THE doubt which ye misdeeme, fayre Love, is vaine, That fondly feare to lose your liberty;

When, losing one, two liberties ye gayne,

And make him bond that bondage earst did fly. Sweet be the bands, the which true love doth tye Without constraynt or dread of any ill :

The gentle birde feeles no captivity

Within her cage; but sings, and feeds her fill.
There pride dare not approch, nor discord spill
The league twixt them that loyal love hath bound:
But simple Truth, and mutual Good-will,
Seeks, with sweet Peace, to salve each others
wound:

There Fayth doth fearless dwell in brasen towre,
And spotlesse Pleasure builds her sacred bowre.

SPENSER.

FRESH Spring, the herald of Loves mighty king,
In whose cote-armour richly are displayd
All sorts of flowres, the which on earth do spring,
In goodly colours gloriously arrayd;
Goe to my love, where she is carelesse layd,
Yet in her winters bowre not well awake;
Tell her the ioyous time wil not be staid,
Unlesse she doe him by the forelock take;
Bid her therefore her selfe soon ready make,
To wayt on Love amongst his lovely crew;
Where every one that misseth then her make
Shall be by him amearst with penance dew.
Make hast therefore, sweet Love, whilst it is prime;
For none can call againe the passed time.

SPENSER.

BECAUSE I breathe not love to every one,
Nor do not use set colours for to wear,
Nor nourish special locks of vowed hair,
Nor give each speech a full point of a groan;
The courtly nymphs, acquainted with the moan

Of those who in their lips Love's standard bear,
6 What, he?' say they of me, 'now I dare swear
He cannot love! No, no; let him alone.'
And think so still! so Stella know my mind:

Profess indeed I do not Cupid's art; But you, fair maids, at length this true shall find, That his right badge is worn but in the heart. Dumb swans, not chattering pies, do lovers prove; They love, indeed, who quake to say they love.

SIR P. SIDNEY,

Look, Delia, how we' esteem the half blown rose, The image of thy blush and summer's honour; Whilst yet her tender bud doth undisclose

That full of beauty Time bestows upon her. No sooner spreads her glory to the air, [cline; But straight her wide blown pomp comes to deShe then is scorn'd that late adorn'd the fair; So fade the roses of those cheeks of thine. No April can revive thy withered flowers, Whose springing grace adorns thy glory now; Swift, speedy Time, feather'd with flying hours, Dissolves the beauty of the fairest brow: Then do not thou such treasure waste in vain, But love now whilst thou mayst be loved again.

DANIEL.

I ONCE may see when years shall wreak my wrong, When golden hairs shall change to silver wire; And those bright rays that kindle all this fire Shall fail in force, their working not so strong. Then Beauty (now the burthen of my song),

Whose glorious blaze the world doth so admire, Must yield up all to tyrant Time's desire; Then fade those flowers that deck'd her pride so long :

When, if she grieve to gaze upon her glass

Which then presents her winter-wither'd hue, Go you, my verse, go tell her what she was; For what she was she best shall find in you. Your fiery heat lets not her glory pass,

But (phoenixlike) shall make her live anew.

DANIEL.

Lobé renounced and reinvited.

SINCE there's no help, come, let us kiss and part:
Nay, I have done; you get no more of me:
And I am glad, yea, glad with all my heart,
That thus so cleanly I myself can free:
Shake hands for ever, cancel all our vows,
And when we meet at any time again,
Be it not seen in either of our brows

That we one spark of former love retain.
Now, at the last gasp of Love's latest breath,
When, his pulse failing, Passion speechless lies,
When Faith is kneeling by his bed of death,

And Innocence is closing up his eyes,

Now, if thou wouldst, when all have given him over, From death to life thou mightst him yet recover.

DRAYTON.

VOL. III.

SS

WHEN to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought;

And with old woes new wail my dear time's Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow, [waste: For precious friends hid in death's dateless night, And weep afresh love's long-since cancel'd woe, And moan the expense of many a vanish'd sight. Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,

And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,

Which I new pay as if not paid before. But if the while I think on thee, dear friend, All losses are restored, and sorrows end.、

SHAKSPEARE.

THAT time of year thou mayst in me behold When yellow leaves, or few or none, do hang Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,

Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds In me thou seest the twilight of such day [sang. As after sunset fadeth in the west, Which by and by black death doth take away, Death's second self that seals up all in rest. In me thou seest the glowing of such fire That on the ashes of his youth doth lie, As the deathbed whereon it must expire,

Consumed with that which it was nourish'd by. This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong,

To love that well which thou must leave ere long. SHAKSPEARE.

THE forward violet thus did I chide :

Sweet thief, where didst thou steal thy sweet that smells,

If not from my love's breath? The purple pride Which on thy soft cheek for complexion dwells, In my love's veins thou hast too grossly dyed. The lily I condemned for thy hand,

And buds of marjoram had stolen thy hair:

The roses fearfully on thorns did stand, One blushing shame, another white despair; A third, nor red nor white, had stolen of both, And to his robbery had annexed thy breath;

But for his theft, in pride of all his growth, A vengeful canker eat him up to death.

More flowers I noted, but I none could see But sweet or colour it had stolen from thee. SHAKSPEARE.

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun,
Coral is far more red than her lips' red:
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses, damask'd red and white,

But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes there is more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak,-yet well I know

That music hath a far more pleasing sound; I grant I never saw a goddess go,- [ground: My mistress, when she walks, treads on the And yet, by Heaven, I think my love as rare As any she belied with false compare.

SHAKSPEARE.