I loved him not; and yet now he is gone
        I feel I am alone. 
I check’d him while he spoke; yet could he speak,
        Alas!  I would not check. 
For reasons not to love him once I sought,
        And wearied all my thought
To vex myself and him:  I now would give
        My love, could he but live
Who lately lived for me, and when he found
        ’Twas vain, in holy ground
He hid his face amid the shades of death. 
        I waste for him my breath
Who wasted his for me:  but mine returns,
        And this lorn bosom burns
With stifling heat, heaving it up in sleep,
        And waking me to weep
Tears that had melted his soft heart:  for years
        Wept he as bitter tears.
Merciful God! such was his latest prayer,
        These may she never share!
Quieter is his breath, his breast more cold,
        Than daisies in the mould,
Where children spell, athwart the churchyard gate,
        His name and life’s brief date. 
Pray for him, gentle souls, whoe’er you be,
        And oh! pray too for me!

1868 Edition.

* * * * *

RICHARD LOVELACE.

48. To Lucasta.  Going to the Wars.

Tell me not, (sweet,) I am unkind,
  That from the nunnery
Of thy chaste breast and quiet mind
  To war and arms I fly.

True:  a new Mistress now I chase,
  The first foe in the field;
And with a stronger faith embrace
  A sword, a horse, a shield.

Yet this inconstancy is such,
  As you too shall adore;
I could not love thee, dear, so much,
  Lov’d I not Honour more.

Carew Hazlitt’s Text.

* * * * *

JOHN MILTON.

49. On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity.

I.

  This is the month, and this the happy morn,
    Wherein the Son of Heaven’s eternal King,
  Of wedded Maid and Virgin-Mother born,
    Our great redemption from above did bring;
    For so the holy sages once did sing,
  That he our deadly forfeit should release,
And with his Father work us a perpetual peace.

II.

  That glorious form, that light unsufferable,
    And that far-beaming blaze of majesty,
  Wherewith he wont at Heaven’s high council-table
    To sit the midst of Trinal Unity,
    He laid aside; and, here with us to be,
  Forsook the courts of everlasting day,
And chose with us a darksome house of mortal clay.

III.