He saw; but, blasted with excess of light
Closed his eyes in endless night.

Behold, where Dryden's less presumptuous car Wide o'er the fields of glory bear

Two coursers of ethereal race,

With necks in thunder clothed,1 and long-resounding pace.

III.-3.

Hark, his hands the lyre explore!
Bright-eyed Fancy, hovering o'er,
Scatters from her pictured urn
Thoughts that breathe, and words that burn.
But ah! 'tis heard no more—

O lyre divine, what daring spirit
Wakes thee now? Though he inherit
Nor the pride, nor ample pinion,

That the Theban eagle 2 bear,
Sailing with supreme dominion
Through the azure deep of air,

Yet oft before his infant eyes would run
Such forms as glitter in the Muse's ray,
With orient hues, unborrowed of the sun;
Yet shall he mount, and keep his distant way
Beyond the limits of a vulgar fate,

Beneath the Good how far-but far above the

1 ""

Great.

T. GRAY

'Hast thou clothed his neck with thunder?"--Job. This verse and the foregoing are meant to express the stately march and sounding energy of Dryden's rhymes.-T. GRAY.

2 Pindar compares himself to that bird, and his enemies to ravens that croak and clamour in vain below, while it pursues its flight regardless of their noise.-T. GRAY.

150. THE DIRGE OF MARCELLO1

CALL for the robin-redbreast and the wren,
Since o'er shady groves they hover,
And with leaves and flowers do cover
The friendless bodies of unburied men.
Call unto his funeral dole

The ant, the field-mouse, and the mole

To rear him hillocks that shall keep him warm, And (when gay tombs are robbed) sustain no harm. But keep the wolf far thence, that's foe to men, For with his nails he'll dig them up again.

J. WEBSTER

151. TWO SONGS FOR ST. THERESA

"A woman, for angelical height of speculation, for masculine courage of performance, more than a woman; who, yet a child, outran maturity, and durst plot a martyrdom."

"2

I

LOVE, thou art absolute, sole lord

Of life and death! To prove the word,

We need to go to none at all

Those thy old soldiers, stout and tall,
Ripe and full-grown, that could reach down
With strong arm their triumphant crown ;

1 A character in The White Devil.

2 When she was seven years old, she set out on a pilgrimage, with the intention of offering herself for martyrdom to the Moors.

Such as could with lusty breath

Speak loud unto the face of Death

Their great lord's glorious name; to none
Of those whose large breasts built a throne
For Love, their lord, glorious and great :
We'll see him take a private seat,
And make his mansion in the mild
And milky soul of a soft child.

Scarce had she learnt to lisp a name
Of martyr, yet she thinks it shame
Life should so long play with that breath
Which, spent, can buy so brave a death.
She never undertook to know

What death with love should have to do,
Nor hath she e'er yet understood
Why, to show love, she must shed blood:
Yet, though she cannot tell you why,
She can love, and she can die.

Scarce had she blood enough to make
A guilty sword blush for her sake;
Yet has she a heart dares hope to prove
How much less strong is death than love.

Be love but there, let six poor years
Be posed with the maturest fears
Man trembles at, we straight shall find
Love knows no nonage, nor the mind:
'Tis love, not years or limb, that can
Make the martyr and the man.
Love toucht her heart, and lo! it beats
High, and burns with such brave heats,
Such thirst to die, as dare drink up
A thousand cold deaths in one cup;

Good reason, for she breathes all fire;
Her weak breast heaves with strong desire
Of what she may with fruitless wishes
Seek for amongst her mother's kisses.

*

*

*

*

O what? ask not the tongues of men :
Angels cannot tell. Suffice,
Thyself shalt feel thine own full joys,
And hold them fast for ever there.
So soon as thou shalt first appear,
The Moon of maiden Stars, thy white
Mistress, attended by such bright
Souls as thy shining self, shall come
And in her first ranks make thee room.

Angels, thy old friends, there shall greet thee,

Glad at their own home now to meet thee.

All thy good works which went before

And waited for thee at the door

Shall own thee there; and all in one

Weave a constellation

Of crowns, with which the King thy Spouse
Shall build up thy triumphant brows.

Those rare works 1 where thou shalt leave writ

Love's noble history, with wit

Taught thee by none but Him, while here
They feed our souls, shall clothe thine there.
Each heavenly word by whose hid flame
Our hard hearts shall strike fire, the same
Shall flourish on thy brows, and be
Both fire to us and flame to thee;

1 She wrote a large number of treatises, religious meditations, etc.

Whose light shall live bright, in thy face
By glory, in our hearts by grace.

II

O heart!

Live in these conquering leaves;1 live all the same ;
And walk through all tongues one triumphant flame;
Live here, great heart! and love, and die, and kill ;
And bleed, and wound, and yield, and conquer still.
Let this immortal life where'er it comes
Walk in a crowd of loves and martyrdoms:
Let mystic deaths wait on't; and wise souls be
The love-slain witnesses of this life of thee.
O sweet incendiary! show here thy art
Upon this carcass of a hard, cold heart:
Let all thy scattered shafts of light, that play
Among the leaves of thy large books of day,
Combined against this breast, at once break in,
And take away from me my self and sin;
This gracious robbery shall thy bounty be,
And my best fortunes such fair spoils of me.

O thou undaunted daughter of desires!

By all thy power of lights and fires; By all the eagle in thee, all the dove;

By all thy lives and deaths of love; By thy large draughts of intellectual day : And by thy thirsts of love more large than they; By all thy brim-filled bowls of fierce desire ; By thy last morning's draught of liquid fire ; By the full kingdom of that parting kiss That seized thy parting soul, and sealed thee His

1 The poem was inspired by her "picture and book."