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With notis glad, and glorious harmony,
This joyful Merle, so salust she the day,
While rung the woodis of her melody,
Saying, Awake, ye lovers of this May;
Lo, fresh Flora has flourished every spray,
As nature has her taught, the noble queen,
The field been clothit in a new array;

A lusty life in Lovis service been.

Ne'er sweeter noise was heard with living man,
Na made this merry gentle nightingale;
Her sound went with the river as it ran,
Out through the fresh and flourished lusty vale;
O Merle quoth she, O fool! stint of thy tale,
For in thy song good sentence is there none,
For both is tint, the time and the travail
Of every love but upon God alone.

Cease, quoth the Merle, thy preaching, Nightingale :
Shall folk their youth spend into holiness?

Of young sanctís, grows auld feindís, but fable;
Fye, hypocrite, in yeiris tenderness,

Again' the law of kind, thou goes express,
That crookit age makes one with youth serene,
Whom nature of conditions made diverse :
A lusty life in Lovis service been.

The Nightingale said, Fool, remember thee,
That both in youth and eild, and every hour,
The love of God most dear to man suld be ;
That him, of nought, wrought like his own figour,
And died himself, fro' dead him to succour ;
O, whether was kythit there true love or none?
He is most true and stedfast paramour,

And love is lost but upon him alone.

The Merle said, Why put God so great beauty
In ladies, with sic womanly having,

But gif he would that they suld lovit be?
To love eke nature gave them incliníng,

And He of nature that worker was and king,
Would nothing frustir put, nor let be seen,
Into his creature of his own making;
A lusty life in Lovis service been.

The Nightingale said, Not to that behoof
Put God sic beauty in a lady's face,

That she suld have the thank therefor or luve,
But He, the worker, that put in her sic grace;
Of beauty, bounty, riches, time, or space,
And every gudeness that been to come or gone
The thank redounds to him in every place:
All love is lost but upon God alone.

O Nightingale! it were a story nice,
That love suld not depend on charity;
And, gif that virtue contrar be to vice,
Then love maun be a virtue, as thinks me;

For, aye, to love envy maun contrar' be:
God bade eke love thy neighbour fro the spleen;
And who than ladies sweeter neighbours be?
A lusty life in Lovis service been.

The Nightingale said, Bird, why does thou rave?
Man may take in his love sic delight,

Him to forget that her sic virtue gave,

And for his heaven receive her colour white :

Her golden tressit hairis redomite,

Like to Apollo's beamis tho' they shone,

Suld not him blind fro' love that is perfite;
All love is lost but upon God alone.

The Merle said, Love is cause of honour aye,
Love makis cowards manhood to purchase,

Love makis knichtis hardy at essay,
Love makis wretches full of largéness,

Love makis sweir folks full of business,

Love makis sluggards fresh and well be seen,
Love changes vice in virtuous nobleness;
A lusty life in Lovis service been.

The Nightingale said, True is the contrary;
Sic frustis love it blindis men so far,
Into their minds it makis them to vary;

In false vain glory they so drunken are,

Their wit is went, of woe they are not waur,

While that all worship away be fro' them gone,

Fame, goods, and strength; wherefore well say I daur, All love is lost but upon God alone.

Then said the Merle, Mine error I confess :

This frustis love is all but vanity:

Blind ignorance me gave sic hardines

To argue so again' the verity;

Wherefore I counsel every man that he

With love not in the feindis net be tone,

But love the love that did for his love die :
All love is lost but upon God alone.

Then sang they both with voices loud and clear,
The Merle sang, Man, love God that has thee wrought,
The Nightingale sang, Man, love the Lord most dear,
That thee and all this world made of nought.

The Merle said, Love him that thy love has sought
Fro' heaven to earth, and here took flesh and bone.
The Nightingale sang, And with his dead thee bought;
All love is lost but upon him alone.

Then flew thir birdis o'er the boughis sheen,

Singing of love amang the leavis small;

Whose eidant plead yet made my thoughtis grein,
Both sleeping, waking, in rest and in travail :
Me to recomfort most it does avail,

Again for love, when love I can find none,
To think how sung this Merle and Nightingale ;
All love is lost but upon God alone.

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"BLAME NOT MY LUTE."

BY SIR THOMAS WYATT.-1503-41.

[SIR THOMAS WYATT was born at Allington Castle, in Kent, in 1503. He was educated at Cambridge and Oxford, and afterwards travelled through Europe. Wyatt was a great favourite of Henry VIII., and confirmed that Monarch's resolution to abandon the Church of Rome, by exclaiming jocosely, "Lord! that a man cannot repent him of his sins, without the pope's leave." But, through being suspected of too great intimacy with Anne Boleyn, he lost the king's confidence, and was imprisoned on a charge of carrying on a treasonable correspondence with Cardinal Pole. He was, however, restored to favour, and was appointed to conduct the Ambassador of Charles V. to Court; when, riding too fast from Falmouth, on a hot day, he took a fever, of which he died in 1541. His love, as appears from his poems, was not prosperous; but he did not take his bad fortune much to heart; he was "the lover who waxeth wyser, and will not die for affection."]

LAME not my Lute! for he must sound

BLAN

Of this or that as liketh me;

For lack of wit the Lute is bound

To give such tunes as pleaseth me;
Though my songs be somewhat strange,
And speak such words as touch my change,
Blame not my Lute!

My Lute, alas! doth not offend,
Though that perforce he must agree
To sound such tunes as I intend,

To sing to them that heareth me;

Then though my songs be somewhat plain,
And toucheth some that use to feign,
Blame not my Lute!

My Lute and strings may not deny,
But as I strike they must obey;
Break not them then so wrongfully,
But wreak thyself some other way;

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