Poets, that lasting marble seek,

Must carve in Latin or in Greek:
We write in sand; our language grows,
And, like the tide, our work o'erflows.

Chaucer his sense can only boast,
The glory of his numbers lost!

Years have defac'd his matchless strain,
And yet he did not sing in vain.

The beauties which adorn'd that age,
The shining subjects of his rage,
Hoping they should immortal prove,
Rewarded with success his love.

This was the generous poet's scope,
And all an English pen can hope,
To make the fair approve his flame,
That can so far extend their fame.

Verse, thus design'd, has no ill fate,
If it arrive but at the date

Of fading beauty; if it prove
But as long-liv'd as present love.

SONG.

WHILE I listen to thy voice,
Chloris, I feel my life decay:
That powerful noise

Calls my flitting soul away.
Oh ! suppress that magic sound,
Which destroys without a wound!

Peace, Chloris, peace! or singing die, That together you and I

To heaven may go:

For all we know

Of what the blessed do above,

Is that they sing, and that they love.

WILLIAM HABINGTON

WAS born in 1605, of a Roman Catholic family, in Worcestershire, and educated at Paris and St. Omer's. His literary accomplishments, and particularly his historical knowledge, recommended him to the favour of Charles I., at whose command he composed his "History of Edward IV." folio, 1640, in which, Wood says, his father, Thomas Habington, had a considerable hand. He also wrote "Observations upon History," 8vo, 1641; a tragi-comedy, called "The Queene of Arragon," folio, 1640; and a small volume of love-poems, under the title of " Castara ;" (second ed. 1635, third ed. corrected and augmented, 1640,) remarkable for their unaffected tenderness and moral merit. These were addressed to Lucia, daughter of Lord Powis, whom he afterwards married. He died in 1654.

SONG.

[From "The Queene of Arragon."]

FINE young folly, though you were
That fair beauty I did swear,

Yet you ne'er could reach my heart;

For we courtiers learn at school

Only with your sex to fool

You're not worth the serious part.

When I sigh and kiss your hand, Cross my arms, and wondering stand, Holding parley with your eye; Then dilate on my desires,

Swear the sun ne'er shot such fires ;All is but a handsome lie.

When I eye your curl or lace,
Gentle soul, you think your face
Straight some murder doth commit ;

And your virtue doth begin

To grow scrupulous of my sin;-
When I talk to show my wit.

Therefore, Madam, wear no cloud,
Nor to check my love grow proud,
For, in sooth, I much do doubt
'Tis the powder in your hair,
Not your breath, perfumes the air;
And your clothes that set you out.

Yet though truth has this confess'd,
And I vow, I love in jest;

When I next begin to court,
And protest an amorous flame,
You'll swear I in earnest am:-

Bedlam! this is pretty sport.

SONG.

[From the same.]

NOT the Phoenix in his death,

Nor those banks where violets grow,
And Arabian winds still blow,

Yield a perfume like her breath:
But, oh! marriage makes the spell,
And 'tis poison if I smell.

The twin beauties of the skies,
(When the half-sunk sailors haste
To rend sail and cut their mast)
Shine not welcome as her eyes:

But those beams, than storms more black,
If they point at me, I wrack.

Then for fear of such a fire,

Which kills worse than the long night

Which benumbs the Muscovite,

I must from my life retire.

But, oh no! for if her eye

Warm me not, I freeze and die.

The description of Castara.

LIKE the violet, which alone

Prospers in some happy shade,