The vertue of her lively lookes Excells the precious stone; I wishe to have none other bookes In eche of her two christal eyes It would you all in heart suffise I thinke Nature hath lost the moulde Or else I doubt if Nature coulde She may be well comparde Unto the phenix kind, Whose like was never seene nor heard That any man can fynde. In lyfe she is Diana chast; In trouth, Penelope ; In word and eke in deede stedfast: If all the world were sought so farre, Her beauty twinkleth lyke a starre Her roseall colour comes and goes More ruddier too than is the rose At Bacchus' feast none shall her mete, Ne at no wanton playe, Nor gazing in an open strete, Nor gadding as astray. The modest myrth that she doth use O Lord, it is a world to see And decke in her such honestie, How might I doe to get a graffe For all the rest are playne but chaffe, This gyft alone I shall her geve, When death doth what he can ; Her honest fame shall ever live THAT ALL THINGS SOMETIME FINDE EASE OF THEYR PAINE, SAVE ONLY THE LOVER. I SEE there is no sort Of things that live in griefe, Which at sometime may not resort The stricken dere, by kinde, The chased dere hath soyle The cony hath his cave, The little byrd his nest, From heate and colde themselves to save The owle, with feble sight, Lyes lurking in the leaves; The sparrow in the frosty night May shroude her in the eaves. But wo to me, alas! In sunne nor yet in shade, I cannot finde a resting place My burden to unlade. But day by day still beares With weeping eyen and watry teares, All things, I see, have place THE UNCERTAYNE STATE OF A LOVER. LYKE as the rage of rayne Fills rivers with excesse, And as the drought agayne Doth draw them lesse and lesse, So I both fall and clyme, With yea and no sometime. As they swell hie and hie, So doth encrease my state, As they fall drye and drye, So doth my welth abate. As yea is mixt with no, So mirth is mixt with wo. As nothing can endure That lives and lackes reliefe ; So nothing can stand sure Where change doth reign as chiefe ; To bowe when others bende; And, when they laugh, to smile; Can make them seme too strange. Oh, most unhappy slave! What man may leade this course? To lacke that he would have, |