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A DISCONSOLATION.

And each (tho' enemies to other's reign)
Do in consent shake hands to torture me;
The one by toil, the other to complain,
How far I toil, still farther off from thee.

I tell the day, to please him, thou art bright,
And dost him grace when clouds do blot the heaven :
So flatter I the swart-complexion'd night,

When sparkling stars tweer out, thou gild'st the even.
But day doth daily draw my sorrows longer,

And night doth nightly make grief's length seem
stronger.

When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my out-cast state,

And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself, and curse my fate :
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featur'd like him, like him with friends possest;
Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope
With what I most enjoy contented least,
Yet in these thoughts, myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark, at break of day arising
From sullen earth, to sing at heaven's gate.

For thy sweet love remember'd, such wealth brings,'
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

CRUEL DECEIT.--THE UNCONSTANT LOVER.

CRUEL DECEIT.

SCARCE had the sun dry'd up the dewy morn,
And scarce the herd gone to the edge for shade;
When CYTHEREA (all in love forlorn)

A longing tarriance for ADONIS made
Under an osier growing by a brook;

A brook, where ADON us'd to cool his spleen.
Hot was the day, she hotter, that did look
For his approach, that often here had been.
Anon he comes, and throws his mantle by,
And stood stark naked on the brook's green brim:
The sun look'd on the world with glorious eye,
Yet not so wistly, as this queen on him:

He spying her, bounc'd in (whereas he stood)
Oh, Jove! (quoth she) why was not 1 a flood?

THE UNCONSTANT LOVER.

FAIR is my love, but not so fair as fickle;
Mild as a dove, but neither true nor trusty;
Brighter than glass, and yet as glass is brittle:
Softer than wax, and yet as iron rusty .

A lily pale, with damask dye to grace her;
None fairer, nor none falser to deface her.

Her lips to mine how often hath she joined, Between each kiss her oaths of true love swearing?

THE BENEFIT OF FRIENDSHIP.

How many tales, to please me, hath she coined,
Dreading my love, the loss thereof still fearing?
Yet in the midst of all her pure protestings,

Her faith, her oaths, her tears, and all were jestings.

She burnt with love, as straw with fire flaming;
She burnt out love, as soon as straw out burning;
She fram'd the love, and yet she foil'd the framing
She bade love last, and yet she fell a turning.
Was this a lover, or a letcher, whether?
Bad at the best, tho' excellent in neither.

THE BENEFIT OF FRIENDSHIP.

WHEN to the sessions of sweet silent thought,
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste.
Then can I drown an eye (unus'd to flow)
For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,
And weep afresh love's long since cancell'd woe,
And moan th' expence of many a vanish'd sight.
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er
The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,
Which I new pay, as if not paid before.
But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restor'd, and sorrows end.

THE BENEFIT OF FRIENDSHIP.

Thy bosom is endeared with all hearts,
Which I by lacking have supposed dead;
And their reigns love, and all love's loving parts,
And all those friends, which I thought buried.
How many a holy and obsequious tear
Hath dear religious love stol'n from mine eye,
As interest of the dead, which now appear
But things remov'd, that hidden in thee lie!
Thou art the grave where buried love doth live,
Hung with the trophies of my lovers gone;
Who all their parts of me to thee did give,
That due of many, now is thine alone.
Their images I lov'd, I view in thee,
And thou (all they) hast all the all of me.

If thou survive my well contented day,

When that churl, Death, my bones with dust shall cover;
And shalt, by fortune, once more re-survey

These poor rude lines of thy deceased lover:
Compare them with the bett'ring of the time,
And tho' they be out-stript by every pen,
Reserve them for my love, not for their rhime,
Exceeded by the height of happier men,

Oh, then, vouchsafe me but this loving thought!
Had my friend's muse grown with this growing age,
A dearer birth than this, his love had bought,

To march in ranks of better equipage :

But since he died, and poets better prove,
Theirs for there style I'll read, his for his love.

FRIENDLY CONCORD.-INHUMANITY.

FRIENDLY CONCORD.

IF music and sweet poetry agree,

As they must needs, (the sister and the brother)
Then must the love be great 'twixt thee and me,
Because thou lov'st the one, and I the other.
DOWLAND to thee is dear, whose heavenly touch
Upon the lute, doth ravish human sense:
SPENCER to me, whose deep conceit is such,
As passing all conceit, needs no defence.

Thou lov'st to hear the sweet melodious sound,
That PHEBUS' luté (the queen of music) makes;
And I in deep delight am chiefly drown'd,
When as himself to singing he betakes.

One God is God of both, (as poets fain)

One knight loves both, and both in thee remain.

INHUMANITY.

FAIR was the morn, when the fair queen of love.
Paler for sorrow than her milk-white dove;

For ADON's sake, a youngster proud and wild,
Her stand she takes upon a steep-up hill :
Anon ADONIS comes with horn and hounds,
She, silly queen, with more than love's good-will,
Forbad the boy he should not pass those grounds:

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