A honey tongue, a heart of gall,
Is fancy's spring, but sorrow's fall.

Thy gowns, thy shoes, thy beds of roses,
Thy cap, thy kirtle, and thy posies,
Soon break, soon wither, soon forgotten,
In folly ripe, in reason rotten.

Thy belt of straw and ivy-buds, Thy coral clasps and amber studs, All these in me no means can move To come to thee, and be thy love.

What should we talk of dainties then,
Of better meat than's fit for men?
These are but vain; that's only good
Which God hath blest, and sent for food.

But could youth last and love still breed,
Had joys no date nor age no need;
Then those delights my mind might move
To live with thee, and be thy love.

I

PISC. Well sung, good woman; thank you. I'll give you another dish of fish one of these days, and then beg another song of you. Come, scholar, let Maudlin alone; do not you offer to spoil her voice. Look, yonder comes mine hostess, to call us to supper. How now? Is my brother Peter come?

HOST. Yes, and a friend with him, they are both glad to hear that you are in these parts, and long to see you, and long to be at supper, for they be very hungry.

JOHN MILTON

HYMN ON THE MORNING OF CHRIST'S NATIVITY

Ir was the winter wilde,

While the Heav'n-born-childe,

All meanly wrapt in the rude manger

lies; Nature in aw to him

Had doff't her gawdy trim,

With her great Master so to sympathize: It was no season then for her

To wanton with the sun her lusty para

mour.

Only with speeches fair She woo's the gentle air

To hide her guilty front with innocent

snow,

And on her naked shame,

Pollute with sinfull blame,

The saintly vail of maiden white to throw,

Confounded, that her Makers eyes Should look so neer upon her foul deformities.

But he her fears to cease,

Sent down the meek-eyd Peace:

She crown'd with olive green, came softly
sliding

Down through the turning sphear
His ready harbinger,

With turtle wing the amorous clouds dividing,

And waving wide her mirtle wand, She strikes a universall peace through sea and land.

No war, or battails sound
Was heard the world around,

The idle spear and shield were high up hung;

The hooked chariot stood
Unstain'd with hostile blood,

The trumpet spake not to the armèd throng,

And kings sate still with awfull eye, As if they surely knew their sovran Lord was by.

But peacefull was the night
Wherein the Prince of light

His raign of peace upon the earth began:
The windes with wonder whist,
Smoothly the waters kist,

Whispering new joyes to the milde
Ocean,

Who now hath quite forgot to rave,
While birds of calm sit brooding on the
charmed wave.

The Stars with deep amaze
Stand fixt in stedfast gaze,

Bending one way their pretious influence,
And will not take their flight
For all the morning light,

And Heav'n as at som festivall, Will open wide the gates of her high palace hall.

But wisest Fate sayes no,
This must not yet be so,

The Babe lies yet in smiling infancy,
That on the bitter cross
Must redeem our loss;

So both himself and us to glorifie :
Yet first to those ychain'd in sleep,
The wakefull trump of doom must thunder
through the deep,

With such a horrid clang
As on mount Sinai rang

While the red fire, and smouldring clouds out brake:

The agèd Earth agast

With terrour of that blast,

Shall from the surface to the center

shake;

When at the worlds last session,

The dreadfull Judge in middle air shall spread his throne.

And then at last our bliss

Full and perfect is,

A voice of weeping heard, and loud lament;

From haunted spring, and dale
Edg'd with poplar pale,

The parting Genius is with sighing sent, With flowre-inwov'n tresses torn

The nimphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets mourn.

In consecrated earth,
And on the holy hearth,

The Lars, and Lemures moan with midnight plaint,

In urns, and altars round,
A drear, and dying sound

Affrights the flamins at their service quaint;

And the chill marble seems to sweat, While each peculiar power forgoes his wonted seat.

Peor, and Baalim,

Forsake their temples dim,

With that twise-batter'd god of Palestine,

And moonèd Ashtaroth,

Heav'ns queen and mother both,

Now sits not girt with tapers holy shine,

day

Th'old Dragon under ground

In straiter limits bound,

In vain the Tyrian maids their wounded Thamuz mourn.