When setting to their lips their little beugles shrill The warbling echoes waked from every dale and hill: Their bauldricks set with studs, athwart their shoulders cast,

To which under their arms their sheafs were buckled fast,

A short sword at their belt, a buckler scarce a span,
Who struck below the knee, not counted then a man:
All made of Spanish yew, their bows were wond'rous
strong;

They not an arrow drew, but was a cloth yard long.
Of archery they had the very perfect craft,
With broad-arrow, or but, or prick, or roving shaft,
At marks full forty score, they used to prick, and rove,
Yet higher than the breast, for compass never strove;
Yet at the farthest mark a foot could hardly win:
At long-buts, short, and hoyles, each one could cleave
the pin:

Their arrows finely pair'd, for timber, and for feather,
With birch and brazil pieced, to fly in any weather;
And shot they with the round, the square, or forked
pile,

The foose gave such a twang, as might be heard a mile. And of these archers brave, there was not any one, But he could kill a deer his swiftest speed upon, Which they did boil and roast, in many a mighty wood,

Sharp hunger the fine sauce to their more kingly food. Then taking them to rest, his merry men and he Slept many a summer's night under the greenwood

tree.

From wealthy abbots' chests, and churls' abundant store,

What oftentimes he took, he shared amongst the poor:
No lordly bishop came in lusty Robin's way,

To him before he went, but for his pass must pay :
The widow in distress he graciously relieved,
And remedied the wrongs of many a virgin grieved:
He from the husband's bed no married woman wan,
But to his mistress dear, his loved Marian,
Was ever constant known, which wheresoe'er she

came,

Was sovereign of the woods, chief lady of the game: Her clothes tuck'd to the knee, and dainty braided hair,

With bow and quiver arm'd, she wander'd here and there

Amongst the forests wild; Diana never knew
Such pleasures, nor such harts as Mariana slew.'

[David and Goliah.]

And now before young David could come in,
The host of Israel somewhat doth begin
To rouse itself; some climb the nearest tree,
And some the tops of tents, whence they might see
How this unarmed youth himself would bear
Against the all-armed giant (which they fear):
Some get up to the fronts of easy hills;
That by their motion a vast murmur fills
The neighbouring valleys, that the enemy thought
Something would by the Israelites be wrought
They had not heard of, and they longed to see
What strange and warlike stratagem, 't should be.
When soon they saw a goodly youth descend,
Himself alone, none after to attend,
That at his need with arms might him supply,
As merely careless of his enemy:
His head uncovered, and his locks of hair
As he came on being played with by the air,
Tossed to and fro, did with such pleasure move,
As they had been provocatives for love:
His sleeves stript up above his elbows were,
And in his hand a stiff short staff did bear,
Which by the leather to it, and the string,
They easily might discern to be a sling.

Suiting to these he wore a shepherd's scrip,
Which from his side hung down upon his hip.
Those for a champion that did him disdain,
Cast with themselves what such a thing should mean ;
Some seeing him so wonderously fair

(As in their eyes he stood beyond compare),
Their verdict gave that they had sent him sure
As a choice bait their champion to allure;
Others again, of judgment more precise,
Said they had sent him for a sacrifice.
And though he seemed thus to be very young,
Yet was he well proportioned and strong,
And with a comely and undaunted grace,
Holding a steady and most even pace,
This way nor that way, never stood to gaze;
But like a man that death could not amaze,
Came close up to Goliah, and so near
As he might easily reach him with his spear.

Which when Goliah saw, 'Why, boy,' quoth he,
'Thou desperate youth, thou tak'st me sure to be
Some dog, I think, and under thy command,
That thus art come to beat me with a wand:
The kites and ravens are not far away,
Nor beasts of ravine, that shall make a prey
Of a poor corpse, which they from me shall have,
And their foul bowels shall be all thy grave.'

