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POEMS OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH.

Meanwhile this work affords a three-fold gain In fury of thy fierce Castalian vein;

As thou for travels brookest the greatest name, So voyage on, increase, maintain the same!

W. R.

PART II

POEMS FROM

RELIQUIE WOTTONIANÆ,

1651-1685,

WITH SOME ADDITIONS.

POEMS FROM

RELIQUIE WOTTONIANE.

I.

A POEM WRITTEN BY SIR HENRY WOTTON

IN HIS YOUTH.'

(Before 1602.)

FAITHLESS world, and thy most faithless part,

A woman's heart!

The true shop of variety, where sits
Nothing but fits

And fevers of desire, and pangs of love,
Which toys remove.

Why was she born to please? or I to trust
Words writ in dust,

Suffering her eyes to govern my despair,
My pain for air;

[graphic]

66

"Rel. Wotton." Also in Davison's "Poetical Rhapsody," 1602, &c., with Wotton's initials, as an Elegy." In ed. 1621, p. 202, it has the longer title, "Of a Woman's Heart." Wrongly claimed for Rudyard in the "Poems of Pembroke and Rudyard," 1660, p. 34. A copy in MS. Rawl. Poet. 147, p. 74, signed "H. Wotton."

And fruit of time rewarded with untruth,
The food of youth?

Untrue she was; yet I believed her eyes,
Instructed spies,

Till I was taught, that love was but a school
To breed a fool.

Or sought she more, by triumphs of denial,
To make a trial

How far her smiles commanded my

Yield, and confess!

weakness?

Excuse no more thy folly; but, for cure,

Blush and endure

n;

As well thy shame as passions that were vain And think, 'tis gain,

To know that love lodged in a woman's breast, Is but a guest.

H. W.

II.

SIR HENRY WOTTON AND SERJEANT

HOSKINS RIDING ON THE WAY.1

Hoskins.

¡OBLE, lovely, virtuous creature,
Purposely so framed by nature,

To enthral your servant's wits:
Wo. Time must now unite our hearts,

Not for any my deserts,

But because methinks it fits.

"Rel. Wotton."

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