Tempt me with such affrights no more, Let fools thy mystic forms adore ; I'll know thee in thy mortal state. Wise poets that wrapp'd Truth in tales, Knew her themselves through all her veils. CONQUEST BY FLIGHT. LADIES, fly from Love's smooth tale! Young men, fly, when Beauty darts THE EDDY. MARK how yon eddy steals away Mark how she courts the banks, whilst they T'embrace and clip her silver waves. See how she strokes their sides, and craves An entrance there, which they deny ; Whereat she frowns, threat'ning to fly Home to her stream, and 'gins to swim Backward, but from the channel's brim Smiling returns into the creek, With thousand dimples on her cheek. Be thou this eddy, and I'll make My breast thy shore, where thou shalt take Secure repose, and never dream Of the quite forsaken stream. Let him to wide ocean haste, There lose his colour, name, and taste: THE PRIMROSE. Ask me why I send you here This firstling of the infant year; This primrose all bepearl'd with dew; So yellow, green, and sickly too; What doubts and fears are in a lover. WILLIAM HERBERT, EARL OF PEMBROKE, Born about 1580, died 1630. The following specimens of the Earl of Pembroke's love verses are transcribed from a volume entitled, "Poems written by the Right Honourable William Earl of Pembroke, Lord Steward of his Majesties Household. Whereof many were answered, by way of Repartee, by Sir Benjamin Ruddier, Knight." The volume is an octavo, of 118 pages, printed at London, 1660, by Matthew Inman, and sold by James Magnes. There is prefixed to it a dedicatory epistle to Christiana Countess of Devonshire, subscribed “John Donne.” In a short address to the reader, it is stated that some of the pieces were set to music by Mr. Henry Laws, and that some two or three copies of verses (inserted as the Earl of Herbert's) were to be suspected as spurious. The latter part of this notice was certainly necessary; for in the collection" The Silent Lover," generally admitted to be Raleigh's, and "The Eddy," with two or three more pieces by Carew, are printed as the Earl of Pembroke's. LOVE IN THE COUNTRY. DEAR, leave thy home and come with me, A court of joy and pleasure's ark. Here we will hunt, here we will range; I will have thine, thou mine shalt take. Here we will walk upon the lawns, The leaves a whisp'ring noise shall make, Through the green wood shall silence keep. And while my herds about thee feed, For beauty hath no fairer book. It's not the weather, nor the air, It is thy self, that is so fair; Nor doth it rain when heaven lowers, But when you frown, then fall the showers. One sun alone moves in the sky,— Fair starry twins, scorn not to shine Thou shalt have wool, thou shalt have silk, Thou shalt have honey, wine, and milk; Thou shalt have all, for all is due Where thoughts are free and love is true. |