'Uncircumcised slave,' quoth David then, That for thy shape, the monster art of men; Thou thus in brass comest arm'd into the field, And thy huge spear of brass, of brass thy shield: I in the name of Israel's God alone, That more than mighty, that eternal One, Am come to meet thee, who bids not to fear, Nor once respect the arms that thou dost bear, Slave, mark the earth whereon thou now dost stand, I'll make thy length to measure so much land, As thou liest grov'ling, and within this hour The birds and beasts thy carcase shall devour.' In meantime David looking in his face, Between his temples, saw how large a space He was to hit, steps back a yard or two: The giant wond'ring what the youth would do: Whose nimble hand out of his scrip doth bring A pebble-stone and puts it in his sling; At which the giant openly doth jeer, And as in scorn, stands leaning on his spear, Which gives young David much content to see, And to himself thus secretly saith he: 'Stand but one minute still, stand but so fast, And have at all Philistia at a cast.' Then with such sleight the shot away be sent, That from his sling as 't had been lightning went ; And him so full upon the forehead smit, Which gave a crack, when his thick scalp it hit, As't had been thrown against some rock or post, That the shrill clap was heard through either host. Staggering awhile upon his spear he leant, Till on a sudden he began to faint; When down he came, like an old o'ergrown oak, His huge root hewn up by the labourers' stroke, That with his very weight he shook the ground; His brazen armour gave a jarring sound Like a crack'd bell, or vessel chanced to fall From some high place, which did like death appal The proud Philistines (hopeless that remain), To see their champion, great Goliah, slain : When such a shout the host of Israel gave, As cleft the clouds; and like to men that rave (O'ercome with comfort) cry, The boy, the boy! Ò the brave David, Israel's only joy! God's chosen champion! O most wondrous thing! The great Goliah slain with a poor sling!' Themselves encompass, nor can they contain ; Now are they silent, then they shout again. Of which no notice David seems to take, But towards the body of the dead doth make,

With a fair comely gait; nor doth he run,
As though he gloried in what he had done;
But treading on the uncircumcised dead,
With his foot strikes the helmet from his head;
Which with the sword ta'en from the giant's side,
He from the body quickly doth divide.

Now the Philistines, at this fearful sight,
Leaving their arins, betake themselves to flight,
Quitting their tents, nor dare a minute stay;
Time wants to carry any thing away,
Being strongly routed with a general fear;
Yet in pursuit Saul's army strikes the rear
To Ekron walls, and slew them as they fled,
That Sharam's plains lay cover'd with the dead :
And having put the Philistines to foil,
Back to the tents retire and take the spoil
Of what they left; and ransacking, they cry,
'A David, David, and the victory!'

When straightway Saul his general, Abner, sent For valiant David, that incontinent He should repair to court; at whose command He comes along, and beareth in his hand The giant's head, by the long hair of his crown, Which by his active knee hung dangling down. And through the army as he comes along, To gaze upon him the glad soldiers throng: Some do instyle him Israel's only light, And other some the valiant Bethlemite. With congees all salute him as he past, And upon him their gracious glances cast: He was thought base of him that did not boast, Nothing but David, David, through the host. The virgins to their timbrels frame their lays Of him; till Saul grew jealous of his praise.

EDWARD FAIRFAX.

The celebrated translation of Tasso's Jerusalem, by EDWARD FAIRFAX, was made in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and dedicated to that princess, who was proud of patronising learning, but not very lavish in its support. The poetical beauty and freedom of Fairfax's version has been the theme of almost universal praise. Dryden ranked him with Spenser as a master of our language, and Waller said he derived from him the harmony of his numbers. Collins has finely alluded to his poetical and imaginative genius

Prevailing poet, whose undoubting mind Believed the magic wonders which he sung! The date of Fairfax's birth is unknown. He was the natural son of Sir Thomas Fairfax of Denton, in Yorkshire, and spent his life at Fuystone, in the forest of Knaresborough, in the enjoyment of many blessings which rarely befall the poetical race-competence, ease, rural scenes, and an ample command of the means of study. He wrote a work on Demonology, which is still in manuscript, and in the preface to it he states, that in religion he was neither a fantastic Puritan, nor a superstitious Papist.' He also wrote a series of eclogues, one of which was published in 1741, in Cooper's Muses' Library, but it is puerile and absurd. Fairfax was living in 1631, but the time of his death has not been recorded.

[Description of Armida and her Enchanted Girdle.] And with that word she smiled, and ne'ertheless Her love-toys still she used, and pleasures bold: Her hair (that done) she twisted up intress, And looser locks in silken laces roll'd; Her curls, garland-wise, she did up dress, Wherein, like rich enamel laid on gold,

The twisted flow'rets smil'd, and her white breast The lilies there that spring with roses drest.

