ON GOING TO THE WARS.
Tell me not, sweet, I am unkinde,
That from the nunnerie
Of thy chaste breast and quiet minde,
To warre and armes I flee.
True, a new mistresse now I chase,—
The first foe in the field;
And with a stronger faith imbrace
A sword, a horse, a shield.
Yet this inconstancy is such
As you, too, should adore;
I could not love thee, deare, so much,
Loved I not honor more.
Richard Lovelace.
THE LAND OF LANDS.
You ask me, why, though ill at ease,
Within this region I subsist,
Whose spirits falter in the mist,
And languish for the purple seas?
It is the land that freemen till,
That sober-suited Freedom chose,
The land where, girt with friends or foes,
A man may speak the thing he will;
A land of settled government,
A land of just and old renown,
Where Freedom broadens slowly down
From precedent to precedent;