had'st thou not stood to show us what thou wer't, by thy affliction that descry'd thy heart! 632 It is not but the tempest that doth show

the sea-man's cunning, but the field that tries
the captain's courage; and we come to know
best what men are, in their worst jeopardies.
For lo! how many have we seen to grow
to high renown from lowest miseries,

out of the hands of death? And many a one

to have been undone, had they not been undone?
He that endures for what his conscience knows
not to be ill, doth from a patience high

look only on the cause whereto he owes
those sufferings, not on his misery:

the more he endures, the more his glory grows:
which never grows from imbecillity:

only the best composed and worthiest hearts
God sets to act the hard'st and constant'st parts.

S. DANIEL

633 GOD FORETELLS SATAN'S SUCCESS IN PERVERTING

will fall

MANKIND

She and his faithless progeny. Whose fault?

whose but his own? Ingrate, he had of ME
all he could have. I made him just and right,
sufficient to have stood, though free to fall.

Such as I created all the ethereal Powers

and Spirits, both them who stood and them who
failed;

freely they stood who stood, and fell who fell.
Not free, what proof could they have given sincere
of true allegiance, constant faith, or love,
where only what they needs must do appeared,
not what they would? what praise could they receive?
what pleasure I from such obedience paid,
when will and reason (reason also is choice)
useless and vain, of freedom both despoiled
made passive both, had served necessity,
not ME.

J. MILTON

634

I

DARKNESS

HAD a dream, which was not all a dream. The bright sun was extinguished, and the stars did wander darkling in the eternal space,

rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth

swung blind and blackening in the moonless air;
morn came and went—and came, and brought no day,
the rivers, lakes and ocean all stood still,
and nothing stirred within their silent depths;
ships sailorless lay rotting on the sea,

and their masts fell down piece-meal: as they dropp'd
they slept on the abyss without a surge—

the waves were dead: the tides were in their grave,
the Moon, their mistress, had expired before;
the winds were wither'd in the stagnant air,
and the clouds perish'd! Darkness had no need
of aid from them-She was the Universe.

LORD BYRON

635 ZIPHARES CONVINCED OF THE INCONSTANCY OF

636

SEMANDRA

H my hard fate! why did I trust her ever?

the sex is all a sea of wide destruction:

we are the venturous barks that leave our home,
for those sure dangers which their smiles conceal :
at first they draw us in with flattering looks
of summer-calms and a soft gale of sighs:
sometimes, like Sirens, charm us with their songs,
dance on the wave, and shew their golden locks:
but when the tempest comes, then, then they leave us,
or rather help the new calamity,

and the whole storm is one injurious woman.
The lightning, followed with a thunderbolt,
is marble-hearted woman; all the shelves,

the faithless winds, blind rocks, and sinking sands,
are women all; the wracks of wretched men.

CATILINE'S ADDRESS TO HIS ARMY

You

N. LEE

might have lived in servitude, or exile,

or safe at Rome, depending on the great ones;

637

638

but that you thought those things unfit for men:
and, in that thought, you then were valiant;
for no man ever yet changed peace for war,
but he that meant to conquer. Hold that purpose.
There's more necessity you should be such,
in fighting for yourselves, than they for others.
He's base that trusts his feet, whose hands are arm'd.
Methinks I see Death and the Furies waiting
what we will do, and all the heaven at leisure
for the great spectacle. Draw then your swords;
and if our destiny envy our virtue

the honour of the day, yet let us care

to sell ourselves at such a price as may
undo the world to buy us.

SWEE

EVE TO ADAM

B. JONSON

WEET is the breath of morn, her rising sweet, with charm of earliest birds; pleasant the sun, when first on this delightful land he spreads his orient beams, on herb, tree, fruit and flower, glistering with dew; fragrant the fertile earth after soft showers; and sweet the coming-on of grateful evening mild; then silent night with this her solemn bird, and this fair moon, and these the gems of heaven, her starry train: but neither breath of morn when she ascends with charm of earliest birds; nor rising sun on this delightful land; nor herb, fruit, flower, glistering with dew; nor fragrance after showers; nor grateful evening mild; nor silent night, with this her solemn bird; nor walk by moon, or glittering starlight, without thee is sweet.

