tance in the grand opening of his first Canticle:--

"Come kiss me with those lips of thine,
For better are thy loves than wine;
And as the poured ointments be
Such is the savour of thy name,
And for the sweetness of the same
The virgins are in love with thee."

Compare the following almost unbelievable rubbish--

"As we with water wash away
Uncleanness from our flesh,
And sometimes often in a day
Ourselves are fain to wash."

Even in his earlier and purely secular work there is something, though less
of this inequality, and its cause is not at all dubious. No poet, certainly
no poet of merit, seems to have written with such absolute spontaneity and
want of premeditation as Wither. The metre which was his favourite, and
which he used with most success--the trochaic dimeter catalectic of seven
syllables--lends itself almost as readily as the octosyllable to this
frequently fatal fluency; but in Wither's hands, at least in his youth and
early manhood, it is wonderfully successful, as here:--

"And sometimes, I do admire
All men burn not with desire.
Nay, I muse her servants are not
Pleading love: but O they dare not:
And I, therefore, wonder why
They do not grow sick and die.
Sure they would do so, but that,
By the ordinance of Fate,
There is some concealed thing
So each gazer limiting,
He can see no more of merit
Than beseems his worth and spirit.
For, in her, a grace there shines
That o'erdaring thoughts confines,
Making worthless men despair
To be loved of one so fair.
Yea the Destinies agree
Some good judgments blind should be:
And not gain the power of knowing
Those rare beauties, in her growing.
Reason doth as much imply,
For, if every judging eye
Which beholdeth her should there
Find what excellences are;
All, o'ercome by those perfections
Would be captive to affections.
So (in happiness unblest)
She for lovers should not rest."

Nor had he at times a less original and happy command of the rhymed
decasyllabic couplet, which he sometimes handles after a fashion which
makes one almost think of Dryden, and sometimes after a fashion (as in the
lovely description of Alresford Pool at the opening of _Philarete_) which
makes one think of more modern poets still. Besides this metrical
proficiency and gift, Wither at this time (he thought fit