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 entombed in autumn lies;
The dew dries up, the star is shot;
The flight is past, - and man forgot.

ELEGY.

SLEEP on, my love, in thy cold bed,
Never to be disquieted!

My last good night! Thou wilt not wake
Till I thy fate shall overtake;
Till age, or grief, or sickness must
Marry my body to that dust

It so much loves, and fill the room
My heart keeps empty in thy tomb.

Stay for me there! I will not fail
To meet thee in that hollow vale.
And think not much of my delay:
I am already on the way,
And follow thee with all the speed
Desire can make, or sorrow breed.
Each minute is a short degree,
And every hour a step towards thee.
At night, when I betake to rest,
Next morn I rise nearer my west
Of life, almost by eight hours' sail,
Than when sleep breathed his drowsygale.
Thus from the sun my vessel steers,
And my day's compass downward bears:
Nor labor I to stem the tide

Through which to thee I swiftly glide.

'Tis true, with shame and grief I yield,
Thou, like the van, first took'st the field,
And gotten hast the victory,
In thus adventuring to die
Before me, whose more years might crave
A just precedence in the grave.
But hark! my pulse, like a soft drum,
Beats my approach, tells thee I come:
And slow howe'er my marches be,
I shall at last sit down by thee.

The thought of this bids me go on,
And wait my dissolution
With hope and comfort. Dear, forgive
The crinie, I am content to live
Divided, with but half a heart,
Till we shall meet, and never part.

She bowed her gracious head to rest,
Such a weight as no burden was.
Long their fixed eyes to heaven bent,
Unchanged they did never move,
As if so great and pure a love
No glass but it could represent.
"These eyes again thine eyes shall see,
Thy hands again these hands infold,
And all chaste pleasures can be told,
Shall with us everlasting be.
Let then no doubt, Celinda, touch,
Much less your fairest mind invade;
Were not our souls immortal made,
Our equal loves can make them such."

Whilst I do rest, my soul advance;
Make my sleep a holy trance:
That I may, my rest being wrought,
Awake into some holy thought,
And with as active vigor run
My course, as doth the nimble sun.
Sleep is a death; O, make me try,
By sleeping, what it is to die:
And as gently lay my head
On my grave as now my bed.
Howe'er I rest, great God, let me
Awake again at last with thee.
And thus assured, behold I lie
Securely, or to wake or die.
These are my drowsy days; in vain
I do now wake to sleep again:
O, come that hour when I shall never
Sleep thus again, but wake forever.

RICHARD CRASHAW.

[1605-1650.]

WISHES.

WHOE'ER she be,

That not impossible She
That shall command my heart and me;

Where'er she lie,

Locked up from mortal eye In shady leaves of destiny,

Till that ripe birth

Of studied Fate' stand forth,

And teach her fair steps to our earth;

Till that divine

Idea take a shrine

Of crystal flesh, through which to shine:

- Meet you her, my Wishes, Bespeak her to my blisses, And be ye called, my absent kisses.

I wish her beauty

That owes not all its duty

To gaudy tire, or glist'ring shoe-tie :

Something more than

Taffeta or tissue can,

Or rampant feather, or rich fan,