Of

your blest womb, made fruitful from above
To pay your lord the pledges of chaste love;
And raise a noble stem, to give the fame
To Clifton's blood, that is denied their name.
Grow, grow, fair tree! and as thy branches shoot,
Hear what the Muses sing above thy root,
By me, their priest, if they can aught divine:
Before the moons have fill'd their triple trine,
To crown the burden which you go withal,
It shall a ripe and timely issue fall,
T'expect the honours of great Aubigny;
And greater rites, yet writ in mystery,
But which the fates forbid me to reveal.
Only thus much out of a ravish'd zeal
Unto your name, and goodness of your life,
They speak; since you are truly that rare wife,
Other great wives may blush at, when they see
What your tried manners are, what theirs should be;
How you love one, and him you should, how still
You are depending on his word and will;
Not fashion'd for the court, or strangers' eyes;
But to please him, who is the dearer prize
Unto himself, by being so dear to you.

This makes, that your affections still be new,
And that your souls conspire, as they were gone
Each into other, and had now made one.

Of your blest womb, &c.] If this was the first child (as seems probable) the "Epistle" was written in 1608. Lady Aubigny brought her husband four sons and three daughters. Of the sons, three fell nobly in the field in the cause of their sovereign; the fourth, the eldest, lived to perform the last duties to his mangled remains, and died in 1655.

To this nobleman Herrick has a poem in which he alludes to the disastrous fate of his family. Hesperides, p. 197.

"Of all those three brave brothers, faln in war,
(Not without glory) noble sir, you are,
Despite of all concussions, left the stem
To shoot forth generations like to them."

Live that one still! and as long years do pass,
Madam, be bold to use this truest glass;
Wherein your form you still the same shall find;
Because nor it can change, nor such a mind.

XIV.

ODE.

TO SIR WILLIAM SIDNEY, ON HIS BIRTH-DAY.9

OW that the hearth is crown'd with smiling fire,

And some do drink, and some do dance,

Some ring,

Some sing,

And all do strive to advance

The gladness higher;

Wherefore should I
Stand silent by,

Who not the least,

Both love the cause, and authors of the feast?

9 To sir William Sidney, on his birth-day.] He was the eldest son of sir Robert Sidney, created earl of Leicester by king James, and a nephew of sir Philip Sidney. He died unmarried, and was buried in St. Paul's cathedral. WHAL.

Sir William Sidney appears to have died about the same time with prince Henry; so that this Ode must be placed among our author's earlier pieces. G. Wither (the Satyromastix) drew up some "Mournful Elegies" on the death of the latter, and addressed them to sir William's father, in which he tells the noble lord that

"His haplesse loss had more apparent been,

But darken'd by the Other, 'twas unseen!"

Furthermore to comfort him he presents him with an anagram on his son's name, which is about the worst that ever appeared.

Give me my cup, but from the Thespian well,
That I may tell to Sidney what

And he with his best Genius left alone.

This day says, then, the number of glad years
Are justly summ'd, that make you man;

Your vow

Must now

Strive all right ways it can,

T'outstrip your peers:

Doth urge

Since he doth lack

Of going back

Little, whose will

him to run wrong, or to stand still.

Nor can a little of the common store

Of nobles' virtue, shew in you;

Nor weary, rest

On what's deceas't.

For they, that swell

With dust of ancestors, in graves but dwell.

And which, lest the consolatory part of it should escape him, is thus explained at large :

"Nor do I think it can be rightly said,

You are unhappy in this One that's dead:
For notwithstanding his first anagram,
Frights, with Behold, how cold and vile I am;
Yet in his last he seems more cheerful far,
And joyes with Soft, mourn not, I am a star.

'Twill be exacted of your name, whose son, Whose nephew, whose grandchild you are; And men

Will then

Say you have follow'd far,

When well begun :

Which must be now,

They teach you how.

And he that stays

To live until to-morrow', hath lost two days.

So may you live in honour, as in name,
If with this truth you be inspired;

So may
This day

Be more, and long desired;

And with the flame

The birth-day shines, when logs not burn, but men.

XV.

TO HEAVEN.

SOOD and great God! can I not think of
thee,

But it must straight my melancholy be?
Is it interpreted in me disease,

That, laden with my sins, I seek for ease?
O be thou witness, that the reins dost know
And hearts of all, if I be sad for show;
And judge me after: if I dare pretend
To aught but grace, or aim at other end.
As thou art all, so be thou all to me,

First, midst, and last, converted One, and Three!
My faith, my hope, my love; and in this state,

My judge, my witness, and my advocate.
Where have I been this while exiled from thee,
And whither rapt, now thou but stoop'st to me?
Dwell, dwell here still! O, being every where,
How can I doubt to find thee ever here?

I know my state, both full of shame and scorn,
Conceived in sin, and unto labour born,
Standing with fear, and must with horror fall,
And destined unto judgment, after all.

I feel my griefs too, and there scarce is ground,
Upon my flesh t' inflict another wound:
Yet dare I not complain, or wish for death,
With holy Paul, lest it be thought the breath
Of discontent; or that these prayers be
For weariness of life, not love of thee."

Upon my flesh to inflict another wound.] Opposite to this passage, Whalley has written, in the margin of the old folio, "Des Barreaux' Sonnet." What resemblance he found between this lowly expression of a broken spirit, and the daring familiarity of Des Barreaux' defiance, it is not easy to discover. I have nothing to object to the poetry of the Sonnet: its language too is good, but its sentiments are dreadful.

If Jonson had any thing in view besides the Scriptures, in this place, it might be the following verse of Euripides, which is quoted by Longinus, and praised for its nervous conciseness:

Γεμω κακων δη' κ' ουκετ' εσθ' όπη τέθη

2 This is an admirable prayer: solemn, pious, and scriptural. Jonson's religious impressions were deep and awful. He had, like all of us, his moments of forgetfulness; but whenever he returned to himself, he was humble, contrite, and believing.