THE POET'S PRAISE OF HIS LOVE:

IVE place, ye lovers, here before

That spent your boasts and brags in

vain!

My lady's beauty passeth more The best of yours, I dare maintain, Than doth the sun the candle light, Or brightest day the darkest night.

I could rehearse, if that I would,

The whole effect of Nature's plaint, When she had lost the perfect mould,

The like to which she could not paint; With wringing hands how she did cry! And what she said, I know it, I.

I know she swore, with raging mind (Her kingdom only set apart),

There was no loss by law of kind

That could have gone so near her heart:

And this was chiefly all her pain,

She could not make the like again.

Sith Nature thus gave her the praise,
To be the chiefest work she wrought,
In faith, methinks some better ways

On your behalf might well be sought,
Than to compare, as ye have done,
To match your candle with my sun.

SURREY. 1520-1547.

HE THAT LOVES A ROSY CHEEK.

SONG.

E that loves a rosy cheek,

Or a coral lip admires,

Or from starlike eyes doth seek
Fuel to maintain his fires,

As old Time makes these decay,
So his flame must waste away.

But a smooth and steadfast mind,
Gentle thoughts, and calm desires,
Hearts with equal love combined,
Kindle never-dying fires.
Where these are not, I despise
Lovely cheeks, or lips, or eyes.

CAREW.

HUE AND CRY AFTER CHLORIS.

ELL me, ye wandering spirits of the air, Did you not see a nymph more bright, more fair

Than beauty's darling? or of looks more

sweet

Than stolen content? If such an one you meet, Wait on her hourly wheresoe'er she flies,

And cry, and cry, Amyntor for her absence dies.

Go, search the valleys:-pluck up every rose,
You'll find a scent, a blush of her in those ;
Fish, fish for pearl or coral, there you'll see
How oriental all her colours be:

Go, call the echoes to your aid, and cry,
Chloris, Chloris: for that's her name for whom I
die.

But stay awhile;-I have inform'd you ill:
Were she on earth she had been with me still,

B

Go, fly to heaven-examine every sphere,

And try what star hath lately lighted there :

If any brighter than the sun you see,

Fall down, fall down and worship it-for that is she.

WALLER? 1605-1687.

SONNET ON A YOUNG LADY.

MUST not grieve my love, whose eyes would read

Lines of delight, whereon her youth
might smile :

Flowers have a time before they come to seed,
And she is young, and now must sport the while.
And sport, sweet maid, in season of these years,
And learn to gather flowers before they wither:
And where the sweetest blossom first appears
Let love and youth conduct thy pleasures thither.
Lighten forth smiles to clear the clouded air,
And calm the tempest which my sighs do raise :
Pity and smiles do best become the fair,
Pity and smiles must only yield thee praise.
Make me to say, when all my griefs are gone,
Happy the heart that sigh'd for such a one!

DANIEL.

1562-1619.

AND WOULD YOU SEE MY MISTRESS'

FACE?

ND would you see my mistress' face?
It is a flowery garden-place,

Where knots of beauty have such grace
That all is work, and nowhere space.

It is a sweet, delicious morn,
Where day is breeding, never born;
It is a meadow, yet unshorn,
Which thousand flowers do adorn.

It is the heaven's bright reflex,
Weak eyes to dazzle and to vex;
It is the idea of her sex,

Envy of whom doth world perplex.
It is a face of death that smiles,
Pleasing, though it kill the whiles,
Where death and life, in pretty wiles,
Each other mutually beguiles.

It is fair beauty's freshest youth,

It is the feign'd Elysium's truth,

The spring that winter'd hearts reneweth,

And this is what my soul pursueth.

THOMAS CAMPION.

About 1612.