The jolly peacock spreads not half so fair
The eyed feathers of his pompous train;
Nor golden Iris so bends in the air

Her twenty-coloured bow, through clouds of rain :
Yet all her ornaments, strange, rich, and rare,
Her girdle did in price and beauty stain;
Not that, with scorn, which Tuscan Guilla lost,
Nor Venus' cestus could match this for cost.
Of mild denays, of tender scorns, of sweet
Repulses, war, peace, hope, despair, joy, fear;
Of smiles, jests, mirth, woe, grief, and sad regret ;
Sighs, sorrows, tears, embracements, kisses dear,
That, mixed first, by weight and measures meet;
Then, at an easy fire, attempered were ;
This wondrous girdle did Armida frame,
And, when she would be loved, wore the same.

[Rinaldo at Mount Olivet and the Enchanted Wood.] It was the time, when 'gainst the breaking day, Rebellious night yet strove, and still repined, For in the east appear'd the morning grey, And yet some lamps in Jove's high palace shined, When to Mount Olivet he took his way, And saw, as round about his eyes he twined, Night's shadows hence, from thence the morning's shine, This bright, that dark; that earthly, this divine. Thus to himself he thought: how many bright And 'splendent lamps shine in heaven's temple high! Day hath his golden sun, her moon the night, Her fix'd and wand'ring stars the azure sky; So framed all by their Creator's might, That still they live and shine, and ne'er will die, Till in a moment, with the last day's brand They burn, and with them burn sea, air, and land. Thus as he mused, to the top he went, And there kneel'd down with reverence and fear; His eyes upon heaven's eastern face he bent; His thoughts above all heavens uplifted wereThe sins and errors which I now repent, Of my unbridled youth, O Father dear, Remember not, but let thy mercy fall And purge my faults and my offences all. Thus prayed he; with purple wings up-flew, In golden weed, the morning's lusty queen, Begilding with the radiant beams she threw, His helm, the harness, and the mountain green : Upon his breast and forehead gently blew The air, that balm and nardus breath'd unseen; And o'er his head, let down from clearest skies, A cloud of pure and precious dew there flies. The heavenly dew was on his garments spread, To which compar'd, his clothes pale ashes seem, And sprinkled so that all that paleness fled, And thence of purest white bright rays outstream: With the sweet comfort of the morning beam; So cheered are the flowers, late withered, And so return'd to youth, a serpent old Adorns herself in new and native gold. The lovely whiteness of his changed weed The prince perceived well and long admired; Toward the forest march'd he on with speed, Resolv'd, as such adventures great required: Thither he came, whence, shrinking back for dread Of that strange desert's sight, the first retired; But not to him fearful or loathsome made That forest was, but sweet with pleasant shade. Forward he pass'd, and in the grove before,

He heard a sound, that strange, sweet, pleasing was;
There roll'd a crystal brook with gentle roar,
There sigh'd the winds, as through the leaves they pass;
There sang the swan, and singing died, alas!
There lute, harp, cittern, human voice he heard,
And all these sounds one sound right well declared.

A dreadful thunder-clap at last he heard,
The aged trees and plants well nigh, that rent,
Yet heard the nymphs and syrens afterward,
Birds, winds, and waters sing with sweet consent;
Whereat amazed, he stay'd and well prepar'd
For his defence, heedful and slow forth-went,
Nor in his way his passage ought withstood,
Except a quiet, still, transparent flood:

On the green banks, which that fair stream inbound,
Flowers and odours sweetly smil'd and smell'd,
Which reaching out his stretched arms around,
All the large desert in his bosom held,

And through the grove one channel passage found;
This in the wood, that in the forest dwell'd:
Trees clad the streams, streams green those trees aye
made,

And so exchang'd their moisture and their shade.

SIR JOHN HARRINGTON.

The first translator of Ariosto into English was SIR JOHN HARRINGTON, a courtier of the reign of Elizabeth, and also god-son of the queen. He was the son of John Harrington, Esq., the poet already noticed. Sir John wrote a collection of epigrams, and a Brief View of the Church, in which he reprobates the marriage of bishops. He is supposed to have died about the year 1612. The translation from Ariosto is poor and prosaic, but some of his epigrams are pointed.

Of Treason.

Treason doth never prosper; what's the reason? For if it prosper none dare call it treason.

Of Fortune.

Fortune, men say, doth give too much to many, But yet she never gave enough to any.

Against Writers that carp at other Men's Books. The readers and the hearers like my books, But yet some writers cannot them digest; But what care I? for when I make a feast

I would my guests should praise it, not the cooks.

