Whoredome shall not escape his hand,
Nor pride unpunish'd in this land.

If God to me such shame did bring,
That yielded only to a king,
How shall they scape that daily run
To practise sin with every one?

You husbands, match not but for love,
Lest some disliking after prove;
Women, be warn'd when you are wives,
What plagues are due to sinful lives:

Then, maids and wives, in time amend,
For love and beauty will have end.

140

145

XXVII.

Corydon's doleful Knell.

This little simple elegy is given, with some corrections, from two copies, one of which is in The golden Garland of princely Delights.

The burthen of the song, DING DONG, &c. is at present appropriated to burlesque subjects, and therefore may excite only ludicrous ideas in a modern reader; but in the time of our poet, it usually accompanied the most solemn and mournful strains. Of this kind is that fine aërial dirge in Shakspeare's Tempest;

"Full fadom five thy father lies,

Of his bones are corrall made;
Those are pearles that were his eyes;
Nothing of him, that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change

Into something rich and strange :
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell,

Harke now I heare them, Ding dong bell."

"Burthen, Ding dong."

I make no doubt but the poet intended to conclude the above air in a manner the most solemn and expressive of melancholy.

My Phillida, adieu love!

For evermore farewel!
Ay me! I've lost my true love,
And thus I ring her knell,

Ding dong, ding dong, ding dong,

My Phillida is dead!

I'll stick a branch of willow

At my fair Phillis' head.

5

* It is a custom in many parts of England, to carry a flowery

garland before the corpse of a woman who dies unmarried.

I'll decke her tomb with flowers,

The rarest ever seen,

And with my tears, as showers,
I'll keepe them fresh and green.
Ding, &c.

* See above, preface to no. xi. book ii. p. 188.

40

+ This alludes to the painted effigies of alabaster, anciently

erected upon tombs and monuments.

35

390

25

In sable will I mourne;

Blacke shall be all my weede:

Ay me! I am forlorne,

Now Phillida is dead!

Ding dong, ding dong, ding dong, 45

My Phillida is dead!

I'll stick a branch of willow

At my fair Phillis' head.

END OF THE SECOND BOOK.