Page:Sir Walter Raleigh by Thoreau, Henry David,.djvu/98

 The following will be new to many of our readers:

Prais'd be Diana's fair and harmless light;

Prais'd be the dews, wherewith she moists the ground;

Prais'd be her beams, the glory of the night;

Prais'd be her power, by which all powers abound!

Prais'd be her nymphs, with whom she decks the woods;

Prais'd be her knights, in whom true honor lives;

Prais'd be that force by which she moves the floods!

Let that Diana shine, which all these gives!

In heaven, queen she is among the spheres;

She mistress-like, makes all things to be pure;

Eternity in her oft-change she bears;

She, Beauty is; by her, the fair endure.

Time wears her not; she doth his chariot guide;

Mortality below her orb is plac'd;

By her the virtues of the stars down slide;

In her is Virtue's perfect image cast!

A knowledge pure it is her worth to know:

With Circes let them dwell that think not so!

Though we discover in his verses the vices of the courtier, and they are not equally sustained, as if his genius were warped by the frivolous society of the Court, he was