Of a Precise Tailor.

A tailor, thought a man of upright dealing-
True, but for lying-honest, but for stealing,
Did fall one day extremely sick by chance,
And on the sudden was in wondrous trance;
The fiends of hell mustering in fearful manner,
Of sundry colour'd silks display'd a banner
Which he had stolen, and wish'd, as they did tell,
That he might find it all one day in hell.
The man, affrighted with this apparition,
Upon recovery grew a great precisian :
He bought a bible of the best translation,
And in his life he show'd great reformation;
He walked mannerly, he talked meekly,

He heard three lectures and two sermons weekly;
He vow'd to shun all company unruly,
And in his speech he used no oath but truly;
And zealously to keep the Sabbath's rest,
His meat for that day on the eve was drest;
And lest the custom which he had to steal
Might cause him sometimes to forget his zeal,
He gives his journeyman a special charge,
That if the stuff, allowance being large,
He found his fingers were to filch inclined,

Bid him to have the banner in his mind.
This done (I scant can tell the rest for laughter)
A captain of a ship came three days after,

Sir Henry Wotton.

to the service of the Earl of Essex, the favourite of Elizabeth, but had the sagacity to foresee the fate of that nobleman, and to elude its consequences by withdrawing in time from the kingdom. Having afterwards gained the friendship of King James, by communicating the secret of a conspiracy formed against him, while yet only king of Scotland, he was employed by that monarch, when he ascended the English throne, as ambassador to Venice. A versatile and lively mind qualified Sir Henry in an eminent degree for this situation, of the duties of which we have his own idea in the well-known punning expression, in which he defines an ambassador to be an honest gentleman sent to lie abroad for the good of his country.' He ultimately took orders, to qualify himself to be provost of Eton, in which situation he died in 1639, in the seventy-second year of his age. His writings were published in 1651, under the title of Reliquia Wottoniance; and a memoir of his very curious life has been published by Izaak Walton.

To his Mistress, the Queen of Bohemia.
You meaner beauties of the night,
That poorly satisfy our eyes
More by your number than your light!
You common people of the skies!
What are you, when the sun shall rise!
You curious chanters of the wood,

That warble forth dame Nature's lays,
Thinking your voices understood

By your weak accents! what's your praise
When Philomel her voice shall raise!

You violets that first appear,

By your pure purple mantles known,
Like the proud virgins of the year,

As if the spring were all your own!
What are you, when the rose is blown?
So, when my mistress shall be seen

In form and beauty of her mind;
By virtue first, then choice, a Queen!
Tell me, if she were not design'd
Th' eclipse and glory of her kind?

A Farewell to the Vanities of the World.
Farewell, ye gilded follies, pleasing troubles;
Farewell, ye honour'd rags, ye glorious bubbles!
Fame's but a hollow echo; gold pure clay;
Honour the darling but of one short day;
Beauty, th' eye's idol, but a damask'd skin;
State but a golden prison to live in,
And torture free-born minds; embroider'd trains
Merely but pageants for proud swelling veins;
And blood allied to greatness, is alone
Inherited, not purchased, nor our own:
Fame, honour, beauty, state, train, blood, and birth,
Are but the fading blossoms of the earth.

*

Welcome, pure thoughts, welcome, ye silent groves,
These guests, these courts, my soul most dearly loves:
Now the wing'd people of the sky shall sing
My cheerful anthems to the gladsome spring:
A prayer-book now shall be my looking-glass,
In which I will adore sweet Virtue's face.
Here dwell no hateful looks, no palace cares,
No broken vows dwell here, nor pale-faced fears:
Then here I'll sigh, and sigh my hot love's folly,
And learn t' affect an holy melancholy;
And if Contentment be a stranger then,
I'll ne'er look for it, but in heaven again.
The Character of a Happy Life.
How happy is he born and taught,
That serveth not another's will;
Whose armour is his honest thought,
And simple truth his utmost skill!
Whose passions not his masters are,
Whose soul is still prepared for death,
Untied unto the worldly care
Of public fame, or private breath;
Who envies none that chance doth raise,
Or vice; who never understood
How deepest wounds are given by praise;
Nor rules of state, but rules of good:
Who hath his life from rumours freed,
Whose conscience is his strong retreat;
Whose state can neither flatterers feed,
Nor ruin make oppressors great;
Who God doth late and early pray,
More of his grace than gifts to lend;
And entertains the harmless day
With a religious book or friend;
This man is freed from servile bands
Of hope to rise, or fear to fall;
Lord of himself, though not of lands;
And having nothing, yet hath all.

