My thoughts ashamed, since by themselves consumed,
Have done their duty to repentant wit:
Ashamed of all, sweet guide, I sorry sit,
To see in youth how I too far presumed.
Thus he whom love and error did betray,
Subscribes to thee, and takes the better way.
EURYMACHUS' FANCY IN THE PRIME OF HIS AFFECTION.
WHEN lordly Saturn, in a sable robe,
Sat full of frowns and mourning in the west, The evening star scarce peeped from out her lodge, And Phoebus newly galloped to his rest;
Within my boat sit in the silent streams,
All void of cares as he that lies and dreams.
As Phaon, so a ferryman I was;
The country lasses said I was too fair:
With easy toil I laboured at mine oar,
pass from side to side who did repair;
For pains take pence, and, Charon-like, transport
As soon the swain as men of high import.
When want of work did give me leave to rest,
My sport was catching of the wanton fish:
So did I wear the tedious time away,
And with my labour mended oft my dish;
For why
That idle hours were calendars of ruth,
And time ill-spent was prejudice to youth.
I scorned to love; for were the nymph as fair
As she that loved the beauteous Latmian swain,
Her face, her eyes, her tresses, nor her brows
Like ivory, could my affection gain;
With high disdain, love is a base desire,
And Cupid's flames, why, they're but watery fire.
As thus I sat, disdaining of proud love,
'Have over, ferryman,' there cried a boy;
And with him was a paragon for hue,
A lovely damsel, beauteous and coy;
And there
A maiden, covered with a tawny veil,
Her face unseen for breeding lovers' bale.
I stirred my boat, and when I came to shore,
The boy was winged; methought it was a wonder;
The dame had eyes like lightning, or the flash
That runs before the hot report of thunder;
Her smiles
Lovely her face; was ne'er so fair a creature,
For earthly carcass had a heavenly feature.
'My friend,' quoth she, 'sweet ferryman, behold,
We three must pass, but not a farthing fare;
But I will give, for I am Queen of love,
The brightest lass thou lik'st unto thy share;
Choose where
Be she as fair as Love's sweet lady is,
She shall be thine, if that will be thy bliss.'
With that she smiled with such a pleasing face,
As might have made the marble rock relent;
But I that triumphed in disdain of love,
Bad fie on him that to fond love was bent,
'So light the ferryman for love doth care,
As Venus pass not, if she pay no fare!'
At this a frown sat on her angry brow;
She winks upon her wanton son hard by;
He from his quiver drew a bolt of fire,
And aimed so right as that he pierced mine eye;
And then
Draw down the veil that hid the virgin's face, Whose heavenly beauty lightened all the place. Straight then I leaned mine ear upon mine arm, And looked upon the nymph (if so) was fair; Her eyes were stars, and like Apollo's locks Methought appeared the trammels of her hair; Thus did
And sucked in beauty, till that sweet desire
Cast fuel on, and set my thought on fire.
When I was lodged within the net of love,
And that they saw my heart was all on flame,
The nymph away, and with her trips along
The winged boy, and with her goes his dame:
O, then
'Stay, ladies, stay, and take not any care,
You all shall pass, and pay no penny fare!"
Away they fling, and looking coyly back,
They laugh at me, O, with a loud disdain!
I send out sighs to overtake the nymphs,
And tears, as lures, to call them back again;
But they
And I sit in my boat, with hand on oar,
And feel a pain, but know not what's the sore.
At last I feel it is the flame of love,
I strive but bootless to express the pain;
It cools, it fires, it hopes, it fears, it frets,
And stirreth passions throughout every vein;
That down
And sighing did fair Venus' laws approve,
And swore no thing so sweet and sour as love.
RADAGON'S SONNET.
NO clear appeared upon the azured sky;
No
A veil of storms had shadowed Phoebus' face, And in a sable mantle of disgrace
Sate he that is y-cleped heaven's bright eye,
As though that he,
Perplexed for Clytia, meant to leave his place,
And wrapped in sorrows did resolve to die,
For death to lovers' woes is ever nigh;
Thus folded in a hard and mournful laze
Distressed sate he.
A misty fog had thickened all the air;
Iris sate solemn and denied her showers;
Flora in tawny hid up all her flowers,
And would not diaper her meads with fair,
As though that she
Were armed upon the barren earth to lour;
Unto the founts Diana nild repair,
But sate, as overshadowed with despair,
Solemn and sad within a withered bower,
Her nymphs and she.
Mars malcontent lay sick on Venus' knee;
Venus in dumps sat muffled with a frown;
Juno laid all her frolic humours down,
And Jove was all in dumps as well as she :
'Twas fate's decree;
EURYMACHUS IN LAUDEM MIRIMIDE.
For Neptune, as he meant the world to drown,
Heaved up his surges to the highest tree,
And, leagued with Æol, marred the seaman's glee,
Beating the cedars with his billows down;
Thus wroth was he.
My mistress deigns to show her sun-bright face,
The air cleared up, the clouds did fade away;
Phoebus was frolic, when she did display
The gorgeous beauties that her front do grace:
So that when she
But walked abroad, the storms then fled away;
Flora did chequer all her treading place,
And Neptune calmed the surges with his mace;
Diana and her nymphs were blithe and gay
When her they see.
Venus and Mars agreèd in a smile,
And jealous Juno ceased now to lour;
Jove saw her face and sighed in his bower;
Iris and Æol laugh within a while
Ah, born was she within a happy hour,
That makes heaven, earth, and gods, and all, to smile
Such wonders can her beauteous looks compile
To clear the world from any froward lour;
Ah, blest be she!
EURYMACHUS IN LAUDEM MIRIMIDÆ.
WHEN Flora, proud in pomp of all her flowers, Sat bright and gay,
And gloried in the dew of Iris' showers,
Her mantle chequered all with gaudy green;
Then I
Alone
A mournful man in Erecine was seen.
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