If by me broke, what fool is not so wise
To break an oath to win a paradise?

IX.

If love make me forsworn, how shall I swear to love? O never faith could hold, if not to beauty vow'd: Though to myself forsworn, to thee I'll constant

prove;

[bow'd. Those thoughts, to me like oaks, to thee like osiers Study his bias leaves, and makes his book thine eyes. Where all those pleasures live, that art can comprehend. [suffice; If knowledge be the mark, to know thee shall Well learned is that tongue that well can thee

commend;

[der;

All ignorant that soul that sees thee without wonWhich is to me some praise, that I thy parts

admire :

Thine eye Jove's lightning seems, thy voice his dreadful thunder,

Which (not to anger bent) is musick and sweet fire. Celestial as thou art, O do not love that wrong, To sing the heavens' praise with such an earthly tongue.

X.

Beauty is but a vain and doubtful good,
A shining gloss, that vadeth suddenly;
A flower that dies, when first it 'gins to bud:
A brittle glass, that's broken presently:

A doubtful good, a gloss, a glass, a flower,
Lost, vaded, broken, dead within an hour.

And as goods lost are seld or never found,
As vaded gloss no rubbing will refresh,
As flowers dead, lie wither'd on the ground,
As broken glass no cement can redress,

So beauty blemish'd once, for ever's lost,
In spite of physick, painting, pain, and cost.

XI.

share:

Good night, good rest. Ah! neither be my
She bade good night, that kept my rest away;
And daff'd me to a cabin hang'd with care,
To descant on the doubts of my decay.

Farewell, quoth she, and come again to-morrow;
Fare well I could not, for I supp'd with sorrow.

Yet at my parting sweetly did she smile, In scorn or friendship, nill I construe whether: "T may be, she joy'd to jest at my exile, "T may be, again to make me wander thither: Wander, a word for shadows like myself, As take the pain, but cannot pluck the pelf.

XII.

Lord, how mine eyes throw gazes to the east! My heart doth charge the watch; the morning rise Doth cite each moving sense from idle rest.

8 daff'd] i. e. put off.

Not daring trust the office of mine eyes,

While Philomela sits and sings, I sit and mark,
And wish her lays were tuned like the lark;

For she doth welcome daylight with her ditty,
And drives away dark dismal-dreaming night:
The night so pack'd, I post unto my pretty;
Heart hath his hope, and eyes their wished sight;
Sorrow chang'd to solace, solace mix'd with

sorrow;

[morrow. For why? she sigh'd, and bade me come to

4

Were I with her, the night would post too soon;
But now are minutes added to the hours;
To spite me now, each minute seems a moon ;
Yet not for me, shine sun to succour flowers!
Pack night, peep day; good day, of night now
borrow;
[morrow.
Short, night, to-night, and length thyself to-

XIII.

It was a lording's daughter, the fairest one of

three,

That liked of her master as well as well might be, Till looking on an Englishman, the fairest that eye could see,

Her fancy fell a turning.

4 a moon] i. e. a month, Steevens's conjecture for the reading of the old copy,

64

an hour."

Long was the combat doubtful, that love with love

did fight,

To leave the master loveless, or kill the gallant

knight:

To put in practice either, alas it was a spite

Unto the silly damsel.

But one must be refused, more mickle was the pain, That nothing could be used, to turn them both to

gain,

[disdain : For of the two the trusty knight was wounded with

Alas, she could not help it! [day, Thus art with arms contending was victor of the Which by a gift of learning did bear the maid

away;

[gay;

Then lullaby, the learned man hath got the lady For now my song is ended.

XIV.

On a day (alack the day!)

Love, whose month was ever May,

Spy'd a blossom passing fair,

Playing in the wanton air :

Through the velvet leaves the wind,
All unseen, 'gan passage find;
That the lover, sick to death,

Wish'd himself the heaven's breath.
Air, quoth he, thy cheeks may blow;
Air, would I might triumph so!
But alas my hand hath sworn

Ne'er to pluck thee from thy thorn:

Vow, alack, for youth unmeet,
Youth, so apt to pluck a sweet.
[Do not call it sin in me,5
That I am forsworn for thee;]
Thou for whom Jove would swear

Juno but an Ethiope were ;
And deny himself for Jove,
Turning mortal for thy love.

My flocks feed not,
My ewes breed not,
My rams speed not,

All is amiss:

Love is dying, Faith's defying, Heart's denying,

Causer of this.

XV.

All my merry jigs are quite forgot,

All my lady's love is lost, God wot:

Where her faith was firmly fix'd in love,
There a nay is plac'd without remove.
One silly cross
Wrought all my loss;

O frowning fortune, cursed, fickle dame!
For now I see,

Inconstancy

More in women than in men remain.

Do not call it, &c.] This couplet is supplied from the song

as given in Love's Labour's Lost, act iv. sc. 8.