The Courtier's Life.

In court to serve decked with fresh array,

Of sugar'd meats feeling the sweet repast; The life in banquets, and sundry kinds of play Amid the press of worldly looks to waste ;Hath with it join'd oft-times such bitter taste, That whoso joys such kind of life to hold, In prison joys fetter'd with chains of gold.

A Renouncing of Love.

FAREWELL, Love, and all thy laws for ever,
Thy baited hooks shall tangle me no more!
Senec and Plato call me from thy lore,
To parfit wealth my wit for to endeavour.
In blind error when I did perséver,

Thy sharp repulse, that pricketh aye so sore,
Taught me in trifles that I set no store,
But scape forththence, since liberty is lever."
Therefore farewell! go, trouble younger hearts,

And in me 2 claim no more authority!
With idle youth go use thy property,

And thereon spend thy many brittle darts.
For, hitherto though I have lost my time,
Me list no longer rotten boughs to climb.
Or "lieffer," as in ed. 1567, i. e. preferable.
2 Ed. 1567," time."

A Description of such a one as he would Love.

A FACE that hould content me wondrous well
Should not be fair, but lovely to behold;
Of lively look, all grief for to repel;

With right good grace, so would I that it should
Speak, without word, such words as none can tell.
Her tress also should be of crisped gold.
With wit, and these, perchance I might be tried,
And knit again with knot that should not slide.

Of the Courtiers Life, written to John Poins. MINE Own John Poins! since ye delight to know The causes why that homeward I me draw, And flee the press of courts, whereso they go, Rather than to live thrall under the awe

Of lordly looks, wrapped within my cloak,
To will and lust learning to set a law :—

It is not that because I scorn or mock

The power of them whom Fortune here hath lent Charge over us, of right to strike the stroke.

But true it is that I have always meant

Less to esteem them than the common sort,
Of outward things that judge in their intent

I cannot crouch nor kneel to such a wrong,
To worship them, like God on earth alone,
That are as wolves these silly lambs among ;
I cannot with my words complain and moan,

And suffer nought,-nor smart without complaint, Nor turn the word that from my mouth is

I cannot speak and look like as a saint,

gone.

Use wiles for wit, and make deceit a pleasure, Call craft counsel, for lucre still to paint;

I cannot wrest the law to fill the coffer;

With innocent blood to feed myself fat,
And do most hurt where that most help I offer,

I am not he that can allow the state

Of high Cæsar, and damn Cato to die,

That with his death did 'scape out of the gate
From Cæsar's hands, if Livy doth not lie,

And would not live where liberty was lost,
So did his heart the commonwealth apply.

I am not he, such eloquence to boast

*

[To] praise Sir Thopas for a noble tale, And scorn the story that the knight told :" Praise him for counsel that is drunk of ale:

Grin when he laughs that beareth all the sway, Frown when he frowns, and groan when he is pale:

On others lust to hang both night and day :-
None of these points would ever frame in me;
My wit is naught, I cannot learn the way;
And much the less of things that greater bę:

Affirm that Favell hath a goodly grace
In eloquence; and cruelty to name

Zeal of justice; and change in time and place;
And he that suffereth offence without blame,

Call him pitiful,—and him true and plain,
That raileth reckless unto each man's shame

'Two of the Canterbury Tales.

Say he is rude that cannot lie and feign,
The letcher a lover, and tyranny
To be the right of a prince's reign,-
I cannot, I,-no, no,-it will not be.

This is the cause that I could never yet

Hang on their sleeves that weigh (as thou may'st see)

A chip of chance more than a pound of wit:
This maketh me at home to hunt and hawk,
And in foul weather at my book to sit,

In frost and snow, then with my bow to stalk:

No man doth mark whereso I ride or go;
In lusty leas at liberty I walk.

And of these news I feel nor weal nor wo,

Save that a clog doth hang yet at my

No force for that, for it is order'd so,

heel;

That I may leap both hedge and dike full weel.

I am not now in France to judge the wine,
With savoury sauce those delicates to feel
Nor yet in Spain, where one must him incline,
Rather than to be, outwardly to seem.