Page:The nature and elements of poetry, Stedman, 1892.djvu/201

Rh and "Drink to me only with thine eyes"? The song, "Take, O take those lips away," even were it not embalmed by Shakespeare, would outlast the dramas of John Fletcher. Suckling's "Why so pale and wan, fond lover?" and his verses on a wedding; Lovelace's "To Lucasta" and "To Althæa, from Prison,"—such are the gems in whose light the shades of courtier-poets remain apparent. More of Herrick's endure, because with him beauty of sound and shape and fancy was always first in heart, and always fresh and natural. I have written a paper on Single-Poem Poets, but the greater number of them were no less the authors of a mass of long-forgotten verse. Of Waller's poetry we remember little beyond the dainty lyrics, "Go, lovely rose" and "On a Lady's Girdle." From time to time the saddest and gladdest and sweetest chansons of Villon and Ronsard and Du Bellay are retranslated by deft English minstrels, as men take out precious things from cabinets and burnish them anew. A ponderous epic disappears; some little song, once carolled by Mary Stuart, or a perfect conceit of imagery and feeling, whose very author is unknown, becomes imperishable. For instance,

If this fair rose offend thy sight,

Placed in thy bosom bare,