O if, I say, you look upon this verse, FROM you have I been absent in the spring, Nor did I wonder at the lilies white, Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose; O FOR my sake do you with fortune chide, Whilst, like a willing patient, I will drink Potions of eyesell, (a) 'gainst my strong infection; No bitterness that I will bitter think, Nor double penance to correct correction. Pity me then, dear friend, and I assure ye, LET me not to the marriage of true minds That looks on tempests, and is never shaken; Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken. Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle's compass come; O NEVER say that I was false of heart, As from my soul which in thy breast doth lie: (a) Vinegar; verjuice. Just to the time, not with the time exchang'd; FROM THE PASSIONATE PILGRIM. TAKE, oh! take those lips away, Hide, oh! hide those hills of snow SONG. SIGH no more, ladies, sigh no more; One foot in sea, and one on shore, (a) This song is sometimes attributed to Beaumont and Fletcher. Then sigh not so, But let them go, And be you blithe and bonny; Sing no more ditties, sing no mo ARIEL'S SONG. WHERE the bee sucks, there suck I; In a cowslip's bell I lie; There I couch when owls do cry; After summer, merrily; Merrily, merrily shall I live now WINTER, A SONG. WHEN icicles hang by the wall, And Dick the shepherd blows his nail, And Tom bears logs into the hall, And milk comes frozen home in pail ; When blood is nipt, and ways be foul, Then nightly sings the staring owl, Tu-whit! tu-whoo! a merry note, While greasy Joan doth keel the pot. When all aloud the wind doth blow, And Marian's nose looks red and raw; Tu-whit! tu-whoo! a merry note, MICHAEL DRAYTON. BORN 1563-DIED 1631. DRAYTON, Who is still read, and even admired, was born at Atherston, in Warwickshire. He studied at Oxford, but took no degree; neither was he bred to any profession, unless poetry be one. To him it proved but an indifferent calling. Through life he was dependent on patrons. Drayton's works, which are voluminous, consist of pastorals published while he was young; Polyolbion, or a Description of Great Britain, in verse; England's Heroical Epistles; and the Barons' Wars. All his poems contain fine and even splendid passages, interspersed with many as dull and tedious. "The Nymphidia," selected as a specimen of Drayton, has much of the sportive fancy and airy grace of the Rape of the Lock. The gallant Pigwiggen is the knight of Lilliputian romance, and the intrigue of Queen Mab the most amusing on poetical record. The pastoral tale of Dowsabel is one which every body likes, though no one has been able to tell precisely for what. It is lively and natural, and descriptive |