SECRECY PROTESTED.

Fear not (dear love) that I'll reveal
Those hours of pleasure we two steal:
No eye shall see, nor yet the sun
Descry, what thou and I have done;
No ear shall hear our love, but we
Silent as the night will be;

The god of love himself (whose dart
Did first wound mine, and then thy heart,)
Shall never know that we can tell

What sweets in stolen embraces dwell.
This only means may find it out,

If when I die physicians doubt

What caused my death, and there to view Of all their judgments which was true, Rip up my heart, O then I fear

The world will see thy picture there.

JOHN FLETCHER.

1576-1625.

["The Mad Lover." 1618.]

Go, happy heart! for thou shalt lie
Entombed in her for whom I die,
Example of her cruelty.

Tell her, if she chance to hide
Me for slowness, in her pride,
That it was for her I died.

If a tear escape her eye,
"T is not for my memory,
But thy rites of obsequy.

The altar was my loving breast,
My heart the sacrificéd beast,
And I was myself the priest.

Your body was the sacred shrine,

Your cruel mind the power divine,
Pleased with hearts of men, not kine.

["The Tragedy of Valentinian." About 1618.]

SONG.

Hear, ye ladies that despise

What the mighty Love has done;

Fear examples, and be wise:

Fair Calisto was a nun:

Leda, sailing on the stream,

To deceive the hopes of man,

Love accounting but a dream,

Doated on a silver swan;

Danaë, in a brazen tower,

Where no love was, loved a shower.

Hear, ye ladies that are coy,

What the mighty Love can do;

Fear the fierceness of the boy:

The chaste moon he makes to woo;

Vesta, kindling holy fires,

Circled round about with spies,

Never dreaming loose desires,

Doting at the altar dies.

Ilion, in a short hour, higher

He can build, and once more fire.

["A Wife for a Month." 1624.]

TO THE BLEST EVANTHE.

Let those complain that feel Love's cruelty,
And in sad legends write their woes;

With roses gently h' has corrected me,

My war is without rage or blows:

My mistress' eyes shine fair on my desires,

And hope springs up inflamed with her new fires.

No more an exile will I dwell,

With folded arms, and sighs all day, Reckoning the torments of my hell,

And flinging my sweet joys away:

I am called home again to quiet peace,

My mistress smiles, and all my sorrows cease.

Yet, what is living in her eye,

Or being blessed with her sweet tongue,

If these no other joys imply?

A golden gyve, a pleasing wrong:

To be your own but one poor month, I'd give
My youth, my fortune, and then leave to live.

["The Elder Brother." About 1624.]

ODE.

Beauty clear and fair,

Where the air

Rather like a perfume dwells;

Where the violet and the rose,

Their blue veins in blush disclose,
And come to honour nothing else.

Where to live near,

And planted there,

Is to live, and still live new;

Where to gain a favour is

More than light, perpetual bliss
Make me live by serving you.

Dear, again back recall

To this light,

A stranger to himself and all;

Both the wonder and the story

;

Shall be yours, and eke the glory:

I am your servant, and your thrall.