No More Learning

Time steals away like to a stream,
And we glide hence away with them.
_No sound recalls the hours once fled,
Or roses, being withered_;
Nor us, my friend, when we are lost,
Like to a dew or melted frost.
Then live we mirthful while we should,
And turn the iron age to gold.
Let's feast, and frolic, sing, and play,
And thus less last than live our day.
_Whose life with care is overcast,
That man's not said to live, but last;
Nor is't a life, seven years to tell,
But for to live that half seven well;_
And that we'll do, as men who know,
Some few sands spent, we hence must go,
Both to be blended in the urn
From whence there's never a return.

_Adulce_, sweeten.
_Strut_, swell.


671. ONCE SEEN AND NO MORE.

Thousands each day pass by, which we,
Once past and gone, no more shall see.


672. LOVE.

This axiom I have often heard,
_Kings ought to be more lov'd than fear'd_.


673. TO M.
DENHAM ON HIS PROSPECTIVE POEM.

Or look'd I back unto the times hence flown
To praise those Muses and dislike our own--
Or did I walk those Paean-gardens through,
To kick the flowers and scorn their odours too--
I might, and justly, be reputed here
One nicely mad or peevishly severe.
But by Apollo! as I worship wit,
Where I have cause to burn perfumes to it;
So, I confess, 'tis somewhat to do well
In our high art, although we can't excel
Like thee, or dare the buskins to unloose
Of thy brave, bold, and sweet Maronian muse.
But since I'm call'd, rare Denham, to be gone,
Take from thy Herrick this conclusion:
'Tis dignity in others, if they be
Crown'd poets, yet live princes under thee;
The while their wreaths and purple robes do shine
Less by their own gems than those beams of thine.

_Paean-gardens_, gardens sacred to Apollo.
_Nicely_, fastidiously.


674. A HYMN TO THE LARES.

It was, and still my care is,
To worship ye, the Lares,
With crowns of greenest parsley
And garlic chives, not scarcely;
For favours here to warm me,
And not by fire to harm me;
For gladding so my hearth here
With inoffensive mirth here;
That while the wassail bowl here
With North-down ale doth troul here,
No syllable doth fall here
To mar the mirth at all here.
For which, O chimney-keepers!
(I dare not call ye sweepers)
So long as I am able
To keep a country table,
Great be my fare, or small cheer,
I'll eat and drink up all here.

_Troul_, pass round.


675. DENIAL IN WOMEN NO DISHEARTENING TO MEN.

Women, although they ne'er so goodly make it,
Their fashion is, but to say no, to take it.