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WHAT Course of life should wretched mortals take?
In books hard questions large contention make.
Care dwells in houses, labour in the field;
Tumultuous seas affrighting dangers yield.
In foreign lands thou never canst be blest:
If rich, thou art in fear; if poor, distress'd.
In wedlock frequent discontentments swell;
Unmarried persons as in deserts dwell.
How many troubles are with children born!
Yet he that wants them counts himself forlorn.
Young men are wanton, and of wisdom void;
Grey hairs are cold, unfit to be employ'd.
Who would not one of these two offers try,
Not to be born; or, being born, to die?

CHERRIES.

My wanton, weep no more
The losing of your cherries;
Those, and far sweeter berries,
Your sister, in good store,

Hath in her lips and face;

Be glad, kiss her with me, and hold your peace.

ICARUS.

WHILE with audacious wings,

I cleav'd those airy ways,

And fill'd (a monster new) with dread and fears,
The feather'd people and their eagle kings:
Dazzled with Phoebus' rays,

And charmed with the music of the spheres,
When quills could move no more, and force did fail,
Though down I fell from Heaven's high azure bounds;
Yet doth renown my losses countervail,

For still the shore my brave attempt resounds.
A sea, an element doth bear my name;
What mortal's tomb's so great in place or fame?

MADRIGALS AND EPIGRAMS.

THE STATUE OF MEDUSA.

Or that Medusa strange,

Who those that did her see in rocks did change,
No image carv'd is this:
Medusa's self it is:

For while at heat of day

To quench her thirst she by this spring did stay,
Her hideous head beholding in this glass,
Her senses fail'd, and thus transform'd she was.

THE PORTRAIT OF MARS AND VENUS.

FAIR Paphos' wanton queen
(Not drawn in white and red)

Is truly here, as when in Vulcan's bed

She was of all Heaven's laughing senate seen.
Gaze on her hair, and eine,

Her brows, the bows of Love,
Her back with lilies spread:

Ye also might perceive her turn and move,
But that she neither so will do, nor dare,
For fear to wake the angry god of war.

NARCISSUS.

ON HIS LADY BEHOLDING HERSELF IN A MARBLE.
WORLD, Wonder not, that I

Keep in my breast engraven

That angel's face hath me of rest bereaven.
See, dead and senseless things cannot deny

To lodge so dear a guest:

Ev'n this hard marble stone

Receives the same, and loves, but cannot groan.

TO SLEEP.

How comes it, Sleep, that thou

Even kisses me affords

Of her, dear her, so far who 's absent now?
How did I hear those words,

Which rocks might move, and move the pines to bow?
Ah me! before half day

Why didst thou steal away?

Return, I thine for ever will remain,

If thou wilt bring with thee that guest again.

A PLEASANT DECEIT.

OVER a crystal source
Jolas laid his face,

Of purling streams to see the restless course.
But scarce he had o'ershadowed the place,
When in the water he a child espies,

So like himself in stature, face and eyes,

That glad he rose, and cried,

"Dear mates approach, see whom I have descried,

FLOODS cannot quench my flames, ah! in this well The boy of whom strange stories shepherds tell, I burn, not drown, for what I cannot tell.

Oft called Hylas, dwelleth in this well."

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WHEN her dear bosom clips

That little cur which fawns to touch her lips,
Or when it is his hap

To lie lapp'd in her lap,
O it grows noon with me;
With hotter-pointed beams

I burn, than those are which the Sun forth streams,
When piercing lightning his rays call'd may be;
And as I muse how I to those extremes
Am brought, I find no cause, except that she,

In love's bright zodiack having trac'd each room,
To the hot dog-star now at last is come.

AN ALMANACK.

THIS strange eclipse one says
Strange wonders doth foretel;
But you whose wives excel,
And love to count their praise,

Shut all your gates, your hedges plant with thorns,
The Sun did threat the world this time with horns.

THE SILK-WORM OF LOVE.

