No More Learning

Though hourly comforts from the gods we see,
_No life is yet life-proof from misery_.


278. TO HIS HOUSEHOLD GODS.

Rise, household gods, and let us go;
But whither I myself not know.
First, let us dwell on rudest seas;
Next, with severest savages;
Last, let us make our best abode
Where human foot as yet ne'er trod:
Search worlds of ice, and rather there
Dwell than in loathed Devonshire.


279. TO THE NIGHTINGALE AND ROBIN REDBREAST.

When I departed am, ring thou my knell,
Thou pitiful and pretty Philomel:
And when I'm laid out for a corse, then be
Thou sexton, redbreast, for to cover me.


280. TO THE YEW AND CYPRESS TO GRACE HIS FUNERAL.

Both you two have
Relation to the grave:
And where
The funeral-trump sounds, you are there,

I shall be made,
Ere long, a fleeting shade:
Pray, come
And do some honour to my tomb.

Do not deny
My last request; for I
Will be
Thankful to you, or friends, for me.


281. I CALL AND I CALL.

I call, I call: who do ye call?
The maids to catch this cowslip ball:
But since these cowslips fading be,
Troth, leave the flowers, and, maids, take me.
Yet, if that neither you will do,
Speak but the word and I'll take you.


282. ON A PERFUMED LADY.

You say you're sweet; how should we know
Whether that you be sweet or no?
From powders and perfumes keep free,
Then we shall smell how sweet you be.


283. A NUPTIAL SONG OR EPITHALAMY ON SIR CLIPSEBY CREW AND HIS LADY.

What's that we see from far? the spring of day
Bloom'd from the east, or fair enjewell'd May
Blown out of April, or some new
Star filled with glory to our view,
Reaching at heaven,
To add a nobler planet to the seven?
Say, or do we not descry
Some goddess in a cloud of tiffany
To move, or rather the
Emergent Venus from the sea?

'Tis she! 'tis she! or else some more divine
Enlightened substance; mark how from the shrine
Of holy saints she paces on,
Treading upon vermilion
And amber: spic-
ing the chaft air with fumes of Paradise.
Then come on, come on and yield
A savour like unto a blessed field
When the bedabbled morn
Washes the golden ears of corn.

See where she comes; and smell how all the street
Breathes vineyards and pomegranates: O how sweet!