AN EPITAPH

ON SALATHIEL PAVY

A CHILD OF QUEEN ELIZABETH'S CHAPEL

Ben Jonson's grief for this child's death is very tender and real, but it is true grief at play. In the following poem, Growth, there is also that fine old sense of place and proportion.

WEEP with me, all you that read

This little story;

And know, for whom a tear you shed,
Death's self is sorry.

'Twas a child that so did thrive

In grace and feature

As Heaven and Nature seem'd to strive
Which own'd the creature.

Years he number'd scarce thirteen
When Fates turn'd cruel;

Yet three fill'd zodiacs had he been
The stage's jewel;

And did act (what now we moan)
Old men so duly,

As, sooth, the Parca thought him one,

He play'd so truly.

So by error to his fate

They all consented;

But viewing him since, alas! too late
They have repented;

And have sought, to give new birth,
In baths to steep him;

But being so much too good for Earth
Heaven vows to keep him.

BEN JONSON.

GROWTH

It is not growing like a tree

In bulk doth make man better be; Or standing long an oak, three hundred year, To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sere: A lily of a day

Is fairer far in May,

Although it fall and die that nightIt was the plant and flower of light! In small proportions we just beauties see; And in short measures life may perfect be. BEN JONSON.

THE RIGHT GREYHOUND

Did our forefathers feel affection-I might say respect -for a dog? We do, and the Greeks did, but this account of a greyhound's points is pure business.

If you would have a good tyke,
Of which there are few like-
He must be headed like a snake,
Necked like a drake,
Backed like a beam,
Sided like a bream,
Tailed like a bat,
And footed like a cat.

OLD RHYME.

FAREWELL, REWARDS AND FAIRIES

We have perhaps found fairies a bore in poetry. Richard Corbet found them a disappointing race of people, but pretends to wish them back again.

FAREWELL rewards and fairies,
Good housewives now may say;
For now foul sluts in dairies
Do fare as well as they.

And though they sweep their hearths
no less

Than maids were wont to do,
Yet who of late for cleanliness
Finds sixpence in her shoe?

At morning and at evening both
You merry were and glad,
So little care of sleep or sloth
These pretty ladies had;

When Tom came home from labour,
Or Cis to milking_rose,

Then merrily, merrily went their tabor,
And nimbly went their toes.

Witness those rings and roundelays
Of theirs, which yet remain,
Were footed in Queen Mary's days
On many a grassy plain;
But since of late Elizabeth
And, later, James came in,
They never danced on any heath
As when the time hath been.

By which we note the fairies
Were of the old profession;
Their songs were Ave Mary's,

Their dances were procession:
But now, alas! they all are dead,
Or gone beyond the seas,
Or farther for religion fled,
Or else they take their ease.

A tell-tale in their company
They never could endure,
And whoso kept not secretly
Their mirth, was punish'd sure;
It was a just and Christian deed
To pinch such black and blue:
O how the commonwealth doth need
Such justices as you! . . .

RICHARD CORBET.

TOMBS IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY

This poem says very plain and self-evident things, but says them nobly.

MORTALITY, behold and fear!

What a change of flesh is here!
Think how many royal bones

Sleep within this heap of stones:

Here they lie had realms and lands,

Who now want strength to stir their hands: Where from their pulpits seal'd with dust

They preach, In greatness is no trust."
Here's an acre sown indeed

With the richest royal'st seed
That the earth did e'er suck in,

Since the first man died for sin :
Here the bones of birth have cried

"Though gods they were, as men they died." Here are sands, ignoble things,

Dropt from the ruin'd sides of kings;
Here's a world of pomp and state

Buried in dust, once dead by fate.

FRANCIS BEaumont.

TO LIVE MERRILY AND TO TRUST TO GOOD VERSES

These jolly verses may profit all boys and girls, even those who now know less of Greece and Rome than they will later. England also has had her golden pomp

of poetry.

"

Now is the time for mirth,

Nor cheek or tongue be dumb;

For, with the flowery earth,

The golden pomp is come.

The golden pomp is come:
For now each tree does wear,
Made of her pap and gum,
Rich beads of amber here.

Now reigns the rose, and now
The Arabian dew besmears
My uncontrolled brow

And my retorted hairs.

"