REVENGE.

THE fairest action of our human life
Is scorning to revenge an injury;
For who forgives without a further strife,
His adversarie's heart to him doth tie.

And 'tis a firmer conquest truly said,
To win the heart, than overthrow the head.

If we a worthy enemy do find,

To yield to worth it must be nobly done;
But if of baser metal be his mind,

In base revenge there is no honour won.
Who would a worthy courage overthrow
And who would wrestle with a worthless foe?

We say our hearts are great and cannot yield;

Because they cannot yield, it proves them poor : Great hearts are tasked beyond their powers but seld, The weakest lion will the loudest rcar

Truth's school for certain doth this same allow,
High-heartedness doth sometimes teach to bow.

A noble heart doth teach a virtuous scorn--
To scorn to owe a duty overlong;

To scorn to be for benefits forborne ;
To scorn to lie, to scorn to do a wrong;

To scorn to bear an injury in mind;

To scorn a free-born heart slave-like to bind.

But if for wrongs we needs revenge must have,
Then be our vengeance of the noblest kind;
Do we his body from our fury save,

And let our hate prevail against our mind?
What can 'gainst him a greater vengeance be,
Than make his woe more worthy far than he?

Mariam, the Fair Queen of Jewry, Act iv.

SONG BY LADY HAPPY

AS A SEA-GODDESS.

My cabinets are oyster-shells,
In which I keep my Orient pearls ;
And modest coral I do wear,

Which blushes when it touches air.

On silvery waves I sit and sing,
And then the fish lie listening:
Then resting on a rocky stone
I comb my hair with fishes' bone;

The whilst Apollo with his beams
Doth dry my hair from soaking streams,
His light doth glaze the water's face,
And make the sea my looking-glass.

So when I swim on waters high
I see myself as I glide by,
But when the sun begins to burn,
I back into my waters turn,

And dive unto the bottom low:
Then on my head the waters flow
In curled waves and circles round,
And thus with eddies I am crowned.

From the "Convent of Pleasure.”