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AIR is my love, and cruel as she's fair;

FAIR

Her brow shades frown, although her eyes are sunny; Her smiles are lightning, though her pride despair;

And her disdains are gall, her favours honey.

A modest maid, deck'd with a blush of honour,

Whose feet do tread green paths of youth and love;
The wonder of all eyes that look upon her:
Sacred on earth, design'd a saint above;
Chastity and Beauty, which are deadly foes,
Live reconciled friends within her brow;
And had she Pity to conjoin with those,
Then who had heard the plaints I utter now?
For had she not been fair, and thus unkind,

My muse had slept, and none had known my mind.

"LOVE IS THE BLOSSOM.”

BY GILES FLETCHER. -1588-1625.

[GILES FLETCHER. The time (about 1588) and place of his birth are uncertain; but it is recorded that he was educated at Cambridge, and that he became a clergyman. He died, most probably, about the year 1625.

Fletcher, himself no mean poet, was the son and brother of poets, and the cousin of the great dramatist. He wrote little more than "Christ's Victory and Triumph," but this has gained him immortality. His productions are not, however, without faults; thus he mixes up heathen mythology with the most venerable events and dogmas of Christianity. But his style is lofty and energetic; his verse is graceful and harmonious.]

LOVE is the blossome where there blowes
Every thing that lives or growes:

Love doth make the Heav'ns to move,
And the Sun doth burne in love:
Love the strong and weake doth yoke,
And makes the yvie climbe the oke;
Under whose shadowes lions wilde,
Soften'd by love, growe tame and mild:
Love no med'cine can appease,
He burnes the fishes in the seas;
Not all the skill his wounds can stench,

Not all the sea his fire can quench:
Love did make the bloody spear

Once a levie coat to wear,

While in his leaves there shrouded lay

Sweete birds, for love that sing and play:
And of all love's joyfull flame,

I the bud and blossome am.

Onely bend thy knee to me,

Thy wooing shall thy winning be.

See, see the flowers that belowe,
Now as fresh as morning blowe,
And of all, the virgin rose,
That as bright Aurora showes :

How they all unleaved die,

Losing their virginitie;

Like unto a summer shade,

But now borne, and now they fade.
Every thing doth passe away,
There is danger in delay:

Come, come, gather then the rose,
Gather it, or it you lose.

All the sande of Tagus' shore
Into my bosome casts his ore:
All the valley's swimming corne
To my house is yerely borne:
Every grape of every vine.
Is gladly bruised to make me wine;
While ten thousand kings, as proud,
To carry up my traine have bow'd,
And a world of ladies send me
In my chambers to attend me.
All the starres in Heaven that shine,
And ten thousand more, are mine.
Onely bend thy knee to me,
Thy wooing shall thy winning be.

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"WHEN PHOEBUS LIFTS HIS HEAD."

From the "POLYOLBION,"

BY MICHAEL DRAYTON.—1563-1631.

[MICHAEL DRAYTON was born at Harsull in Warwickshire, in 1563. After having spent some time at the University of Oxford, he entered the army; but he soon turned his attention to poetry, for which he had shown the most extraordinary predilection from his earliest years, and was made Poet Laureate. Though he served James I. in the intrigues which preceded his accession, he was treated by him not only with neglect, but indignity. He died in 1631, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.

Drayton, though in many respects a pleasing writer, often tires by the monotony of his measures, and the sameness of his personifications. His productions reach to 100,000 verses, most of which were published before he was thirty years of age. His most famous poem is the "Polyolbion," a topographical description of England.]

WHEN

HEN Phoebus lifts his head out of the winter's wave, No sooner doth the earth her flowery bosom brave, At such time as the year brings on the pleasant spring, But hunts-up to the morn the feath'red sylvans sing: And in the lower grove, as on the rising knole, Upon the highest spray of every mountain pole, Those quiristers are percht, with many a speckled breast, Then from her burnisht gate the goodly glitt'ring east Gilds every lofty top, which late the humourous night Bespangled had with pearl, to please the morning's sight; On which the mirthful quires, with their clear open throats, Unto the joyful morn so strain their warbling notes, That hills and valleys ring, and even the echoing air Seems all composed of sounds, about them everywhere. The throstle, with shrill sharps; as purposely he song Tawake the listless sun; or chiding, that so long He was in coming forth, that should the thickets thrill; The ouzel near at hand, that hath a golden bill, As nature him had markt of purpose, t' let us see That from all other birds his tunes should different be: For, with their vocal sounds, they sing to pleasant May; Upon his dulcet pipe the merle doth only play.

When in the lower brake, the nightingale hard by,
In such lamenting strains the joyful hours doth ply,
As though the other birds she to her tunes would draw.
And, but that Nature (by her all-constraining law)
Each bird to her own kind this season doth invite,
They else alone to hear that charmer of the night,

(The more to use their ears,) their voices sure would spare, That moduleth her tunes so admirably rare,

As man to set in parts at first had learn'd of her.

To Philomel the next, the linnet we prefer ;

And by that warbling bird, the wood-lark place we then,
The red-sparrow, the nope, the red-breast, and the wren.
The yellow-pate; which though she hurt the blooming tree,
Yet scarce hath any bird a finer pipe than she.

And of these chaunting fowls, the goldfinch not behind,
That hath so many sorts descending from her kind.
The tydy for her notes as delicate as they,
The laughing hecco, then the counterfeiting jay.
The softer with the shrill (some hid among the leaves,
Some in the taller trees, some in the lower greaves)
Thus sing away the morn, until the mounting sun,
Through thick exhaled fogs his golden head hath run,
And through the twisted tops of our close covert creeps
To kiss the gentle shade, this wile that sweetly sleeps.
And near to these our thicks, the wild and frightful herds,
Not hearing other noise but this of chattering birds,
Feed fairly on the lawns; both sorts of seasoned deer:
Here walk the stately red, the freckled fallow there:
The bucks and lusty stags amongst the rascals strew'd,
As sometime gallant spirits amongst the multitude.

Of all the beasts which we for our venerial name,
The hart among the rest, the hunter's noblest game :
Of which most princely chase sith none did e'er report,
Or by description touch, t' express that wondrous sport
(Yet might have well beseem'd the ancients' nobler songs)
To our old Arden here, most fitly it belongs:

*

The stag for goodly shape, and stateliness of head,

Is fitt'st to hunt at force.

For whom, when with his hounds The labouring hunter tufts the thick unbarbed grounds,

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