Bayleaves betweene,
And Primroses greene
Embellish the sweete Violet.
In "A Midsummer Night's Dream," Oberon tells Puck how he saw that "Faire Vestall" in danger of Love's sharp arrows—and "The Imperiall Votresse passèd on In maiden meditation, fancy free." But Shakespeare, if actually invited to Court, it is said, "was in paine."
[176]. "The Battle-Hymn."
The writer of this magnificent Battle-Hymn died in 1910, at the age of ninety-one. If Henry Carey, who wrote our own "National Anthem," had realised how much and how often his fellow countrymen were to be fated to use his words, he would perhaps have taken a little more trouble with them (as much, at any rate, as Shelley and Flecker took in their versions of it), and would have found a pleasanter rhyme than "over us" for "glorious," and than "voice" for "cause." If, on the other hand, he had read the following Grace which Ben Jonson made at the moment's call before King James, he might perhaps have refrained from rhyming altogether, and so, by sheer modesty, would have missed being immortalized:
Our King and Queen the Lord God Blesse,
The Paltzgrave, and the Lady Besse.
And God blesse every living thing
That lives, and breathes, and loves the King.