28.

FANCY IN NUBIBUS.

Oн, it is pleasant, with a heart at ease,
Just after sunset, or by moonlight skies,

To make the shifting clouds be what you please,
Or let the easily-persuaded eyes

Own each quaint likeness issuing from the mould
Of a friend's fancy; or, with head bent low,

And cheek aslant, see rivers flow of gold,

'Twixt crimson banks; and then a traveller go From mount to mount, through Cloudland, gorgeous

land!

Or, listening to the tide with closed sight,

Be that blind Bard, who on the Chian strand,

By those deep sounds possessed with inward light,
Beheld the Iliad and the Odyssee

Rise to the swelling of the voiceful sea.

NOTES.

No. 3. A VISION UPON THE FAERIE QUEENE. This is the first of the commendatory verses prefixed to the first edition of The Faerie Queene. "Two persons, I have no doubt, were included in the magnificent flattery of this sonnet Queen Elizabeth as well as Spenser; for it was she whom the poet expressly imaged in his Queen of Fairyland; and Sir W. Raleigh was not the man to let the occasion pass for extolling that great woman, their joint mistress. His abolition of Laura, Petrarch, and Homer all in a lump, in honour of his friend Spenser is in the highest style of his wilful and somewhat domineering genius; but everything in the poem is as grandly as it is summarily done." - Leigh Hunt.

Q

No. 15. TO HIS LUTE. This sonnet was later expanded by Shelley in his beautiful poem entitled To a Lady, with a Guitar (see page 336). ramage. Wood-song.

harbinger. Messenger, herald.

turtle. Turtle dove.

No. 22. SWEET AND BITTER.

brere. Briar.

eglantine. Hawthorn.

moly. A herb with a black root and white blossoms, mentioned in the Odyssey.

No. 23. THE NILE. One of the finest of Leigh Hunt's poems. Sisostris. One of the greatest of Egypt's ancient rulers. to the third king of the nineteenth dynasty, 2300 B.C. queen. Cleopatra.

A name given The laughing

The

No. 24. IN SAN LORENZO. Line 1. "O slumbering Night." famous statue of sleeping Night, on the tomb of Giuliano de' Medici, by Michael Angelo, in the Medici Chapel of San Lorenzo, Florence. The poet supposes the dawn of Italian liberty to be at hand as indeed it was, when this fine sonnet was written.

No. 26. CUPID AND CAMPASPE. and Campaspe, published in 1584. ness and point, of Attic salt and the honey of Hymettus."

From the drama entitled Alexander "It is full," says Hazlitt, "of sweet

Lyrics of Life.

The poet's mission is not to disguise men from themselves, but to reveal to them their own nature, and make them better acquainted with the world around them. True poetry is the remembrance of love, the embodiment in words of the happiest and holiest moments of life, of the noblest thoughts of man, of the greatest deeds of the past.-PROFESSOR JOWETT.

I.

MAN'S MORTALITY.

LIKE as the damask rose you see,
Or like the blossom on the tree,
Or like the dainty flower in May,
Or like the morning of the day,
Or like the sun, or like the shade,
Or like the gourd which Jonas had-
E'en such is man; whose thread is spun,
Drawn out, and cut, and so is done.
The rose withers; the blossom blasteth;
The flower fades; the morning hasteth;
The sun sets, the shadow flies;
The gourd consumes; and man he dies!

Like to the grass that's newly sprung,
Or like a tale that's new begun,
Or like the bird that's here to-day,
Or like the pearlèd dew of May,
Or like an hour, or like a span,
Or like the singing of a swan
E'en such is man; who lives by breath,
Is here, now there, in life and death.
The grass withers, the tale is ended;
The bird is flown, the dew's ascended;
The hour is short, the span is long;

The swan's near death; man's life is done!

SIMON WASTELL.

2.

THE LIFE OF MAN.

LIKE to the falling of a star,
Or as the flights of eagles are,
Or like the fresh spring's gaudy hue,
Or silver drops of morning dew,
Or like a wind that chafes the flood,
Or bubbles which on water stood:
Even such is man, whose borrowed light
Is straight called in and paid to night :
The wind blows out; the bubble dies;
The spring intomb'd in autumn lies;
The dew's dry'd up; the star is shot;
The flight is past; and man forgot!

-FRANCIS BEAUMONT.

3.

LIFE AND THE FLOWERS.

I MADE a posy while the day ran by:
"Here will I smell my remnant out, and tie
My life within this band."

But Time did beckon to the flowers, and they
By noon most cunningly did steal away,
And withered in my hand.

My hand was next to them, and then my heart.
I took, without more thinking, in good part
Time's gentle admonition;

Who did so sweetly death's sad taste convey,
Making my mind to smell my fatal day,
Yet sugaring the suspicion.

Farewell, dear flow'rs! sweetly your time ye spent ;
Fit, while ye lived, for smell or ornament;
And after death, for cures.

I follow straight, without complaints or grief;
Since, if my scent be good, I care not if

It be as short as yours.

- GEORGE HERBERT.