Or, out of breath with joy, could not enlarge
Their straiten’d lungs.—
It is no longer motion cheats your view;
As you meet it, the land approacheth you;
The land returns, and in the white it wears
The marks of penitence, and sorrow bears.
I know not whether this fancy, however little be its value, was not borrowed. A French poet read to Malherbe some verses, in which he represents France as moving out of its place to receive the king. "Though this," said Malherbe, "was in my time, I do not remember it."
His poem on the Coronation has a more even tenour of thought. Some lines deserve to be quoted.
You have already quench'd sedition's brand;
And zeal, that burnt it, only warms the land;
The jealous sects that durst not trust their cause
So far from their own will as to the laws,
Him for their umpire and their synod take,
And their appeal alone to Cæsar make.
Here may be found one particle of that old versification, of which, I believe, in all his works, there is not another:
Nor is it duty, or our hope alone,
Creates that Joy, but full fruition.
