Venus, with Adonis b sitting by her,
Under a myrtle shade, began to woo him:

She told the youngling how god Mars did try her,
And as he fell to her, she fell to him.

Even thus, quoth she, the warlike god embrac'd me;
And then she clipp'd Adonis in her arms:
Even thus, quoth she, the warlike god unlac'd me:
As if the boy should use like loving charms.
Even thus, quoth she, he seized on my lips,
And with her lips on his did act the seizure;
And as she fetched breath, away he skips,
And would not take her meaning nor her pleasure.
Ah! that I had my lady at this bay,
To kiss and clip me till I run away!

X.

Crabbed age and youth

Cannot live together;
Youth is full of pleasance,
Age is full of care:
Youth like summer morn,
Age like winter weather;
Youth like sunimer brave,
Age like winter bare.
Youth is full of sport,
Age's breath is short;

Youth is nimble, age is lame:
Youth is hot and bold,
Age is weak and cold;

Youth is wild, and age is tame.
Age, I do abhor thee,
Youth, I do adore thee;

O, my love, my love is young!

Age, I do defy thee;

O sweet shepherd, hie thee,

For methinks thou stay'st too long.

XI.

Beauty is but a vain and doubtful good,
A shining gloss, that vadeth suddenly;
A flower that dies, when first it 'gins to bud;
A brittle glass, that 's broken presently:

A doubtful good, a gloss, a glass, a flower,
Lost, vaded, broken, dead within an hour.

And as goods lost are seld or never found,
As vaded gloss no rubbing will refresh,
As flowers dead lie wither'd on the ground,
As broken glass no cement can redress,"
So beauty, blemish'd once, for ever 's lost,
In spite of physic, painting, pain, and cost.

XII.

share:

Good night, good rest. Ah! neither be my
She bade good night, that kept my rest away;
And daff'd me to a cabin hang'd with care,
To descant on the doubts of my decay.
Farewell, quoth she, and come again to-morrow
Fare well I could not, for I supp'd with sorrow.

Yet at my parting sweetly did she smile,
In scorn or friendship, nill I construe whether :
'T may be, she joy'd to jest at my exile,
"T may be, again to make me wander thither:
Wander, a word for shadows like myself,
As take the pain, but cannot pluck the pelf.

XIII.

Lord, how mine eyes throw gazes to the east!
My heart doth charge the watch; the morning rise
Doth cite each moving sense from idle rest.
Not daring trust the office of mine eyes,

While Philomela sits and sings, I sit and mark,
And wish her lays were tuned like the lark;
For she doth welcome daylight with her ditty,
And drives away dark dismal-dreaming night:
The night so pack'd, I post unto my pretty;
Heart hath his hope, and eyes their wished sight:
Sorrow chang'd to solace, solace mix'd with sorrow,
For why? she sigh'd, and bade me come to-morrow.
Were I with her, the night would post too soon;
But now are minutes added to the hours;
To spite me now, each minute seems a moon; ↳
Yet not for me, shine sun to succour flowers!

b

Pack night, peep day; good day, of night now borrow;

Short, night, to-night, and length thyself to-morrow.

XIV.

It was a lording's daughter, the fairest one of three, That liked of her master as well as well might be, Till looking on an Englishman, the fairest that eye

could see,

Her fancy fell a turning.

Long was the combat doubtful, that love with love did fight,

To leave the master loveless, or kill the gallant knight: To put in practice either, alas it was a spite

Unto the silly damsel.

• Vaded-faded.

This Sonnet is found in Fidessa,' by B. Griffin, 1596. There are great variations in that copy.

But one must be refused, more mickle was the pain, That nothing could be used, to turn them both to gain, For of the two the trusty knight was wounded with disdain :

Alas, she could not help it!

In the twenty-ninth volume of the Gentleman's Magazine a copy of this poem is given, as from an ancient manuscript, in which there are the following variations:

"And as goods lost are seld or never found,
As faded gloss no rubbing will excite.

