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My wife has no indulgence given,
Except what comes to her from heaven.
We eat little, we drink less;

This earth breeds not our happiness.
Another sun feeds our life's streams;
We are not warmèd with thy beams.
Thou measurest not the time to me,
Nor yet the space that I do see :
My mind is not with thy light arrayed;
Thy terrors shall not make me afraid.'

When I had my defiance given,
The sun stood trembling in heaven;
The moon, that glowed remote below,
Became leprous and white as snow;
And every soul of man on the earth

Felt affliction and sorrow and sickness and dearth.

Los flamed in my path, and the sun was hot With the bows of my mind and the arrows of

thought:

My bowstring fierce with ardour breathes,
My arrows glow in their golden sheaves.
My brother and father march before;
The heavens drop with human gore.

Now I a fourfold vision see,

And a fourfold vision is given to me;
"Tis fourfold in my supreme delight,
And threefold in soft Beulah's night,
And twofold always. May God us keep
From single vision, and Newton's sleep!

MINIATURES

Under this sub-title are grouped for the first time the few very short pieces, chiefly quotations, that contain beauty without irony. They are of dates, not always ascertainable, ranging from 1795 to 1804.

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Aн, luckless babe, born under cruel star,
And in dead parents' baleful ashes bred,
Full little reckest thou what sorrows are
Left for the portion of thy livelihead!

II

THE Angel who presided at my birth

Said,Little Creature, formed for joy and mirth,
Go love, without the help of anything on earth.'

III

THE Sword sang on the barren heath,
The Sickle in the fruitful field:
The Sword he sang a song of death,
But could not make the Sickle yield.

IV

O LAPWING, that fliest around the heath,
Nor seest the net that is spread beneath;
Why dost thou not fly among the corn-fields?
They cannot spread nets where a harvest yields.

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I WALKED abroad on a snowy day,

I asked the soft Snow with me to play;
She played and she melted in all her prime;
And the Winter called it a dreadful crime.

VI

ABSTINENCE SOws sand all over

The ruddy limbs and flaming hair;
But desire gratified

Plants fruits of life and beauty there.

VII

THE look of love alarms,

Because 'tis filled with fire,
But the look of soft deceit
Shall win the lover's hire:
Soft deceit and idleness,

These are beauty's sweetest dress.

Deceit! Thy

GALLANTRIES AND MOCKERIES

Here are grouped the very short pieces that are amorous, but yet are not without some intention of sarcasm or derision. Four of the quatrains have titles in the MS. book, as printed here.

I

Ir e'er I grow to man's estate,
O give to me a woman's fate!

May I govern all, both great and small,
Have the last word, and take the wall!

II

HER whole life is an epigram,

Smart, smooth, and nobly penned,
Plaited quite neat to catch applause,
With a strong noose at the end.

III

If you play a game of chance,

Know before you begin,

If you are benevolent

You will never win.

THE QUESTION ANSWERED

IV

WHAT is it men in women do require?
The lineaments of gratified desire.
What is it women do in men require?
The lineaments of gratified desire.

V

An old maid early, e'er I knew
Ought but the love that on me grew,
And now I am covered o'er and o'er,
And wish that I had been a whore.

VI

O, I cannot, cannot find

The undaunted courage of a virgin mind;
For early I in love was crost,

Before my flower of love was lost.

MERLIN'S PROPHECY

VII

THE harvest shall flourish in wintry weather, When two virginities meet together.

The king and priest must be tied in a tether, Before two virgins can meet together.

VIII

When a man marries a wife,
He finds out whether

Her elbows and knees are only
Glued together.

ON THE VIRGINITY OF THE VIRGIN MARY AND

JOHANNA SOUTHCOTT

IX

WHATE'ER is done to her she cannot know;
And if you ask her she will swear it so.
Whether 'tis good or evil, none's to blame;
No one can take the pride and none the shame.

IMITATION OF POPE AND COMPLIMENT TO
THE LADIES

X

WONDROUS the gods, more wondrous are the men, More wondrous, wondrous still the cock and hen. More wondrous still the table, stool and chair, But ah! more wondrous still the charming fair.

ΧΙ

LET us approach the sighing dawns
With many pleasing wiles.

If a woman does not fear your frowns,
She will never reward your smiles.

XII

To Chloe's breast young Cupid slily stole,
But he crept in at Myra's pocket-hole.

XIII

GROWN old in love from seven till seven times seven, I oft have wished for hell, for ease from heaven.

(A Postscript labelled Stanza V, and originally intended to close the poem called Cupid' printed above on page 108.)

XIV

"TWAS the Greek's love of war
Turned Cupid into a boy,

And woman into a statue of stone,

And away flew every joy.

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