1618. He was educated at Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he remained from 1636 to 1643. He took the royalist side during the Civil War, and helped the King's cause both at Oxford and afterwards as Secretary to the Queen in her exile in Paris. In 1655 he returned to England, where he remained under strict surveillance till Cromwell's death; then he rejoined his friends in France. At the Restoration he came back, and lived in retirement at Barnes and Chertsey till his death in 1667. His poems were published in the following order: Poetical Blossomes, 1633; Love's Riddle, a comedy, 1638; The Mistress, 1647; The Guardian (surreptitiously published), 1650; the first folio edition of the Works, 1656; other editions of the same followed with the addition of such new poems and essays as he produced from time to time. The most complete editions of his works are those which appeared in 1708 and 1721.} It sounds like the last trumpet, for it can Raise up the bury'd man. Unpass'd Alps stop me, but I'll cut through all, And march, the Muse's Hannibal. If my abused touch allow Or the eastern summer brings, Do my smell persuade at all Hence, all the flatt'ring vanities that lay Aught perfume but thy breath to call; Nets of roses in the way; Hence, the desire of honors or estate, And all that is not above Fate; Hence, Love himself, that tyrant of my days, Which intercepts my coming praise. Come, my best Friends! my books! and lead me on, 'Tis time that I were gone. Welcome, great Stagirite! and teach If all my senses objects be And so through thee more pow'rful pass THE WISH. WELL, then, I now do plainly see, Ah! yet, e'er I descend to the grave, May I a small house and large garden have! And a few friends, and many books, both true, Both wise, and both delightful too! And good as guardian angels are, |