The stately seats, the ladies bright of hue,
The dances short, long tales of great delight;
With words and looks, that tigers could but rue :'
Where each of us did plead the other's right.
The palme-play," where, despoiled for the game,3
With dazed eyes oft we by gleams of love
Have missed the ball, and got sight of our dame,
To bait her eyes, which kept the leads above."
The gravelled ground, with sleeves tied on the helm,"
On foaming horse, with swords and friendly hearts;
With chere, as though one should another whelm,
Where we have fought, and chased oft with darts.
With silver drops the mead yet spread for ruth,
In active games of nimbleness and strength,
Where we did strain, trained with swarms of youth,
Our tender limbs, that yet shot up in length.
The secret groves, which oft we made resound
Of pleasant plaint, and of our ladies' praise;
Recording oft what grace each one had found,
What hope of speed, what dread of long delays.
The wild forest, the clothed holts with green;
With reins availed, and swift y-breathed horse,
With cry of hounds, and merry blasts between,
Where we did chase the fearful hart of force.

1 Pity.

2 Ball, or tennis.

3 Stripped for the game. Italian, spogliato.-NOTT.
4 Dazzled.

5 To allure, attract.

6 The ladies, says Warton, were ranged on the leads or battlements of the castle, to see the play.

7 The area for the tilting, we here learn, was strewn with gravel. The sleeves on the helm were the favours of the knight's mistress.

8 The term here employed distinguishes the chase where the game was run down (although the previous particulars rendered it scarcely necessary) from the sport in which the game was shot. The former was called chasse à forcer. Drayton has availed himself of this description of the woods, and the mutual confidences of the young knights, to represent Surrey wandering amongst romantic groves and hanging rocks, carving the name of Geraldine on the trees. Dr. Nott seems to mistake the signification of the word 'holts' in this passage, which means woods, not hills. 'Reins availed,' implies reins slackened or lowered. It is used indifferently by the early English poets, as vale or availe;hence the phrase to vale the bonnet.

2

The void walls' eke, that harboured us each night:
Wherewith, alas! reviveth in my breast
The sweet accord, such sleeps as yet delight;
The pleasant dreams, the quiet bed of rest;
The secret thoughts, imparted with such trust ;
The wanton talk, the divers change of play;
The friendship sworn, each promise kept so just,
Wherewith we past the winter night away.
And with this thought the blood forsakes the face;
The tears berain my cheeks of deadly hue:
The which, as soon as sobbing sighs, alas!
Up-supped have, thus I my plaint renew:
'O place of bliss! renewer of my woes!
Give me account, where is my noble fere?
Whom in thy walls thou dost each night enclose;
To other lief; but unto me most dear.'

4

Echo, alas! that doth my sorrow rue,
Returns thereto a hollow sound of plaint.
Thus I alone, where all my freedom grew,
In prison pine, with bondage and restraint:

1 Thus in the Harrington MS. The printed editions read 'wide vales; but, as the passage evidently refers to the chambers where Surrey and his companions used to sleep, the MS. version may be safely preferred. Dr. Nott thinks that the word 'void' alludes to the custom of taking down the tapestry and hangings of rooms when their occupants were gone; and that Surrey, by the expression void walls' meant to describe walls stript of their covering. An easier and more probable explanation is suggested by the direct meaning of the words- empty walls, that is to say, empty rooms.

2' Wanton' was not originally used in the sense in which it is now employed. The substantive meant a pet, an idler, a playfellow; the adjective simply playful, idle.

3 Warton thinks this should be didst. It is susceptible of both readings. If it allude to some person who was formerly Surrey's companion in these scenes, but was there no longer, Warton's suggestion would apply; but it may have been intended to allude to some person who was a prisoner in Windsor when the poem was written, which would bear out the text as it stands.

4 Dear. Dr. Nott supposes the person alluded to was Surrey's sister, Lady Mary, married about this time' to the Duke of Richmond. But he had previously supposed the poem to have been written in 1546, and Richmond was married in 1533.

