Now spinning like a mill wheel round, Now hunting Echo's empty sound, Now climbing up some old tall tree For climbing's sake: 'tis sweet to thee Child of the town and bustling street, The stream's too strong for thy small bark: And lockt men's looks within her golden Hath from the cunning workman's pencil flown hair, These lips look fresh and lively as her own, Seeming to move and speak. Alas! now I Neither to be so great as to be envied, Nothing of her but this! This cannot speak; Love is much in winning, yet is more in It has no lap for me to rest upon, leesing; No lip worth tasting. Here the worms will Love is ever sick, and yet is never dying; feed, As in her coffin. Hence, then, idle art! True love's best pictured in a true love's heart. Here art thou drawn, sweet maid, till this be dead, So that thou livest twice, twice art buried. THOMAS DEKKER. CONTENTMENT. NEVER loved ambitiously to climb Or thrust my hand too far into the fire. To be in heaven sure is a blessed thing, But Atlas-like to prop heaven on one's back Cannot but be more labor than delight. Such is the state of men in honor placed: They are gold vessels made for servile uses; High trees that keep the weather from low houses, But cannot shield the tempest from them selves. I love to dwell betwixt the hills and dales, Love is ever true, and yet is ever lying; Love does dote in liking, and is mad in loathing; Love indeed is anything, yet indeed is nothing. THOMAS MIDDLETON. HOW Translation of HURD & HOUGHTON. THE ROSE. OW fair is the rose! what a beautiful flower, The glory of April and May! But the leaves are beginning to fade in an hour, And they wither and die in a day. Yet the rose has one powerful virtue to boast Above all the flowers of the field: When its leaves are all dead and its fine colors lost, Still how sweet a perfume it will yield! So frail is the youth and the beauty of men, Though they bloom and look gay like the Then I'll not be proud of my youth nor my beauty, Since both of them wither and fade, But gain a good name by well doing my duty : This will scent like a rose when I'm dead. OH, NANNY, WILT THOU GANG OH, H, Nanny, wilt thou gang wi' me, The lowly cot and russet gown? Nae langer drest in silken sheen, Nae langer decked wi' jewels rare, Say, canst thou quit each courtly scene Where thou wert fairest of the fair? Oh, Nanny, when thou'rt far awa', Wilt thou not cast a look behind? Say, canst thou face the flaky snaw, Nor shrink before the winter wind? Oh, can that soft and gentle mien Severest hardships learn to bear, Nor, sad, regret each courtly scene Where thou wert fairest of the fair? Oh, Nanny, canst thou love so true Through perils keen wi' me to gae, Or when thy swain mishap shall rue To share with him the pang of wae? Say, should disease or pain befall, Wilt thou assume the nurse's care, Nor, wishful, those gay scenes recall Where thou wert fairest of the fair? And when at last thy love shall die, Wilt thou receive his parting breath ? Came the swift bolt that dashed him Then what is life, when thus we see down, When she, his chosen, blossoming In beauty, deemed him all her own, By day, by night, through calm and storm, The deck his walk, the sea his home? No trace remains of life's career? Mortal, whoe'er thou art, for thee A moral lesson gloweth here. Puttest thou in aught of earth thy trust? 'Tis doomed that dust shall mix with dust. What doth it matter, then, if thus, Without a stone, without a name, To impotently herald us, We float not on the breath of fame, But like the dewdrop from the flower Pass after glittering for an hour? |