A DESCRIPTION OF CASTARA.
1 Like the violet which, alone,
Prospers in some happy shade,
My Castara lives unknown,
To no looser's eye betray'd,
For she's to herself untrue,
Who delights i' the public view.
2 Such is her beauty, as no arts
Have enrich'd with borrow'd grace;
Her high birth no pride imparts,
For she blushes in her place.
Folly boasts a glorious blood,
She is noblest, being good.
3 Cautious, she knew never yet
What a wanton courtship meant;
Nor speaks loud, to boast her wit;
In her silence eloquent:
Of herself survey she takes,
But 'tween men no difference makes.
4 She obeys with speedy will
Her grave parents' wise commands;
And so innocent, that ill
She nor acts, nor understands:
Women's feet run still astray,
If once to ill they know the way.
5 She sails by that rock, the court,
Where oft Honour splits her mast:
And retiredness thinks the port
Where her fame may anchor cast:
Virtue safely cannot sit,
Where vice is enthroned for wit.
6 She holds that day's pleasure best,
Where sin waits not on delight;
Without mask, or ball, or feast,
Sweetly spends a winter's night:
O'er that darkness, whence is thrust
Prayer and sleep, oft governs lust.
7 She her throne makes reason climb;
While wild passions captive lie:
And, each article of time,
Her pure thoughts to heaven fly:
All her vows religious be,
And her love she vows to me.
JOSEPH HALL, BISHOP OF NORWICH.
This distinguished man must not be confounded with John Hall, of whom all we know is, that he was born at Durham in 1627,—that he was educated at Cambridge, where he published a volume of poems,—that he practised at the bar, and that he died in 1656, in his twenty-ninth year. One specimen of John's verses we shall quote:—