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Some swear Love,
Smooth-faced Love,

Is sweetest sweet that men can have⚫

I say, Love,
Sour Love,

Makes virtue yield as beauty's slave:
A bitter sweet, a folly worst of all,
That forceth wisdom to be folly's thrall.

Love is sweet:

Wherein sweet?

In fading pleasures that do pain?

Beauty sweet:

Is that sweet,

That yieldeth sorrow for a gain?
If Love's sweet,

Herein sweet

That minutes' joys are monthly woes: 'Tis not sweet,

That is sweet

Nowhere, but where repentance grows.
Then love who list, if beauty be so sour;
Labour for me, Love rest in prince's bower.

WE

SEPHESTIA'S SONG TO HER CHILD.

EEP not, my wanton, smile upon my knee;
When thou art old there's grief enough for thee.
Mother's wag, pretty boy,

Father's sorrow, father's joy;

When thy father first did see
Such a boy by him and me,
He was glad, I was woe,
Fortune changed made him so,
When he left his pretty boy
Last his sorrow, first his joy.

W Veep not, my wanton, smile upon my knee,
When thou art old there's grief enough for thee.
Streaming tears that never stint,

Like pearl drops from a flint,
Fell by course from his eyes,
That one another's place supplies;
Thus he grieved in every part,
Tears of blood fell from his heart,
When he left his pretty boy,
Father's sorrow, father's joy.

Weep not, my wanton, smile upon my knee,
When thou art old there's grief enough for thee.
The wanton smiled, father wept,
Mother cried, baby leapt;
More he crowed, more we cried,
Nature could not sorrow hide :
He must go, he must kiss
Child and mother, baby bless,
For he left his pretty boy,

Father's sorrow, father's joy.

Weep not, my wanton, smile upon my knee,
When thou art old there's grief enough for thee.

MENAPHON'S ROUNDELAY.

WHEN tender ewes, brought home with evening

Wend to their folds,

And to their holds

The shepherds trudge when light of day is done,

Upon a tree

The eagle, Jove's fair bird, did perch;

There resteth he:

A little fly his harbour then did search,

And did presume, though others laughed thereat,
To perch whereas the princely eagle sat.

[sun,

The eagle frowned, and shook his royal wings,
And charged the fly

From thence to hie:

Afraid, in haste, the little creature flings,
Yet seeks again,

Fearful, to perk him by the eagle's side.
With moody vein,

The speedy post of Ganymede replied,
'Vassal, avaunt, or with my wings you die;
Is't fit an eagle seat him with a fly?'

The fly craved pity, still the eagle frowned:
The silly fly,

Ready to die,

Disgraced, displaced, fell grovelling to the ground: The eagle saw,

And with a royal mind said to the fly,

'Be not in awe,

I scorn by me the meanest creature die;
Then seat thee here.' The joyful fly up flings,
And sate safe shadowed with the eagle's wings.

DORON'S DESCRIPTION OF SAMELA.

IKE to Diana in her summer weed,

L'

Girt with a crimson robe of brightest dye,
Goes fair Samela;

Whiter than be the flocks that straggling feed,
When washed by Arethusa faint they lie,

Is fair Samela

As fair Aurora in her morning grey,

Decked with the ruddy glister of her love,

Is fair Samela;

Like lovely Thetis on a calmèd day,

Whenas her brightness Neptune's fancy move,

Shines fair Samela;

Her tresses gold, her eyes like glassy streams, Her teeth are pearl, the breasts are ivory

Of fair Samela;

Her cheeks, like rose and lily yield forth gleams,
Her brows' bright arches framed of ebony;
Thus fair Samela

Passeth fair Venus in her bravest hue,
And Juno in the show of majesty,

For she's Samela,

Pallas in wit; all three, if you well view,
For beauty, wit, and matchless dignity

Yield to Samela.

THRO

DORON'S JIG.

'HROUGH the shrubs as I 'gan crack
For my lambs, little ones,

'Mongst many pretty ones,

Nymphs I mean, whose hair was black
As the crow;

Like the snow

Her face and brows shined, I ween;
I saw a little one,

A bonny pretty one,

As bright, buxom, and as sheen,
As was she

On her knee

That lulled the god whose arrow warms
Such merry little ones,

Such fair-faced pretty ones,

As dally in love's chiefest harms:

Such was mine,

Whose grey eyne

Made me love. I 'gan to woo
This sweet little one,

This bonny pretty one;

I wooed hard a day or two,

Till she bade

'Be not sad,

Woo no more, I am thine own,

Thy dearest little one,

Thy truest pretty one.'

Thus was faith and firm love shown,

As behoves

Shepherds' loves.

MELICERTUS' DESCRIPTION OF HIS MISTRESS.

TUNE on, my pipe, the praises of my love,
And midst thy oaten harmony* recount

How fair she is that makes thy music mount,
And every string of thy heart's harp to move.
Shall I compare her form unto the sphere,

Whence sun-bright Venus vaunts her silver shine? Ah, more than that by just compare is thine, Whose crystal looks the cloudy heavens do clear!

How oft have I descending Titan seen

His burning locks couch in the sea-queen's lap,
And beauteous Thetis his red body wrap
In watery robes, as he her lord had been!
Whenas my nymph, impatient of the night,

Bade bright Arcturus with his train give place,
Whiles she led forth the day with her fair face,
And lent each star a more than Delian light.
Not Jove or Nature, should they both agree
To make a woman of the firmament
Of his mixed purity, could not invent
A sky-born form so beautiful as she.

* The erroneous employment of this word in the sense of melody is frequent amongst the old writers, who, probably, took their use of it from the French, who still apply it indifferently to time and unison. Shakspeare generally employs it in its strict meaning, such as the harmony of form (the proportion or agreement of parts), or the harmony of sounds. In Hamlet it is misapplied in reference to the ventages of the pipe:

'But these cannot I command to any utterance of harmony.'-iji. 2.

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