A DEDALE of my death

Now I resemble that sly worm on earth,

Which prone to its own harm doth take no rest: For day and night opprest,

I feed on fading leaves

Of hope, which me deceives,

And thousand webs do warp within my breast: And thus in end unto myself I weave

A fast-shut prison, or a closer grave.

ON THE DEATH OF A LINNET.

Ir cruel death had ears,

This wing'd musician bad liv'd many years,
Or could be pleas'd by songs,
And Nisa mine had never wept these wrongs:
For when it first took breath,

The Heavens their notes did unto it bequeath:
And if that Samian's sentences be true,
Amphion in this body lived anew.

But Death, who nothing spares, and nothing hears,
As he doth kings, kill'd it, O grief! O tears!

LILLA'S PRAYER.

"LOVE, if thou wilt once more

That I to thee return,

Sweet god! make me not burn

For quivering age, that doth spent days deplore. Nor do thou wound my heart

For some inconstant boy,

Who joys to love, yet makes of love a toy.
But, ah! if I must prove thy golden dart,
Of grace, O let me find

A sweet young lover with an aged mind.”
Thus Lilla pray'd, and Idas did reply,

(Who heard) "Dear, have thy wish, for such am I."

ARMELIN'S EPITAPH.

NEAR to this eglantine

Enclosed lies the milk-white Armeline;
Once Cloris' only joy,

Now only her annoy;

Who envied was of the most happy swains

That keep their flocks in mountains, dales, or plains:
For oft she bore the wanton in her arm,
And oft her bed and bosom did he warm ;
Now when unkinder fates did him destroy,
Blest dog, he had the grace,

That Cloris for him wet with tears her face.

EPITAPH.

The bawd of justice, he who laws controll'd,
And made them fawn and frown as he got gold,
That Proteus of our state, whose heart and mouth
Were farther distant than is north from south,
That cormorant who made himself so gross
On people's ruin, and the prince's loss,
Is gone to Hell; and though he here did evil,
He there perchance my prove an honest devil.

A TRANSLATION.

FIERCE robbers were of old

Exil'd the champaign ground,

From hamlets chas'd, in cities kill'd, or bound, And only woods, caves, mountains, did them hold: But now, when all is sold,

Woods, mountains, caves, to good men be refuge, And do the guiltless lodge,

And clad in purple gowns

The greatest thieves command within the towns.

EPITAPH.

THEN Death thee hath beguil'd,
Alecto's first born child;

Then thou who thrall'd all laws,

Now against worms cannot maintain thy cause:
Yet worms (more just than thou) now do no wrong,
Since all do wonder they thee spar'd so long;
For though from life thou didst but lately pass,
Twelve springs are gone since thou corrupted was.
Come, citizens, erect to Death an altar,
Who keeps you from axe, fuel, timber, halter.

A JEST.

In a most holy church, a holy man,
Unto a holy saint with visage wan,

And eyes like fountains, mumbled forth a prayer,
And with strange words and sighs made black the air.
And having long so stay'd, and long long pray'd,
A thousand crosses on himself he laid;
And with some sacred beads hung on his arm,
His eyes, his mouth, his temples, breast did charm.
Thus not content (strange worship hath no end)
To kiss the earth at last he did pretend,
And bowing down besought with humble grace,
An aged woman near to give some place:
She turn'd, and turning up her hole beneath,
Said, "Sir, kiss here, for it is all but earth."

PAMPHILUS.

SOME ladies wed, some love, and some adore them, I like their wanton sport, then care not for them.

APELLES ENAMOURED OF CAMPASPE, ALEXANDER'S MISTRESS.

POOR painter while I sought

To counterfeit by art

The fairest frame which Nature ever wrought,
And having limn'd each part,
Except her matchless eyes:
Scarce on those suns I gaz'd,
As lightning falls from skies,

When straight my hand grew weak,my mind amaz'd,
And ere that pencil half them had express'd,
Love had them drawn, no, grav'd them in my breast,

CAMPASPE.

