She burnt with love, as straw with fire flameth,
She burnt out love, as soon as straw out burneth ;
She fram'd the love, and yet she foil'd the framing,
She bad love last, and yet she fell a turning.
Was this a lover, or a lecher whether?

Bad in the best, though excellent in neither.

VI.

If music and sweet poetry agree,

As they must needs, the sister and the brother,
Then must the love be great 'twixt thee and me,
Because thou lov'st the one, and I the other.
Dowland to thee is dear, whose heavenly touch
Upon the lute doth ravish human sense;
Spenser to me, whose deep conceit is such,
As passing all conceit, needs no defence.
Thou lov'st to hear the sweet melodious sound
That Phœbus' lute, the queen of music, makes ;
And I in deep delight am chiefly drown'd,
Whenas himself to singing he betakes.
One god is god of both, as poets feign;
One knight loves both, and both in thee remain.

VII.

Fair was the morn when the fair queen of love,
*
* *
Paler for sorrow than her milk-white dove,
For Adon's sake, a youngster proud and wild;
Her stand she takes upon a steep-up hill:
Anon Adonis comes with horn and hounds;
She, silly queen, with more than love's good will,
Forbade the boy he should not pass those grounds;
"Once," quoth she, " did I see a fair sweet youth
Here in these brakes deep-wounded with a boar,
Deep in the thigh, a spectacle of ruth!
See in my thigh," quoth she, "here was the sore:"
She showed hers; he saw more wounds than one,
And blushing fled, and left her all alone.

VIII.

Sweet rose, fair flower, untimely pluck'd, soon faded,
Pluck'd in the bud, and faded in the spring!
Bright orient pearl, alack! too timely shaded!
Fair creature, kill'd too soon by Death's sharp sting!
Like a green plumb that hangs upon a tree,
And falls, through wind, before the fall should be.
I weep for thee, and yet no cause I have,
For why? thou left'st me nothing in thy will.
And yet thou left'st me more than I did crave;
For why? I craved nothing of thee still:
O yes, dear friend, 1 pardon crave of thee;
Thy discontent thou didst bequeath to me.

IX.

Fair Venus with Adonis sitting by her,
Under a myrtle shade, began to woo him:
She told the youngling how god Mars did try her,
And as he felt to her, she felt to him. [me;"
"Even thus," quoth she, "the warlike god embrac'd
And then she clip'd Adonis in her arms: [me,"
"Even thus," quoth she, "the warlike god unlac'd
As if the boy should use like loving charms.
"Even thus," quoth she, "he seized on my lips,"
And with her lips on his did act the seizure;
And as she fetched breath, away he skips,
And would not take her meaning nor her pleasure.
Ah! that I had my lady at this bay,
To kiss and clip me till I run away!

Beauty is but a vain and doubtful good,
A shining gloss that fadeth 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, faded, broken, dead within an hour.

And as goods lost are seld or never found,
As faded 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 physic, painting, pain, and cost.

XII.

Good night, good rest. Ah! neither be my share;
She bade good night, that kept my rest away;
And daft me to a cabin hang'd with care,
To descant on the doubts of my decay. [row ;"
"Farewell," quoth she," and come again to mor-
Farewell 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:
May be, she joy'd to jest at my exile,
May be, again to make me wander thither:
Wander, a word for shadows like myself,
As take the pain, but cannot pluck the pelf.

XIII.

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.
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 day-light 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 sor-
row;

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

"In black mourn I,
All fears scorn I,
Love hath forlorn me,
Living in thrall:
Heart is bleeding,
All help needing,
(O cruel speeding!)
Fraughted with gall.

My shepherd's pipe can sound no deal,
My wethers' bell rings dolefull knell;
My curtail dog that wont to have play'd,
Plays not at all, but seems afraid;
With sighs so deep,
Procures to weep,

In howling-wise, to see my doleful plight.
How sighs resound

Through heartless ground,

Like a thousand vanquish'd men in bloody fight!
Clear wells spring not,
Sweet birds sing not,
Green plants bring not
Forth; they die:
Herds stand weeping,
Flocks all sleeping,
Nymphs back peeping
Fearfully.

