You admire no poems but such as run like a brewer’s cart upon the stones, hobbling:-

“Et, quae per salebras, altaque saxa cadunt,
   Accius et quidquid Pacuviusque vomunt. 
Attonitusque legis terrai, frugiferai.” {160a}

SOME POEMS.

TO WILLIAM CAMDEN

Camden! most reverend head, to whom I owe
All that I am in arts, all that I know —
How nothing’s that! to whom my country owes
The great renown, and name wherewith she goes! 
Than thee the age sees not that thing more grave,
More high, more holy, that she more would crave. 
What name, what skill, what faith hast thou in things! 
What sight in searching the most antique springs! 
What weight, and what authority in thy speech! 
Men scarce can make that doubt, but thou canst teach. 
Pardon free truth, and let thy modesty,
Which conquers all, be once o’ercome by thee. 
Many of thine, this better could, than I;
But for their powers, accept my piety.

ON MY FIRST DAUGHTER

Here lies, to each her parents’ ruth,
Mary, the daughter of their youth;
Yet, all heaven’s gifts, being heaven’s due,
It makes the father less to rue. 
At six months’ end, she parted hence,
With safety of her innocence;
Whose soul heaven’s queen, whose name she bears,
In comfort of her mother’s tears,
Hath placed amongst her virgin-train;
Where, while that severed doth remain,
This grave partakes the fleshly birth;
Which cover lightly, gentle earth!

ON MY FIRST SON

Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy;
My sin was too much hope of thee, loved boy;
Seven years thou wert lent to me, and I thee pay,
Exacted by thy fate, on the just day. 
Oh! could I lose all father, now! for why,
Will man lament the state he should envy? 
To have so soon ’scaped world’s, and flesh’s rage,
And, if no other misery, yet age! 
Rest in soft peace, and, asked, say here doth lie
Ben Jonson his best piece of poetry;
For whose sake, henceforth, all his vows be such,
As what he loves may never like too much.

TO FRANCIS BEAUMONT

How I do love thee, Beaumont, and thy muse,
That unto me dost such religion use! 
How I do fear myself, that am not worth
The least indulgent thought thy pen drops forth! 
At once thou mak’st me happy, and unmak’st;
And giving largely to me, more thou takest! 
What fate is mine, that so itself bereaves? 
What art is thine, that so thy friend deceives? 
When even there, where most thou praisest me,
For writing better, I must envy thee.

OF LIFE AND DEATH

The ports of death are sins; of life, good deeds: 
Through which our merit leads us to our meeds. 
How wilful blind is he, then, that would stray,
And hath it in his powers to make his way! 
This world death’s region is, the other life’s: 
And here it should be one of our first strifes,
So to front death, as men might judge us past it: 
For good men but see death, the wicked taste it.