Tell fortune of her blindness;
Tell nature of decay;
Tell friendship of unkindness;
Tell justice of delay:

And if they will reply,

Then give them all the lie.

Tell arts they have no soundness,
But vary by esteeming ;
Tell schools they want profoundness,
And stand too much on seeming:

If arts and schools reply,

Give arts and schools the lie.

Tell faith it's fled the city;

Tell how the country erreth;
Tell manhood shakes off pity;
Tell virtue least preferreth:
And if they do reply,
Spare not to give the lie.

So when thou hast, as I

Commanded thee, done blabbing, Although to give the lie

Deserves no less than stabbing,— Stab at thee he that will,

No stab the soul can kill.

XVII.

SIR WALTER RALEIGH'S PILGRIMAGE.1

(Circ. 1603?)

IVE me my scallop-shell of quiet,
My staff of faith to walk upon,
My scrip of joy, immortal diet,
My bottle of salvation,

My gown of glory, hope's true gage;
And thus I'll take my pilgrimage.

Blood must be my body's balmer;

No other balm will there be given;
Whilst my soul, like quiet palmer,

Travelleth towards the land of heaven;

Over the silver mountains,

Where spring the nectar fountains:
There will I kiss

The bowl of bliss;

And drink mine everlasting fill

Upon every milken hill.

My soul will be a-dry before;

But after, it will thirst no more.

In MS. Ashm. 38, No. 70, it is entitled "Verses made by Sr. Walter Raleigh the night before he was beheaded;" a date probably taken by inference from the closing lines. In a MS. belonging to the late Mr. Pickering, the title is the same as is here given from the old editions of Raleigh's "Remains." There are many other early copies; in the best of which the two concluding lines are omitted.

Then by that happy blissful day,
More peaceful pilgrims I shall see,
That have cast off their rags of clay,
And walk apparelled fresh like me.
I'll take them first

To quench their thirst

And taste of nectar suckets,

At those clear wells

Where sweetness dwells,

Drawn up by saints in crystal buckets.

And when our bottles and all we
Are filled with immortality,

Then the blessed paths we'll travel,
Strowed with rubies thick as gravel;
Ceilings of diamonds, sapphire floors,
High walls of coral and pearly bowers.
From thence to heaven's bribeless hall,
Where no corrupted voices brawl;
No conscience molten into gold,
No forged accuser bought or sold,

No cause deferred, no vain-spent journey,
For there Christ is the king's Attorney,
Who pleads for all without degrees,
And He hath angels, but no fees.
And when the grand twelve-million jury
Of our sins, with direful fury,

Against our souls black verdicts give,
Christ pleads His death, and then we live.

Be Thou my speaker, taintless pleader,
Unblotted lawyer, true proceeder!
Thou givest salvation even for alms;
Not with a bribed lawyer's palms.

And this is mine eternal plea

To Him that made heaven, earth, and sea,
That, since my flesh must die so soon,

And want a head to dine next noon,

Just at the stroke, when my veins start and spread, Set on my soul an everlasting head!

Then am I ready, like a palmer fit,

To tread those blest paths which before I writ.

Of death and judgment, heaven and hell,
Who oft doth think, must needs die well.

XVIII.1

HAT is our life? The play of passion.
Our mirth? The music of division:
Our mothers' wombs the tiring-houses

be,

Where we are dressed for life's short comedy.
The earth the stage; Heaven the spectator is,
Who sits and views whosoe'er doth act amiss.
The graves which hide us from the scorching sun
Are like drawn curtains when the play is done.
Thus playing post we to our latest rest,
And then we die in earnest, not in jest.

Sr W. R.

1 From a MS. formerly belonging to the late Mr. Pickering. It was printed anonymously in a music-book of 1612; see "Censura Lit.," vol. ii. p. 103, 2nd edition; and is found also in MS. Ashm. 36, p. 35, and MS. Ashm. 38, fol. 154.

XIX.

TO THE TRANSLATOR OF LUCAN.1

(1614.)

AD Lucan hid the truth to please the time, He had been too unworthy of thy pen, Who never sought nor ever cared to climb By flattery, or seeking worthless men. For this thou hast been bruised; but yet those scars Do beautify no less than those wounds do, Received in just and in religious wars;

Though thou hast bled by both, and bearest them too.

Change not! To change thy fortune 'tis too late :
Who with a manly faith resolves to die,
May promise to himself a lasting state,

Though not so great, yet free from infamy.
Such was thy Lucan, whom so to translate,
Nature thy muse like Lucan's did create.

W. R.

1 Prefixed to Sir A. Gorges' translation of Lucan's "Pharsalia," 1614.