All our pleasure known to us poor swains,
All our merry meetings on the plains,

All our evening sport from us is fled,

All our love is lost, for love is dead.
Farewell, sweet love,

Thy like ne'er was

For sweet content, the cause of all my moan: Poor Coridon,

Must live alone,

Other help for him I see that there is none."

XVII.

When as thine eye hath chose the dame,

And stall'd the deer that thou should'st strike, Let reason rule things worthy blame,

As well as fancy, partial might:
Take counsel of some wiser head,
Neither too young, nor yet unwed.

And when thou com'st thy tale to tell,
Smooth not thy tongue with filed talk,
Lest she some subtle practice smell;

(A cripple soon can find a halt :) But plainly say thou lov'st her well, And set her person forth to sale.

What though her frowning brows be bent,
Her cloudy looks will calm ere night;
And then too late she will repent,

That thus dissembled her delight;

And twice desire, ere it be day,

That which with scorn she put away.

What though she strive to try her strength,
And ban and brawl, and say thee nay,

Her feeble force will yield at length,

When craft hath taught her thus to say:
"Had women been so strong as men,
In faith you had not had it then."
And to her will frame all thy ways;
Spare not to spend, and chiefly there
Where thy desert may merit praise,

By ringing in thy lady's ear:
The strongest castle, tower, and town,
The golden bullet beats it down.

That to hear her so complain,
Scarce I could from tears refrain;
For her griefs, so lively shown,
Made me think upon mine own.

Ah! (thought I) thou mourn'st in vain ;
None take pity on thy pain:
Senseless trees, they cannot hear thee;
Ruthless beasts, they will not cheer thee;
King Pandion, he is dead:

All thy friends are lapp'd in lead:
All thy fellow birds do sing,
Careless of thy sorrowing,
Even so, poor bird, like thee,
None alive will pity me.

Whilst as fickle Fortune smil'd,
Thou and I were both beguil'd.
Every one that flatters thee,
is no friend in misery.
Words are easy like the wind;
Faithful friends are hard to find.
Every man will be thy friend,

Tilst thou hast wherewith to spend ;

if store of crowns be scant, nan will supply thy want. VOL Y.

If he be addict to vice,
Quickly him they will entice;
If to women he be bent,

They have him at commandement;
But if fortune once do frown,
Then farewell his great renown:
They that fawn'd on him before,
Use his company no more.
He that is thy friend indeed,
He will help thee in thy need;
If thou sorrow, he will weep;
If thou wake, he cannot sleep:
Thus of every grief in heart
He with thee doth bear a part.
These are certain signs to know
Faithful friend from flattering foe.

XIX.

Take, oh, take those lips away,
That so sweetly were forsworn;
And those eyes, the break of day,
Lights that do mislead the morn:
But my kisses bring again,
Seals of love, but seal'd in vain.

Hide, oh, hide those hills of snow
Which thy frozen bosom bears,
On whose tops the pinks that grow,
Are of those that April wears.
But first set my poor heart free,
Bound in those icy chains by thee.

XX.

Let the bird of loudest lay,
On the sole Arabian tree,
Herald sad and trumpet be,

To whose sound chaste wings obey..

But thou shrieking harbinger,
Foul pre-currer of the fiend,
Augur of the fever's end,

To this troop come thou not near.

From this session interdict Every fowl of tyrant wing, Save the eagle, feather'd king: Keep the obsequy so strict.

Let the priest in surplice white,
That defunctive music can,
Be the death-divining swan,
Lest the requiem lack his right.

And thou, treble-dated crow,
That thy sable gender mak'st
With the breath thou giv'st and tak'st,
'Mongst our mourners shalt thou go.

Here the anthem doth commence :➡➡
Love and constancy is dead;
Phenix and the turtle fled
In a mutual flame from hence.

F

So they lov'd, as love in twain Had the essence but in one; Two distincts, division none: Number there in love was slain,

Hearts remote, yet not asunder; Distance, and no space was seen "Twixt the turtle and his queen: But in them it were a wonder.

