ROSALYND'S MADRIGAL

Love in my bosom, like a bee,

Doth suck his sweet;

Now with his wings he plays with me,
Now with his feet.

Within mine eyes he makes his nest,
His bed amidst my tender breast;
My kisses are his daily feast,
And yet he robs me of my rest:
Ah! wanton, will ye?

And if I sleep, then percheth he

With pretty flight,

And makes his pillow of my knee

The livelong night.

Strike I my lute, he tunes the string;

He music plays if so I sing;
He lends me every lovely thing,
Yet cruel he my heart doth sting:
Whist, wanton, will ye?

Else I with roses every day

Will whip you hence,

And bind you, when you long to play,

For your offence;

I'll shut my eyes to keep you in ;
I'll make you fast it for your sin;
I'll count your power not worth a pin;
Alas! what hereby shall I win,

If he gainsay me?

What if I beat the wanton boy

With many a rod?

He will repay me with annoy,

Because a god.

Then sit thou safely on my knee,
And let thy bower my bosom be;
Lurk in mine eyes, I like of thee,
O Cupid! so thou pity me,

Spare not, but play thee

ROSADER'S DESCRIPTION OF ROSALYND.

Like to the clear in highest sphere,
Where all imperial beauty shines,
Of selfsame colour is her hair,

Whether unfolded or in twines;
Her eyes are sapphires set in snow,
Refining heaven by every wink;
The gods do fear whenas they glow,
And I do tremble when I think.

Her cheeks are like the blushing cloud
That beautifies Aurora's face,
Or like the silver-crimson shroud

That Phoebus' smiling looks doth grace;
Her lips are like two budded roses,
Whom ranks of lilies neighbour nigh,
Within whose bounds she balm encloses
Apt to entice a deity.

Her neck like to a stately tower,

Where Love himself emprisoned lies,
To watch for glances every hour,
From her divine and sacred eyes;

Her paps are centres of delight,
Her paps are orbs of heavenly frame,
Where nature moulds the dew of light,
To feed perfection with the same.

With orient pearl, with ruby red,
With marble white, with sapphire blue,

Her body every way is fed,

Yet soft to touch, and sweet in view; Nature herself her shape admires,

The gods are wounded in her sight, And Love forsakes his heavenly fires, And at her eyes his brand doth light.

Then muse not, Nymphs, though I bemoan

The absence of fair Rosalynd;

Since for her fair there's fairer none,

Nor for her virtues so divine.

Heigh ho! fair Rosalynd!

Heigh ho! my heart, would God that she were mine!

THE HARMONY OF LOVE

A very phoenix, in her radiant eyes

I leave mine age, and get my life again; True Hesperus, I watch her fall and rise,

And with my tears extinguish all my pain; My lips for shadows shield her springing roses,

Mine eyes for watchmen guard her while she sleepeth, My reasons serve to 'quite her faint supposes;

Her fancy, mine; my faith her fancy keepeth ;
She fower, I branch; her sweet my sour supporteth,
O happy Love, where such delights consorteth !

PHILLIS' SICKNESS.

How languisheth the primrose of Love's garden!
How trill her tears the clixir 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 covered; If heat or cold may mitigate your anguish,

I'll burn, I'll freeze, but you shall be recovered.
Good God! would Beauty mark, now she is crazed,
How but one shower of sickness makes her tender,
Her judgments, then, to mark my woes amazed,

To mercy should opinion's fort surrender;
And I, oh! would I might, or would she meant it!
Should harry love, who now in heart lament it.

LOVE'S WANTONNESS.

Love guides the roses of thy lips,
And flies about them like a bee;
If I approach he forward skips,
And if I kiss he stingeth me.

Love in thine eyes doth build his bower,
And sleeps within their pretty shine,
And if I look the boy will lower,

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 lowers,
Then I will praise thy deity.

WILLIAM WARNER.

[WILLIAM WARNER was born in Oxfordshire about the middle of the sixteenth century, and died on the 9th of March, 1609, at Amwell. His chief work is Albion's England, 1586. It was at first prohibited, for reasons unknown, but afterwards became very popular. He perhaps translated the Menaechmi of Plautus 1595; and certainly wrote a prose collection of moralized stories, entitled Syrinx, 1597-]

Warner's chief and only poetical work is Albion's England, a curious medley of partly traditional history, with interludes of the fabliau kind. By some accident it has, since the author's death, secured an audience, not indeed wide, but much wider than that enjoyed by the work of contemporaries of far greater power. The pastoral episode of Argentile and Curan hit the taste of the eighteenth century, and Chalmers reprinted the whole poem in his Poets, very injudiciously following Ellis in dividing the fourteen-syllable lines into eights and sixes. In this form much of it irresistibly reminds the reader of Johnson's injurious parody of that metre: but in the original editions it appears to much greater advantage. The ascending and descending slope of the long lines is often managed with a good deal of art; and as the following extract, giving the speeches of Harold and William before Hastings, will show, there is sometimes dignity in the sentiments and vigour in their expression. The author is too prone to adopt classical constructions, especially absolute cases, which often throw obscurity over his meaning. Warner is not, as he has been called, a 'good, honest, plain writer of moral rules and precepts'; nor is his work, as another authority asserts, 'written in Alexandrines.' But though he will not bear comparison with the better, even of the second-rate Elizabethans, such as Watson, Barnes, and Constable, much less with his fellow historians Drayton and Daniel, the singularity of the plan of his book, and some vigorous touches here and there, raise him above the mass.