How swiftly the light minutes slide! The hours that haste 10 Away thus fast By envious flight my stay do chide. Yet, Dear, since I must go, By this last kiss I vow, By all that sweetness which dwells with thee, Time shall move slow, till next I see thee. The lazy hours move slow, The minutes stay; Old Time with leaden feet doth go, And his light wings hath cast away. The slow-pac'd spheres above Have sure releas'd Their guardians, and without help move, Whilst that the very angels rest. The number'd sands that slide Through this small glass, 10 And into minutes Time divide, Too slow each other do displace; The tedious wheels of light No faster chime, Than that dull shade which waits on night: For Expectation outruns Time. How long, Lord, must I stay? How long dwell here? O free me from this loathèd clay! Let me no more these fetters wear! 20 With far more joy Shall I resign my breath, For, to my griev'd soul, not to die Is every minute a new death. [The three pieces which appear in _1656_ only have no great character, and were very likely written for Gamble _to_ tunes--seldom a very satisfactory process.] * * * * * * * * POEMS, ELEGIES, PARADOXES, and SONNETS. _LONDON_. Printed by _J. G._ for _Rich: Marriot_ and _Hen: Herringman_, and sold in St. _Dunstans_ Churchyard _Fleet-street_, and at the _New-Exchange_. 1657. INTRODUCTION TO HENRY KING. Among the numerous possible extensions of that practice of writing _Dialogues of the Dead_ which has been, at various times, rather unusually justified of its practitioners, not the least tempting would be one which should embody the expectations and the disappointment of the pious Bishop who held the see of Chichester in Fuller's Bad and Better Times--long afterwards, between 1843 and 1888. In the former year, as most students of English poetry know, the late Archdeacon Hannah, then a young Fellow of Lincoln College, published a most admirable edition of part of King's _Poems_; and announced that the rest must be left for a separate volume 'which will be published without delay'. He lived forty-five years longer, and 'the rest' was by no means an extensive one; but, whatever may have been the reason,[1] the second volume never appeared, while, to complete the misfortune, King's one famous thing, the beautiful Tell me no more how fair she is--