Even swear to cease you to importune more;

Poor one no number is;

Another word of me ye shall not hear

After one kiss, but still one kiss, my dear.

DESIRED DEATH.-CXXI.

DEAR life, while I do touch

These coral ports of bliss,

Which still themselves do kiss,

And sweetly me invite to do as much,

All panting in my lips,

My heart my life doth leave,

No sense my senses have,

And inward powers do find a strange eclipse:

This death so heavenly well

Doth so me please, that I

Would never longer seek in sense to dwell,
If that even thus I only could but die.

THE CRUELTY OF ROKA.-CXXII.

WHILST sighing forth his wrongs,

In sweet, though doleful songs,

Alexis sought to charm his Rora's ears;

The hills were heard to moan,

To sigh each spring appear'd,

Trees, hardest trees, through rine distill'd their tears,

And soft grew every stone:

But tears, nor sighs, nor songs could Rora move,

For she rejoiced at his plaint and love.

A KISS.-CXXIII.

HARK, happy lovers, hark,

This first and last of joys,

This sweet'ner of annoys,

This nectar of the gods,

You call a kiss, is with itself at odds;

And half so sweet is not

In equal measure got,

At light of sun, as it is in the dark:

Hark, happy lovers, hark.

PHILLIS.CXXIV.

In petticoat of green,
Her hair about her eine,
Phillis, beneath an oak,

Sat milking her fair flock :

'Mongst that sweet-strained moisture (rare delight) Her hand seem'd milk, in milk it was so white.

BEAUTY'S IDEA.-CXXV.

WHO would perfection's fair idea see,

On pretty Chloris let him look with me;

White is her hair, her teeth white, white her skin,
Black be her eyes, her eye-brows Cupid's inn:
Her locks, her body, hands do long appear,
But teeth short, short her womb, and either ear,

The space 'twixt shoulders; eyes are wide, brow wide,
Her nose is small, small fingers, and her hair :
Her sugar'd mouth, her cheeks, her nails be red,
Little her foot, breast little, and her head.

Such Venus was, such was that flame of Troy,
Such Chloris is, mine hope, and only joy.

LALUS' DEATH.-CXXVI.

AMIDST the waves profound,

Far, far from all relief,

The honest fisher Lalus, ah! is drown'd,

Shut in this little skiff;

The boards of which did serve him for a bier,

So that when he to the black world came near,

Of him no silver greedy Charon got;

For he in his own boat

Did pass that flood, by which the gods do swear.

A PASTORAL SONG.

PHILLIS AND DAMON.-CXXVII.

PHIL. SHEPHERD, dost thou love me well?

DAM. Better than weak words can tell.
PHIL. Like to what, good shepherd, say?
DAM. Like to thee, fair cruel May.
PHIL. O how strange these words I find!
Yet to satisfy my mind,

Shepherd, without mocking me,
Have I any love from thee?
Like to what, good shepherd, say?
DAM. Like to thee, fair cruel May.
PHIL. Better answer had it been,

To say thou lov'st me as thine eyne.
DAM. Wo is me! these I love not,
For by them love entrance got,
At that time they did behold

Thy sweet face and locks of gold.
PHIL. Like to what, dear shepherd, say?
DAM. Like to thee, fair cruel May.
PHIL. Once, dear shepherd, speak more plain,
And I shall not ask again;

Say, to end this gentle strife,
Dost thou love me as thy life?

DAM. No, for it is turn'd a slave
To sad annoys, and what I have
Of life by love's stronger force

Is 'reft, and I'm but a dead corse.
PHIL. Like to what, good shepherd, say?
DAM. Like to thee, fair cruel May.
PHIL. Learn I pray this, like to thee,
And say, I love as I do me.

DAM. Alas! I do not love myself,

For I'm split on beauty's shelf.

PHIL. Like to what, good shepherd, say?

DAM. Like to thee, fair cruel May.

CXXVIII.

ALL good hath left this age, all tracks of shame :
Mercy is banished, and Pity dead;

Justice, from whence it came, to heav'n is fled;
Religion, maim'd, is thought an idle name.
Faith to Distrust and Malice hath giv'n place;
Envy, with poison'd teeth, hath Friendship torn ;
Renowned Knowledge is a despis'd scorn;
Now evil 'tis, all evil not t' embrace.

There is no life, save under servile bands;
To make Desert a vassal to their crimes,
Ambition with Avarice joins hands:

O ever shameful, O most shameless times!

Save that sun's light we see, of good here tell,
This earth we court so much were very hell.

CXXIX.

DOTH then the world go thus, doth all thus move? Is this the justice which on earth we find?

Is this that firm decree which all doth bind?

Are these your influences, Pow'rs above?

Those souls which Vice's moody mists most blind,

Blind Fortune, blindly, most their friend doth prove ;
And they who thee, poor idol Virtue! love,
Ply like a feather toss'd by storm and wind.
Ah! if a Providence doth sway this All,

Why should best minds groan under most distress?