Ere yet the dawn
Pushed rosy fingers up the arch of day
And smiled its promise to the voiceless prime,
Love sat and patterns wove at life's swift loom.
He flung the suns into the soundless arch,
Appointed them their courses in the deep,
To keep His great time-harmonies and blaze
As beacons in the ebon fields of night.
Love balanced them and held them firm and true,
Poised 'twixt attractive and repulsive drift
Amid the throngs of heaven. What though this power
Was ever known to us as gravity,
Its first and last celestial name is Love.

Take Time while Time doth last,
Mark how Fair fadeth fast,
Beware if Envy reign,
Take heed of proud Disdain.
Hold fast now in thy youth,
Regard thy vowed Truth,
Lest when thou waxeth old
Friends fail and Love grow cold.

Love's a fever of the mind,
'Tis a grief that none can cure
Till the nymph you love prove kind:
She can give you ease again,
She can best remove the pain
Which you for her endure.

Be not ever, then, repining,
Sighing, denying, canting, whining;
Spend not time in vain pursuing;
If she does not love you—make her;
If she loves you—then forsake her;
'Tis the modish way of wooing.

The whiles some one did chaunt this lovely lay;
Ah see, who so faire thing doest faine to see,
In springing flowre the image of thy day;
Ah see the Virgin Rose, how sweetly shee
Doth first peepe forth with bashfull modestee,
That fairer seemes, the lesse ye see her may;
Lo see soone after, how more bold and free
Her bared bosome she doth broad display;
Loe see soone after, how she fades, and falles away.
So passeth, in the passing of a day,
Of mortall life the leafe, the bud, the flowre,
Ne more doth flourish after first decay,

Perfect love the Father giveth,
Full of grace so rich and free,
Like the rain or dew of morning
Falling now on you and me.

Perfect love is born in Jesus,
Naught of self can victory gain,
Till we find it all in Jesus
All our efforts prove but vain.

Perfect love will never falter
Perfect love will never fear,
And when the days are dark and stormy
Perfect love will always cheer.

Perfect love will never slander,
Friend or foe where e'er they go;
But will raise a fallen brother,
And will take his seat below.

You, who ending never saw
Of pleasures best delighting,
You that cannot wish a thaw.
Who feeles no frost of spighting,
Keeping Cupids hand in awe,
That sees but by your lighting.
Bee not still too cruell bent
Against a soule distressed,
Whose heart love long since hath rent,
And pittilesse oppressed:
But let malice now be spent,
And former ills redressed.
Grieve I doe for what is past,
Let favour then be granted,
Theeves by judgement to dye cast,
Have not of mercy wanted;
But alone at feasts I fast,
As Chiefe of pleasure scanted:

You powers divine of love-commanding eyes,
Within whose lids are kept the fires of love;
Close not your selves to ruine me, who lies
In bands of death, while you in darkenesse move.

One looke doth give a sparck to kindle flames
To burne my heart, a martyr to your might,
Receiving one kind smile I find new frames
For love, to build me wholly to your light.

My soule doth fixe all thoughts upon your will,
Gazing unto amazement, greedy how
To see those blessed lights of loves-heaven, bow
Themselves on wretched me, who else they kill.

When lovely woman wants a favor,
And finds, too late, that man wont bend,
What earthly circumstance can save her
From disappointment in the end?

The only way to bring him over,
The last experiment to try,
Whether a husband or a lover,
If he have feeling, is, to cry!

When I with trembling aske if you love still,
My soule afflicted lest I give offence,
Though sensibly discerning my worst ill;
Yet rather then offend, with griefe dispence.

Faintly you say you must; poore recompence
When gratefull love is fore, I see the hill
Which marres my prospect love, and Oh from thence
I tast, and take of losse the poison'd pill.

While one coale lives, the rest dead all about
That still is fire: so your love now burnd out
Tells what you were, though to deceiving led.

The Sunne in Summer, and in Winter shewes

It was a dreamer, lying at his ease,
Beneath the blossom-heavy apple-trees.
Then seemed it there came near his rose-hid haunt
A way-worn figure, hollow-eyed and gaunt,
With gaze forever fixed upon the ground,
As seeking for his grave with sighs profound.
The beaded drops stood on his brow like dew:
And ever and anon his palm he drew
Across his temples, as if thought opprest,
By bitter memories that refused him rest.
His name was Care. He was an abject wight,
At whom the youthful dreamer laughed outright,
And raised his scornful eyes as if to say—