[1] 'Black Vulture:' the Turk.
HAPPINESS OF THE SHEPHERD'S LIFE.
Thrice, oh, thrice happy, shepherd's life and state!
When courts are happiness, unhappy pawns!
His cottage low and safely humble gate
Shuts out proud Fortune, with her scorns and fawns
No feared treason breaks his quiet sleep:
Singing all day, his flocks he learns to keep;
Himself as innocent as are his simple sheep.
No Serian worms he knows, that with their thread
Draw out their silken lives; nor silken pride:
His lambs' warm fleece well fits his little need,
Not in that proud Sidonian tineture dyed:
No empty hopes, no courtly fears him fright,
Nor begging wants his middle fortune bite;
But sweet content exiles both misery and spite.
Instead of music, and base flattering tongues,
Which wait to first salute my lord's uprise,
The cheerful lark wakes him with early songs,
And birds' sweet whistling notes unlock his eyes:
In country plays is all the strife he uses,
Or sing, or dance unto the rural Muses,
And but in music's sports all difference refuses.
His certain life, that never can deceive him,
Is full of thousand sweets, and rich content;
The smooth-leaved beeches in the field receive him
With coolest shades, till noontide rage is spent;
His life is neither toss'd in boisterous seas
Of troublous world, nor lost in slothful ease;
Pleased, and full blest he lives, when he his God can please.
His bed of wool yields safe and quiet sleeps,
While by his side his faithful spouse hath place;
His little son into his bosom creeps,
The lively picture of his father's face:
Never his humble house nor state torment him;
Less he could like, if less his God had sent him;
And when he dies, green turfs, with grassy tomb, content him.
MARRIAGE OF CHRIST AND THE CHURCH.
'Ah, dearest Lord! does my rapt soul behold thee?
Am I awake, and sure I do not dream?
Do these thrice-blessed arms again enfold thee?
Too much delight makes true things feigned seem.
Thee, thee I see; thou, thou thus folded art:
For deep thy stamp is printed on my heart,
And thousand ne'er-felt joys stream in each melting part.'
Thus with glad sorrow did she sweetly 'plain her,
Upon his neck a welcome load depending;
While he with equal joy did entertain her,
Herself, her champions, highly all commending:
So all in triumph to his palace went;
Whose work in narrow words may not be pent:
For boundless thought is less than is that glorious tent.