Strength stoops unto the grave:
Worms feed on Hector brave;
Swords may not fight with fate :
Earth still holds ope her gate.
Come, come, the bells do cry ;

I am sick, I must die.

Lord have mercy on us!

Wit with his wantonness,
Tasteth death's bitterness.
Hell's executioner

Hath no ears for to hear
What vain art can reply;

I am sick, I must die.

Lord have mercy on us!

Haste therefore each degree
To welcome destiny:
Heaven is our heritage,
Earth but a player's stage.

Mount we unto the sky ;

I am sick, I must die.

Lord have mercy on us!

W

From The Two Gentlemen of
Verona.

SILVIA.

'HO is Silvia? what is she,

That all our swains commend her?

Holy, fair, and wise is she;

The heaven such grace did lend her, That she might admired be.

Is she kind as she is fair?

For beauty lives with kindness. Love doth to her eyes repair,

To help him of his blindness;
And, being helped, inhabits there.

Then to Silvia let us sing,
That Silvia is excelling;
She excels each mortal thing,
Upon the dull earth dwelling:
To her let us garlands bring.

From Love's Labour's Lost.

THE RHYME OF WHITE AND RED.

F she be made of white and red,

IF

Her faults will ne'er be known,

For blushing cheeks by faults are bred,
And fears by pale white shown :
Then if she fear, or be to blame,
By this you shall not know,
For still her cheeks possess the same,
Which native she doth owe.1

1 An old form of "own."

IF

BIRON'S CANZONET.

F love make me forsworn, how shall I swear to love? Ah, never faith could hold, if not to beauty vowed! Though to myself forsworn, to thee I'll faithful prove ; Those thoughts to me were oaks, to thee like osiers

bowed.

Study his bias leaves, and makes his book thine eyes, Where all those pleasures live that art would com

prehend;

If knowledge be the mark, to know thee shall suffice; Well learned is that tongue that well can thee commend,

All ignorant that soul that sees thee without wonder; (Which is to me some praise, that I thy parts admire ;) Thy eye Jove's lightning bears, thy voice his dreadful thunder,

Which, not to anger bent, is music, and sweet fire. Celestial as thou art, oh, pardon love this wrong,

That sings heaven's praise with such an earthly tongue!

S°

THE LOVER'S TEARS.

the rose,

O sweet a kiss the golden sun gives not To those fresh morning drops upon As thy eye-beams, when their fresh rays have smote The night of dew that on my cheeks down flows: Nor shines the silver moon one half so bright

Through the transparent bosom of the deep, As doth thy face through tears of mine give light: Thou shinest in every tear that I do weep;

No drop but as a coach doth carry thee,

So ridest thou triumphing in my woe:

Do but behold the tears that swell in me,

And they thy glory through my grief will show : But do not love thyself; then thou wilt keep My tears for glasses, and still make me weep. O'queen of queens, how far dost thou excel! No thought can think, nor tongue of mortal tell.

PERJURY EXCUSED.

ID not the heavenly rhetoric of thine eye,

DID

'Gainst whom the world cannot hold argument,

Persuade my heart to this false perjury?

Vows for thee broke deserve not punishment.

A woman I forswore; but I will prove,

Thou being a goddess, I forswore not thee: My vow was earthly, thou a heavenly love;

Thy grace being gained cures all disgrace in me. Vows are but breath, and breath a vapour is :

Then thou, fair sun, which on my earth dost shine, Exhalest this vapour-vow; in thee it is:

If broken then, it is no fault of mine: If by me broke, what fool is not so wise To lose an oath to win a paradise?