Thus would I double my life's fading space; For he that runs it well twice runs his race; And in this true delight, These unbought sports, and happy state, I would not fear, nor wish my fate, But boldly say each night, To-morrow let my sun his beams display, Or in clouds hide them, I have lived to-day. UPON THE SHORTNESS OF MAN'S LIFE. 1 Mark that swift arrow, how it cuts the air, How it outruns thy following eye! Use all persuasions now, and try If thou canst call it back, or stay it there. That way it went, but thou shalt find No track is left behind. 2 Fool! 'tis thy life, and the fond archer thou. Of all the time thou'st shot away, I'll bid thee fetch but yesterday, And it shall be too hard a task to do. Besides repentance, what canst find That it hath left behind? 3 Our life is carried with too strong a tide, A doubtful cloud our substance bears, And is the horse of all our years: Each day doth on a winged whirlwind ride. We and our glass run out, and must Both render up our dust. 4 But his past life who without grief can see, Who never thinks his end too near, But says to Fame, Thou art mine heir; That man extends life's natural brevity-- This is, this is the only way To outlive Nestor in a day. ON THE PRAISE OF POETRY. 'Tis not a pyramid of marble stone, Though high as our ambition; 'Tis not a tomb cut out in brass, which can Give life to the ashes of a man, But verses only; they shall fresh appear, Whilst there are men to read or hear, When time shall make the lasting brass decay, And eat the pyramid away, Turning that monument wherein men trust Their names, to what it keeps, poor dust; Then shall the epitaph remain, and be New graven in eternity. Poets by death are conquered, but the wit Of poets triumph over it. What cannot verse? When Thracian Orpheus took His lyre, and gently on it strook, The learned stones came dancing all along, And kept time to the charming song. With artificial pace the warlike pine, The elm and his wife, the ivy-twine, With all the better trees which erst had stood Unmoved, forsook their native wood. The laurel to the poet's hand did bow, Craving the honour of his brow; And every loving arm embraced, and made With their officious leaves a shade. The beasts, too, strove his auditors to be, Forgetting their old tyranny. The fearful hart next to the lion came, And wolf was shepherd to the lamb. Nightingales, harmless Syrens of the air, And Muses of the place, were there; Who, when their little windpipes they had found Unequal to so strange a sound, O'ercome by art and grief, they did expire, And fell upon the conquering lyre. Happy, oh happy they! whose tomb might be, Mausolus! envied by thee! THE MOTTO. TENTANDA VIA EST, ETC.