As flowers dead lie wither'd on the ground,
As broken glass no cement can unite."

b A moon. The original has an hour-evidently a misprint, The emendation of moon, in the sense of month, is by Steevens, and it ought to atone for some faults of the commentator

Thus art, with arms contending, was victor of the day, Which by a gift of learning did bear the maid away; Then lullaby, the learned man hath got the lady gay; For now my song is ended.

XV.

On a day (alack the day!),
Love, whose month was ever May,
Spied a blossom passing fair,
Playing in the wanton air:

Through the velvet leaves the wind,
All unseen, 'gan passage find;
That the lover, sick to death,
Wish'd himself the heaven's breath.
Air, quoth he, thy cheeks may blow;
Air, would I might triumph so
so!
But, alas, my hand hath sworn
Ne'er to pluck thee from thy thorn:
Vow, alack, for youth unmeet,
Youth, so apt to pluck a sweet.
Thou for whom Jove would swear
Juno but an Ethiope were;
And deny himself for Jove,
Turning mortal for thy love."

| Herds stand weeping,
Flocks all sleeping,
Nymphs back peeping
Fearfully.

All our pleasure known to us poor swain
All our merry meetings on the plains,
All our evening sport from us is fled,
All our love is lost, for love is dead.
Farewell, sweet lass,

Thy like ne'er was

For a sweet content, the cause of all my mean: Poor Coridon

Must live alone,

Other help for him I see that there is none.

XVII.

Whenas thine eye hath chose the dame,
And stall'd the deer that thou shouldst strike,
Let reason rule things worthy blame,
As well as fancy, partial might:"
Take counsel of some wiser head,
Neither too young, nor yet unwed.
And when thou com'st thy tale to tell,
Smooth not thy tongue with tiled talk,
Lest she some subtle practice smell;
(A cripple soon can find a halt:)

But plainly say thou lov'st her well,
And set her person forth to sell.

What though her frowning brows be bent,
Her cloudy looks will calm ere night;
And then too late she will repent,
That thus dissembled her delight;

And twice desire, ere it be day,

That which with scorn she put away.

What though she strive to try her strength,
And ban and brawl, and say thee nay,
Her feeble force will yield at length,
When craft hath taught her thus to say:
"Had women been so strong as men,
In faith you had not had it then."
And to her will frame all thy ways;
Spare not to spend, and chiefly there
Where thy desert may merit praise,
By ringing in thy lady's ear:

The strongest castle, tower, and town,
The golden bullet beats it down.
Serve always with assured trust,
And in thy suit be humble, true;
Unless thy lady prove unjust,
Press never thou to choose anew:
When time shall serve, be thou not slack
To proffer, though she put thee back.

The wiles and guiles that women work,
Dissembled with an outward show,
The tricks and toys that in them lurk,
The cock that treads them shall not know.
Have you not heard it said full oft,
A woman's nay doth stand for nought?

Think women still to strive with men,
To sin, and never for to saint:
There is no heaven, by holy then,
When time with age shall them attaint.
Were kisses all the joys in bed,
One woman would another wed.

But soft; enough,-too much I fear,
Lest that my mistress hear my song;
She 'll not stick to round me i' th' ear,
To teach my tongue to be so long;
Yet will she blush, here be it said,
To hear her secrets so bewray'd.

XVIII.

Live with me, and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove
That hills and valleys, dales and fields,
And all the craggy mountains yields.

There will we sit upon the rocks,
And see the shepherds feed their flocks,
By shallow rivers, by whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.

There will I make thee a bed of roses,
With a thousand fragrant posies,
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
Embroider'd all with leaves of myrtle.

A belt of straw and ivy buds,
With coral clasps and amber studs;
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Then live with me and be my love.

LOVE'S ANSWER.

If that the world and love were young, And truth in every shepherd's tongue, These pretty pleasures might me move To live with thee and be thy love. XIX.a

As it fell upon a day.

