I Sat Me Down To

Man Hath His Daily Work Of Body Or Mind Appointed, Which Declares His Dignity, And The Regard Of Heav'n On All His Ways.

Now Came Still Evening On, And Twilight Gray Had In Her Sober Livery All Things Clad; Silence Accompany'd; For Beast And Bird, They To Their Grassy Couch, These To Their Nests, Were Slunk, All But The Wakeful Nightingale; She All Night Long Her Amorous Descant Sung; Silence Was Pleas'd. Now Glow'd The Firmament With Living Sapphires; Hesperus, That Led The Starry Host, Rode Brightest, Till The Moon, Rising In Clouded Majesty, At Length Apparent Queen Unveil'd Her Peerless Light, And O'er The Dark Her Silver Mantle Threw.

The Helmed Cherubim, And Sworded Seraphim, Are Seen In Glittering Ranks With Wings Display'd.

[rhyme Is] But The Invention Of A Barbarous Age, To Set Off Wretched Matter And Lame Meter; ... Not Without Cause Therefore Some Both Italian And Spanish Poets Of Prime Note Have Rejected Rhyme, ... As Have Also Long Since Our Best English Tragedies, As... Trivial And Of No True Musical Delight; Which [truly] Consists Only In Apt Numbers, Fit Quantity Of Syllables, And The Sense Variously Drawn Out From One Verse Into Another, Not In The Jingling Sound Of Like Endings, A Fault Avoided By The Learned Ancients Both In Poetry And All Good Oratory.

It Is For Homely Features To Keep Home,- They Had Their Name Thence; Coarse Complexions And Cheeks Of Sorry Grain Will Serve To Ply The Sampler And To Tease The Huswife's Wool. What Need A Vermeil-tinctur'd Lip For That, Love-darting Eyes, Or Tresses Like The Morn?