BORDER BALLAD

A LYKE-WAKE DIRGE

THIS ae nighte, this ae nighte,
Every nighte and alle,

Fire and sleet and candle-lighte,

And Christe receive thy saule.

When thou from hence away art past,
Every nighte and alle,

To Whinny-muir thou com'st at last;
And Christe receive thy saule.

If ever thou gavest hosen and shoon,
Every nighte and alle,

Sit thee down and put them on;

And Christe receive thy saule.

If hosen and shoon thou ne'er gav'st nane,
Every nighte and alle,

The whinnes sall prick thee to the bare bane;
And Christe receive thy saule.

From Whinny-muir when thou may'st pass, Every nighte and alle,

To Brig o' Dread thou com'st at last,

And Christe receive thy saule.

From Brig o' Dread when thou may'st pass, Every nighte and alle,

To Purgatory fire thou com'st at last,

And Christe receive thy saule.

If ever thou gavest meat or drink,
Every nighte and alle,

The fire sall never make thee shrink;
And Christe receive thy saule.

If meat and drink thou ne'er gav'st nane,
Every nighte and alle,

The fire will burn thee to the bare bane,
And Christe receive thy saule.

This ae nighte, this ae nighte,
Every nighte and alle,

Fire and sleet and candle-lighte,

And Christe receive thy saule.

JOHN DRYDEN

1631-1700

ODE

To the Pious Memory of the accomplished young lady, Mrs. Anne Killigrew, excellent in the two sister arts of Poesy and Painting

THOU youngest virgin-daughter of the skies,
Made in the last promotion of the blest;
Whose palms, new-plucked from paradise,
In spreading branches more sublimely rise,

Rich with immortal green, above the rest:
Whether, adopted to some neighbouring star,
Thou roll'st above us in thy wandering race,
Or in procession fixed and regular
Moved with the heaven's majestic pace,
Or called to more superior bliss,

Thou tread'st with seraphims the vast abyss:

Whatever happy region be thy place,
Cease thy celestial song a little space;

Thou wilt have time enough for hymns divine,
Since heaven's eternal year is thine.

Hear, then, a mortal muse thy praise rehearse,

In no ignoble verse,

But such as thy own voice did practise here,
When thy first-fruits of poesy were given
To make thyself a welcome inmate there;
While yet a young probationer
And candidate of heaven.

If by traduction came thy mind,
Our wonder is the less to find

A soul so charming from a stock so good;
Thy father was transfused into thy blood:
So wert thou born into the tuneful strain
(An early, rich and inexhausted vein).
But if thy pre-existing soul
Was formed at first with myriads more,

It did through all the mighty poets roll
Who Greek or Latin laurels wore,

And was that Sappho last, which once it was before.

If so, then cease thy flight, O heaven-born mind! Thou hast no dross to purge from thy rich ore:

Nor can thy soul a fairer mansion find

Than was the beauteous frame she left behind: Return, to fill or mend the choir of thy celestial kind.

May we presume to say that, at thy birth,

New joy was sprung in heaven as well as here on

earth?

For sure the milder planets did combine

On thy auspicious horoscope to shine,

And even the most malicious were in trine.
Thy brother angels at thy birth

Strung each his lyre, and tuned it high,

That all the people of the sky

Might know a poetess was born on earth;
And then, if ever, mortal ears

Had heard the music of the spheres.
And if no clustering swarm of bees

On thy sweet mouth distilled their golden dew,

"Twas that such vulgar miracles

Heaven had not leisure to renew:

For all the best fraternity of love

Solemnized there thy birth, and kept thy holiday above.

O gracious God! how far have we
Profaned Thy heavenly gift of poesy!
Made prostitute and profligate the Muse,
Debased to each obscene and impious use,
Whose harmony was first ordained above,
For tongues of angels and for hymns of love!
O wretched we! why were we hurried down
This lubric and adulterate age

(Nay, added fat pollutions of our own),

To increase the steaming ordures of the stage?
What can we say to excuse our second fall?
Let this thy Vestal, heaven, atone for all!
Her Arethusan stream remains unsoiled,
Unmixed with foreign filth and undefiled;

Her wit was more than man, her innocence a child.
Art she had none, yet wanted none,

For Nature did that want supply:

So rich in treasures of her own,

She might our boasted stores defy:

Such noble vigour did her verse adorn

That it seemed borrowed, where 'twas only born.
Her morals, too, were in her bosom bred,

By great examples daily fed,

What in the best of books, her father's life, she read.

And to be read herself she need not fear;

Each test and every light her muse will bear,

Though Epictetus with his lamp were there.

Even love (for love sometimes her muse expressed)

Was but a lambent flame which played about her breast,

Light as the vapours of a morning dream;

So cold herself, while she such warmth expressed, "Twas Cupid bathing in Diana's stream.

When in mid-air the golden trump shall sound,
To raise the nations underground;

When in the valley of Jehosophat

The judging God shall close the book of Fate,
And there the last assizes keep

For those who wake and those who sleep;
When rattling bones together fly

From the four quarters of the sky;

When sinews o'er the skeletons are spread,

Those clothed with flesh, and life inspires the dead;
The sacred poets first shall hear the sound,
And foremost from the tomb shall bound,
For they are covered with the lightest ground;
And straight with inborn vigour, on the wing,
Like mountain larks, to the new morning sing.
There thou, sweet saint, before the choir shalt go,
As harbinger of heaven, the way to show,
The way which thou so well hast learned below.