Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Volume 2 by Gilfillan, George, 1813-1878

A LOOSE SARABAND.

1 Ah me! the little tyrant thief, As once my heart was playing, He snatch'd it up, and flew away, Laughing at all my praying.

2 Proud of his purchase, he surveys, And curiously sounds it; And though he sees it full of wounds, Cruel, still on he wounds it.

3 And now this heart is all his sport, Which as a ball he boundeth, From hand to hand, from breast to lip, And all its rest confoundeth.

4 Then as a top he sets it up, And pitifully whips it; Sometimes he clothes it gay and fine, Then straight again he strips it.

5 He cover'd it with false belief, Which gloriously show'd it; And for a morning cushionet On's mother he bestow'd it.

6 Each day with her small brazen stings A thousand times she raced it; But then at night, bright with her gems, Once near her breast she placed it.

7 Then warm it 'gan to throb and bleed, She knew that smart, and grieved; At length this poor condemned heart, With these rich drugs reprieved.

8 She wash'd the wound with a fresh tear, Which my Lucasta dropped; And in the sleeve silk of her hair 'Twas hard bound up and wrapped.

9 She probed it with her constancy, And found no rancour nigh it; Only the anger of her eye Had wrought some proud flesh nigh it.

10 Then press'd she hard in every vein, Which from her kisses thrilled, And with the balm heal'd all its pain That from her hand distilled.

11 But yet this heart avoids me still, Will not by me be owned; But, fled to its physician's breast, There proudly sits enthroned.

ROBERT HERRICK.

This poet--a bird with tropical plumage, and norland sweetness of song --was born in Cheapside, London, in 1591. His father, was an eminent goldsmith. Herrick was sent to Cambridge; and having entered into holy orders, and being patronised by the Earl of Exeter, he was, in 1629, presented by Charles I. to the vicarage of Dean Prior, in Devonshire. Here he resided for twenty years, till ejected by the civil war. He seems all this time to have felt little relish either for his profession or parishioners. In the former, the cast of his poems shews that he must have been 'detained before the Lord;' and the latter he describes as a 'wild, amphibious race,' rude almost as 'salvages,' and 'churlish as the seas.' When he quitted his charge, he became an author at the mature age of fifty-six--publishing first, in 1647, his 'Noble Numbers; or, Pious Pieces;' and next, in 1648, his 'Hesperides; or, Works both Human and Divine of Robert Herrick, Esq.'--his ministerial prefix being now laid aside. Some of these poems were sufficiently unclerical--being wild and licentious in cast--although he himself alleges that his life was, sexually at least, blameless. Till the Restoration he lived in Westminster, supported by the rich among the Royalists, and keeping company with the popular dramatists and poets. It would seem that he had been in the habit of visiting London previously, while still acting as a clergyman, and had become a boon companion of Ben Jonson. Hence his well-known lines--