SHAKSPEARE.

SHAKSPEARE, as a writer of miscellaneous poetry, claims now to be noticed, and, with the exception of the Faery Queen, there are no poems of the reign of Elizabeth equal to those productions to which the great dramatist affixed his name. In 1593, when the poet was in his twenty-ninth year, appeared his Venus and Adonis, and in the following year his Rape of Lucrece, both dedicated to Henry

Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton. I know not,' says the modest poet, in his first dedication, how I shall offend in dedicating my unpolished lines to your lordship, nor how the world will censure me for choosing so strong a prop to support so weak a burthen; only, if your honour seem but pleased, I account myself highly praised, and vow to take advantage of all idle hours, till I have honoured you with some graver labour. But if the first heir of my invention prove deformed, I shall be sorry it had so noble a godfather, and never after ear [till] so barren a land.' The allusion to idle hours' seeins to point to the author's profession of an actor, in which capacity he had probably attracted the attention of the Earl of Southampton; but it is not so easy to understand how the Venus and Adonis was the first heir of his invention,' unless we believe that it had been written in early life, or that his dramatic labours had then been confined to the adaptation of old plays, not the writing of new ones, for the stage. There is a tradition, that the Earl of Southampton on one occasion presented Shakspeare with L.1000, to complete a purchase which he wished to make. The gift was munificent, but the sum has probably been exaggerated. The Venus and Adonis is a glowing and essentially dramatic version of the well-known mythological story, full of fine descriptive passages, but objectionable on the score of licentiousness. Warton has shown that it gave offence, at the time of its publication, on account of the excessive warmth of its colouring. The Rape of Lucrece is less animated, and is perhaps an inferior poem, though, from the boldness of its figurative expressions, and its tone of dignified pathos and reflection, it is more like the hasty sketch of a great poet.

The sonnets of Shakspeare were first printed in 1609, by Thomas Thorpe, a bookseller and publisher of the day, who prefixed to the volume the following enigmatical dedication:- To the only begetter of these ensuing sonnets, Mr W. H., all happiness and that eternity promised by our ever-living poet, wisheth the well-wishing adventurer in setting forth, T. T.' The sonnets are 154 in number. They are, with the exception of twenty-eight, addressed to some male object, whom the poet addresses in a style of affection, love, and idolatry, remarkable, even in the reign of Elizabeth, for its extravagant and enthusiastic character. Though printed continuously, it is obvious that the sonnets were written at different times, with long intervals between the dates of composition; and we know that, previous to 1598, Shakspeare had tried this species of composition, for Meres in that year alludes to his sugared sonnets among his private friends.' We almost wish, with Mr Hallam, that Shakspeare had not written these sonnets, beautiful as many of them are in language and imagery. They represent him in a character foreign to that in which we love to regard him, as modest, virtuous, self-confiding, and independent. His excessive and elaborate praise of youthful beauty in a man seems derogatory to his genius, and savours of adulation; and when we find him excuse this friend for robbing him of his mistress-a married female-and subjecting his noble spirit to all the pangs of jealousy, of guilty love, and blind misplaced attachment, it is painful and difficult to believe that all this weakness and folly can be associated with the name of Shakspeare, and still more, that he should record it in verse which he believed would descend to future ages—

Not marble, not the gilded monuments

Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme. Some of the sonnets may be written in a feigned character, and merely dramatic in expression; but

in others, the poet alludes to his profession of an actor, and all bear the impress of strong passion and deep sincerity. A feeling of premature age seems to have crept on Shakspeare

That time of year thou may'st in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou seest the twilight of such day,
As after sun-set fadeth in the west,

