Works adjourn'd have many stays,
Long demurs breed new delays.

Seek thy salve while sore is green,
Fester'd wounds ask deeper lancing;
After-cures are seldom seen,

Often sought, scarce ever chancing:
Time and place give best advice,
Out of season, out of price.

The two foregoing Ballads are by ROBERT SOUTHWELL, a very superior, though voluminous and religious, poet, in the reign of Elizabeth. He was born in 1562; and, upon the 21st February, 1595 or 1596, he was hanged and quartered at Tyburn for his adherence to Jesuitical principles. It is remarkable, says Ellis, that the few copies of his works which are now known to exist, are the remnants of at least twenty-four different editions, of which eleven were printed betwixt 1593 and 1600.

THE GENTLE SEASON OF THE YEAR.

THE gentle season of the year

Hath made my blooming branch appear,
And beautified the land with flowers;
The air doth savour with delight,
The heavens do smile to see the sight,
And yet mine eyes augment their showers.

The meads are mantled all with green,
The trembling leaves have cloth'd the treen,
The birds, with feathers new, do sing;

PHOENIX NEST.

But I, poor soul, whom wrong doth rack,
Attire myself in mourning black,

Whose leaf doth fall amidst his spring.

And as you see the scarlet rose,
In her sweet prime, her sweets disclose,
Whose hue is with the sun reviv'd;
So in the April of mine age,
My lively colours do assuage,
Because my sunshine is deprived.

My heart that wonted was, of yore,
Light as the winds abroad to soar,

Amongst the buds, when beauty springs,

Now only hovers over you,

As doth the bird that's taken anew,

And mourns when all her neighbours sing.

When every man is bent to sport,
Then pensive I alone resort

Into some solitary walk,

As doth the doleful turtle dove,

Who, having lost her faithful love,

Sits mourning on some wither'd stalk.

Then to myself I do recount,

How far my woes my joys surmount,
How love requiteth me with hate;
How all my pleasures end in pain,
How hate doth say my hope is vain,

How fortune frowns upon my state.

45

And in this mood, charg'd with despair, With vapour'd sighs I dim the air,

And to the gods make this request— That, by the ending of my life,

I

may have truce with this strange strife, And bring my soul to better rest.

From the "Phoenix Nest," edition 1593.

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THE DAWN OF LOVE.

THE dew drops that at first of day
Hangs on the violet flower,

Although it shimmereth in the ray,

And trembleth at the zephyr's power,

Shows not so fair and pleasantly

As love that bursts from beauty's eye.

The little bird that clear doth sing
In shelter of green trees,
When flowerets sweet begin to spring
In dew bespangled mees,

Is not so pleasant to mine ear

As love that scantly speaks for fear.

The rose when first it doth prepare
Its ruddy leaves to spread,
And kissed by the cold night air,
Hangs down its coyen head,

ENGLAND'S HELICON.

Is not so fair as love that speaks

In unbid blush on beauty's cheeks.

The pains of war when streams of blood
Are smoking on the ground;
When foemen brim of lustihood,
All mix'd in death are found;
Yea death itself is lightlier borne,
Than cruel beauty's smiling scorn.

47

From the old scarce pastoral poem of "The Shepheardes' Garland," printed by Jaggard, 1597.

COME AWAY, COME SWEET LOVE.

COME away, come sweet love!

The golden morning breaks;
All the earth, all the air,

Of love and pleasure speaks;
Teach thine arms then to embrace,
And sweet rosy lips to kiss,

And mix our souls in mutual bliss:
Eyes were made for beauty's grace,
Viewing, ruing, love's long pain,
Procur'd by beauty's long disdain.

Come away, come sweet love!

The golden morning wastes;

While the sun, from his sphere

His fiery arrows casts,

Making all the shadows fly,
Playing, staying in the grove,

To entertain the stealth of love:

Thither, sweet love, let us hie,

Flying, dying in desire,

Wing'd with sweet hopes, and heavenly fire.

Come away, come sweet love!

Do not in vain adorn

Beauty's grace, that should arise

Like to the naked morn;

Lilies on the river side,

And fair Cyprian flowers newly born,

Ask no beauties but their own:

Ornament is nurse of pride,

Flying, dying in desire,

Wing'd with sweet hopes, and heavenly pride.

The foregoing song is from " England's Helicon." In a manuscript collection of airs in our possession, written above two hundred years ago, the music of the above song is to be found, taken, we presume, either from "England's Helicon," or the same source from whence it had been originally obtained.

HER TRIUMPH.

SEE the chariot at hand here of love,

Wherein my lady rideth!

Each that draws is a swan or a dove,

And well the car love guideth.