M

MAN'S SUREST STAY

J. MILTON

AN is a torch borne in the wind: a dream
but of a shadow, summ'd with all his substance;

and as great seamen, using all their wealth
and skills in Neptune's deep invisible paths,
in tall ships richly built and ribb'd with brass,
to put a girdle round about the world,

when they have done it (coming near their haven)
are fain to give a warning piece, and call

a poor stayed fisherman, that never past
his country's sight, to waft and guide them in:
so when we wander furthest through the waves
of glassy glory and the gulfs of state,

topp'd with all titles, spreading all our reaches,
as if each private arm would sphere the earth,
we must to virtue for her guide resort,
or we shall shipwreck in our safest port.

G. CHAPMAN

639

CARATACH GENERAL OF THE BRITONS
HIS ADDRESS TO ANDATE

640

DIVIN

IVINE Andate, thou who hold'st the reins
of furious battles and disorder'd war,

and proudly roll'st thy swarty chariot-wheels
over the heaps of wounds and carcasses,

sailing through seas of blood; thou sure-steel'd stern

ness,

give us this day good hearts, good enemies,

good blows o' both sides, wounds that fear or flight can claim no share in; steel us both with angers

and warlike executions fit thy viewing;

let Rome put on her best strength, and thy Britain,
thy little Britain, but as great in fortune,

meet her as strong as she, as proud, as daring!
and then look on, thou red-ey'd god: who does best,
reward with honour; who despair makes fly,
unarm for ever, and brand with infamy!
Grant this, divine Andate! 'tis but justice.

BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER

CORIOLANUS TO THOSE WHO BANISHED HIM

You

YOU common cry of curs! whose breath I hate as reek o' the rotten fens, whose loves I prize as the dead carcasses of unburied men, that do corrupt my air,-I banish you; and here remain with your uncertainty! let every feeble rumour shake your hearts! your enemies, with nodding of their plumes, fan you into despair! Have the power still to banish your defenders; till at length your ignorance, (which finds not till it feels),

641

making not reservation of yourselves,
(still your own foes), deliver you, as most
abated captives, to some nation

that won you without blows! Despising
for you the city, thus I turn my back:
there is a world elsewhere.

W. SHAKESPEARE

THE ANGELS' CAMP BY NIGHT

Now when ambrosial night, with clouds exhaled

from that high mount of God, whence light and
shade

spring both, the face of brightest heaven had changed
to grateful twilight-for night comes not there
in darker veil-and roseate dews disposed
all but the unsleeping eyes of God to rest:
wide over all the plain, and wider far
than all this globous earth in plain outspread—
such are the courts of God-the angelic throng,
dispersed in bands and files, their camp extend
by living streams among the trees of life,
pavilions numberless, and sudden reared,
celestial tabernacles, where they slept

fanned with cool winds; save those who, in their course,
melodious hymns about the sovran throne

alternate all night long.

J. MILTON

642 ANTONIO AT THE VAULT IN WHICH HIS FATHER'S

BODY IS PLACED

OST honoured sepulcre, vouchsafe a wretch

ere I creep in thee, and with bloodless lips
kiss my cold father's cheek. I prythee, grave,
provide soft mould to wrap my carcase in.

Thou royal spirit of Andrugio, where'er thou hoverest,
once every night I'll dew thy funeral hearse

with my religious tears.

O blessed father of a cursed son,

thou diedst most happy, since thou livedst not
to see thy son most wretched, and thy wife
pursued by him that seeks my guiltless blood.
O, in what orb thy mighty spirit soars,
stoop and beat down this rising fog of shame,