ANDREW MARVELL. ANDREW MARVELL was born at Hull, in 1620. He received a good education, and, after travelling for improvement, was appointed secretary to the English embassy at Constantinople. It is probable that he also assisted Milton as Latin Secretary to Cromwell. After the Restoration, he was elected a member of Parliament; and such was his simplicity of manners and integrity, that no offers could turn him aside from the exactest path of duty. His poetry is remarkable for warmth of feeling and for elegance. He died in 1678. WHERE the remote Bermudas ride From a small boat that rowed along, "What should we do but sing his praise Where He the huge sea-monster racks, That lift the deep upon their backs ; He gives us this eternal spring, He hangs in shades the orange bright, He makes the figs our mouths to meet, He cast of which we rather boast- Oh! let our voice his praise exalt, Thus sang they in the English boat, And all the way, to guide their chime, A DROP OF DEW. SEE how the orient dew, Shed from the bosom of the morn Into the blowing roses, Yet careless of its mansion new, And in its little globe's extent How it the purple flower does slight, Scarce touching where it lies! But, gazing back upon the skies, Like its own tear, Because so long divided from the sphere, Restless it rolls and insecure, Trembling, lest it grow impure; Till the warm sun pities its pain, So the soul, that drop, that ray, Of the clear fountain of eternal day, Could it within the human flower be seen, Remembering still its former height, Shuns the sweet leaves and blossoms green; And, recollecting its own light, Does, in its pure and circling thoughts, express The greater heaven in a heaven less. In how coy a figure wound, Every way it turns away! To the world excluding round, How girt and ready to ascend! Moving but on a point below, In all about does upwards bend. Such did the manna's sacred dew distil, White and entire, although congealed and chill— Congealed on earth; but does, dissolving, run Into the glories of the Almighty sun. HENRY VAUGHAN. HENRY VAUGHAN, styled "the Silurist" by his contemporaries, from being of the Silures, a people of South Wales, was descended from the ancient Cambrian kings, and was born in Brecknockshire, in 1621. In his seventeenth year he was entered of Jesus College, Oxford, whence after two years he was removed to London. He was intended for the bar, but at the commencement of the civil war he relinquished it, and became eminent both as a poet and a physician. His sacred poems are remarkable for originality and picturesque grace, though it must be confessed they are sullied with many conceits unworthy of the theme. He died in 1695. He wrote "Silex Scintillans," "Sacred Poems," and "Private Ejaculations," of which a fine edition was published in London by Pickering, in 1847. LORD! what a busy, restless thing Each day and hour he is on wing, Then having lost the sun and light, He keeps a commerce in the night Hadst thou given to this active dust The lost son had not left the husk, That was thy secret, and it is Thy mercy too; For when all fails to bring to bliss, Then this must do. Ah! Lord! and what a purchase will that be, To take us sick, that sound would not take thee! THOU art not Truth! for he that tries Which like a viper lodged in flowers, Or for convenience, then away. Thou art not Riches! for that trash, Which one age hoards, the next doth wash, That few remember where it lay. And shifting channels here restore, There break down, what they banked before. Which, if not cropped, will quickly shed, And leave me clean and bright, though poor; |