So between them love did shine, That the turtle saw his right Flaming in the phenix' sight: Either was the other's mine,

Property was thus appall'd, That the self was not the same; Single nature's double name Neither two nor one was call'd,

Reason, in itself confounded,
Saw division grow together;
To themselves yet either-neither,
Simple were so well compounded;

That it cried, "how true a twain
Seemeth this concordant one!
Love hath reason, reason none,
If what parts can so remain."
Whereupon it made this threne
To the phenix and the dove,
Co-supremes and stars of love;
As chorus to their tragic scene.

THRENOS.

Beauty, truth, and rarity, Grace in all simplicity, Here enclos'd in cinders lie.

Death is now the phenix' nest;
And the turtle's loyal breast
To eternity doth rest,

Leaving no posterity:-
"T was not their infirmity,
It was married chastity.

Truth may seem, but cannot be; Beauty brag, but 't is not she; Truth and beauty bury'd be.

To this urn let those repair
That are either true or fair;
For these dead birds sigh a prayer.

LOVER'S COMPLAINT.

FROM off a hill whose concave womb re-worded
A plaintful story from a sistering vale,
My spirits to attend this double voice accorded,
And down I lay to list the sad-tun'd tale :
Ere long espy'd a fickle maid full pale,
Tearing of papers, breaking rings a-twain,
Storming her world with sorrow's wind and rain.

Upon her head a platted hive of straw,
Which fortify'd her visage from the Sun,
Whereon the thought might think sometime it saw
The carcass of a beauty spent and done.
Time had not scythed all that youth begun,
Nor youth all quit; b, spite of Heaven's fell rage,
Some beauty peep'd through lattice of sear'd age.

Oft did she heave her napkin to her eyne,
Which on it had conceited characters,
Laund'ring the silken figures in the brine
That season'd woe had pelleted in tears,
And often reading what contents it bears;
As often shrieking undistinguish'd woe,
In clamours of all size, both high and low.
Sometimes her level'd eyes their carriage ride,
As they did battery to the spheres intend;
Sometime diverted their poor balls are ty'd
To the orbed earth; sometimes they do extend
Their view right on; anon their gazes lend
To every place at once, and no where fix'd,
The mind and sight distractedly commix'd.

Her hair, nor loose, nor ty'd in formal plat,
Proclaim'd in her a careless hand of pride;
For some, untuck'd, descended her sheav'd hat,
Hanging her pale and pined cheek beside;
Some in her threaden fillet still did bide,

And true to bondage, would not break from thence,
Though slackly braided in loose negligence.

A thousand favours from a maund she drew
Of amber, crystal, and of bedded jet,
Which one by one she in a river threw,
Upon whose weeping margent she was set,—
Like usury, applying wet to wet,

Or monarchs' hands, that let not bounty fall
Where want cries some, but where excess begs all.

Of folded schedules had she many a one,

Which she perus'd, sigh'd, tore, and gave the flood;
Crack'd many a ring of posied gold and bone,
Bidding them find their sepulchres in mud;
Found yet more letters sadly pen'd in blood,\
With sleided silk feat and affectedly
Enswath'd, and seal'd to curious secresy.

These often bath'd she in her luxive eyes,
And often kiss'd, and often 'gan to tear ;
Cry'd, "O false blood! thou register of lies,
What unapproved witness dost thou bear! [here!"
Ink would have seem'd more black and damned
This said, in top of rage the lines she rents,
Big discontent so breaking their contents.

A reverend man, that graz'd his cattle nigh,
(Sometime a blusterer, that the ruffle knew
Of court, of city, and had let go by
The swiftest hours) observed as they flew;
Towards this afflicted fancy fastly drew;
And, privileg'd by age, desires to know
In brief, the grounds and motives of her woe.
So slides he down upon his grained bat,
And comely-distant sits he by her side,
When he again desires her, being sat,
Her grievance with his hearing to divide:
If that from him there may be aught apply'd
Which may her suffering ecstasy assuage,
'T is promis'd in the charity of age.

"Father," she says, "though in me you behold
The injury of many a blasting hour,
Let it not tell your judgment I am old;
Not age, but sorrow, over me hath power:
I might as yet have been a spreading flower,
Fresh to myself, if I had self-apply'd
Love to myself, and to no love beside.

"But woe is me! too early I attended
A youthful suit (it was to gain my grace)
Of one by Nature's outwards so commended,
That maiden's eyes sluck over all his face :
Love lack'd a dwelling, and made him her place;
And when in his fair parts she did abide,
She was new lodg'd, and newly deified.

