My grateful verse thy goodness shall display.
O thou who went'st along in all my way
To where the morning with perfumed wings
From the high mountains of Panchæa springs ;
To that new-found-out world, where sober night
Takes from th' Antipodes her silent flight;
To those dark seas where horrid winter reigns,
And binds the stubborn floods in icy chains;
To Libyan wastes, whose thirst no showers assuage,
And where swoln Nilus cools the lion's rage.
Thy wonders in the deep have I beheld;
Yet all by those on Judah's hills excell'd :
There where the Virgin's Son his doctrine taught,
His miracles and our redemption wrought:
Where I, by thee inspir'd, his praises sung,
And on his sepulchre my offering hung:
Which way soe'er I turn my face or feet,
I see thy glory and thy mercy meet.

Met on thy Thracian shores; when in the strife

Of frantic Simoans thou preserv'd'st my life.

Thou sav❜dst me from the bloody massacres
Of faithless Indians, from their treacherous wars,
From raging fevers, from the sultry breath
Of tainted air, which cloy'd the jaws of death.
Preserv'd from swallowing seas, when towering

waves

Mix'd with the clouds and open'd their deep graves.

*

.

Then brought'st me home in safety, that this earth
Might bury me, which fed me from my birth:
Blest with a healthful age, a quiet mind,
Content with little, to this work design'd;
Which I at length have finish'd by thy aid,
nd now my vows have at thy altar paid,

HENRY KING.

BORN 1591-DIED 1669.

HENRY KING was born at Wornall in Bucks, in 1591.-He was successively chaplain to James the First, Dean of Rochester, and Bishop of Chichester. He made a metrical version of the Psalms. All his writings are religious.

SIC VITA.

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 :
Ev'n such is man, whose borrow'd light
Is straight call'd in, and paid to-night.

The wind blows out, the bubble dies;
The spring entomb'd in autumn lies;
The dew dries up, the star is shot;
The flight is past--and man forgot.

THE DIRGE.

WHAT is the existence of man's life,
But open war, or slumber'd strife;
Where sickness to his sense presents
The combat of the elements;
And never feels a perfect peace

Till Death's cold hand signs his release ?

It is a storm-where the hot blood
Outvies in rage the boiling flood;
And each loose passion of the mind
Is like a furious gust of wind,
Which beats his bark with many a wave,
Till he casts anchor in the grave.

It is a flower-which buds, and grows,
And withers as the leaves disclose ;
Whose spring and fall faint seasons keep,
Like fits of waking before sleep;
Then shrinks into that fatal mould
Where its first being was enroll'd.

It is a dream-whose seeming truth
Is moraliz'd in age and youth;
Where all the comforts he can share
As wandering as his fancies are;
Till in a mist of dark decay
The dreamer vanish quite away.

It is a dial-which points out
The sun-set, as it moves about;
And shadows out in lines of night
The subtle stages of Time's flight;
Till all-obscuring earth hath laid
His body in perpetual shade.

It is a weary interlude

Which doth short joys, long woes, include;
The world the stage, the prologue tears,
The acts vain hopes and varied fears;
The scene shuts up with loss of breath,
And leaves no epilogue but death.

SIR JOHN DAVIS.

BORN 1570-DIED 1626.

SIR JOHN DAVIS was a native of Wiltshire. He was educated at Oxford; and, after having been called to the bar, was expelled, and returned to the university; where he composed his noble poem on the Immortality of the Soul. It was highly esteemed; and a few years afterwards Davis was sent to parliament, and restored to his rank at the bar. He filled several judicial offices of importance in Ireland, during the reign of James I., and was finally appointed Chief-Justice of the King's Bench, but died before he could enter upon this office. His widow, who outlived him for many years, pretended to prophesy; and for her printed revelations obtained a place in the Tower.

REASONS FOR THE SOUL'S IMMORTALITY.

FOR who did ever yet, in honour, wealth,

Or pleasure of the sense, contentment find? Who ever ceased to wish when he had health? Or, having wisdom, was not vexed in mind ?

Then as a bee, which among weeds doth fall Which seem sweet flowers, with lustre fresh and gay,

She lights on this and that, and tasteth all;

But, pleased with none, doth rise and soar away.

So when the soul finds here no true content,

And, like Noah's dove, can no sure footing take, She doth return from whence she first was sent, And flies to him that first her wings did make.

M

DRUMMOND.

BORN 1585-DIED 1649.

WILLIAM DRUMMOND was born at Hawthornden, the romantic seat of his father, in Mid-Lothian, in 1585. He studied law in France; but, on the death of his father, retired to the paternal estate, and passed a life of rural elegance and learned leisure. Early in life Drummond sustained the loss of a young lady to whom he was deeply attached, and to whose memory he has dedicated many of his verses. In middle life he married a daughter of Logan of Restalrig, from some fancied or real resemblance to his first love. He was a devoted royalist, and his grief for the execution of King Charles I. is alleged to have shortened his days. As a poet, Drummond has much sweetness and classic elegance, but little vigour either of fancy or intellect. Drummond's love verses might be greatly abridged without any disadvantage to his reputation as a poet; but his "Flowers of Zion" deserve to be better known than they have ever yet been. He was the friend of Ben Jonson, who walked from London to Hawthornden to visit him. Of this visit there remains a pleasing poetical record, and also a peep behind the curtain that veils learned friendships, which is not quite so edifying.

FLOWERS OF ZION.

A GOOD that never satisfies the mind,
A beauty fading like the April flow'rs,

A sweet with floods of gall that runs combin'd,
A pleasure passing ere in thought made ours,
A honour that more fickle is than wind,