V. A NYMPH'S PASSION. LOVE, and he loves me again, For if the nymphs should know my I fear they'd love him too; Yet if he be not known, The pleasure is as good as none, For that's a narrow joy is but our own. I'll tell, that if they be not glad, It were a plague 'bove scorn: Unless my heart would, as my thought, be torn. He is, if they can find him, fair, That are this morning blown ; Yet, yet I doubt he is not known, And fear much more, that more of him be shown. But he hath eyes so round, and bright, Where Love may all his torches light But then, t' increase my fears, What nymph soe'er his voice but hears, Will be my rival, though she have but ears. I'll tell no more, and yet I love, But so exempt from blame, As it would be to each a fame, If love or fear would let me tell his name. VI. THE HOUR-GLASS.3 CONSIDER this small dust, here, in the glass, Could you believe, that this the body was And in his mistress' flame, playing like a fly, 3 The Hour-glass.] In two small editions containing part of our author's poems, printed in 1640, the title of this epigram is, On a Gentlewoman working by an Hour-glass. The verses are likewise of a different measure, and I think more agreeable to the ear: I shall give the whole as it stands in those copies, and afterwards subjoin the original, of which the English is only a translation. ON A GENTLEWOMAN WORKING BY AN HOUR-GLASS. "Do but consider this small dust, Here running in the glass, By atoms mov'd; Would you believe that it the body was Of one that lov'd? "And in his mistress' flames playing like a flie, Yes; as in life, so in their deaths unblest, A lover's ashes never can find rest." : WHAL. It matters little which we take the version in Drummond's folio is the worst, but all are imperfect. I have made a trifling change or two in the arrangement; for as the lines stood before, some of Yes; and in death, as life unblest, Ev'n ashes of lovers find no rest. them had no correspondent rhymes. The whole, as Whalley ob serves, is from the Latin of Jerom Amaltheus, one of the most ingenious and elegant of the modern Italian poets. HOROLOGIUM PULVEREUM, TUMULUS ALCIPPI. Perspicuo in vitro pulvis qui dividit horas, IOLE TUMUlus. Horarum in vitro pulvis nunc mensor, Iolæ It appears that this little translation was made by Jonson, at the request of his "friend" Drummond, on his auspicious visit to that mirror of sincerity and hospitality. In Drummond's folio it is prefaced with an address so respectful, so cordial and affectionate, as to raise a doubt whether the perversity was in the head or the heart of the man, who could withdraw, upon receiving it, to his closet, and deliberately commit to his note-book a series of base and venomous accusations against the moral and religious character of his unsuspecting guest. "To the Honouring Respect To the Friendship contracted with And the Perpetuating the same by all Offices of Love Hereafter, I Benjamin Jonson, Whom he hath honoured with the leave to be called his, Written this imperfect Song, On a Lover's Dust, made sand for an Hour-glass." The verses then follow, miserably printed, it must be confessed; after which Jonson, with the same warmth of heart subjoins: "Yet that love, when it is at full, may admit heaping, receive another; VII. MY PICTURE, left in Scotland. NOW think, Love is rather deaf than blind, That she, Whom I adore so much, should so slight me, And cast my suit behind: I'm sure my language to her was as sweet, In sentence of as subtle feet, That sits in shadow of Apollo's tree. Oh! but my conscious fears, That fly my thoughts between, Tell me that she hath seen My hundreds of gray hairs, Told seven and forty years, Read so much waste, as she cannot embrace My mountain belly, and my rocky face, And all these, through her eyes, have stopt her ears. VIII. AGAINST JEALOUSY. RETCHED and foolish jealousy, Nor have I yet the narrow mind To vent that poor desire, That others should not warm them at my fire: and this a Picture of myself." It would seem, from the above, that Drummond kept a kind of Album, in which he had desired our author to insert something in his own writing. The second piece is No. VII. I wish the sun should shine On all men's fruits and flowers, as well as mine. But under the disguise of love, Thou say'st, thou only cam'st to prove Think'st thou that love is help'd by fear? Love's sickness, and his noted want of worth, IX. THE DREAM. R scorn, or pity, on me take, I must the true relation make, I am undone to-night : Love in a subtle dream disguised, Hath both my heart and me surprised, Whom never yet he durst attempt awake; Nor will he tell me for whose sake He did me the delight, Or spight; But leaves me to inquire, In all my wild desire, Of Sleep again, who was his aid, As since he dares not come within my sight. |