Which by and by black night doth take away, Death's second self, that seals up all in rest. In me thou seest the glowing of such fire, That on the ashes of his youth doth lie, As the death-bed whereon it must expire, Consum'd with that which it was nourish'd by. This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong, To love that well which thou must leave ere long. He laments his errors with deep and penitential sorrow, summoning up things past to the sessions of sweet silent thought,' and exhibiting the depths of a spirit solitary in the very vastness of its sympathies.' The W. H.' alluded to by Thorpe, the publisher, has been recently conjectured to be William Herbert, afterwards Earl of Pembroke, who (as appears from the dedication of the first folio of 1623) was one of Shakspeare's patrons. This conjecture has received the assent of Mr Hallam and others; and the author of an ingenious work on the sonnets, Mr C. Armitage Brown, has supported it with much plausibility. Herbert was in his eighteenth year, when Meres first notices the sonnets in 1598; he was learned, of literary taste, and gallant character, but of licentious life. The sonnets convey the idea, that the person to whom they were addressed was of high rank, as well as personal beauty and accomplishments. We know of only one objection to this theory-the improbability that the publisher would address William Herbert, then Earl of Pembroke, and a Knight of the Garter, as Mr W. H.' Herbert succeeded his father in the earldom in 1601, while the sonnets, as published by Thorpe, bear the date, as already stated, of 1609. The composition of these mysterious productions evinces Shakspeare's great facility in versification of a difficult order, and they display more intense feeling and passion than either of his classical poems. They have the conceits and quaint turns of expression, then common, particularly in the sonnet; but they rise to far higher flights of genuine poetry than will be found in any other poet of the day, and they contain many traces of his philosophical and reflective spirit.

[The Horse of Adonis.] Look, when a painter would surpass the life, In limning out a well-proportion'd steed, His art with Nature's workmanship at strife, As if the dead the living should exceed : So did this horse excel a common one In shape, in courage, colour, pace, and bone. Round-hoof'd, short-jointed, fetlocks shag and long, Broad breast, full eye, small head, and nostril wide, High crest, short ears, strait legs, and passing strong, Thin mane, thick tail, broad buttock, tender hide: Look what a horse should have, he did not lack, Save a proud rider on so proud a back. Sometimes he scuds far off, and there he stares; Anon he starts at stirring of a feather. To bid the wind a basel he now prepares, And whe'r he run, or fly, they know not whether.

1 To bid the wind a base: i. e. to challenge the wind to contend with him in speed: base-prison-base, or prison-bars, was a rustic game, consisting chiefly in running.

For through his mane and tail the high wind sings, Fanning the hairs, who wave like feather'd wings.

[Venus's Prophecy after the Death of Adonis.]
Since thou art dead, lo! here I prophesy,
Sorrow on love hereafter shall attend;
It shall be waited on with jealousy,
Find sweet beginning, but unsavoury end,
Ne'er settled equally, but high or low :

That all love's pleasure shall not match his woe.

It shall be fickle, false, and full of fraud,
Bud and be blasted in a breathing while,
The bottom poison, and the top o'erstraw'd
With sweets that shall the truest sight beguile.
The strongest body shall it make most weak,
Strike the wise dumb, and teach the fool to speak.
It shall be sparing, and too full of riot,
Teaching decrepit age to tread the measures;
The staring ruffian shall it keep in quiet,
Pluck down the rich, enrich the poor with treasures;
Make the young old, the old become a child.
It shall be raging mad, and silly mild,
It shall suspect, where is no cause of fear;
It shall not fear, where it should most mistrust;
It shall be merciful, and too severe,
And most deceiving when it seems most just :
Perverse it shall be, when it seems most toward,
Put fear to valour, courage to the coward.
It shall be cause of war, and dire events,
And set dissension 'twixt the son and sire:
Subject and servile to all discontents,
As dry combustious matter is to fire.
Sith in his prime, death doth my love destroy,
They that love best, their love shall not enjoy.

[Selections from Shakspeare's Sonnets.]
When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself, and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featur'd like him, like him with friends possess❜d,
Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least ;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee-and then my state
(Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven's gate;
For thy sweet love remember'd, such wealth brings,
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.
Alas, 'tis true, I have gone here and there,
And made myself a motley to the view,
Gored mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear,
Made old offences of affections new.
Most true it is, that I have look'd on truth
Askance and strangely; but, by all above,
These blenches gave my heart another youth,
And worst essays prov'd thee my best of love.
Now all is done, save what shall have no end:
Mine appetite I never more will grind
On newer proof, to try an older friend,
A God in love, to whom I am confined.
Then give me welcome, next my heaven the best,
E'en to thy pure and most most loving breast.

O for my sake do thou with fortune chide,
The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds,
That did not better for my life provide,
Than public means, which public manners breeds.
Thence comes it that my name receives a brand,
And almost thence my nature is subdued
To what it works in, like the dyer's hand.
Pity me then, and wish I were renew'd ;