XXIII.

Then let thy love mount from these baser things,
And to the highest love and worth aspire:
Love's born of fire, fitted with mounting wings,
That, at his highest, he might winde him higher;
Base love, that to base earth so basely clings!
Look, as the beams of that, celestial fire
Put out these earthly flames with purer ray;
So shall that love this baser heat allay,
And quench these coals of earth with his more
heav'nly day.

XXIV.

Raise then thy prostrate love with tow'ring thought,
And clog it not in chains, and prison here:
The God of fishers deare thy love hath bought:
Most deare he loves: for shame, love thou as
deare.
[sought;

Next, love thou there, where best thy love is
Myself, or else some other fitting peer.
Ah! might thy love with me for ever dwell!
Why should'st thou hate thy Heav'n and love thy
Hell?..

She shall not more deserve, nor cannot love so well.

If from this love thy will thou canst unbinde,

To will is here to can: will gives thee might: 'Tis done if once thou wilt; 'tis done, I finde.

Now let us home: for see, the creeping night Steals from those further waves upon the land. To-morrow shall we feast; ther, hand in hand,

Free will we sing, and dance along the golden sand.

I know not the author, where this sentiment of the short duration of the rose is prettily expressed:

Quam longa una dies, ætas tam longa rosarum, Quas pubescentes juncta senecta premit. Quam modo nascentem rutilus conspexit eous, Hanc rediens sero vespere vidit anum.

ECLOGUE VII.

THE PRIZE.

THE ARGUMENT.

At sunrise, a band of shepherds and shepherdesses are seen advancing in order, and are joined by

This eclogue is modelled after the third of Virgil, and fifth or eighth of Theocritus, which there have been few pastoral writers who have not chosen to imitate in some of their eclogues: there

a troop of fishers and water-nymphs, who had concerted to dispute with them the prize of singing. Daphnis, the shepherds', and Thomalin, the fishers' champion, advance in the middle of the circle, before Thirsil, who is appointed judge, and begin an alternate song, in which, after invoking their tutelary gods, they each recite the history of their loves, and the praises of their mistresses. After deciding the controversy, Thirsil, the judge, gives an invitation to all the shepherds and fishers, with their nymphs, and with him the day is spent in sporting and festivity.

are, however, I believe, none who, upon compar-` ing this of our poet with the similar eclogues of other authors, (nay, of these great models them

selves) will deny him in this the superiority. There

in the like eclogues of others. Even in Virgil and is here a much greater variety of sentiment than Theocritus, the one shepherd but barely repeats the sentiment of the other, only varying a little, and adapting it to apply to his own circumstances. One shepherd says, he intends to make a present of pigeons to his mistresses; the other, instead of pigeons, says he will give her apples. The contention between the shepherds in Spenser's Ec- logues has something extremely ludicrous and burlesque, where the one shepherd is merely an echo to the last words of the other, and the whole merit lies in an aukward chime of words with little or no meaning. If this eclogue yields to any of the same kind, it is to the ninth of Michael Drayton's and the contest between the shepherds is there pastorals, which is full of picturesque description, finely managed.

XVII.

Her hair all dark, more clear the white doth show And, with its night, her face's morn commends: Her eye-brow black, like to an ebon bow,

Which sporting Love upon her forehead bends, And thence his never-missing arrow sends. But most I wonder how that jetty ray, Which those two blackest sunnes do fair display, Should shine so bright, and night should make sp sweet a day.

XVIII.

So is my love an Heav'n; her hair a night ;
Her shining forehead Dian's silver light;
Her eyes the starres, their influence delight;
Her voice the spheares; her cheek Aurora bright;
Her breast the globes, where Heaven's paths
milkie-white
{touch3,
Runnes 'twixt those hills; her hand, Arion's
As much delights the eye, the eare as much.
Such is my love; that but my love was never such.

XIX. THIRSIL.

The earth her robe, the sea her swelling tide,

The trees their leaves, the Moon her divers face; The starres their courses, flow'rs their springing pride, [race.

Dayes change their length, the Sunne his dayly Be constant when you love; Love loves not ranging: [ing. Change when you sing; Muses delight in chang

It is hard to say, whether the above, or the following translation, by sir John Harrington, is more admirable.

Fair mistress, who for me to Heaven shall flye,

To bring again from thence my wand'ring wit? Which I still lose, since from that piercing eye The dart came forth that first my heart did hit: Nor of my loss at all complain would I,

Might I but keep that which remaineth yet:
But if it still decrease, within short space
I doubt I shall be in Orlando's case.
Yet well I wot where to recover mine,
Tho' not in Paradise, nor Cynthia's spheare
Yet doubtless in a place no less divine,

In that sweet face of yours, in that fair hair,
That ruby lip, in those two star-like eyne,

There is my wit-I know it wanders there;
And with my lips, if ye would give me leave,
I there would search, I thence would it receive.

And, now that we are on the subject of lips, I must mention William Warner, an old poet, and author of a work entitled Albion's England, who thus describes queen Eleanor's harsh treatinent of Rosamond, in a fine sentiment:

With that she dasht her on the lippes,
So dyed double red:

Hard was the heart that gave the blow!
Softe were those lippes that bled!

For a larger specimen of Warner's poetical abilities, the reader may consult the second volume of Mr. Percy's Collection of ancient Songs and Ballads, where he will find a pastoral, entitled Argentile and Coran, which will well reward his trouble.

Arion, a celebrated musician of antiquity, who saved his life by his skill in his art.