On this home by Horror haunted-tell me truly, I imploreIs there is there balm in Gilead? - tell me - tell me, I implore!"

Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

"Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil-prophet still, if bird or devil!

By that Heaven that bends above us—by that God we both adore

Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn, It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore?"

Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

"Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!" I shrieked, upstarting

"Get thee back into the tempest, and the Night's Plutonian

shore!

Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath

spoken!

Leave my loneliness unbroken! — quit the bust above door! my Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!"

Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a Demon's that is dream-
ing,

And the lamp-light o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;

And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the

floor

Shall be lifted nevermore.

SONNET.

Michael Drayton.

SINCE there's no help, come let us kiss and part;
Nay I have done, you get no more of me;
And I am glad, yea, glad with all my heart,
That thus so cleanly I myself can free;
Shake hands for ever, cancel all our vows,
And when we meet at any time again,
Be it not seen in either of our brows,

That we one jot of former love retain.
Now at the last gasp of love's latest breath,
When his pulse failing, passion speechless lies,
When faith is kneeling by his bed of death,
And innocence is closing up his eyes;

Now if thou would'st, when all have given him over,
From death to life thou might'st him yet recover!

SONNET.

William Shakespeare.

LET me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love,

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove:

O, no! it is an ever fixed mark,

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wandering bark,

Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken. Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle's compass come;

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error and upon me proved,

I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

MAN.

George Herbert.

My God, I heard this day,

That none doth build a stately habitation,
But he that means to dwell therein.

What house more stately hath there been,
Or can be, than is Man? to whose creation
All things are in decay.

For man is ev'ry thing,

And more.

He is a tree, yet bears mo fruit;

A beast, yet is, or should be, more;

Reason and speech we only bring.

Parrots may thank us, if they are not mute,
They go upon the score.

Man is all symmetry,

Full of proportions, one limb to another,
And all to all the world besides :

Each part may call the farthest, brother:
For head with foot hath private amity,
And both with moons and tides.

Nothing hath got so far

But Man hath caught and kept it as his prey.
His eyes dismount the highest star:

He is in little all the sphere.

Herbs gladly cure our flesh; because that they
Find their acquaintance there.

For us the winds do blow,

The earth doth rest, heaven move, and fountains flow.
Nothing we see, but means our good,

As our delight, or as our treasure;
The whole is, either our cupboard of food,
Or cabinet of pleasure.

Night draws the curtain, which the sun withdraws.

Music and light attend our head.

All things unto our flesh are kind
In their descent and being; to our mind
In their ascent and cause.

Each thing is full of duty :

Waters united are our navigation;

Distinguished, our habitation;
Below, our drink; above, our meat;
Both are our cleanliness. Hath one such beauty?
Then how are all things neat!

More servants wait on Man

Than he'll take notice of: in ev'ry path

He treads down that which doth befriend him,
When sickness makes him pale and wan.
Oh mighty love! Man is one world, and hath
Another to attend him.

Since then, my God, Thou hast
So brave a Palace built, oh dwell in it,
That it may dwell with Thee at last!
Till then, afford us so much wit;

That, as the World serves us, we may serve Thee,
And both Thy servants be.

LYCIDAS.

In this Monody the Author bewails a learned Friend (Edward King) unfortunately drowned in his passage from Chester on the Irish Seas, 1637; and, by occasion, foretells the ruin of our corrupted Clergy, then in their height.

John Milton.

YET once more, O ye laurels, and once more,
Ye myrtles brown, with ivy never sere,

I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude,
And with forced fingers rude

Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year.
Bitter constraint and sad occasion dear
Compels me to disturb your season due;
For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime,
Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer.
Who would not sing for Lycidas? he knew
Himself to sing, and build the lofty rhyme.
He must not float upon his watery bier
Unwept, and welter to the parching wind,
Without the meed of some melodious tear.

Begin, then, Sisters of the sacred well,1

That from beneath the seat of Jove doth spring;
Begin, and somewhat loudly sweep the string.

1 The Muses were said to haunt the Pierian Spring at the foot of Mount Olympus.