of the seventeenth century discovered the horologe of

Flora?

THE NYMPH COMPLAINING FOR THE DEATH OF HER FAWN.

The wanton troopers riding by

Have shot my fawn, and it will die.
Ungentle men! they cannot thrive
Who killed thee. Thou ne'er didst alive
Them any harm. Alas! nor could
Thy death to them do any good.
I'm sure I never wished them ill;
Nor do I for all this; nor will :
But if my simple prayers may yet
Prevail with Heaven to forget
Thy murder, I will join my tears
Rather than fail.

It cannot die so.

But oh, my fears!

Heaven's King

Keeps register of every thing,

And nothing may we use in vain :

Even beasts must be with justice slain.

Inconstant Silvio, when yet

I had not found him counterfeit,
One morning (I remember well),
Tied in this silver chain and bell,
Gave it to me: nay, and I know
What he said then I'm sure I do.
Said he, "Look how your huntsman here
Hath taught a fawn to hunt his deer."

But Silvio soon had me beguiled.
This waxed tame, while he grew wild,
And, quite regardless of my smart,
Left me his fawn, but took his heart.
Thenceforth I set myself to play
My solitary time away

With this, and very well content

Could so my idle life have spent ;

For it was full of sport, and light
Of foot and heart; and did invite
Me to its game; it seemed to bless
Itself in me.
How could I less
Than love it? Oh! I cannot be
Unkind to a beast that loveth me.
Had it lived long, I do not know
Whether it too might have done so
As Silvio did; his gifts might be
Perhaps as false or more than he.
But I am sure, for aught that I
Could in so short a time espy,
Thy love was far more better than
The love of false and cruel man.
With sweetest milk and sugar, first
I it at my own fingers nurst;
And, as it grew, so every day

It waxed more sweet and white than they :
It had so sweet a breath. And oft

I blushed to see its foot more soft

And white, shall I say than my hand?
Nay, any lady's of the land.

It is a wondrous thing how fleet
'Twas on those little silver feet;
With what a pretty skipping grace
It oft would challenge me the race;
And, when 't had left me far away,
'T would stay, and run again, and stay ;
For it was nimbler much than hinds,
And trod as if on the four winds.

I have a garden of my own,

But so with roses overgrown
And lilies, that you would it guess

To be a little wilderness,

And all the spring-time of the year
It only loved to be there.

Among the beds of lilies I

Have sought it oft where it should lie,

Yet could not, till itself would rise,
Find it, although before mine eyes;
For in the flaxen lilies' shade..
It like a bank of lilies laid;
Upon the roses it would feed,
Until its lips even seemed to bleed ;
And then to me 't would boldly trip,
And print those roses on my lip.
But all its chief delight was still
On roses thus itself to fill,

And its pure virgin limbs to fold

In whitest sheets of lilies cold.

Had it lived long, it would have been
Lilies without, roses within.

*

Nothing can exceed the tender grace, the delicate prettiness of this little poem. There is a trippingness in the measure, now stopping short, now bounding on, which could not have been exceeded by the playful motions of the poor fawn itself. We must forgive his want of gallantry. It must have been all pretence. No true woman-hater could so have embodied a feeling peculiar to the sex, the innocent love of a young girl for her innocent pet.

I must find room for a few stanzas of Marvell's Horatian Ode upon Cromwell's return from Ireland. Fine as the praise of Cromwell is, it yields in grandeur and beauty to the tribute paid by the Roundhead poet to the demeanour of the King upon the scaffold by far the noblest of the many panegyrics upon the martyred King.

"Tis time to leave the books in dust,
And oil the unused armour's rust;
Removing from the wall

The corselet of the hall.

So restless Cromwell could not cease
In the inglorious arts of peace,

But through adventurous war
Urgèd his active star:

*

And if we would speak true,
Much to the man is due,

Who from his private gardens, where
He lived reservèd and austere,

(As if his highest plot

To plant the bergamot),

Could by industrious valour climb
To win the greatest work of Time,
And cast the kingdoms old
Into another mould!

Though justice against fate complain
And plead the ancient rights in vain,
But those do hold or break

As men are strong or weak.

Nature that hateth emptiness

Allows of penetration less.

And therefore must make room
Where greater spirits come.

What field of all the civil war

Where his were not the deepest scar? And Hampden shows what part He had of wiser art:

Where, twining civil fears with hope,
He wove a net of such a scope,

That Charles himself might chase
To Carisbrooke's narrow case;

That thence the royal actor borne
The tragic scaffold might adorn.

While round the armed bands
Did clap their bloody hands,

He nothing common did or mean
Upon that memorable scene,
But with his keener eye

The axe's edge did try;

Nor called the gods, with vulgar spite,
To vindicate his helpless right;

But bowed his comely head
Down, as upon a bed.

And he who wrote this was Cromwell's Latin Secretary and Cromwell's other Latin Secretary was Milton! There have been many praises of the Lord Protector written latterly, but these two facts seem to me worth them all.