English minstrelsy Author:John Ballantyne Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: III. SONNET. DRUMMOND. In mind's pure glass when I myself behold, And lively see how my best days are spent, What clouds of care above my head are roll... more »'tl, What coming ill, which I cannot prevent: My course begun I, wearied, do repent, And would embrace what reason oft hath told; But scarce thus think I, when love hath control'd All the best reasons reason could invent. Though sure I know my labour's end is grief, The more I strive that I the more shall pine, That only death shall be my last relief: Yet when I think upon that face divine, Like one with arrow shot, in laughter's place, Maiigre my heart, I joy in my disgrace. chapter{Section 4IV. EPITAPH ON HUSBAND AND WIFE CRASHAW. To these, whom death again did wed, The grave's a second marriage-bed. For though the hand of Fate could force 'Twixt soul and body a divorce, It could not man and wife divide, They lived one life, one death they died. Peace, good reader, do not weep; Peace, the lovers are asleep: They (sweet turtles) folded lie, In the last knot love could tie. And though they lie as they were dead, Their pillow stone, their sheets of lead, (Pillow hard, and sheets not warm) Love made the bed, they'll take no harm. Let them sleep, let them sleep on, Till this stormy night be gone, And th' eternal morrow dawn; Then the curtain will be drawn, And they awake into that light Whose day shall never die in night. chapter{Section 5v. ON SHAKESPEARE. DAVENANT. Beware (delighted poets!) when you sing, To welcome nature in the early spring, Your num'rous feet not tread The banks of Avon; for each flower (As it ne'er knew a sun or shower) Hangs there, the pensive head. Each tree, whose thick and spreading growth hath mad Rather a night beneath the boughs, than shad...« less