Sidor som bilder
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Now, if Time knows

That her, whose radiant brows Weave them a garland of my vows;

Her, whose just bays

My future hopes can raise,

A trophy to her present praise;

Her, that dares be

What these lines wish to see:

I seek no further, it is she..

Henry Vaughan

1621-1695

THE RETREATE

(From Silex Scintillans, Part I., 1050)

Happy those early dayes, when I
Shin'd in my Angell-infancy!
Before I understood this place
Appointed for my second race,
Or taught my soul to fancy ought1
But a white, celestiall thought;
When yet I had not walkt above
A mile or two from my first Love,
And looking back, at that short space,
Could see a glimpse of his bright face;
When on some gilded Cloud or Floure
My gazing soul would dwell an houre,
And in those weaker glories spy
Some shadows of eternity;

Before I taught my tongue to wound
My conscience with a sinfull sound,
Or had the black art to dispence
A sev'rall sinne to ev'ry sense,

But felt through all this fleshly dresse
Bright Shootes of everlastingnesse.

O how I long to travell back,

And tread again that ancient track!
That I might once more reach that plaine,
Where first I left my glorious traine;
From whence th' inlightened spirit sees

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That shady City of Palme trees.

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But ah! my soul with too much stay Is drunk, and staggers in the way!

Yet pay less arrows than they owe.

...

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Some men a forward motion love,
But I by backward steps would move;
And, when this dust falls to the urn,
In that state I came, return.

DEPARTED FRIENDS

(From the same, Part II., 1655)

They are all gone into the world of light! And I alone sit ling'ring here!

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Their very memory is fair and bright, And my sad thoughts doth clear.

Silk, in Crashaw's time applied to a soft, thin, silken fabric.

It glows and glitters in my cloudy brest Like stars upon some gloomy grove,

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Or those faint beams in which this hill is drest After the Sun's remove.

1 Aught.

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That which her slender waist confin'd, Shall now my joyful temples bind; No monarch but would give his crown, His arms might do what this has done..

It was my heaven's extremest sphere, The pale which held that lovely deer,1 My joy, my grief, my hope, my love, Did all within this circle move.

A narrow compass, and yet there Dwelt all that's good, and all that's fair: Give me but what this riband bound, Take all the rest the sun goes round."

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1 This well-worn pun is characteristically Elizabethan. Pale that which encompasses (i.e., the girdle) as well as the fence of the deer-park.

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There, on beds of violets blue,

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When we for age could neither read nor write,
The subject made us able to indite.
The soul, with nobler resolutions deckt,
The body stooping, does herself erect:
No mortal parts are requisite to raise
Her, that unbody'd can her Maker praise.
The seas are quiet when the winds give o'er:
So, calm are we, when passions are no more:
For, then we know how vain it was to boast
Of fleeting things, so certain to be lost.
Clouds of affection from our younger eyes
Conceal that emptiness, which age descries,

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And fresh-blown roses washed in dew,
Filled her with thee, a daughter fair,
So buxom, blithe, and debonair.

Haste thee, Nymph, and bring with thee Jest, and youthful Jollity,

Quips and cranks and wanton wiles,
Nods and becks and wreathed smiles,
Such as hang on Hebe's cheek,
And love to live in dimple sleek;
Sport that wrinkled Care derides,
And Laughter holding both his sides.
Come, and trip it, as you go,
On the light fantastic toe;
And in thy right hand lead with thee
The mountain-nymph, sweet Liberty;
And, if I give thee honour due,
Mirth, admit me of thy crew,
To live with her, and live with thee,
In unreproved pleasures free;
To hear the lark begin his flight,
And, singing, startle the dull night,
From his watch-tower in the skies,
Till the dappled dawn doth rise;
Then to come in spite of sorrow,
And at my window bid good-morrow,
Through the sweet-briar, or the vine,
Or the twisted eglantine;

While the cock, with lively din,
Scatters the rear of darkness thin;
And to the stack, or the barn-door,
Stoutly struts his dames before:
Oft listening how the hounds and horn
Cheerly rouse the slumbering morn,
From the side of some hoar hill,
Through the high wood echoing shrill:
Some time walking, not unseen,
By hedgerow elms, on hillocks 'green,

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Right against the eastern gate

Where the great Sun begins his state

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Robed in flames and amber light,

The clouds in thousand liveries dight;
While the ploughman, near at hand,
Whistles o'er the furrowed land,
And the milkmaid singeth blithe,
And the mower whets his scythe,

1 Uncouth means here unknown, strange, remote. Named.

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And every shepherd tells his tale3 Under the hawthorn in the dale.

Straight mine eye hath caught new pleas

ures,

Whilst the landskip round it measures:
Russet lawns, and fallows gray,
Where the nibbling flocks do stray;
Mountains, on whose barren breast
The labouring clouds do often rest;
Meadows trim, with daisies pied,
Shallow brooks, and rivers wide;
Towers and battlements it sees
Bosomed high in tufted trees,
Where perhaps some beauty lies,
The cynosure of neighbouring eyes.
Hard by a cottage chimney smokes
From betwixt two aged oaks,
Where Corydon and Thyrsis met,
Are at their savoury dinner set

Of herbs, and other country messes,
Which the neat-handed Phillis dresses;
And then in haste her bower she leaves,
With Thestylis to bind the sheaves;
Or, if the earlier season lead,

To the tanned haycock in the mead.
Sometimes, with secure delight,
The upland hamlets will invite,
When the merry bells ring round,
And the jocund rebecks sound

To many a youth and many a maid

Dancing in the checkered shade,

And young and old come forth to play On a sunshine holyday,

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With store of ladies, whose bright eyes

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Rain influence, and judge the prize
Of wit or arms, while both contend
To win her grace whom all commend.
There let Hymen oft appear

In saffron robe, with taper clear,
And pomp, and feast, and revelry,
With mask and antique pageantry;
Such sights as youthful poets dream
On summer eyes by haunted stream.
Then to the well-trod stage anon,
If Jonson's learned sock be on,

Or sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy's child,
Warble his native wood-notes wild.

And ever, against eating cares, a
Lap me in soft Lydian' airs, a
Married to immortal verse, h
Such as the meeting soul may pierce,
In notes with many a winding bout e
Of linked sweetness, long drawn out,
With wanton heed and giddy cunning,
The melting voice through mazes running, Q
Untwisting all the chains that tie
The hidden soul of harmony;

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That Orpheus' self may heave his head From golden slumber on a bed

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Of heaped Elysian flowers, and hear 9

Such strains as would have won the ear Of Pluto to have quite set free

His half-regained Eurydice."

These delights if thou canst give,
Mirth, with thee I mean to live.

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Till the livelong daylight fail:

Then to the spicy nut-brown ale,

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With stories told of many a feat,

How Faery Mab the junkets' eat.

She was pinched and pulled, she said;
And he, by Friar's lantern led,
Tells how the drudging goblin sweat
To earn his cream-bowl duly set,

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When in one night, ere glimpse of morn,

is shadowy flail hath threshed the corn That ten day-labourers could not end; Then lies him down the lubber fiend,

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And, stretched out all the chimney's length, Basks at the fire his hairy strength,

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And crop-full out of doors he flings,

Ere the first cock his matin rings.

Hail, divinest Melancholy!

Thus done the tales, to bed they creep,

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By whispering winds soon lulled asleep. Towered cities please us then,

To hit the sense of human sight,

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And the busy hum of men,

Where throngs of knights and barons bold, In weeds of peace, high triumphs hold,

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