Clear wells spring not,
Sweet birds sing not,
Green plants bring not
Forth; they die:
Herds stand weeping,
Flocks all sleeping,
Nymphs back peeping
Fearfully.

All our pleasure known to us poor swains,
All our merry ineetings on the plains,
All our evening sport from us is fled,
All our love is lost, for love is dead.
Farewel, sweet love,

Thy like ne'er was

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

Must live alone,

Other help for him I see that there is none.

XVII.

When as thine eye hath chose the dame,
And stall'd the deer that thou should'st 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 filed 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 sale.

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.

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:
Every thing 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 shewn,
Made me think upon mine own.
Ah! (thought I) thou mourn'st in vain ;
None take pity on thy pain:

Senseless trees, they cannot hear thee;
Ruthless beasts, 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,

66

Pity but he were a king." If he be addict to vice, Quickly him they will entice; If 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.

But first set my poor heart free, Bound in those icy chains by thee.

xx.

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, 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 givest 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.

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 compounded.
That it cried how true a twain
Seemeth this concordant one!
Love hath reason, reason none,
If what parts can so remain.
Where upon it made this threne
To the phoenix and the dove,
Co-supremes and stars of love;
As chorus to their tragic scene.

FROM off a hill whose concave womb re-worded
A plaintful story from a sistering vale,
My spirits to attend this double voice accorded,
And down I lay to list the sad tun'd tale:
Ere long espy'd a fickle maid full pale,
Tearing of papers, breaking rings a-twain,
Storming her world with sorrow's wind and rain.
Upon her head a platted hive of straw,
Which fortified her visage from the sun,
Whereon the thought might think sometime it saw
The carcase of a beauty spent and done.
Time had not scythed all that youth begun,
Nor youth all quit; but, spite of heaven's fell rage,
Some beauty peep'd through lattice of sear'd age.
Oft did she heave her napkin to her eyne,
Which on it had conceited characters,
Laund'ring the silken figures in the brine
That season'd woe had pelleted in tears,
And often reading what contents it bears;
As often shrieking undistinguish'd woe,
In clamours of all size, both high and low.
Sometimes her levell'd eyes their carriage ride,
As they did battery to the spheres intend;
Sometime diverted their poor balls are ty'd
To the orbed earth; sometimes they do extend
Their view right on; anon their gazes lend
To every place at once, and no where fix'd,
The mind and sight distractedly commix'd.
Her hair, nor loose, nor ty'd in formal plat,
Proclaim'd in her a careless hand of pride;
For some untuck'd, descended her sheav'd, hat,

THRENOS.

Beauty, truth, and rarity,
Grace in all simplicity,
Here inclos'd in cinders lie.
Death is now the phoenix' nest;
And the turtle's loyal breast
To eternity doth rest,
Leaving no posterity:-
'Twas not their infirmity,
It was married chastity.
Truth may seem, but cannot be;
Beauty brag, but 'tis not she;
Truth and beauty buried be,
To this urn let those repair,
That are either true or fair;
For these dead birds sigh a prayer.

Hanging her pale and pined cheek beside,
Some in her threaden fillet still did bide,
And, true to bondage, would not break from thence,
Though slackly braided in loose negligence.
A thousand favours from a maund she drew
Of amber, crystal, and of bedded jet,
Which one by one she in a river threw,
Upon whose weeping margent she was set,-
Like usury, applying wet to wet,

Or monarchs' hands, that let not bounty fall,
Where want cries some, but where excess begs all.
Of folded schedules had she many a one,
Which she perus'd, sigh'd, tore, and gave the flood;
Crack'd many a ring of posied gold and bone,
Bidding them find their sepulchres in mud;
Found yet more letters sadly penn'd in blood,
With sleided silk feat and affectedly
Enswath'd, and seal'd to curious secrecy.
These often bath'd she in her fluxive eyes,
And often kiss'd, and often 'gan to tear;
Cry'd, O false blood! thou register of lies,
What unapproved witness dost thou bear!
Ink would have seem'd more black and damned here!
This said, in top of rage the lines she rents,
Big discontent so breaking their contents.
A reverend man that graz'd his cattle nigh,
(Sometime a blusterer, that the ruffle knew
Of court, of city, and had let go by
The swiftest hours,) observed as they flew;
Towards this afflicted fancy fastly drew;
And, privileg'd by age, desires to know
In brief, the grounds and motives of her woe.