In the merry month of May,

Sitting in a pleasant shade

Which a grove of myrtles made,
Beasts did leap, and birds did sing,

Trees did grow, and plants did spring:
Everything did banish moan,

Save the nightingale alone:

She,

poor bird, as all forlorn,
Lean'd her breast up-till a thorn,
And there sung the dolefull'st ditty,
That to hear it was great pity:
Fie, fie, fie, now would she cry,
Teru, Teru, by and by:

That to hear her so complain,

Scarce I could from tears refrain ;

For her griefs so lively shown,
Made me think upon mine own.

Ah! thought I, thou mourn'st in vain;
None take pity on thy pain:

This poem is also incompletely printed in Helicon; where it bears the signature Ignoto.

Senseless trees, they cannot hear thee;
Ruthless bears, they will not cheer thee.
King Pandion, he is dead;

All thy friends are lapp'd in lead:
All thy fellow-birds do sing,
Careless of thy sorrowing.
Even so, poor bird, like thee,
None alive will pity me.
Whilst as fickle Fortune smil'd,
Thou and I were both beguil'd.
Every one that flatters thee

Is no friend in misery.

Words are easy like the wind;
Faithful friends are hard to find.
Every man will be thy friend,
Whilst thou hast wherewith to spend ;
But if store of crowns be scant,
No man will supply thy want.
If that one be prodigal,
Bountiful they will him call:
And with such-like flattering,
"Pity but he were a king."
If he be addict to vice,
Quickly him they will entice;
lf to women he be bent,

They have him at commandement;
But if fortune once do frown,
Then farewell his great renown ;
They that fawn'd on him before,
Use his company no more.
He that is thy friend indeed,
He will help thee in thy need;
If thou sorrow, he will weep;
If thou wake, he cannot sleep:
Thus of every grief in heart
He with thee doth bear a part.
These are certain signs to know
Faithful friend from flattering foe.

LET the bird of loudest lay,
On the sole Arabian tree,"
Herald sad and trumpet be,

To whose sound chaste wings obey.

But thou, shrieking harbinger,
Foul pre-currer of the fiend,
Augur of the fever's end,

To this troop come thou not near.

From this session interdict
Every fowl of tyrant wing,
Save the eagle, feather'd king:
Keep the obsequy so strict.

Let the priest in surplice white,
That defunctive music can,b
Be the death-divining swan,
Lest the requiem lack his right.

And thou, treble-dated crow,
That thy sable gender mak'st

With the breath thou giv'st and tak'st, 'Mongst our mourners shalt thou go.

Here the anthem doth commence :
Love and constancy is dead;
Phoenix and the turtle fled
In a mutual flame from hence.

So they lov'd, as love in twain Had the essence but in one; Two distincts, division none: Number there in love was slain.

Hearts remote, yet not asunder; Distance, and no space was seen "Twixt the turtle and his queen : But in them it were a wonder.

a There is a curious coincidence in a passage in The Tempest:'

"Now I will believe

That there are unicorns; that in Arabia There is one tree, the phoenix' throne."

Can-knows.

So between them love did shine, That the turtle saw his right Flaming in the phoenix' sight: Either was the other's mine.

Property was thus appall'd, That the self was not the same; Single nature's double name Neither two nor one was call'd.

Reason, in itself confounded,
Saw division grow together;
To themselves yet either-neither,
Simple were so well compoundei:

That it cried how true a twain
Seemeth this concordant one!
Love hath reason, reason none,
If what parts can so remain.

Whereupon it made this threne'
To the phoenix and the dove,
Co-supremes and stars of love;
As chorus to their tragic scene.

THRENOS.

Beauty, truth, and rarity,
Grace in all simplicity,
Here enclos'd in cinders lie.

Death is now the phoenix' nest;
And the turtle's loyal breast
To eternity doth rest,

Leaving no posterity:—
"T was not their infirmity,
It was married chastity.

Truth may seem, but cannot be.
Beauty brag, but 't is not she;
Truth and beauty buried be.

To this urn let those repair
That are either true or fair;
For these dead birds sign a prayer.

a Threne-funereal song.