Free wandering thoughts, not tied to muse,
Which, thinking all things, nothing choose,
Which, ere we see them come, are gone ;—
These life itself doth feed upon.

Then take no care but only to be jolly:
To be more wretched than we must, is folly.

SONG.

In Commendation of Music.

WHEN Whispering strains do softly steal
With creeping passion through the heart,

And when at every touch we feel
Our pulses beat, and bear a part;
When threads can make

A heart-string quake ;-
Philosophy

Can scarce deny,

1

The soul consists of harmony.

*

*

Oh, lull me, lull' me, charming air,

My senses rock'd' with wonder sweet!

4

Like snow on wool thy fallings are,

Soft like a spirit are thy feet.

"Our souls consist."

3 "rock."

Lull, lull, lull.”

26

4 "and."

Grief' who need2 fear

That hath an ear?

Down let him lie,

And slumbering die,

And change his soul for harmony.

1 "Griefs."

2 "needs."

N.B. The variations in the text of this song are taken from a copy in Bishop Sancroft's MS. collection of poetry in the Bodleian Library, dated 1647, to which Strode's name is subjoined. The printed copy is anonymous.

ROBERT GOMERSALL

Was born in 1600, and in 1614 sent to Christ-Church, Oxford, where he was afterwards made a student. Having taken the degree of A.M. and entered into orders, he became a celebrated preacher, and published several sermons (vide Wood's Ath. vol. i. p. 598). He wrote "The Levite's Revenge, containing Poeticall Meditations upon the nineteenth and twentieth chapters of Judges" (a sort of heroic poem), 1628, and "The Tragedie of Lodovick Sforza, Duke of Millan." Both were reprinted with a few occasional verses in 1633, 12mo.

Upon our vain Flattery of Ourselves, that the succeeding Times will be better than the former.

How we dally out our days!
How we seek a thousand ways

To find death! the which, if none

We sought out, would show us one.

Never was there morning yet

Sweet as is the violet

Which man's folly did not soon

Wish to be expir'd in noon;
As though such an haste did tend

To our bliss, and not our end.

*

Nay, the young ones in the nest
Suck this folly from the breast;
And no stammering ape but can
Spoil a prayer to be a man.

But

suppose that he is heard,
By the sprouting of his beard,
And he hath what he doth seek,
The soft clothing of the cheek,
Would he yet stay here?-or be
Fix'd in this maturity?—

Sooner shall the wandering star
Learn what rest and quiet are:
Sooner shall the slippery rill
Leave his motion and stand still.

Be it joy, or be it sorrow,

We refer all to the morrow;

That, we think, will ease our pain;

That, we do suppose again,

Will increase our joy; and so

Events, the which we cannot know,

We magnify, and are (in sum)
Enamour'd of the time to come.

Well, the next day comes, and then
Another next, and so to ten,

VOL. III.

M

To twenty we arrive, and find No more before us than behind Of solid joy; and yet haste on To our consummation;

(Till the forehead often have The remembrance of a grave;) And, at last, of life bereav'd, Die unhappy and deceiv'd.