Tired with all these, for restful death I cry-- As, to behold desert a beggar born, And needy nothing trimm'd in jollity, And purest faith unhappily forsworn, And gilded honour shamefully misplaced, And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted, And right perfection wrongfully disgraced, And strength by limping sway disabled, And art made tongue-tied by authority, And folly, doctor-like, controlling skill, And simple truth miscall'd simplicity, And captive Good attending captain Ill:-- --Tired with all these, from these would I be gone, Save that, to die, I leave my Love alone. _W. Shakespeare_ LXXXIII _A WISH_ Happy were he could finish forth his fate In some unhaunted desert, where, obscure From all society, from love and hate Of worldly folk, there should he sleep secure; Then wake again, and yield God ever praise; Content with hip, with haws, and brambleberry; In contemplation passing still his days, And change of holy thoughts to make him merry: Who, when he dies, his tomb might be the bush Where harmless robin resteth with the thrush: --Happy were he! _R. Devereux, Earl of Essex_ LXXXIV _SAINT JOHN BAPTIST_ The last and greatest Herald of Heaven's King Girt with rough skins, hies to the deserts wild, Among that savage brood the woods forth bring, Which he more harmless found than man, and mild. His food was locusts, and what there doth spring, With honey that from virgin hives distill'd; Parch'd body, hollow eyes, some uncouth thing Made him appear, long since from earth exiled. There burst he forth: All ye whose hopes rely On God, with me amidst these deserts mourn, Repent, repent, and from old errors turn! --Who listen'd to his voice, obey'd his cry? Only the echoes, which he made relent, Rung from their flinty caves, Repent! Repent! _W. Drummond_ The Golden Treasury Book Second LXXXV _ODE ON THE MORNING OF CHRIST'S NATIVITY_ This is the month, and this the happy morn Wherein the Son of Heaven's Eternal King Of wedded maid and virgin mother born, Our great redemption from above did bring; For so the holy sages once did sing That He our deadly forfeit should release, And with His Father work us a perpetual peace. That glorious Form, that Light unsufferable, And that far-beaming blaze of Majesty Wherewith He wont at Heaven's high council-table To sit the midst of Trinal Unity, He laid aside; and, here with us to be, Forsook the courts of everlasting day, And chose with us a darksome house of mortal clay.