HARMONY AND MELODY

MUSIC to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly?

Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in

joy.

Why lov'st thou that which thou receiv'st not

gladly,

Or else receiv'st with pleasure thine annoy?

If the true concord of well-tunéd sounds,

By unions married, do offend thine ear,
They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds
In singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear.

Mark how one string, sweet husband to another,
Strikes each in each by mutual ordering,
Resembling sire and child and happy mother
Who all in one, one pleasing note do sing:

Whose speechless song, being many, seeming one, Sings this to thee: 'thou single wilt prove none.'

A WARNING

S it for fear to wet a widow's eye

That thou consum'st thyself in single life?

Ah! if thou issueless shalt hap to die,

The world will wail thee, like a makeless wife;

The world will be thy widow and still weep
That thou no form of thee hast left behind,
When every private widow well may keep
By children's eyes her husband's shape in mind.

Look, what an unthrift in the world doth spend Shifts but his place, for still the world enjoys it ; But beauty's waste hath in the world an end, And kept unused, the user so destroys it.

No love toward others in that bosom sits

That on himself such murderous shame commits.

F

FOR

AN APPEAL

CR shame! deny that thou bear'st love to any,
Who for thyself art so unprovident.

Grant, if thou wilt, thou art beloved of many,
But that thou none lov'st is most evident;

For thou art so possess'd with murderous hate That 'gainst thyself thou stick'st not to conspire, Seeking that beauteous roof to ruinate

Which to repair should be thy chief desire.

O, change thy thought, that I may change my mind!
Shall hate be fairer lodged than gentle love?
Be, as thy presence is, gracious and kind,
Or to thyself at least kind-hearted prove :

Make thee another self for love of me,
That beauty still may live in thine or thee.

AS

A MAN'S DUTY

S fast as thou shalt wane, so fast thou growest

In one of thine, from that which thou departest; And that fresh blood which youngly thou bestowest Thou mayst call thine when thou from youth con

vertest.

Herein lives wisdom, beauty, and increase;
Without this, folly, age, and cold decay :
If all were minded so, the times should cease
And threescore year would make the world away.

Let those whom Nature hath not made for store,
Harsh, featureless, and rude, barrenly perish :
Look, whom she best endow'd she gave the more;
Which bounteous gift thou shouldst in bounty
cherish:

She carved thee for her seal, and meant thereby Thou shouldst print more, not let that copy die.

68

SONGS AND SONNETS

ALL THINGS FADE

WHEN I do count the clock that tells the time,

And see the brave day sunk in hideous night;

When I behold the violet past prime,

And sable curls all silver'd o'er with white;

When lofty trees I see barren of leaves
Which erst from heat did canopy the herd,
And summer's green all girded up in sheaves
Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard,

Then of thy beauty do I question make,

That thou among the wastes of time must go,
Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake
And die as fast as they see others grow;

And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can make defence

Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence.