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Are of imagination all compact:

One sees more devils than vast hell can hold;
That is, the madman: the lover, all as frantic,
Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt:
The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,

Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;
And as imagination bodies forth

The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen
Turns them to shape, and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.

Midsummer Night's Dream.

Sir Robert Ayton.

Born 1570.

Died 1638.

A SCOTTISH poet and courtier, whose few pieces evince a delicacy of fancy rarely equalled; they are also written in the purest English.

WOMAN'S INCONSTANCY.

I LOVED thee once, I'll love no more,
Thine be the grief as is the blame;
Thou are not what thou wast before,
What reason I should be the same?

He that can love unloved again,
Hath better store of love than brain:
God send me love my debts to pay,
While unthrifts fool their love away.
Nothing could have my love o'erthrown,
If thou hadst still continued mine;
Yea, if thou hadst remained thy own,
I might perchance have yet been thine.
But thou thy freedom did recall,
That if thou might elsewhere inthral;
And then how could I but disdain
A captive's captive to remain?

When new desires had conquered thee,
And changed the object of thy will,

It had been lethargy in me,

Not constancy, to love thee still.

Yea, it had been a sin to go
And prostitute affection so,

Since we are taught no prayers to say
To such as must to others pray.

Yet do thou glory in thy choice,
Thy choice of his good-fortune boast;
I'll neither grieve nor yet rejoice,
To see him gain what I have lost;

The height of my disdain shall be,
To laugh at him, to blush for thee;
To love thee still, but go no more
A begging to a beggar's door.

Dr John Donne.

Born 1573.

Died 1631.

DEAN of St Paul's, and founder of the Metaphysical School of poetry. His father was a London merchant, descended from an ancient family in Wales. Donne received a liberal education, and travelled in Spain and Italy. On his return he was appointed secretary to Lord Chancellor Ellesmere. Unfortunately he fell in love with a niece of the Chancellor, whom he privately married. This brought on his dismissal from his situation, and a whole train of troubles. He afterwards obtained a reconciliation with his wife's friends; and having won King James's favour by a book on the Protestant controversy, he was made Dean of St Paul's, and afterwards obtained other livings, which enabled him to live in affluence. He died in 1631.

THE WILL.

BEFORE I sigh my last gasp, let me breathe,
Great Love, some legacies: I here bequeath
Mine eyes to Argus, if mine eyes can see;
If they be blind, then, Love, I give them thee;
My tongue to Fame; to ambassadors mine ears;
To women, or the sea, my tears;

Thou, Love, hast taught me heretofore,

By making me serve her who had twenty more,
That I should give to none but such as had too much before.

My constancy I to the planets give;

My truth to them who at the court do live;

Mine ingenuity and openness

To Jesuits; to buffoons my pensiveness;
My silence to any who abroad have been;
My money to a Capuchin.

Thou, Love, taught'st me, by appointing me
To love there, where no love received can be,
Only to give to such as have no good capacity.

My faith I give to Roman Catholics;
All my good works unto the schismatics
Of Amsterdam; my best civility
And courtship to an university;
My modesty I give to soldiers bare;
My patience let gamesters share;

Thou, Love, taught'st me, by making me
Love her that holds my love disparity,

Only to give to those that count my gifts indignity.
I give my reputation to those

Which were my friends; mine industry to foes;

To schoolmen I bequeath my doubtfulness;

My sickness to physicians, or excess;
To Nature all that I in rhyme have writ!
And to my company my wit:

Thou, Love, by making me adore

Her who begot this love in me before,

Taught'st me to make as though I gave, when I do but restore.

To him for whom the passing bell next tolls

I give my physic books; my written rolls

Of moral counsels I to Bedlam give;
My brazen medals, unto them which live

In want of bread; to them which pass among
All foreigners, my English tongue:

Thou, Love, by making me love one

Who thinks her friendship a fit portion

For younger lovers, dost my gifts thus disproportion.

Therefore I'll give no more, but I'll undo

The world by dying, because love dies too.

Then all your beauties will be no more worth

Than gold in mines, where none doth draw it forth,
And all your graces no more use shall have

Than a sun-dial in a grave.

Thou, Love, taught'st me, by making me

Love her who doth neglect both me and thee,

To invent and practise this one way to annihilate all three.

E

Ben Jonson.

Born 1574.

Died 1637.

BENJAMIN JONSON, of the family of the Johnstones of Annandale, was born at Westminster in 1574 His father was a clergyman. Jonson was educated at Westminster School; and after leaving it, enlisted as a soldier, and served with the army in Flanders. At the age of 20 we find him again in London, married, first acting, and then writing plays. In 1598 his first play was acted at the Globe Theatre, Shakespeare being one of the actors. His plays were very successful, and brought him greatly into notice; and he was appointed Poet Laureate, with a pension ultimately raised to £100 a year. Though receiving large sums for his pieces, he was, through want of economy, constantly poor; and in his latter days he was often in great distress. Jonson was often in quarrels and trouble from a too free use of his pen. On one occasion he assisted in writing a piece called "Eastward Hoe," which so greatly libelled the Scotch that James I. had him arrested, and with the other authors put in prison; from which, however, he was very soon released. His plays number about fifty in all, and were the beginning of a new style of English Comedy. The chief of his poems are "The Forest" and "The Underwood." He died 16th August 1637, and is buried in Westminster Abbey, where on his tablet is inserted, "O rare Ben Jonson."

TO CELIA.

DRINK to me only with thine eyes,

And I will pledge with mine;

Or leave a kiss but in the cup,
And I'll not look for wine.

The thirst that from the soul doth rise,
Doth ask a drink divine;

But might I of Jove's nectar sup,
I would not change for thine.
I sent thee late a rosy wreath,

Not so much honouring thee,
As giving it a hope that there
It could not withered be.

But thou thereon didst only breathe,
And sent'st it back to me;

Since when it grows, and smells, I swear,

Not of itself, but thee.

ADVICE TO A RECKLESS YOUTH.

WHAT Would I have you do? I'll tell you, kinsman:
Learn to be wise, and practise how to thrive,

That would I have you do; and not to spend

Your coin on every bauble that you fancy,
Or every foolish brain that humours you.
I would not have you to invade each place,
Nor thrust yourself on all societies,

Till men's affections, or your own desert,
Should worthily invite you to your rank.
He that is so respectless in his courses,
Oft sells his reputation at cheap market.
Nor would I you should melt away yourself
In flashing bravery, lest, while you affect
To make a blaze of gentry to the world,
A little puff of scorn extinguish it,
And you be left like an unsavoury snuff,
Whose property is only to offend.
I'd ha' you sober, and contain yourself;
Not that your sail be bigger than your boat;
But moderate your expenses now (at first)
As you may keep the same proportion still.
Nor stand so much on your gentility,

Which is an airy and mere borrowed thing,
From dead men's dust and bones; and none of yours,
Except you make, or hold it.

THE PLEASURES OF HEAVEN.

THERE all the happy souls that ever were,
Shall meet with gladness in one theatre;
And each shall know there one another's face,
By beatific virtue of the place.

There shall the brother with the sister walk,
And sons and daughters with their parents talk;
But all of God: they still shall have to say,
But make him all in all their theme that day;
That happy day that never shall see night!
Where he will be all beauty to the sight;
Wine or delicious fruits unto the taste;
A music in the ears will ever last;
Unto the scent, a spicery or balm;
And to the touch, a flower, like soft as palm.
He will all glory, all perfection be,
God in the Union and the Trinity!
That holy, great, and glorious mystery,
Will there revealed be in majesty,

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