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I rather choose to want relief,
Than venture the revealing;
Where glory recommends the grief,
Despair diftrufts the healing.

VI.

Thus those defires that aim too high
For any mortal lover,

When reason cannot make them die,
Discretion doth them cover.

VII.

Yet, when discretion doth bereave
The plaints that they should utter,
Then thy discretion may perceive
That filence is a suitor

VIII.

Silence in love bewrays more woe

Than words, though ne'er so witty;

The beggar that is dumb, you know,
May challenge double pity!

IX.

Then wrong not, dearest to my heart,
My true, though secret paffion;
He smarteth most that hides his smart,

And sues for no compaffion.

SIR WALTER RALEIGH.

PHILLIDA AND

CORYDON.

[1591.]

IN the merry month of May,
In a morn by break of day,
With a troop of damsels playing,
Forth I yode forsooth a maying.
When anon by a woodfide,

Where that May was in his pride,
I espied all alone
Phillida and Corydon.

Much ado there was, God wot,
He would love, and she would not;

She said, never man was true;
He says, none was false to you.

He said, he had loved her long;
She says, love fhould have no wrong.
Corydon would kiss her then;

She says, maids must kiss no men,
Till they do for good and all:
When he made the shepherd call
All the heavens to witness truth,
Never loved a truer youth.
Then with many a pretty oath,
Yea and nay, and faith and troth,
Such as filly fhepherds use,
When they will not love abuse,
Love, that had been long deluded,
Was with kifles sweet concluded;
And Phillida, with garlands gay,
Was made the Lady of the May.

NICHOLAS BRETON.

A PASTORAL OF PHILLIS AND CORYDON.

[1600.]

ON a hill there grows a flower,
Fair befall the dainty sweet:
By that flower there is a bower
Where the heavenly Muses meet.

In that bower there is a chair,
Fringed all about with gold,
Where doth fit the fairest fair

That ever eye did yet behold.

It is Phillis, fair and bright,
She that is the shepherd's joy:
She that Venus did despite,

And did blind her little boy.

This is he, the wise, the rich,
That the world defires to see:
This is ipsa quæ, the which
There is none but only fhe.

Who would not this face admire?
Who would not this saint adore?
Who would not this fight defire,
Though he thought to see no more?

O fair eyes! yet let me see

One good look, and I am gone.
Look on me, for I am he,

Thy poor filly Corydon.

Thou that art the shepherd's queen,

Look upon thy filly swain;
By thy comfort have been seen

Dead men brought to life again.

SONG.

NICHOLAS BRETON.

[1591 ?]

WHAT thing is love? for sure love is a thing;

Love is a prick, love is a fting,

Love is a pretty, pretty thing,

Love is a fire, love is a coal,

Whose flame creeps in at every hole;
And, as myself can beft devise,

His dwelling is in ladies' eyes,

From whence he shoots his dainty darts

Into the lufty gallants' hearts:

And ever fince was called a god

That Mars and Venus played even and odd.

GEORGE PEELE.

THE PASSIONATE SHEPHERD TO HIS LOVE.

[1591?]

I.

COME live with me, and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove,
That valleys, groves, hills, and fields,
Woods, or fleepy mountains yields.

And we will fit upon the rocks,
Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks,
By fhallow rivers, to whose falls
Melodious birds fing madrigals.

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And I will make thee beds of roses,
And a thousand fragrant pofies,
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle.

IV.

A gorun made of the finest wool,
Which from our pretty lambs we pull;
Fair-lined flippers for the cold,
With buckles of the purest gold.

V.

A belt of fraw and ivy-buds,
With coral clasps and amber ftuds.
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Come live with me, and be my love.

VI.

The shepherd swains fhall dance and fing
For thy delight each May-morning.
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me, and be my love.

CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE.

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