d a woman true,
There is beauty's fairest hue,
There is beauty, love, and wit:
Happy he can compass it!

ODE TO MELANCHOLY

By Fletcher

Hence, all you vain delights,
As short as are the nights
Wherein you spend your folly!
There's naught in this life sweet,
If man were wise to see 't,
But only melancholy;
Oh, sweetest melancholy!
Welcome, folded arms, and fixed eyes,
A sigh that piercing mortifies,
A look that's fastened to the ground,
A tongue chained up without a sound!

Fountain heads, and pathless groves,
Places which pale passion loves!
Moonlight walks when all the fowls
Are warmly housed, save bats and owls!
A midnight bell, a parting groan!
These are the sounds we feed upon;
Then stretch our bones in a still gloomy valley;
Nothing's so dainty sweet as lovely melancholy.

TO MY DEAR FRIEND, MASTER BENJAMIN JONSON,

UPON HIS 'FOX'

By Beaumont

If it might stand with justice to allow
The swift conversion of all follies, now
Such is my mercy, that I could admit
All sorts should equally approve the wit
Of this thy even work, whose growing fame
Shall raise thee high, and thou it, with thy name;
And did not manners and my love command
Me to forbear to make those understand
Whom thou, perhaps, hast in thy wiser doom
Long since firmly resolved, shall never come
To know more than they do,--I would have shown
To all the world the art which thou alone
Hast taught our tongue, the rules of time, of place,
And other rites, delivered with the grace

Of comic style, which only is fat more
Than any English stage hath known before.
But since our subtle gallants think it good
To like of naught that may be understood,
Lest they should be disproved, or have, at best,
Stomachs so raw, that nothing can digest
But what's obscene, or barks,--let us desire
They may continue, simply to admire
Fine clothes and strange words, and may live, in age
To see themselves ill brought upon the stage,
And like it; whilst thy bold and knowing Muse
Contemns all praise, but such as thou wouldst choose.

ON THE TOMBS IN W