A LOVER RELINQUISHETH THE PURSUIT.

WHOSO list to hunte? I knowe where is an hinde!
But as for me, alas! I may no more,

The vaine travaile hath wearied me so sore;
I am of them that furthest come behinde.
Yet may I by no meanes my wearied minde
Draw from the deer; but as she fleeth afore
Fainting I follow: I leave off therefore,
Since in a net I seeke to holde the winde.
Who list her hunte, I put him oute of doubte,
As well as I, may spende his time in vaine!
And graven with diamonds in letters plain,
There is written her fair neck rounde aboute;

'Noli me tangere; for Cæsar's I am,

And wild for to hold, though I seem tame.'

HOPE UNSATISFIED IS A PROLONGED DEATH.

I ABIDE, and abide; and better abide,
After the olde proverbe the happy day.
And ever my Ladye to me doth say,
'Let me alone, and I will provide.'
I abide and abide, and tarry the tide,
And with abiding speed well ye may.
Thus doe I abide I wot alway.
N' other obtaining, nor yet denied.
Aye me! this long abiding
Seemeth to me, as who sayeth
A prolonging of a dying death,
Or a refusing of a desired thing.

Much were it better for to be plaine,
Than to say 'Abide,' and yet not obtain.

HE PRAYETH HIS LADY TO BE TRUE.

THOUGH I myselfe be bridled of my minde,
Returning me backwarde by force express;
If thou seek honoure, to keep thy promess,
Who may thee holde, but thou thyselfe unbind?
Sigh then no more, since no way man may find
Thy virtue to let, though that frowardness
Of Fortune me holdeth; and yet as I may guess
Though other be present thou art not all behinde.
Suffice it then that thou be ready there

At all hours; still under the defence

Of Time, Truth, and Love to save thee from offence.
Crying I burn in a lovely desire,

With my dear Mistress that may not follow;
Whereby mine absence turneth me to sorrow.

A LOVER DESCRIBETH HIS RESTLESS STATE.

THE flaming sighs that boil within my breaste,
Sometime breake forthe, and they can well declare
The hearte's unrest, and how that it doth fare,
The paine thereof, the grief, and all the reste.
The watered eyen from whence the teares doe fall,
Do feel some force, or else they woulde be dry;
The wasted flesh of coloure dead can try,
And sometime tell what sweetness is in gall:
And he that luste to see, and to discerne
How care can force within a wearied minde,
Come he to me, I am that place assigned :
But for all this, no force, it doth no harm;

The wound, alas! hap in some other place,
From whence no tool away the scar can raze.

CONTINUATION.

BUT you, that of such like have had your part,
Can best be judge. Wherefore, my friend so deare,
I thought it goode my state shoulde now appeare
To you, and that there is no great desert.
And whereas you, in weighty matters great,
Of fortune saw the shadow that you knowe,
For trifling things I now am stricken so,

That though I feel my hearte doth wounde and beate,

I sit alone, save on the second day

My fever comes, with whom I spende my time
In burning heate, while that she list assign.
And who hath healthe and libertie alway,

Let him thank God, and let him not provoke,
To have the like of this, my painful stroke.

LAMENT ON THE DEATH OF HIS LADYE.

THE pillar perished is, whereto I leant,
The strongest stay of mine unquiet minde;
The like of it no man againe can finde,
From east to west still seeking though he went,
To mine unhap. For hap away hath rent
Of all my joy the very barke and rinde:
And I, alas! by chance am thus assigned
Daily to mourne, till death doe it relent.
But since that thus it is by destiny,
What can I more but have a woeful hearte;
My pen in plainte, my voice in careful cry,
My minde in woe, my body full of smarte;
And I myself, myself always to hate,

'Till dreadful death doe ease by doleful state.

HENRY HOWARD, EARL OF SURREY,

was son of Thomas, third Duke of Norfolk, by his second wife, Elizabeth, daughter of the Duke of Buckingham. The exact date of his birth is not known; but may be assigned to some time between 1516 and 1518; nor has it been decided where it occurred, though many circumstances render it probable that Framlingham, in Suffolk, was the place. His youth was passed at Windsor, where he formed a friendship with the young Duke of Richmond, natural son of Henry the Eighth, which continued till his friend's death, shortly after his marriage with Lady Mary Howard, Surrey's only sister, at the early age of seventeen. Surrey married when not more than sixteen, Frances Vere, daughter of the Earl of Oxford, and fell a victim to the jealousy of the despotic Henry, while in the summer of his existence. He was executed on Tower Hill the 21st of January, 1547. The tyrant survived his victim but a few days, and his memory has been as much execrated as Surrey's has been reverenced.

The fair Geraldine, whom Surrey celebrated in his poems, and whose name is indissolubly connected with that of the noble poet, was Elizabeth, daughter of Gerald Fitzgerald, ninth Earl of Kildare, and afterwards wife, first to Sir Anthony Brown, and secondly, to Henry Clinton, Earl of Lincoln. Whether Surrey's passion for this lady was real, or but an imaginary or poetical one, is of little importance; though it has been so fertile a subject of dispute among his biographers and admirers. From the circumstance of Surrey's not being more than sixteen at the time of his marriage, there is nothing improbable, but rather the reverse, in the supposition, that when grown to man's estate, he might prefer another to the wife that had been doubtless selected for him by his family. The difference of twelve years between his age and that of the fair Geraldine, would have been no impediment. It is true we do not hear of any estrangement between him and his Countess; one of his poems has rather been considered as bearing marks of genuine affection for her, though the authority there is for asserting the poem in question to have had reference to her is uncertain. But allowing this to be the case, we know nothing of the date on which it was written; and it appears by no means incompatible that Surrey should at one period of his life have entertained a genuine passion for Geraldine, though aware of the impossibility, from his previous marriage, of his winning her. In the concluding line of a Sonnet, which can by no possible torturing be made to refer to any one else, he seems to admit this.

"Happy is he that can obtain her love!"

Which certainly warrants the inference that he himself had no hope of doing so.

HENRY HOWARD, EARL OF SURREY. 15

DESCRIPTION OF SPRING.

THE SOOte season, that bud and bloome forth bringes,
With
green hath clad the hill and eke the vale.
The nightingale with feathers new she singes;
The turtle to her mate hath told her tale.
Somer is come, for every spray now springs;
The hart hath hung his old head on the pale;
The buck in brake his winter coat he slings;
The fishes flete with new repaired scale;
The adder all her slough away she flinges;
The swift swallow pursueth the flies smale ;
The busy bee her honey now she mingles;
Winter is worn that was the flowers bale.

And thus I see among these pleasant things,
Each care decays, and yet my sorrow springs!

A LOVER REBUKED.

LOVE, that liveth and reigneth in my thought,
That built his seat within my captive breast;
Clad in the arms wherein with me he fought,
Oft in my face he dothe his banner rest.
She that me taught to love, and suffer paine;
My doubtfull hope, and eke my warm desire,
With shame-faced cloke to shadow and restraine,
Her smiling grace converteth straight to ire.
And coward Love then to the heart apace
Taketh his flighte; whereas he lurks, and plains
His
purpose lost, and dare not shew his face.
For my Love's guilt thus faultless bide I pains.
Yet from my Love shall not my foot remove :
Sweet is his death, that takes his end by love.