2

Lady, when I behold the roses sprouting, Which clad in damask mantles deck the arbours, And then behold your lips, where sweet love harbours,

Mine eyes present me with a double doubting; For, viewing both alike, hardly my mind supposes, Whether the roses be your lips,-or your lips the ΑΝΟΝ.

roses.

3

Once in an arbour was my mistress sleeping,
With rose and woodbine woven,

Whose person thousand graces had in keeping;
Where, for mine heart, her heart's hard flint was

cloven

To keep him safe.

Behind stood, pertly peeping,

Poor Cupid, softly creeping,

And drave small birds out of the myrtle bushes,
Scared with his arrows, who sat cheeping
On every sprig; whom Cupid calls and hushes
From branch to branch: whiles I, poor soul, sat
weeping

To see her breathe, not knowing,

Incense into the clouds, and bless with breath The winds and air; whiles Cupid, underneath, With birds, with songs, nor any posies throwing, Could her awake.

Each noise sweet lullaby was, for her sake!

B. BARNES

THIS only grant me, that my means may lie
Too low for envy, for contempt too high.
Some honour I would have

Not from great deeds, but good alone.
The unknown are better than ill-known :
Rumour can ope the grave.

Acquaintance I would have, but when 't depends
Not on the number, but the choice of friends.

Books should, not business, entertain the light,
And sleep, as undisturbed as death, the night;
My house a cottage more

Than palace, and should fitting be
For all my use, not luxury.

My garden painted o'er

With Nature's hand, not Art's; and pleasures yield Horace might envy in his Sabine field.

Thus would I double my life's fading space,
For he that runs it well, twice runs his race.
And in this true delight,

These unbought sports, this happy state,
I would not fear nor wish my fate,

But boldly say each night,

"To-morrow let my sun his beams display,
Or in clouds hide them: I have lived to-day."

A. COWLEY

1 Written at thirteen. The poem may be compared with one on a similar subject by Pope, written at about the same age.

See vol. ii. p. 29.

5.-A PRAISE OF HIS LADY

GIVE place, you ladies, and begone;
Boast not yourselves at all:
For here at hand approacheth one
Whose face will stain you all.

The virtue of her lively looks
Excels the precious stone:
I wish to have none other books
To read or look upon.

In each of her two crystal eyes
Smileth a naked boy :

It would you all in heart suffice
To see that lamp of joy.

I think Nature hath lost the mould
Where she her shape did take;
Or else I doubt if Nature could
So fair a creature make.

She may be very well compared

Unto the Phoenix kind, Whose like was never seen or heard

That any man can find.

In life she is Diana chaste,

In truth Penelope ;

In word and eke in deed steadfast:

What will you more we say?

If all the world were sought so far,
Who could find such a wight?
Her beauty twinkleth like a star
Within the frosty night.

Her roseal colour comes and goes
With such a comely grace,

More ruddier too than doth the rose,
Within her lively face.

At Bacchus' feast none shall her meet,
Ne at no wanton play,
Nor gazing in an open street,

Nor gadding as a stray.

The modest mirth that she doth use
Is mixed with shamefastness;
All vice she doth wholly refuse,
And hateth idleness.

O Lord! it is a world to see
How virtue can repair

And deck her in such honesty
Whom Nature made so fair.

Truly she doth so far exceed
Our women nowadays
As doth the gilliflower a weed,
And more a thousand ways.

How might I do to get a graff
Of this unspotted tree?

For all the rest are plain but chaff

Which seem good corn to be.

This gift alone I shall her give:

When Death doth what he can,
Her honest fame shall ever live
Within the mouth of man.

J. HEYWOOD1

6. COME AWAY, COME AWAY, DEATH

COME away, come away, Death, And in sad cypress 2 let me be laid ; Fly away, fly away, breath;

I am slain by a fair cruel maid.

My shroud of white, stuck all with yew,
O prepare it!

My part of death no one so true
Did share it.

Not a flower, not a flower sweet,
On my black coffin let there be strown;
Not a friend, not a friend greet

My poor corpse, where my bones shall be thrown :
A thousand thousand sighs to save,

Lay me O where

Sad true lover never find my grave,
To weep there!

W. SHAKSPEARE

1 This authorship is disputed.

2 Commonly explained as cypres, crape; but we find mention of coffins made of black cypress wood (see second stanza), and the epithet "sad" is used regularly of the cypress-tree, while it could scarcely be used of a shroud

of white." See Clarendon Press Edition of Twelfth Night.