1

Fierce love, alas yett lett mee rest,
Beeholde my boyling brest:
Lett mee butt slumber, if nott sleepe
Continually to weepe
Is too great a smart
To a hart
Transform'd like Niobe to watry powers
Telling howers
In drops of my misfortunes arte;

2

Cruell, alas, why doe thos eyes
Rule of the heavenly skies
Joye in my ruin? My poore streames
Flumes can nott coole your beames
For loves sacred fire
Must aspire
Transcendant to the highest powers
Telling howers
In flames of my consuming fire,

3

1

Have I lost my liberty,
And my selfe, and all, for thee
O Love?
Yet wilt thou no favour give
In my losse thy blame will live;
Alas remove.
2

Pitie claimes a just reward,
But proud thoughts are thy best guard
Once smile:
Glory tis to save a life
When deceivers are in strife
Which to beguile.

3

Love farewell I now discover
Thee a Tyrant o're a lover,
All thy promis'd sweets prove crosses,
Thy rewards are only losses.

A pritty thing I did deeme thee,
Innocent, and mild esteeme thee,
But I find thee as curst matter
As a swelling high wrought water.

Cupids name a pleasant folly
Hath beguiled hearts most holly,

Deare, though unconstant, these I send to you
As witnesses, that still my Love is true.
Receive these Lines as Images of Death,
That beare the Infants of my latest breath,
And to my tryumph, though I dye in woe,
With welcome glory, since you will it so,
Especially, my ending is the lesse,
When I Examples see of my distresse.
As Dido , one whose misery was had
By Love, for which shee in Deathes robes was clad;
Yet lost shee lesse then I, for I possest
And love enjoy'd, she lik'd, what was profest
Most cruell, and the death-lik'st kind of ill,

Love among the clouds did hover
Seeking where to spie a lover:
In the Court he none could find,
Townes too meane were in that kind,
At last as he was ripe to crying,
In Forrest woods he found one lying

Under-neath a tree fast sleeping,
Spirit of Love her body keeping,
Where the soule of Cupid lay
Though he higher then did stay,

Pray thee Diana tell mee, is it ill,
As some doe say, thou think'st it is, to love?
Me thinks thou pleased art with what I prove,
Since joyfull light thy dwelling still doth fill.

Thou seemst not angry, but with cheerefull smiles
Beholdst my Passions; chaste indeed thy face
Doth seeme, and so doth shine, with glorious grace;
For other loves, the trust of Love beguiles.

Be bright then still, most chast and cleerest Queene,

Dialogue
Sheapherd, and Sheapherdess
She: Deare how doe thy wining eyes
My sences wholy ty?
Sh 2: Sence of sight wherin most lies
Chang, and variety,
She: Chang in mee?
Sh 2: Choyse in thee some new delights to try;
She: When I chang, or chuse butt thee
Then changed bee mine eyes;
Sh 2: When you absent see nott mee
Will you nott breake thes tyes?

Silvesta:
Silent woods with desarts shade
Giving peace
Wher all pleasures first ar made
To increase,
Give your favor to my mone
Now my loving time is gone.

Chastity my pleasure is
Folly fled
From hence now I seeke my blis
Cross love dead,
In your shadows I repose
You then love I now have chose.

Musella:
Choise ill made were better left,
Beeing cross
Of such choise to bee bereft
Were no loss,

LOVE SONG

From the Icelandic

I was a sea-gull flying north
In the wrong season's
Distress; some fear had cast me forth
And some malfeasance.
The wind conveyed me past control;
My plumes were slanted;
To dash myself against the Pole
Was all I wanted.
My brain was frozen in my head,
My iris blinded;
To be destroyed and quickly dead
Was all I minded;
To dash my body on the ice
In shining splinters
And pile it with a century's
Contiguous winters.
I saw a lighthouse looking out

We travelled in the print of olden wars,
Yet all the land was green,
And love we found, and peace,
Where fire and war had been.

They pass and smile, the children of the sword —
No more the sword they wield;
And O, how deep the corn
Along the battle-field!1 From Travels with a Donkey .