No More Learning

It should be observed that this and the following Summaries apply in the
main to the Collection here presented, in which (besides its restriction
to Lyrical Poetry) a strictly representative or historical Anthology has
not been aimed at. Great Excellence, in human art as in human character,
has from the beginning of things been even more uniform than Mediocrity,
by virtue of the closeness of its approach to Nature:--and so far as the
standard of Excellence kept in view has been attained in this volume, a
comparative absence of extreme or temporary phases in style, a
similarity of tone and manner, will be found throughout:--something
neither modern nor ancient but true in all ages, and like the works of
Creation perfect as on the first day.




1. SPRING.

Spring, the sweet Spring, is the year's pleasant king;
Then blooms each thing, then maids dance in a ring,
Cold doth not sting, the pretty birds do sing,
Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!

The palm and may make country houses gay,
Lambs frisk and play, the shepherds pipe all day,
And we hear aye birds tune their merry lay,
Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!

The fields breathe sweet, the daisies kiss our feet,
Young lovers meet, old wives a-sunning sit,
In every street these tunes our ears do greet,
Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!
Spring, the sweet Spring!

T. NASH.




2. SUMMONS TO LOVE.

Phoebus, arise!
And paint the sable skies
With azure, white, and red:
Rouse Memnon's mother from her Tithon's bed
That she may thy career with roses spread:
The nightingales thy coming eachwhere sing:
Make an eternal spring!
Give life to this dark world which lieth dead;
Spread forth thy golden hair
In larger locks than thou wast wont before,
And emperor-like decore
With diadem of pearl thy temples fair:
Chase hence the ugly night
Which serves but to make dear thy glorious light.
--This is that happy morn,
That day, long wished day
Of all my life so dark,
(If cruel stars have not my ruin sworn
And fates not hope betray),
Which, purely white, deserves
An everlasting diamond should it mark.
This is the morn should bring unto this grove
My Love, to hear and recompense my love.
Fair King, who all preserves,
But show thy blushing beams,
And thou two sweeter eyes
Shalt see than those which by Peneus' streams
Did once thy heart surprize.
Now, Flora, deck thyself in fairest guise:
If that ye winds would hear
A voice surpassing far Amphion's lyre,
Your furious chiding stay;
Let Zephyr only breathe
And with her tresses play.
--The winds all silent are,
And Phoebus in his chair
Ensaffroning sea and air
Makes vanish every star:
Night like a drunkard reels
Beyond the hills, to shun his flaming wheels:
The fields with flowers are deck'd in every hue,
The clouds with orient gold spangle their blue;
Here is the pleasant place--
And nothing wanting is, save She, alas.

WILLIAM DRUMMOND OF HAWTHORNDEN.




3. TIME AND LOVE.

When I have seen by Time's fell hand defaced
The rich proud cost of out-worn buried age;
When sometime lofty towers I see down-razed,
And brass eternal slave to mortal rage.

When I have seen the hungry ocean gain
Advantage on the kingdom of the shore,
And the firm soil win of the watery main,
Increasing store with loss, and loss with store.

When I have seen such interchange of state,
Or state itself confounded to decay,
Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate--
That Time will come and take my Love away.

--This thought is as a death, which cannot choose
But weep to have that which it fears to lose.

W. SHAKESPEARE.




4.

Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,
But sad mortality o'ersways their power,
How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,
Whose action is no stronger than a flower?