48

The cross blue lightning seem'd to open

The breast of heaven.

49

29-i. 3.

Things, that love night,

Love not such nights as these: the wrathful skies

Gallow the very wanderers of the dark,

And make them keep their caves: Since I was man, Such sheets of fire, such bursts of horrid thunder, Such groans of roaring wind and rain, I never

Remember to have heard: man's nature cannot carry The affliction, nor the fear.

50

Sometime we see a cloud that's dragonish;
A vapour, sometime, like a bear, or lion,
A tower'd citadel, a pendant rock,

A forked mountain, or blue promontory

With trees upon't that nod unto the world,

34-iii. 2.

And mock our eyes with air: Thou hast seen these signs;

They are black vesper's pageants.

That, which is now a horse, even with a thought,

The rackt dislimns: and makes it indistinct,

As water is in water.

My good knave, Eros, now thy captain is

Even such a body: here I am Antony;

Yet cannot hold this visible shape.

51

Yon gray lines,

30-iv. 12.

That fret the clouds, are messengers of day.

52

29-ii. 1.

Blow, wind, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!
You cataracts, and hurricanoes, spout

Till you have drench'd our steeples, drown'd the

cocks!

You sulphurous and thought-executing fires,

Vaunt couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts,

* Scare, or frighten.
Quick as thought.

Fleeting clouds.

§ Avant couriers. French.

And thou, all-shaking thunder,

Strike flat the thick rotundity o' the world!
Carck nature's moulds, all germens spill at once,
That make ingrateful man!

53

34-iii. 2.

Methinks the wind hath spoke aloud at land;
A fuller blast ne'er shook our battlements:

If it hath ruffian'd so upon the sea,

What ribs of oak, when mountains melt* on them,
Can hold the mortise?

Do but stand upon the foaming shore,

The chilling billow seems to pelt the clouds;

The wind-shaked surge, with high and monstrous main,

Seems to cast water on the burning bear,t

And quench the guards of th' ever-fixed pole:

I never did like molestation view

On the enchafed flood.

37-ii. 1.

54

The yesty waves

15-iv. 1.

Confound and swallow navigation up.

55

The moon shines bright :-In such a night as this,
When the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees,
And they did make no noise; in such a night,
Troilus, methinks, mounted the Trojan walls,
And sigh'd his soul towards the Grecian tents,
Where Cressid lay that night.

In such a night,

Did Thisbe fearfully o'ertrip the dew;
And saw the lion's shadow ere himself,
And ran dismay'd away.

In such a night,

Stood Dido with a willow in her hand

Upon the wild sea-banks, and waved her love

To come again to Carthage.

In such a night,

Medea gather'd the enchanted herbs,
That did renew old son.

* Meet would probably be better.
†The constellation near the polar star.

9-v. 1.

56

Diseased nature oftentimes breaks forth

In strange eruptions: oft the teeming earth
Is with a kind of colic pinch'd and vex'd

By the imprisoning of unruly wind

Within her womb; which for enlargement striving, Shakes the old beldame earth, and topples down Steeples and moss-grown towers.

57

A red morn, that ever yet betoken'd Wreck to the seaman, tempest to the field, Sorrow to shepherds, woe unto the birds, Gust and foul flaws to herdmen and to herds.

58

18-iii. 1.

I have seen tempests, when the scolding winds
Have rived the knotty oaks; and I have seen
The ambitious ocean swell, and rage and foam,
To be exalted with the threat'ning clouds.

Poems.

29-i. 3.

59

The bay-trees in our country are all wither'd,
And meteors fright the fixed stars of heaven;
The pale-faced moon looks bloody on the earth,
And lean-look'd prophets whisper fearful change;
Rich men look sad, and ruffians dance and leap,-
The one, in fear to lose what they enjoy,
The other, to enjoy by rage and war.

17-ii. 4.

The violets now

That strew the green lap of the new-come spring.

17-v. 2.

63

An envious sneaping* frost,

That bites the first-born infants of the spring.

64

The pleached bower,

Where honeysuckles, ripen'd by the sun,

Forbid the sun to enter; like favourites,

8-i. 1.

Made proud by princes, that advance their pride
Against that power that bred it.

65

6-iii. 1.

That same dew, which sometime on the buds
Was wont to swell, like round and orient pearls,
Stood now within the pretty flowrets' eyes,t
Like tears that did their own disgrace bewail.

66

7-iv. 1.

This guest of summer, The temple-haunting martlet, does approve, By his loved mansionry, that the heaven's breath Smells wooingly here: no jutty frieze, buttress, Nor coigne of vantage, but this bird hath made His pendant bed, and procreant cradle: Where they Most breed and haunt, I have observed, the air Is delicate.

67

The year growing ancient,

Not yet on summer's death, nor on the birth

Of trembling winter.

68

This castle hath a pleasant seat; the air
Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself

Unto our gentle senses.

69

Go, bind thou up yon dangling apricocks,
Which, like unruly children, make the sire

* Nipping.

15-i. 6.

13-iv. 3.

15-i. 6.

†The eye of a flower is the technical term for its centre. Convenient corner.

Stoop with oppression of their prodigal weight:
Give some supportance to the bending twigs.—
Go thou, and, like an executioner,

Cut off the heads of too-fast-growing sprays,
That look too lofty in the commonwealth:
All must be even in our government.—
You thus employ'd, I will go root away
The noisome weeds, that without profit suck
The soil's fertility from wholesome flowers.
We at time of year

Do wound the bark, the skin of our fruit-trees;
Lest, being over-proud with sap and blood,
With too much riches it confound itself.

All superfluous branches

We lop away, that bearing boughs may live.

70

Behold the earth hath roots;

17-iii. 4.

Within this mile break forth a hundred springs :
The oaks bear mast, the briars scarlet hips;
The bounteous housewife, nature, on each bush
Lays her full mess before you.

71

27-iv. 3.

I know a bank whereon the wild thyme blows,
Where ox-lips* and the nodding violet grows;
Quite over-canopied with lush woodbine,
With sweet musk-roses, and with eglantine:
There sleeps Titania, some time of the night,
Lull'd in these flowers with dances and delight;
"And there the snake throws her enamell'd skin,
Weed wide enough to wrap a fairy in.

72

Here's flowers for you:

Hot lavender, mint, savory, marjoram;

7-ii. 2.

The marigold, that goes to bed with the sun,
And with him rises weeping; these are flowers
Of middle summer, and, I think, they are given
To men of middle age.

*The greater cowslip.

13-iv. 3.

† Vigorous.