JAMES SHIRLEY

The dusk of day's decline was hard on dark

When evening trembled round thy glowworm lamp

That shone across her shades and dewy damp

A small clear beacon whose benignant spark

Was gracious yet for loiterers’ eyes to mark,

Though changed the watchword of our English camp

Since the outposts rang round Marlowe's lion ramp,

When thy steed's pace went ambling round Hyde Park.

And in the thickening twilight under thee

Walks Davenant, pensive in the paths where he,

The blithest throat that ever carolled love

In music made of morning's merriest heart,

Glad Suckling, stumbled from his seat above

And reeled on slippery roads of alien art.