lxxvi THE PRINTER TO THE READER.

defend their learned friends, the authors of this work. And I exhort the unlearned, by reading to learn to be more skilful, and to purge that swine-like grossness, that maketh the sweet marjoram not to smell to their delight.

WITH SUIT TO HIS LADY, TO RUE ON HIS

DYING HEART.

HE sun hath twice brought forth his tender green,

Twice clad the earth in lively lusti

ness;

Once have the winds the trees de-
spoiled clean,

And once again begins their cruelness;
Since I have hid under my breast the harm
That never shall recover healthfulness.
The winter's hurt recovers with the warm;
The parched green restored is with shade;
What warmth, alas! may serve for to disarm
The frozen heart, that mine in flame hath made?

B

What cold again is able to restore

My fresh green years, that wither thus and fade?
Alas! I see nothing hath hurt so sore

But Time, in time, reduceth a return:
In time my harm increaseth more and more,
And seems to have my cure always in scorn.
Strange kinds of death, in life that I do try!
At hand, to melt; far off, in flame to burn.
And like as time list to my cure apply,
So doth each place my comfort clean refuse.
All thing alive, that seeth the heavens with eye,
With cloak of night may cover, and excuse
Itself from travail of the day's unrest,
Save I, alas! against all others use,

That then stir up the torments of my breast;
And curse each star as causer of my fate.
And when the sun hath eke the dark opprest,
And brought the day, it doth nothing abate
The travails of mine endless smart and pain.
For then, as one that hath the light in hate,
I wish for night, more covertly to plain,
And me withdraw from every haunted place,
Lest by my chere1 my chance appear to plain.
And in my mind I measure pace by pace,
To seek the place where I myself had lost,
That day that I was tangled in the lace,
In seeming slack that knitteth ever most:
But never yet the travail of my thought,
Of better state, could catch a cause to boast.
For if I found, sometime that I have sought,
Those stars by whom I trusted of the port,
My sails do fall, and I advance right nought;
1 Behaviour, looks.

As anchor'd fast, my spirits do all resort

To stand agazed, and sink in more and more1
The deadly harm which she doth take in sport.
Lo! if I seek, how I do find my sore!

And if I flee, I carry with me still

The venom'd shaft, which doth his force restore
By haste of flight; and I may plain my fill
Unto myself, unless this careful song

Print in your heart some parcel of my tene.2
For I, alas! in silence all too long,

Of mine old hurt yet feel the wound but green. your cruel wrong

Rue on my

life;

or else

Shall well appear, and by my death be seen.

DESCRIPTION OF SPRING,

WHEREIN EACH THING RENEWS, SAVE ONLY

THE LOVER.

HE soote3 season, that bud and bloom forth brings,

With green hath clad the hill, and
eke the vale:

The nightingale with feathers new she sings;
The turtle to her make hath told her tale;
Summer is come, for every spray now springs,
The hart hath hung his old head on the pale;

To stand at gaze and suck in more and more. MSS. cited by Dr. Nott.

2 i.e. Sorrow.

3 Sweet.

4 Mate.

The buck in brake his winter coat he flings;
The fishes flete with new repaired scale;
The adder all her slough away she slings;
The swift swallow pursueth the flies smale;1
The busy bee her honey now she mings;
Winter is worn that was the flowers' bale.3
And thus I see among these pleasant things
Each care decays, and yet my sorrow springs!

2

DESCRIPTION OF THE RESTLESS STATE

MM

OF A LOVER.

CHEN youth had led me half the race
That Cupid's scourge had made me run ;
I looked back to mete the place
From whence my weary course begun.

And then I saw how my desire,
Misguiding me, had led the way :
Mine eyen, too greedy of their hire,
Had made me lose a better prey.

For when in sighs I spent the day,
And could not cloak my grief with game;
The boiling smoke did still bewray

The persaunt heat of secret flame.