A substance and engendered deity,
"Twixt Mars and Venns in adulterate kind.
Then if not wholly voice, since body too,
Or yet if echo, hark! So may thy fair
Narcissus soft relent and learn to woo!
But why concealed thus dost thou declare
Thyself like him self-loving? if not so,
Why art thou nought but voice wrapt up in air?
SONG.
When young April once a year
Doth with emerald face appear;
Then gives he to each river he can see,
By winter's frost imprisoned, liberty.
White and yellow flowers are seen;
Trees and fields are clad in green;
The wild beast leaves his den,
And snakes grow young again:
Then the mournful nightingale
Sings, or sweetly seems to rail,
On him that basely in a brother's shape,
Transformed her by his well-revenged rape.
Thus beasts, and birds, and every thing,
Joys upon the approaching spring:
But I, the more relief
I seek, the more's my grief!
On seeing a Lady Bathing in the River Betis.
Betis! whilst pretty philomel doth sing,
And to thy silver noise her treble raise:
Whilst gentle zephyrus his wings displays,
'Mongst well-tun'd leaves with gentle murmuring;-
Comb smooth thy sedge, thy red sands freely fling
On the green bank that thy o'erflowing stays;
Cast them in golden knots through all the ways
My Nisa treads: when she doth nearer bring
Her, clearer than thy christal, limbs, chastise
Thy swifter course, and may no mutinous air
Then blow, but let the stream glide gently by.
But draw that ivory curtain from mine eyes,
Unveil thy aabaster, goddess fair!
Though I Actæan, thou Diana be!
At the foot of a mountain white
Clad all in snow,
That doth melt with the sun-beams bright,
Celio as in a dream,
Beholdeth how the stream,
Drives to and fro.
Little pebbles, white, red, and blue,
Then doth he see,
And presented are to his view,
Sands like Arabian gold,
Near which he may behold
Instead of fishes, Naiades
their heads from those fresh seas,
With different garlands crown'd;
Sad Cygnus swimming round,
His loss bewails.
Young Hyacinthus groweth near;
In a flower of his name,
Narcissus lost his fame,
That scorned to woo.
The Thracian minstrel riseth then,
His harp he brings,
That attracts birds, beasts, fishes, men:
With the sweet sound he cheers,
The listening shepherd's ears,
And thus he sings
Fenissa the fair is come,
Swain weep no more!
With little foot of snow,
She trips it to and fro,
On grassy shore.
Come then, Fenissa, fair Fenissa come,
Come to the shade,
By cool leaves made.
Sing Celio; valley, make Fenissa room,
And let echo ring,
She's the valley's spring!
Fenissa come!
Introductory to a fresh discourse.
As a poor bark distrest by waves and wind,
When this grows angry and the seas go high,
No ease nor safety, rudely toss'd can find,
By compass steer she ne'er so cunningly;
But needs must suffer in a double kind;
By air, if she the help of sails apply,
By raking seas, if up those helps she bind:
So an unheedy vessel do I live,
Restless, near shipwreck, since I ne'er was well, 'Till I afresh had launched into the main, Where, whatsoe'er resistance my bark give,
From the white froth I mount, then fall again; Then rise, then tumble down as low as hell.
The sun is set, gone down to the cool shade ;—
The misted brightness of his piercing eye,
Covered with black clouds in th' eastern sky,- →
My cruel fair to restfull sleep hath laid:
Now murderers walk, and such as are afraid
Of day's clear light: now chaunteth mournfully
The turtle chaste;-complaints to multiply
'Gins she whom crafty Tereus once betray'd.
O night, thou image of sad absence! tell
My Lisis, her two suns are set from me
For ever; if it chance that she do sleep, May Morpheus wake her with a dream from hell, Tell her of her disdain, my jealousy;
That though I present am, I, absent weep!
On a Lady killed by a fall in attempting to elope with her Lover.
Pure spirit! that leav'st thy body to our moan,
From whence now disembodied thou art gone
To thy more happy region; where each field
Eternal April of pure flow'rs doth yield.
Look, if the soul can downward look, and see
A soul once thine all tears for want of thee !
When I was doubly prisoner by thine eyes,
How little dreamt I of,-here Lisis lies!
Or when a smile could her Gerardo bless,
Little, that earth thus early should possess
So fair a casket. Little thought indeed
Base worms on sixteen years sweet flesh should feed.
So fruits are in their blossoms nipt by frost :-
So a tall ship that oft the sea hath crost,
At last when gladsome port she leaves behind,
How the smooth waters court her and false wind,
Till when a sudden gust and storm doth rise,
Rock-dashed she becomes the ocean's prize.
Live yet my Lisis, on thy marble tomb,
While time bears date free from oblivion's doom!
That when the world's last passenger draws near,
In uncorrupted letters may appear:
Here Lisis lies, that leapt from vital breath,
To meet a lover in embrace of death.
When thou in native thoughts didst imitate
The simple turtle dove,
And constant wert, I still did consecrate
To thy true faith, firm love:
That rural bird doth never range,
Fixt to her mate, affects no change.
But since thy former plainness to disguise,
With art thou dost contrive,
And first affection less dost equalise,
Why do I longer strive?
For love that doth excuses frame,
Either is none, or not the same.
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