"His browny locks did hang in crooked curls;
And every light occasion of the wind
Upon his lips their silken parcels hurls.
What 's sweet to do, to do will aptly find:
Each eye that saw him did enchant the mind;
For on his visage was in little drawn,
What largeness thinks in Paradise was sawn.
"Small show of man was yet upon his chin;
His phenix down began but to appear,
Like unshorn velvet, on that termless skin,
Whose bare out-brag'd the web it seem'd to wear;
Yet show'd his visage by that cost most dear;
And nice affections wavering stood in doubt
If best 't were as it was, or best without.

“His qualities were beauteous as his form,
For maiden-tongu'd he was, and thereof free;
Yet, if men mov'd him, was he such a storm
As oft 'twixt May and April is to see,

"Many there were that did his picture get,
To serve their eyes, and in it put their mind;
Like fools that in the imagination set
The goodly objects which abroad they find
Of lands and mansions, their's in thought assign'd;
And labouring in more pleasures to bestow them,
Than the true gouty landlord which doth owe them:

"So many have, that never touch'd his hand,
Sweetly suppos'd them mistress of his heart.
My woeful self, that did in freedom stand,
And was my own fee-simple, (not in part)
What with his art in youth, and youth in art,
Threw my affections in his charmed power,
Reserv'd the stalk, and gave him all my flower.

"Yet did I not, as some my equals did,
Demand of him, nor being desired, yielded;
Finding myself in honour so forbid,

With safest distance I mine honour shielded:
Experience for me many bulwarks builded
Of proofs new-bleeding, which remain❜d the foil
Of this false jewel, and his amorous spoil.

"But ah! who ever shun'd by precedent
The destin❜d ill she must herself assay?
Or forc'd examples, 'gainst her own content,
To put the by-pass'd perils in her way?
Counsel may stop awhile what will not stay;
For when we rage, advice is often seen
By blunting us to make our wits more keen.

"Nor gives it satisfaction to our blood, That we must curb it upon others' proof, To be forbid the sweets that seem so good,

His rudeness so with his authoriz'd youth,

Did livery falseness in a pride of truth.

"Well could he ride, and often men would say, 'That horse his mettle from his rider takes: Proud of subjection, noble by the sway,

O appetite, from judgment stand aloof! The one a palate hath that needs will taste, Though reason weep, and cry it is thy last.

"For further I could say, this man 's untrue, And knew the patterns of his foul beguiling;

he makes !'

And controversy hence a question takes,
Whether the horse by him became his deed,
Or he his manage by the well-doing steed.

“But quickly on this side the verdict went ;
His real habitude gave life and grace
To appertainings and to ornament,
Accomplish'd in himself, not in his case:
All aids, themselves made fairer by their place,
Came for additions, yet their purpos'd trim
Piec'd not his grace, but were all grac'd by him.

“So on the tip of his subduing tongue
All kind of arguments and question deep,
All replication prompt, and reason strong,
For his advantage still did wake and sleep:
To make the weeper laugh, the laugher weep,
He had the dialect and different skill,
Catching all passions in his craft of will;

Saw how deceits were guiled in his smiling;
Knew vows were ever brokers to defiling;
Thought, characters, and words, merely but art,
And bastards of his foul adulterate heart.

"And long upon these terms I held my city,
Till thus he 'gan besiege me: Gentle maid,
Have of my suffering youth some feeling pity,
And be not of my holy vows afraid:

That's to you sworn, to none was ever said;
For feasts of love I have been call'd unto,
Till now did ne'er invite, nor never vow.

"All my offences that abroad you see,
Are errours of the blood, none of the mind:
Love made them not; with acture they may be,
Where neither party is nor true nor kind:
They sought their shame that so their shame did find
And so much less of shame in me remains,
By how much of me their reproach contains.

66 6 Among the many that mine eyes have seen,
Not one whose flame my heart so much as warm'd,
Or my affection put to the smallest teen,
Or any of my leisures ever charm'd:
Harm have I done to them, but ne'er was harm'd ;
Kept hearts in liveries, but mine own was free,
And reign'd, commanding in his monarchy.

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