Hence, all you vain delights,
As short as are the nights
Wherein you spend your folly!
There's nought in this life sweet,
...
Shake off your heavy trance,
And leap into a dance,
Such as no mortals use to tread,
Fit only for Apollo -
...
Lay a garland on my hearse,
Of the dismal yew,
Maidens, willow branches bear,
Say I died true.
...
Care-charming sleep, thou easer of all woes,
Brother to death; sweetly thyself dispose
On this afflicted prince; fall, like a cloud,
...
Sitting in my window,
Pointing my thoughts in lawn, I saw a god,
(I thought, but it was you,) enter our gates;
...
Sweet prince, the name of Death was never terrible
To him that knew to live; nor the loud torrent
Of all afflictions, singing as they swim,
...
O divine star of Heaven,
Thou in power above the seven;
Thou, O gentle Queen, that art
Curer of each wounded heart,
...
Shepherds all, and maidens fair,
Fold your flocks up; for the air
'Gins to thicken, and the sun
...
Shepherds, rise, and shake off sleep -
See the blushing morn doth peep
Through your windows, while the sun
To the mountain-tops has run,
...
Beaumont and Fletcher were the English dramatists Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher, who collaborated in their writing during the reign of James I (he reigned in England 1603-1625) When the first collected folio of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher, containing a masque and some thirty-four plays, none of the latter having previously been printed, was published in 1647, long after the deaths of its authors, no attempt was made to discriminate between the parts of the famous collaborators; nor did the 1679 folio, in spite of its eighteen additional plays, suggest that a separation was desirable or feasible. But recent investigation has tended more and more strongly toward such a distinction, until, for instance, C.M. Gayley in his Beaumont the Dramatist is sure of only six plays as the joint product of Swinburne's Castor and Pollux of the English drama--although E.H.C. Oliphant in his The Plays of Beaumont and Fletcher prefers eight and allows the two men three more with the assistance of Massinger. Moreover, contrary to the older impression growing out of the longer dramatic career and larger output of Fletcher, virtually all modern critics insist that Beaumont was the greater dramatist. But the disentangling of the web has not ended here, since the hands of Massinger and Field, not to mention those of William Rowley, Shirley, Shakespeare, and others have been identified in a considerable part of the work which for many years masqueraded under the label of "Beaumont and Fletcher." The whole situation provides a striking commentary on the conditions of Elizabethan dramatic publication and authorship.)
Poet's Mood
Hence, all you vain delights,
As short as are the nights
Wherein you spend your folly!
There's nought in this life sweet,
If man were wise to see it,
But only melancholy;
Oh, sweetest melancholy!
Welcome folded arms, and fixed eyes,
A sigh that piercing mortifies,
A look that's fastened to the ground,
A tongue chained up, without a sound!
Fountain-head and pathless groves,
Places which pale passion loves!
Moonlight walks, when all the fowls
Are warmly housed, save bats and owls!
A midnight bell, a parting groan!
These are the sounds we feed upon;
Then stretch our bones in a still gloomy valley:
Nothing's so dainty sweet as lovely melancholy.
Where in the works of John Fletcher did he write these lines: Who does not see in drown Deucalion's name, When Earth her men and Sea had lost her shore, Old Noah?
Poet’s mood Swinging in melancholy hood Until bones lay straight Waiting for next bout. Good