ON stars shall I exclaim,

Which thus my fortune change,
Or shall I else revenge

Upon myself this shame,

Inconstant monarch, or shall I thee blame
Who lets Apelles prove

The sweet delights of Alexander's love?

No, stars, myself, and thee, I all forgive,
And joy that thus I live ;

Of thee, blind king, my beauty was despis'd,
Thou didst not know it, now being known 'tis priz'd.

CORNUCOPIA.

If for one only horn,
Which Nature to him gave,
So famous is the noble unicorn;
What praise should that man have,
Whose head a lady brave

Doth with a goodly pair at once adorn?

LOVE SUFFERS NO PARASOL.

THOSE eyes, dear eyes, be spheres
Where two bright suns are roll'd,
That fair hand to behold,
Of whitest snow appears:
Then while ye coyly stand
To hide me from those eyes,
Sweet, I would you advise

To choose some other fan than that white hand;
For if ye do, for truth most true this know,
Those suns ere long must needs consume warm snow.

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PHRENE.

AONIAN sisters, help my Phræne's praise to tell, Phræne, heart of my heart, with whom the graces

dwell;

snow,

For I surcharged am so sore that I not know What first to praise of her, her breast, or neck of [eyes, Her cheeks with roses spread, or her two sun-like Her teeth of brightest pearl, her lips where sweetness lies: [forth, But those so praise themselves, being to all eyes set That, Muses, ye need not to say aught of their worth; Then her white swelling paps essay for to make known, [are shown; But her white swelling paps through smallest veil Yet she hath something else, more worthy than the rest,

Not seen; go sing of that which lies beneath her breast, And mounts like fair Parnasse, where Pegase well doth run

Here Phræne stay'd my Muse ere she had well begun.

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KISSES DESIRED.

THOUGH I with strange desire

To kiss those rosy lips am set on fire,

Yet will I cease to crave

Sweet kisses in such store,

As he who long before

In thousands them from Lesbia did receive: Sweetheart, but once me kiss,

And I by that sweet bliss

Even swear to cease you to importune more;
Poor one no number is;

Another word of me ye shall not hear
After one kiss, but still one kiss, my dear.

KALA'S COMPLAINT.

KALA, old Mopsus' wife,

Kala with fairest face,

For whom the neighbour swains oft were at strife,
As she to milk her snowy flock did tend,
Sigh'd with a heavy grace,

And said, "What wretch like me doth lead her life?
I see not how my task shall have an end:

All day I draw these streaming dugs in fold,
All night my empty husband's soft and cold."

PHILLIS.

DESIRED DEATH.

DEAR life, while I do touch

These coral ports of bliss,

Which still themselves do kiss,

And sweetly me invite to do as much,

All panting in my lips,

My heart my life doth leave,

No sense my senses have,

And inward powers do find a strange eclipse: This death so heavenly well

Doth so me please, that I

Would never longer seek in sense to dwell, If that even thus I only could but die.

IN petticoat of green,
Her hair about her eine,
Phillis, beneath an oak,

Sat milking her fair flock:

'Mongst that sweet-strained moisture (rare delight) Her hand seem'd milk, in milk it was so white.

A WISH.

To forge to mighty Jove
The thunderbolts above,
Nor on this round below

Rich Midas' skill to know,

And make all gold I touch,

PHOEBE.

IF for to be alone, and all the night to wander, Maids can prove chaste, then chaste is Phoebe without slander.

Do I desire; it is for me too much:

Of all the arts practis'd beneath the sky, I would but Phillis' lapidary be.

ANSWER.

FOOL, still to be alone, all night in Heaven to wander, Would make the wanton chaste, then she's chaste without slander.

NISA.

NISA, Palemon's wife, him weeping told
He kept not grammer rules, now being old;
For why, quoth she, position false make ye,
Putting a short thing where a long should be.

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