The Golden Treasury. Various

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      Where the bee sucks, there suck I:

       In a cowslip's bell I lie;

       There I couch, when owls do cry:

       On the bat's back I do fly

       After summer merrily.

       Merrily, merrily, shall I live now,

       Under the blossom that hangs on the bough!

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      Come unto these yellow sands,

       And then take hands:

       Courtsied when you have, and kiss'd

       The wild waves whist,

       Foot it featly here and there;

       And, sweet Sprites, the burthen bear.

       Hark, hark!

       Bow-bow.

       The watch-dogs bark:

       Bow-wow.

       Hark, hark! I hear

       The strain of strutting chanticleer

       Cry, Cock-a-diddle-dow!

      W. Shakespeare

IV

      SUMMONS TO LOVE

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      Phoebus, arise!

       And paint the sable skies

       With azure, white, and red:

       Rouse Memnon's mother from her Tithon's bed

       That she may thy career with roses spread: The nightingales thy coming each-where sing: Make an eternal Spring! Give life to this dark world which lieth dead; Spread forth thy golden hair In larger locks than thou wast wont before, And emperor-like decore With diadem of pearl thy temples fair: Chase hence the ugly night Which serves but to make dear thy glorious light.

      —This is that happy morn,

       That day, long-wishéd day

       Of all my life so dark,

       (If cruel stars have not my ruin sworn

       And fates my hopes betray),

       Which, purely white, deserves

       An everlasting diamond should it mark.

       This is the morn should bring unto this grove

       My Love, to hear and recompense my love.

       Fair King, who all preserves,

       But show thy blushing beams,

       And thou two sweeter eyes

       Shalt see than those which by Penéus' streams

       Did once thy heart surprize.

       Now, Flora, deck thyself in fairest guise:

       If that ye winds would hear

       A voice surpassing far Amphion's lyre,

       Your furious chiding stay;

       Let Zephyr only breathe,

       And with her tresses play.

       —The winds all silent are,

       And Phoebus in his chair

       Ensaffroning sea and air

       Makes vanish every star:

       Night like a drunkard reels

       Beyond the hills, to shun his flaming wheels:

       The fields with flowers are deck'd in every hue,

       The clouds with orient gold spangle their blue;

       Here is the pleasant place—

       And nothing wanting is, save She, alas!

      W. Drummond of Hawthornden

V

      TIME AND LOVE

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      When I have seen by Time's fell hand defaced

       The rich proud cost of out-worn buried age;

       When sometime lofty towers I see down-razed,

       And brass eternal slave to mortal rage;

      When I have seen the hungry ocean gain

       Advantage on the kingdom of the shore,

       And the firm soil win of the watery main,

       Increasing store with loss, and loss with store;

      When I have seen such interchange of state,

       Or state itself confounded to decay,

       Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate—

       That Time will come and take my Love away:

      —This thought is as a death, which cannot choose

       But weep to have that which it fears to lose.

      W. Shakespeare

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      Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,

       But sad mortality o'ersways their power,

       How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,

       Whose action is no stronger than a flower?

      O how shall summer's honey breath hold out

       Against the wreckful siege of battering days,

       When rocks impregnable are not so stout

       Nor gates of steel so strong, but time decays?

      O fearful meditation! where, alack!

       Shall Time's best jewel from Time's chest lie hid?

       Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back,

       Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid?

      O! none, unless this miracle have might,

       That in black ink my love may still shine bright.

      W. Shakespeare.

VII

      THE PASSIONATE SHEPHERD TO HIS LOVE

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