When echo doth repeat thy painful cries,

Think that the very stones thy sins bewray, And now accuse thee with their sad replies, As heaven and earth shall in the latter day. Let former faults be fuel of thy fire,

For grief in limbeck" of thy heart to still; Thy pensive thoughts and dumps of thy desire, And vapour tears up to thy eyes at will. Let tears to tunes, and pains to plaints be prest, And let this be the burthen of thy song: "Come, deep remorse, possess my sinful breast; Delights, adieu! I harboured you too long."

CONTENT AND RICH.

I DWELL in grace's courts,

Enriched with virtue's rights;
Faith guides my wit, love leads my will,

Hope all my mind delights.

In lowly vales I mount

To pleasure's highest pitch,

My silly shroud 3 sure honour brings,

My poor estate is rich.

My conscience is my crown,

Contented thoughts my rest,

My heart is happy in itself,
My bliss is in my breast.

Enough, I reckon wealth;

A mean, the surest lot,

That lies too high for base contempt,
Too low for envy's shot.

My wishes are but few,

All easy to fulfil;

I make the limits of my power

The bounds unto my will.

2 Alembic.

3 Simple attire.

I have no hopes but one,

Which is of heavenly reign: Effects attained, or not desired, All lower hopes refrain.

I feel no care of coin,

Well-doing is my wealth: My mind to me an empire is, While grace affordeth health.

I clip high-climbing thoughts,

The wings of swelling pride: Their fate is worst, that from the height Of greater honour slide.

Silk sails of largest size

The storm doth soonest tear:

I bear so low and small a sail
As freeth me from fear

I wrestle not with rage

While fury's flame doth burn; It is in vain to stop the stream Until the tide doth turn.

But when the flame is out,

And ebbing wrath doth end,

I turn a late-enraged foe

Unto a quiet friend;

And, taught with often proof,

A tempered calm I find

To be most solace to itself,

Best cure for angry mind.

Spare diet is my fare,

My clothes more fit than fine: I know I feed and clothe a foe

That pampered would repine.

I envy not their hap

Whom favour doth advance:

I take no pleasure in their pain
That have less happy chance.

To rise by others' fall,

I deem a losing gain:

All states with others' ruins built
To ruins run amain.

No change of fortune's calms

Can cast my comforts down:

When fortune smiles, I smile to think

How quickly she will frown;

And when in froward mood

She proved an angry foe,
Small gain I found to let her come,
Less loss to let her go.

SCORN NOT THE LEAST.

WHERE words are weak, and foes encountering strong, Where mightier do assault than do defend,

The feebler part puts up enforced wrong,

And silent sees that speech could not amend. Yet higher powers must think, though they repine, When sun is set the little stars will shine.

The merlin cannot ever soar so high,

Nor greedy greyhound still pursue the chase; The tender lark will find a time to fly,

And fearful hare to run a quiet race: He that high growth on cedars did bestow, Gave also lowly mushrooms leave to grow. In Haman's pomp poor Mardocheus wept,

Yet God did turn his fate upon his foe:
The lazar pined while Dives' feast was kept,
Yet he to heaven, to hell did Dives go.

We trample grass, and prize the flowers of May,
Yet grass is green when flowers do fade away.

EDMUND SPENSER.

EDMUND SPENSER was born in London about 1553. He was educated at Pembroke Hall, Cambridge. He has been styled, by way of pre-eminence, the DIVINE POET OF ENGLAND. This may, perhaps, be somewhat incorrect; his writings have, however, a pure, elevating, and beautiful spirit of humanity; and his Divine Hymns, it has been well remarked, are indeed divine. Spenser was made Secretary of Ireland, and he obtained a grant of lands forfeited in the county of Cork. On the breaking out of Tyrone's rebellion, he was obliged to abandon his home so abruptly that one of his children perished in the flames which consumed his dwelling. He died shortly after, it is said of a broken heart, in 1599; and was buried, by his own desire, near the tomb of Chaucer, in Westminster Abbey.

HEAVENLY LOVE.

LOVE! lift me up upon thy golden wings

From this base world unto thy heaven's height,

Where I may see those admirable things

Which there thou workest by thy sovereign might,
Far above feeble reach of earthly sight,
That I thereof an heavenly hymn may sing
Unto the God of Love, high heaven's King.

Before this world's great frame, in which all things
Are now contained, found any being place,

Ere flitting Time could wag his eyas1 wings

About that mighty bound which doth embrace
The rolling spheres, and parts their hours by space,
That high Eternal power, which now doth move
In all these things, moved in itself by love.

1 Eyas, young, newly fledged; a young hawk not fit for flight.

It loved itself because itself was fair

(For fair is loved), and of itself begot, Like to itself, his eldest son and heir,

Eternal, pure, and void of sinful blot,
The firstling of his joy, in whom no jot
Of love's dislike, or pride, was to be found,-
Whom He therefore with equal honour crowned.

With Him He reigned before all time prescribed,
In endless glory and immortal might,
Together with that Third from them derived,

Most wise, most holy, most Almighty Sprite,

Whose kingdom's throne no thoughts of earthly wight

Can comprehend, much less my trembling verse

With equal words can hope it to rehearse.

Yet, O most blessed Spirit! pure lamp of light,
Eternal spring of grace and wisdom true,
Vouchsafe to shed into my barren sprite

Some little drop of thy celestial dew,

That may my rhymes with sweet infuse imbrue,
And give me words equal unto my thought,
To tell the marvels by thy mercy wrought.

Yet being pregnant still with powerful grace,

And full of fruitful love, that loves to get
Things like Himself, and to enlarge his race,

His second brood, though not of power so great,
Yet full of beauty, next He did beget

An infinite increase of angels bright,

All glist'ning glorious in their Maker's light.

To shew the heaven's illimitable height,

(Not this round heaven which we from hence behold,) Adorned with thousand lamps of burning light,

And with ten thousand gems of shining gold,

He gave as their inheritance to hold,

That they might serve him in eternal bliss,
And be partakers of those joys of his.