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TIME AND LOVE

XXI

TIME AND LOVE

1

WHEN I have seen by Time's fell hand defaced The rich proud cost of outworn buried age ; When sometime-lofty towers I see down-razed, And brass eternal slave to mortal rage;

When I have seen the hungry ocean gain
Advantage on the kingdom of the shore,
And the firm soil win of the watery main,
Increasing store with loss and loss with store;

When I have seen such interchange of state,
Or state itself confounded to decay,-
Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate—
That Time will come and take my Love away.

This thought is as a death, which cannot choose But weep to have that which it fears to lose.

XXII

2

SINCE brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,

But sad mortality o'ersways their power,

How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,
Whose action is no stronger than a flower?

19

O, how shall summer's honey breath hold out
Against the wreckful siege of battering days,
When rocks impregnable are not so stout,
Nor gates of steel so strong, but time decays?

O fearful meditation! Where, alack!
Shall Time's best jewel from Time's chest lie hid?
Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back?
Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid ?

O none, unless this miracle have might,

That in black ink my love may still shine bright. Shakespeare.

XXIII

SECOND THOUGHTS

1

BEAUTY, Sweet Love, is like the morning dew,
Whose short refresh upon the tender green
Cheers for a time, but till the sun doth show,
And straight 'tis gone as it had never been.
Soon doth it fade that makes the fairest flourish,
Short is the glory of the blushing rose ;
The hue which thou so carefully dost nourish,
Yet which at length thou must be forced to lose.
When thou, surcharged with burthen of thy years,
Shalt bend thy wrinkles homeward to the earth;
And that, in Beauty's Lease expired, appears
The Date of Age, the Calends of our Death-
But ah, no more!—this must not be foretold,
For women grieve to think they must be old.

WHEN DAFFODILS BEGIN TO PEER 21

XXIV

2

I MUST not grieve my Love, whose eyes would read
Lines of delight, whereon her youth might smile;
Flowers have time before they come to seed,
And she is young, and now must sport the while.

And sport, Sweet Maid, in season of these years,
And learn to gather flowers before they wither;
And where the sweetest blossom first appears,
Let Love and Youth conduct thy pleasures thither.

Lighten forth smiles to clear the clouded air,
And calm the tempest which my sighs do raise ;
Pity and smiles do best become the fair ;
Pity and smiles must only yield the praise.

Make me to say when all my griefs are gone,
Happy the heart that sighed for such a one.
S. Daniel.

XXV

WHEN DAFFODILS BEGIN TO PEER

WHEN daffodils begin to peer,

With heigh! the doxy over the dale,

Why, then comes in the sweet o' the year;
For the red blood reigns in the winter's pale.

The white sheet bleaching on the hedge,

With heigh! the sweet birds, O, how they sing! Doth set my pugging1 tooth on edge;

For a quart of ale is a dish for a king.

The lark that tirra-lirra chants,

With heigh! with heigh! the thrush and the jay, Are summer songs for me and my aunts,

While we lie tumbling in the hay.

Shakespeare.

XXVI

CUCKOO

WHEN daisies pied and violets blue,
And lady-smocks all silver-white,
And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue

Do paint the meadows with delight,
The cuckoo then, on every tree,
Mocks married men; for thus sings he,
Cuckoo ;

Cuckoo, cuckoo: O word of fear,
Unpleasing to the married ear!

When shepherds pipe on oaten straws,

And merry larks are ploughmen's clocks,
When turtles tread, and rooks, and daws,

And maidens bleach their summer smocks,

The cuckoo then, on every tree,

Mocks married men; for thus sings he,

Cuckoo ;

Cuckoo, cuckoo: O word of fear,

Unpleasing to the married ear.

1 Thievish.

Shakespeare.

SPRING

XXVII

THE Ousel-cock, so black of hue,
With orange-tawny bill,

The throstle with his note so true,
The wren with little quill;

The finch, the sparrow, and the lark,

The plain-song cuckoo gray,

Whose note full many a man doth mark,

And dares not answer nay.

Shakespeare.

23

XXVIII

SPRING

SPRING, the sweet Spring, is the year's pleasant king; Then blooms each thing, then maids dance in a ring, Cold doth not sting, the pretty birds do singCuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!

The palm and may make country houses gay,
Lambs frisk and play, the shepherds pipe all day,
And we hear aye birds tune this merry lay—
Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!

The fields breathe sweet, the daisies kiss our feet,
Young lovers meet, old wives a-sunning sit,
In every street these tunes our ears do greet—
Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!

Spring, the sweet Spring!

T. Nashe.

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