And sleeps within their pretty shine:
And if I look the boy will lour,

And from their orbs shoot shafts divine.

Love works thy heart within his fire,
And in my tears doth firm the same:
And if I tempt it will retire,

And of my plaints doth make a game.

Love let me cull her choicest flowers,
And pity me, and calm her eye,
Make soft her heart, dissolve her lours,
Then will I praise thy deity.

But if thou do not love, I'll truly serve her,

In spite of thee, and by firm faith deserve her.

How

XXXIII. ON PHILLIS' SICKNESS.

OW languisheth the primrose of love's garden?
How trill her tears th' elixir of my senses:
Ambitious sickness, what doth thee so harden,
O spare and plague thou me for her offences.

Ah roses, love's fair roses, do not languish,
Blush through the milk-white veil that holds you cover❜d.
If heat or cold may mitigate your anguish,

I'll burn, I'll freeze, but you shall be recover'd.

Good God, would beauty mark, now she is crazèd,
How but one shower of sickness makes her tender:
Her judgments then to mark my woes amazèd,
To mercy should opinion's fort surrender:

And I-O would I might, or would she meant it—
Should hurrah love, who now in heart lament it.

THOMAS NASH.

(1567-1601?.)

XXXIV. SPRING, THE SWEET 'SPRING.

From his only surviving comedy, Summer's Last Will and Testament (1600). It was acted at Croydon in the autumn of 1592, probably before Elizabeth, and possibly at Archbishop Whitgift's palace. It has been reprinted by Dr. Grosart in his "Huth Library" edition of Nash.

SPRING, the sweet spring, is the year's pleasant king;

Then blooms each thing, then maids dance in a ring, Cold doth not sting, the pretty birds do sing, "Cuckoo, jug, jug, pu we, to witta woo".

The palm and may make country houses gay,
Lambs frisk and play, the shepherds pipe all day,
And we hear aye birds tune this merry lay,
"Cuckoo, jug, jug, pu we, to witta woo".

The fields breathe sweet, the daisies kiss our feet,
Young lovers meet, old wives a-sunning sit,
In every street these tunes our ears do greet,
Cuckoo, jug, jug, pu we, to witta woo".
Spring, the sweet spring!

CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE.

(1564-1593.)

XXXV. THE PASSIONATE SHEPHERD TO
HIS LOVE.

Printed as Shakespeare's in The Passionate Pilgrim (1599), and again with the true author's name in England's Helicon (1600). It is also quoted as "that smooth song which was made by Kit Marlowe" in Walton's Compleat Angler. For some of the numerous replies and imitations which it provoked see Nos. XL, XLI, and CIX.

COME live with me, and be my love;

And we will all the pleasures prove
That hills and valleys, dales and fields,
Woods, or steepy mountain yields.

And we will sit upon the rocks,
Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks
By shallow rivers, to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.

And I will make thee beds of roses,
And a thousand fragrant posies;
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
Embroider'd all with leaves of myrtle;

A gown made of the finest wool
Which from our pretty lambs we pull;
Fair-lined slippers for the cold,
With buckles of the purest gold;

A belt of straw and ivy-buds,
With coral clasps and amber studs;
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Come live with me, and be my love.
The shepherd-swains shall dance and sing
For thy delight each May-morning;

If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me, and be my love.

THOMAS WATSON.

(1557?-1592.)

XXXVI. A LAMENT FOR MELIBOEUS.

A fragment from the long Eglogue upon the Death of the Right Honourable Sir Francis Walsingham (1590), being an English version of the poet's Meliboeus (1590). An earlier Latin pastoral of Watson's, Amyntas (1585), was surreptitiously translated into English hexameters by Abraham Fraunce as The Lamentations of Amyntas for the death of Phillis, or The Countess of Pembroke's Ivy Church. A third pastoral, also in Latin, the Amyntae Gaudia, appeared after Watson's death in 1592.

TITYRUS, thy plaint is over-long,

Have pause a while, at Corydon's request:

Of what is wanting in thy farfet1 song,

My mourning voice shall strive to tell the rest. But I must sorrow in a lower vein,

Not like to thee, whose words have wings at will:

An humble style befits a simple swain,

My Muse shall pipe but on an oaten quill. Immortal Fauni, Satyrs, and great Pan,

The Gods and guiders of our fruitful soil, Come seat yourselves by me, and wail the man, Whose death was hasten'd by his virtuous toil. Ye comely Graces, neither dance nor play,

Nor comb your beauteous tresses in the sun,
But now since Meliboeus is away,

Sit down and weep, for wanton days are done.
Now in the woods be leafless every tree,
And bear not pleasant fruits as heretofore
Myrrha, let weeping gums distil from thee,

1 farfet, far-fetched.

And help to make my doleful plaint the more. Now in the woods let night-rauns1 croak by day, And gladless owls shriek out, and vultures groan: But smaller birds that sweetly sing and play,

Be whist and still: for you can make no moan. Now in the fields each corn hang down his head, Since he is gone that weeded all our corn: And sprouting vines, wither till you be dead,

Since he is dead, that shielded you from storm. Now in the fields rot, fruits, while you are green,

Since he is gone that used to graft and grace you: And die, fair flowers, since he no more is seen,

That in Diana's garland used to place you.
O herds and tender flocks, O hand-smooth plains,
O Echo dwelling both in mount and valley:
O Groves and bubbling springs, O nymphs, O swains,
O young and old, O weep, all Arcady.

Alas, too soon by Destin's fatal knife
Sweet Meliboeus is deprived of life.

SAMUEL DANIEL

(1562?-1619.)

XXXVII. AN ODE.

This and the following are from the lyrical poems appended to the sonnets of Delia (1592). Daniel also wrote two 'pastoral tragi-comedies', The Queen's Arcadia, played at Christ Church in 1605 and published in 1606, and Hymen's Triumph (1615). Both may be seen in Dr. Grosart's edition of his works (vol. iii.).

NOW each creature joys the other,

Passing happy days and hours;

One bird reports unto another,

In the fall of silver showers;
1 rauns, ravens.