The Christmas log to the firing,While my good dame, sheBids ye all be free,And drink to your heart’s desiring.With the last year’s brandLight the new block, andFor good success in his spending,On your psalteries play,That sweet luck mayCome while the log is a-teending.Drink now the strong beer,Cut the white loaf here,The while the meat is…
–From powders and perfumes keep free;Then we shall smell how sweet you be!
Though ne’er so mean the viands be,They well content my Prue and me:Or pea or bean, or wort or beet,Whatever comes, Content makes sweet.Here we rejoice, because no rentWe pay for our poor tenement;Wherein we rest, and never fearThe landlord or the usurer.The quarter-day does ne’er affrightOur peaceful slumbers in the night:We eat our own,…
Or prayers, or vowCan keep the wrinkle from the brow;But we must on,As fate does lead or draw us; none,None, Posthumus, could e’er declineThe doom of cruel Proserpine.The pleasing wife, the house, the groundMust all be left, no one plant foundTo follow thee,Save only the curst cypress-tree!–A merry mindLooks forward, scorns what’s left behind;Let’s live,…
Being here their ends deniedRan for sweet-hearts mad, and died.Love, in pity of their tears,And their loss in blooming years,For their restless here-spent hours,Gave them hearts-ease turn’d to flowers.
For every sentence, clause, and word,That’s not inlaid with Thee, my Lord,Forgive me, God, and blot each lineOut of my book, that is not Thine.But if, ‘mongst all, Thou find’st here oneWorthy thy benediction,That one of all the rest shall beThe glory of my work, and me.
Then I’ll give o’er,And bid the world good-night.‘Tis but a flying minute,That I must stay,Or linger in it:And then I must away.O Time, that cut’st down all,And scarce leav’st hereMemorialOf any men that were;–How many lie forgotIn vaults beneath,And piece-meal rotWithout a fame in death?Behold this living stoneI rear for me,Ne’er to be thrownDown, envious…
