Fair is my love, but not so fair as fickle
Mild as a dove, but neither true nor trusty;
Brighter than glass, and yet, as glass is brittle;
Softer than wax, and yet, as iron, rusty:
A lily pale, with damask dye to grace her,
None fairer, nor none falser to deface her.

Her lips to mine how often hath she joined,
Between each kiss her oaths of true love swearing!
How many tales to please me hath she coined,
Dreading my love, the loss thereof still fearing!
Yet in the midst of all her pure protestings,

Crabbed age and youth cannot live together:
Youth is full of pleasance, age is full of care;
Youth like summer morn, age like winter weather;
Youth like summer brave, age like winter bare.
Youth is full of sport, age's breath is short;
Youth is nimble, age is lame;
Youth is hot and cold, age is weak and cold;
Youth is wild, and age is tame.
Age, I do abhor thee; youth, I do adore thee;
O, my love, my love is young!
Age, I do defy thee: O, sweet shepherd, hie thee,
For methinks thou stay'st too long.

Beauty is but a vain and doubtful good,
A shining gloss that fadeth suddenly,
A flower that dies when first it 'gins to bud,
A brittle glass that's broken presently.
— A doubtful good, a gloss, a glass, a flower,
— Lost, faded, broken, dead within an hour.

And as goods lost are seld or never found,
As faded gloss no rubbing will refresh,
As flowers dead lie withered on the ground,
As broken glass no cement can redress,
— So beauty blemished once, for ever lost,
— In spite of physic, painting, pain, and cost.

Most beautiful! the red-flowering eucalyptus,
the madrone, the yew

Is he . . .
So thou wouldst smile, and take me in thine arms
The sight of London to my exiled eyes
Is as Elysium to a new-come soul

I am the feast-maker:
Hark, through a noise
Of the screaming of eagles,
Hark how the Trumpet,
The mistress of mistresses,
Calls, silver-throated
And stern, where the tables
Are spread, and the meal
Of the Lord is in hand!
Driving the darkness,
Even as the banners
And spears of the Morning;
Sifting the nations,
The slag from the metal,
The waste and the weak
From the fit and the strong;
Fighting the brute,
The abysmal Fecundity;
Checking the gross,
Multitudinous blunders,
The groping, the purblind

( To Rudyard Kipling)

The Sword
Singing —
The voice of the Sword from the heart of the Sword
Clanging imperious
Forth from Time's battlements
His ancient and triumphing Song.

In the beginning,
Ere God inspired Himself
Into the clay thing
Thumbed to His image,
The vacant, the naked shell
Soon to be Man:
Thoughtful He pondered it,
Prone there and impotent,
Fragile, inviting
Attack and discomfiture;
Then, with a smile —
As He heard in the Thunder
That laughed over Eden

BAPTISMS.

The year revolves, and I again explore
The simple annals of my parish poor;
What infant-members in my flock appear,
What pairs I bless'd in the departed year;
And who, of old or young, or nymphs or swains,
Are lost to life, its pleasures and its pains.
No Muse I ask, before my view to bring,
The humble actions of the swains I sing. —
How pass'd the youthful, how the old their days;
Who sank in sloth, and who aspired to praise;
Their tempers, manners, morals, customs, arts,

MARRIAGES.

Disposed to wed, e'en while you hasten, stay;
There's great advantage in a small delay:
Thus Ovid sang, and much the wise approve
This prudent maxim, of the priest of Love:
If poor, delay for future want prepares,
And eases humble life of half its cares;
If rich, delay shall brace the thoughtful mind,
T' endure the ills that e'en the happiest find:
Delay shall knowledge yield on either part,
And show the value of the vanquish'd heart;
The humours, passions, merits, failings prove,

There was, 'tis said, and I believe, a time,
When humble Christians died with views sublime;
When all were ready for their faith to bleed,
But few to write or wranglo for their creed;
When lively faith upheld the sinking heart,
And friends, assured to meet, prepared to part;
When Love felt hope, when sorrow grew serene,
And all was comfort in the death-bed scene.

Alas! when now the gloomy king they wait,
'T is weakness yielding to resistless fate;
Like wretched men upon the ocean cast,

Done by the Author at 12 years old

Speak, Gracious Lord, oh speak; thy Servant hears:
For I'm thy Servant, and I'l still be so:
Speak words of Comfort in my willing Ears;
And since my Tongue is in thy praises slow,
And since that thine all Rhetorick exceeds;
Speak thou in words, but let me speak in deeds!

Nor speak alone, but give me grace to hear
What thy caelestial Sweetness does impart;
Let it not stop when entred at the Ear