The boy in pieces ; let her coine
Hither, and lay on him her doom !
() yes! ( yes! has any lost
A heart which many a sigh has cost ?
Is any cozened of a tear
Which as a pearl, disdain doth wear?
Here stands the thief; let her but come
Hither, and lay on him her doom?
Is any one undone by fire,
And turn’d to ashes through desire ?
Did ever any lady weep,
Being cheated of her golden sleep,
Stolen by sick thoughts; the pirate's found,
And in her tears he shall be drowned.
Read his indictment; let him hear
What he's to trust to : boy, give ear!

From Midas.
Sing to Apollo, god of day,
Whose golden beams with morning play,
And make her eyes so brightly shine,
Aurora's face is called divine.
Sing to Phoebus and that throne
Of diamonds which he sits upon.

lô poeans let us sing,

To physic's and to poesy's king!
Crown all his altars with bright fire,
Laurels bind about his lyre,
A Daphnean coronet for his head;
The muses dance about his bed,
When on his ravishing lute he plays,
Strew his temple round with bays. ,

Iô pæans let us sing,
To the glittering Delian king!

MICHAEL DRAYTON,

BORN 1563.—Died 1631.

From the Poly-olbion-Song the eighteenth.

The praise of Kent.

When now the Kentish nymphs do interrupt her song,
By letting Medway know she tarried had too long
Upon this warlike troop, and all upon them laid,
Yet for their nobler Kent she nought or little said.
When as the pliant muse, straight turning her about,
And coming to the land as Medway goeth out,
Saluting the dear soil, “O famous Kent, quoth she,
“What country hath this isle that can compare with thee,
Which hast within thyself as much as thou canst wish?
Thy conies, venson, fruit, thy sorts of fowl and fish : '
And what with strength comports, thy hay, thy corn, thy

wood: Nor any thing doth want, that any where is good. Where Thames-ward to the shore, which shoots upon

the rise, Rich Tenham undertakes thy closets to suffice With cherries, which we say, the summer in doth bring, Where with Pomona crowns the plump and lustful

spring; From whose deep ruddy cheek, sweet zephyr kisses

steals, With their delicious touch his love-sick heart that heals.

Whose golden gardens seem th’ Hesperides to mock:
Nor there the damson wants, nor dainty apricock,
Nor pippin, which we hold of kernel-fruits the king,
The apple-orange; then the savoury russettan;
The pear-main which to France long e'er to us was

known,
Which careful fruitrers now have denizen'd our own.
The renat, which though first it from the pippin came,
Grown through his pureness nice, assumes that curious

name, Upon the pippin stock, the pippin being set; As on the gentle, when the gentle doth beget :: Both by the sire and dame being anciently descended The issue born of them his blood hath much amended The sweeting, for whose sake the plowboys oft make war, The wilding, costard, then the well-known pomwater, And sundry other fruits, of good, yet several taste, That have their sundry names in sundry countries plac'd. Unto whose dear increase the gardener spends his life, With piercer, wimble, saw; his mallet, and his knife;, Oft covereth, oft doth bare the dry and moist'ned root, As faintly they mislike, or as they kindly suit; And their selected plants doth workman-like bestow, That in true order they conveniently may grow, And kills the slimy snail, the worm, and labouring ant, Which many times annoy the graft and tender plant ; Or else maintains the plot much starved with the wet,, Wherein bis daintiest fruits in kernels he doth set: Or scrapeth off the moss, the trees that oft annoy,"

But with these trifling things why idly do I toy, Who any way the time intend not to prolong? To those Thamisian isles now nimbly turns my song..

Fair Shepey and the Greane* sufficiently supply'd,
To beautify the place where Medway shews her pride..
But Greane seems most of all the Medway to adore,
And Tenett standing forth to the Rhutupian shore ; $
By mighty Albion placed till his return again
From Gaul; where after he by Hercules was slain.
For earth-born Albion then, great Neptune's eldest

son,
Ambitious of the fame by stern Alcides won,
Would over needs to Gaul, with him to hazard fight,
Twelve labours which before accomplished by his might.
His daughters then but young, on whom was all his

care, Which Doris, Thetis' nymph, unto the giant bare, With whom those isles he left, and will'd her for his

sake, That in her grandsire's court she much of them would

make : But Tenet, th' eld'st of three, when Albion was to go, Which lov'd her father best, and loth to leave him so, There at the giant raught, which was perceiv'd by chance, This loving isle would else have followed him to France; To make the channel wide that then he forced was, Whereas, some say, before he us’d on foot to pass.

Thus Tenet being stay'd, and surely settled there, Who nothing less than want and idleness could bear, Doth only give herself to tillage of the ground , With sundry sorts of grain whilst thus she doth abound, She falls in love with Stour, which coming down by Wye, And towards the goodly isle, his feet doth nimbly ply. To Canterbury then as kindly he resorts, His famous country thus he gloriously reports : * The Isles of Sheppey and Grain, + Thanet,

# Near Sandwich.

“O noble Kent, quoth he, this praise doth thee belong,
The hard'st to be controul'd, impatientest of wrong.
Who when the Norman first with pride and horror sway'd,
Threw'st off the servile yoke upon the English laid;
And with a high resolve, most bravely didst restore
That liberty so long enjoy'd by thee before ;
Not suff'ring foreign laws should thy free customs bind,
Then only shew’d'st thyself of th' ancient Saxon kind :
Of all the English sbires be thou surnam'd the Free,
And foremost ever plac'd, when they shall reck’ned be.
And let this town, which chief of thy rich country is,
Of all the British sees be still Metropolis.”

Romney Marsh.

*