Time shall moult away his wings,
Ere he shall discover

In the whole wide world again
Such a constant lover.

But the spite on't is, no praise
Is due at all to me:

Love with me had made no stays,

Had it any been but she.

Had it any been but she,

And that very face,

There had been at least ere this

A dozen dozen in her place.

Seasons may roll,

But the true soul

Burns the same, where'er it goes.

Let fate frown on, so we love and part not;

'Tis life where thou art, 'tis death where thou art not. Then come o'er the sea,

Maiden, with me,

Come wherever the wild wind blows;

Seasons may roll,

But the true soul

Burns the same, where'er it goes.

Was not the sea

Made for the free,

Land for courts and chains alone?

Here we are slaves,

But on the waves

Love and liberty's all our own.

No eye to watch, and no tongue to wound us,
All earth forgot, and all heaven around us -
Then come o'er the sea,

Maiden, with me,

Mine through sunshine, storm, and snows;
Seasons may roll,

But the true soul

Burns the same, where'er it goes.

- THOMAS MOORE.

37.

THE BANKS OF DOON.

YE banks and braes o' bonnie Doon,

How can ye bloom sae fair!

How can ye chant, ye little birds,

And I sae fu' o' care!

Thou'll break my heart, thou bonnie bird,

That sings upon the bough;

Thou minds me o' the happy days

When my fause Luve was true.

Thou'll break my heart, thou bonnie bird,

That sings beside thy mate;

For sae I sat, and sae I sang,

And wist na o' my fate.

Aft hae I roved by bonnie Doon
To see the woodbine twine,
And ilka bird sang o' its love;
And sae did I o' mine.

Wi' lightsome heart I pu'd a rose,
Frae aff its thorny tree;

And my fause luver staw the rose,
But left the thorn wi' me.

My love was false, but I was firm

From my hour of birth.

Upon my buried body lie

Lightly, gentle earth!

BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.

39.

PENTHEA'S DYING SONG.

Oн no more, no more, too late

Sighs are spent; the burning tapers

Of a life as chaste as fate,

Pure as are unwritten papers,

Are burnt out; no heat, no light
Now remains; 'tis ever night.

Love is dead; let lovers' eyes,
Locked in endless dreams,
Th'extremes of all extremes,

Ope no more, for now Love dies.

Now Love dies — implying

Love's martyrs must be ever, ever dying.

—JOHN FORD.

40.

STANZAS FOR MUSIC.

THERE be none of Beauty's daughters

With a magic like thee;

And like music on the waters

Is thy sweet voice to me:
When, as if its sound were causing
The charmed ocean's pausing,
The waves lie still and gleaming,
And the lull'd winds seem dreaming:

And the midnight moon is weaving
Her bright chain o'er the deep;
Whose breast is gently heaving,
As an infant's asleep :

So the spirit bows before thee,
To listen and adore thee;

With a full but soft emotion,

Like the swell of Summer's ocean.

- LORD BYRON.

NOTES.

No. 1. LOVE SONG. These lines are adapted from what Warton says is the earliest love-song in our language. The original is among the Harleian manuscripts in the British Museum, and was written probably before the year 1200.

No. 2. MY SWETE SWETYNG. Written, it is supposed, in the time of Henry VIII. The author is unknown.

1. 13. minion. Dainty, neat.

1. 17. pigsnye. A word of endearment for a girl or a woman. From Danish pige, a girl.

"She was a primerole, a piggesnie." — Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, 3268.

No. 3. IN PRAISE OF DAPHNE. Daphne, the daughter of a rivergod, fleeing from Apollo, was changed into a laurel, or bay, tree. The bay is the tree of Apollo.

No. 6. THE LOVER TO HIS LYRE. The resemblance between this song and that which precedes it, although not approaching imitation, needs no comment. Dr. Johnson says of Cowley's love-songs that they are "such as might have been written for penance by a hermit, or for hire by a philosophical rhymer who had only heard of another sex.'

No. 7. THE LOVER'S APPEAL.

1. 4. grame.

Sorrow. See Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, 16,871:"Lo swiche a lucre is this lusty game,

A man's mirth it wol turn all to grame."

No. 9. THE VIRGINS. See Wisdom of Solomon, ii., 8:

"Let us crown ourselves with rosebuds, before they be withered." No. 10. THE ROSE'S MESSAGE. "Waller's fame has sadly, but not undeservedly, declined since the time when it used to be taken for granted that he had virtually invented English poetry, or, one might almost say, the English language; since an editor1 of his poems (1690) could write that his was a name that carries everything in it that is either great or graceful in poetry. He was indeed the parent of English verse, and the first that showed us our tongue had beauty and numbers in it. The tongue came into his hands like a rough diamond; he polished it first, and to that degree that all artists since him have admired the workmanship without pretending to mend it." - Dean Trench.

1 Thought to be Francis Atterbury, Bishop of Rochester.