Look, how the flower which ling'ringly doth fade, The morning's darling late, the summer's queen, Spoiled of that juice which kept it fresh and green, As high as it did raise, bows low the head: Right so my life, contentment being dead, Or in their contraries but only seen, With swifter speed declines than erst it spread, And, blasted, scarce now shows what it hath been. As doth the pilgrim, therefore, whom the night By darkness would imprison on his way,-- Think on thy home, my soul, and think aright, Of what's yet left thee of life's wasting day; Thy sun posts westward, passèd is thy morn, And twice it is not given thee to be born. THE UNIVERSE Of this fair volume which we World do name, If we the leaves and sheets could turn with care-- Of Him who it corrects and did it frame We clear might read the art and wisdom rare, Find out his power, which wildest powers doth tame, His providence, extending everywhere, His justice, which proud rebels doth not spare, In every page and period of the same. But silly we, like foolish children, rest Well pleased with colored vellum, leaves of gold, Fair dangling ribands, leaving what is best; On the great Writer's sense ne'er taking hold; Or if by chance we stay our minds on aught, It is some picture on the margin wrought. ON DEATH From 'Cypress Grove' Death is a piece of the order of this all, a part of the life of this world; for while the world is the world, some creatures must die and others take life. Eternal things are raised far above this orb of generation and corruption where the First Matter, like a still flowing and ebbing sea, with diverse waves but the same water, keepeth a restless and never tiring current; what is below in the universality of its kind doth not in itself abide.... If thou dost complain there shall be a time in the which thou shalt not be, why dost thou not too grieve that there was a time in which thou wast not, and so that thou art not as old as the enlivening planet of Time?... The excellent fabric of the universe itself shall one day suffer ruin, or change like ruin, and poor earthlings, thus to be handled, complain! JOHN DRYDEN (1631-1700) BY THOMAS R. LOUNSBURY