How wisely Nature did decree
  With the same eyes to weep and see! 
  That, having view’d the object vain,
  They might be ready to complain. 
  And, since the self-deluding sight,
  In a false angle takes each height,
  These tears which better measure all. 
  Like wat’ry lines and plummets fall. 
  Two tears, with sorrow long did weigh,
  Within the scales of either eye,
  And then paid out in equal poise,
  Are the true price of all my joys. 
  What in the world most fair appears,
  Yea, even laughter, turns to tears: 
  And all the jewels which we prize,
  Melt in these pendents of the eyes. 
  I have through every garden been,
  Amongst the red, the white, the green;
  And yet from all those flow’rs I saw,
  No honey, but these tears could draw. 
  So the all-seeing sun each day,
  Distils the world with chemic ray;
  But finds the essence only showers,
  Which straight in pity back he pours. 
  Yet happy they whom grief doth bless,
  That weep the more, and see the less;
  And, to preserve their sight more true,
  Bathe still their eyes in their own dew. 
  So Magdalen, in tears more wise
  Dissolv’d those captivating eyes,
  Whose liquid chains could flowing meet,
  To fetter her Redeemer’s feet. 
  Not full sails hasting loaden home,
  Nor the chaste lady’s pregnant womb,
  Nor Cynthia teeming shows so fair,
  As two eyes, swoln with weeping, are
  The sparkling glance that shoots desire,
  Drench’d in these waves, does lose its fire. 
  Yea, oft the Thunderer pity takes,
  And here the hissing lightning slakes. 
  The incense was to heaven dear,
  Not as a perfume, but a tear! 
  And stars show lovely in the night,
  But as they seem the tears of light. 
  Ope, then, mine eyes, your double sluice,
  And practise so your noblest use;
  For others too can see, or sleep,
  But only human eyes can weep. 
  Now, like two clouds dissolving, drop,
  And at each tear in distance stop: 
  Now, like two fountains, trickle down: 
  Now like two floods o’er-run and drown: 
  Thus lot your streams o’erflow your springs,
  Till eyes and tears be the same things;
  And each the other’s difference bears;
  These weeping eyes, those seeing tears.

MARVELL.

    (From a neatly-printed Life of the Poet, by John Dove.)

* * * * *

A DROP OF DEW.

  See, how the orient dew
    Shed from the bosom of the morn,
      Into the blowing roses,
  Yet careless of its mansion new,
    For the clear region where ’twas born
      Round in itself incloses: 
  And in its little globe’s extent,
  Frames, as it can, its native element. 
      How it the purple flow’r does slight,
    Scarce touching where it lies;