BOOK FIRST. I. SPRING. Spring, the sweet Spring, is the year's pleasant king; The palm and may make country houses gay, The fields breathe sweet, the daisies kiss our feet, T. Nash. II. SUMMONS TO LOVE. Phoebus, arise! And paint the sable skies. With azure, white, and red: Rouse Memnon's mother from her Tithon's bed, That she may thy career with roses spread: The nightingales thy coming each where sing: Give life to this dark world which lieth dead; In larger locks than thou wast wont before, With diadem of pearl thy temples fair: Chase hence the ugly night Which serves but to make dear thy glorious light. -This is that happy morn, That day, long-wished day Of all my life so dark, (If cruel stars have not my ruin sworn And fates my hopes betray,) Which, purely white, deserves An everlasting diamond should it mark. My Love, to hear and recompense my love. But show thy blushing beams, And thou two sweeter eyes Shalt see than those which by Penéus' streams Did once thy heart surprise. Now, Flora, deck thyself in fairest guise: If that ye winds would hear. A voice surpassing far Amphion's lyre, Let Zephyr only breathe, Beyond the hills, to shun his flaming wheels: Here is the pleasant place And nothing wanting is, save She, alas! III. TIME AND LOVE. 1. When I have seen by Time's fell hand defaced When I have seen the hungry ocean gain When I have seen such interchange of state, Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate— -This thought is as a death, which cannot choose But weep to have that which it fears to lose. W. Shakespeare. IV. 2. Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea, But sad mortality o'ersways their power, How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea, Whose action is no stronger than a flower? O how shall summer's honey breath hold out O fearful meditation! where, alack! O! none, unless this miracle have might, V. THE PASSIONATE SHEPHERD TO HIS LOVE. Come live with me and be my Love, And we will all the pleasures prove There will we sit upon the rocks There will I make thee beds of roses A cap of flowers, and a kirtle A gown made of the finest wool, |