Christmas of London, and Captaine Christmas?
Pray you let me be brought before my Lord Chamberlaine, i’le not be answer’d else:
‘Tis merrie in hall when beards wag all:
I ha’seene the time you ha’wish’d for me, for a merry Christmas,
And now you ha’me; they would not let me in:
I must come another time!
A good jest, as if I could come more than once a year;
Why, I am no dangerous person, and so I told my friends, o’the Guard.
I am old Gregorie Christmas still
on the grey Autumn wind and its coursing,’all afternoon wasted in bed like this?’’Because we cannot lie all night together.’’Yes,’ she said, satisfied at my reasoning,but going on to search her cruel mindfor better excuses to leave my narrow bed.Too many flesh suppersAbstracted in art,in architecture,in scholars’ detail;absorbed by music,by minutiae,by sad trivia;all to efface…
I.THE TURN.Brave infant of Saguntum, clearThy coming forth in that great year,When the prodigious Hannibal did crownHis cage, with razing your immortal town.Thou, looking then about,Ere thou wert half got out,Wise child, didst hastily return,And mad’st thy mother’s womb thine urn.How summed a circle didst thou leave mankindOf deepest lore, could we the centre find!THE…
True conceit,Spoiling senses of their treasure,Cozening judgment with a measure,But false weight;Wresting words from their true calling,Propping verse for fear of fallingTo the ground;Jointing syllabes, drowning letters,Fast’ning vowels as with fettersThey were bound!Soon as lazy thou wert known,All good poetry hence was flown,And art banish’d.For a thousand years togetherAll Parnassus’ green did wither,And wit vanish’d.Pegasus…
Of polish’d pillars, or a roofe of gold:Thou hast no lantherne, whereof tales are told;Or stayre, or courts; but stand’st an ancient pile,And these grudg’d at, art reverenc’d the while.Thou joy’st in better marks, of soile, of ayre,Of wood, of water: therein thou art faire.Thou hast thy walkes for health, as well as sport:ThyMount, to…
In a little? Reader, stay.Underneath this stone doth lieAs much Beauty as could die:Which in life did harbour giveTo more Virtue than doth live.If at all she had a fault,Leave it buried in this vault.One name was Elizabeth,The other, let it sleep with death:Fitter, where it died, to tellThan that it lived at all. Farewell.
Still to be powdered, still perfumed:Lady, it is to be presumed,Though art’s hid causes are not found,All is not sweet, all is not sound.Give me a look, give me a face,That makes simplicity a grace;Robes loosely flowing, hair as free:Such sweet neglect more taketh meThan all the adulteries of art;They strike mine eyes, but not…