And with remembrance of the greater grief,
To banish the less, I find my chief relief.1

THE LOVER COMFORTETH HIMSELF WITH THE WORTHINESS OF HIS LOVE.

W

HEN raging love with extreme pain
Most cruelly distrains my heart;
When that my tears, as floods of rain,
Bear witness of my woful smart;
When sighs have wasted so my breath
That I lie at the point of death:

I call to mind the navy great
That the Greeks brought to Troy town:
And how the boisterous winds did beat
Their ships, and rent their sails adown;
Till Agamemnon's daughter's blood
Appeased the gods that them withstood.
And how that in those ten years' war
Full many a bloody deed was done;
And many a lord that came full far,
There caught his bane, alas! too soon;
And many a good knight overrun,
Before the Greeks had Helen won.

Then think I thus: 'Sith such repair,
So long time war of valiant men,
Was all to win a lady fair,

Shall I not learn to suffer then?

And think my life well spent to be
Serving a worthier wight than she?'

1 "He closes his complaint," says Warton, "with an affecting and pathetic sentiment, much in the style of Petrarch. To banish the miseries of my present distress, I am forced on the wretched expedient of remembering a greater!' This is the consolation of a warm fancy, It is the philosophy of poetry.”

Therefore I never will repent,

But pains contented still endure;
For like as when, rough winter spent,
The pleasant spring straight draweth in ure;1
So after raging storms of care,

Joyful at length may be my fare.

COMPLAINT OF THE ABSENCE OF HER LOVER, BEING UPON THE SEA.2

HAPPY dames that may embrace
The fruit of your delight;

Help to bewail the woful case,

And eke the heavy plight,

Of me, that wonted to rejoice

The fortune of my pleasant choice:

Good ladies! help to fill my mourning voice.

In ship freight with remembrance

Of thoughts and pleasures past,
He sails that hath in governance
My life while it will last;

1 This word has been very variously used. It is supposed to come from the French heure, anciently spelt ure. Its general acceptation is fortune, destiny; it also frequently meant use, action, effect. Thus, in Sackville's Gordubuc, quoted in Nares' Glossary

'And wisdom willed me without protract,

In speedie wise to put the same in ure.'

2 The subject of this poem is obvious. At a time when wars and foreign negotiations called away the flower of English chivalry to distant scenes, there were many ladies left at home, whose feelings of temporary bereavement are touchingly expressed in these lines. They represent a situation in which numbers sympathized, although they were, probably, designed to have a special application-perhaps to the case of Lady Surrey. Dr. Nott's perversion of the title, by which he announces that in this poem, supposing the case of a lady looking for the return of her lord, Surrey describes the state of his own mind, when separated from the fair Geraldine,' utterly spoils the charm of the verses.

With scalding sighs, for lack of gale,
Furthering his hope, that is his sail,
Toward me, the sweet port of his avail.1

Alas! how oft in dreams I see
Those eyes that were my food;
Which sometime so delighted me,
That yet they do me good:

Wherewith I wake with his return,

Whose absent flame did make me burn:

But when I find the lack, Lord! how I mourn.

When other lovers in arms across,
Rejoice their chief delight;

Drowned in tears, to mourn my loss,
I stand the bitter night

In my window, where I

may see

Before the winds how the clouds flee:

Lo! what mariner love hath made of me!

And in green waves when the salt flood
Doth rise by rage of wind;

A thousand fancies in that mood
Assail my restless mind.

Alas! now drencheth' my sweet foe,
That with the spoil of my heart did go,
And left me; but, alas! why did he so?

And when the seas wax calm again,
To chase from me annoy,

My doubtful hope doth cause me plain :
So dread cuts off my joy.

3

Thus is my wealth mingled with woe:

And of each thought a doubt doth grow;
Now he comes! will he come? alas! no, no!

1 The harbour where he drops sail. 3 Happiness.

2 Drowneth.