No More Learning

The palms put forth their gems, and every tree
Now swaggers in her leafy gallantry.
The while the Daulian minstrel sweetly sings,
With warbling notes, her Terean sufferings.
What gentle winds perspire! As if here
Never had been the northern plunderer
To strip the trees and fields, to their distress,
Leaving them to a pitied nakedness.
And look how when a frantic storm doth tear
A stubborn oak, or holm, long growing there,
But lull'd to calmness, then succeeds a breeze
That scarcely stirs the nodding leaves of trees:
So when this war, which tempest-like doth spoil
Our salt, our corn, our honey, wine and oil,
Falls to a temper, and doth mildly cast
His inconsiderate frenzy off, at last,
The gentle dove may, when these turmoils cease,
Bring in her bill, once more, the branch of peace.

_Gems_, buds.
_Daulian minstrel_, the nightingale Philomela.
_Terean sufferings_, _i. e. _, at the hands of Tereus.


643. THE HAG.

The hag is astride
This night for to ride,
The devil and she together;
Through thick and through thin,
Now out and then in,
Though ne'er so foul be the weather.

A thorn or a burr
She takes for a spur,
With a lash of a bramble she rides now;
Through brakes and through briars,
O'er ditches and mires,
She follows the spirit that guides now.

No beast for his food
Dare now range the wood,
But hush'd in his lair he lies lurking;
While mischiefs, by these,
On land and on seas,
At noon of night are a-working.
The storm will arise
And trouble the skies;
This night, and more for the wonder,
The ghost from the tomb
Affrighted shall come,
Call'd out by the clap of the thunder.


644. UPON AN OLD MAN: A RESIDENTIARY.

Tread, sirs, as lightly as ye can
Upon the grave of this old man.
Twice forty, bating but one year
And thrice three weeks, he lived here.
Whom gentle fate translated hence
To a more happy residence.
Yet, reader, let me tell thee this,
Which from his ghost a promise is,
If here ye will some few tears shed,
He'll never haunt ye now he's dead.

_Residentiary_, old inhabitant.


645. UPON TEARS.

Tears, though they're here below the sinner's brine,
Above they are the angels' spiced wine.


646. PHYSICIANS.

Physicians fight not against men; but these
Combat for men by conquering the disease.


647. THE PRIMITIAE TO PARENTS.