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107.

What pleasure were to walk and see,
Endlong a river clear,
The perfect form of every tree
Within the deep appear.

O then it were a seemly thing,
While all is still and calm,
The praise of God to play and sing
With cornet and with shalm!

All labourers draw home at even,
And can to other say,

Thanks to the gracious God of heaven,
Which sent this summer day.

O

GEORGE CHAPMAN

Bridal Song

1560-1634

COME, soft rest of cares! come, Night!
Come, naked Virtue's only tire,

The reaped harvest of the light

Bound up in sheaves of sacred fire.

Love calls to war:

Sighs his alarms,

Lips his swords are,

The field his arms.

Come, Night, and lay thy velvet hand

On glorious Day's outfacing face;
And all thy crownèd flames command
For torches to our nuptial grace.

Love calls to war:

Sighs his alarms,
Lips his swords are,
The field his arms.

108

ROBERT SOUTHWELL

Times go by Turns

HE loppèd tree in time may grow again,

THE

1561-95

Most naked plants renew both fruit and flower;
The sorest wight may find release of pain,

The driest soil suck in some moist'ning shower;
Times go by turns and chances change by course,
From foul to fair, from better hap to worse.

The sea of Fortune doth not ever flow,
She draws her favours to the lowest ebb;
Her tides hath equal times to come and go,
Her loom doth weave the fine and coarsest web;
No joy so great but runneth to an end,
No hap so hard but may in fine amend.

Not always fall of leaf nor ever spring,
No endless night yet not eternal day;
The saddest birds a season find to sing,
The roughest storm a calm may soon allay:
Thus with succeeding turns God tempereth all,
That man may hope to rise, yet fear to fall.

A chance may win that by mischance was lost;
The net that holds no great, takes little fish;
In some things all, in all things none are crost,
Few all they need, but none have all they wish;
Unmeddled joys here to no man befall:

Who least, hath some; who most, hath never all. unmeddled] unmixed.

109.

The Burning Babe

ASI in hoary winter's night

Stood shivering in the snow,
Surprised I was with sudden heat
Which made my heart to glow;
And lifting up a fearful eye

To view what fire was near,
A pretty babe all burning bright
Did in the air appear;

Who, scorched with excessive heat,

Such floods of tears did shed,

As though His floods should quench His flames,
Which with His tears were bred:

'Alas!' quoth He, 'but newly born
In fiery heats I fry,

Yet none approach to warm their hearts
Or feel my fire but I!

'My faultless breast the furnace is;

The fuel, wounding thorns;

Love is the fire, and sighs the smoke;
The ashes, shames and scorns;

The fuel Justice layeth on,

And Mercy blows the coals,
The metal in this furnace wrought

Are men's defilèd souls:

For which, as now on fire I am
To work them to their good,

So will I melt into a bath,

To wash them in my blood.'
With this He vanish'd out of sight
And swiftly shrunk away,

And straight I called unto mind
That it was Christmas Day.

1562?-1613?

110. On the Death of Sir Philip Sidney

IVE pardon, blessèd soul, to my bold cries,

If they, importune, interrupt thy song,

Which now with joyful notes thou sing'st among
The angel-quiristers of th' heavenly skies.
Give pardon eke, sweet soul, to my slow eyes,
That since I saw thee now it is so long,
And yet the tears that unto thee belong
To thee as yet they did not sacrifice.
I did not know that thou wert dead before;
I did not feel the grief I did sustain;
The greater stroke astonisheth the more;
Astonishment takes from us sense of pain;

111.

I stood amazed when others' tears begun,
And now begin to weep when they have done.

SAMUEL DANIEL

Love is a Sickness

LOVE is a sickness full of woes,

All remedies refusing;

A plant that with most cutting grows,
Most barren with best using.

Why so?

More we enjoy it, more it dies;
If not enjoy'd, it sighing cries-
Heigh ho!

Love is a torment of the mind,

A tempest everlasting;

And Jove hath made it of a kind

Not well, nor full nor fasting.

Why so?

1562-1619

More we enjoy it, more it dies ;
If not enjoy'd, it sighing cries-
Heigh ho!

112.

Ulysses and the Siren

Siren. COME, worthy Greek! Ulysses, come,

Possess these shores with me:

The winds and seas are troublesome,
And here we may be free.

Here may we sit and view their toil

That travail in the deep,

And joy the day in mirth the while,
And spend the night in sleep.

Ulysses. Fair Nymph, if fame or honour were
To be attain'd with ease,

Then would I come and rest me there,
And leave such toils as these.
But here it dwells, and here must I
With danger seek it forth:
To spend the time luxuriously
Becomes not men of worth.

Siren. Ulysses, O be not deceived
With that unreal name;

This honour is a thing conceived,
And rests on others' fame:

Begotten only to molest

Our peace, and to beguile

The best thing of our life—our rest,
And give us up to toil.

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