Such as silly shepherds use

When they will not Love abuse,
Love, which had been long deluded,
Was with kisses sweet concluded;

And Phillida, with garlands gay,
Was made the Lady of the May.

FROM THE SOUL'S HARMONY.

THE SOUL'S HEAVEN.

The worldly prince doth in his Sceptre hold
A kind of Heaven in his authorities;
The wealthy miser in his mass of gold
Makes to his soul a kind of Paradise;
The epicure that eats and drinks all day
Accounts no Heaven but in his hellish routs ;
And she, whose beauty seems a sunny day,

Makes up her Heaven but in her baby-clouts.1
But, my sweet God, I seek no prince's power,
No miser's wealth, nor beauty's fading gloss;
Which pamper sin, whose sweets are inward sour,
And sorry gain that breed the spirit's loss.
No, my dear Lord, let my Heaven only be
In my Love's service but to live to Thee!

FROM MELANCHOLY HUMOURS.

A POET'S COMPLAINT OF HIS POVERTY.

While epicures are over-glut, I lie and starve for food; Because my conscience cannot thrive upon ill-gotten good... Some have their houses stately built and gorgeous to behold, While in a cottage bare and poor I bide the bitter cold. Some have their chariots and their horse to bear them to

and fro,

While I am glad to walk on foot, and glad I can do so. They, like the weilders of the world, command and have their will.

While I, a weakling in the world, am slave to sorrow still. The owl, that makes the night her day, delights yet in the

dark;

But I am forced to play the owl, that have been bred a lark.

1 Childish rags.

The eagle from the lowest vale can mount the lofty sky; But I am fallen down from the hill, and in the vale must die.

The horse, the ox, the silly ass, that tug out all the day,

At night come home and take their rest, and lay their work

away;

While my poor heart, both day and night, in passions overtoiled,

By over-labour of my brain doth find my spirit spoiled.

The winds do blow away the clouds that would obscure the sun;

And how all glorious is the sky, when once the storms are done!

But in the heaven of my heart's hope, where my love's light doth shine,

I nothing see but clouds of cares, or else my sun decline. The earth is watered, smoothed, and drest, to keep her gardens gay;

While my poor heart in woeful thoughts must wither all

away. ...

So that I see each bird and beast, the sea, the earth, the sky,

All sometime in their pleasure live, while I alone must die.

FROM THE WILL OF WIT.

THE SONG OF CARE.1

Come, all the world, submit yourselves to Care,
And him acknowledge for your chiefest king;
With whom no king or raiser may compare,
Who bears so great a sway in everything:
At home, abroad, in peace, and eke in war,
Care chiefly stands; to either make or mar.
The court he keeps is in a wise conceit,2

His house a head where reason rules the wit,
His seat the heart that hateth all deceit,

His bed the brain that feels no frantic fit,
His diet is the cates3 of sweet content,-
Thus is his life in heavenly pleasure spent.

1 "Care" is a personified virtue, offspring of Wisdom and Devise (another word for forethought or good sense), whose mission it is "to glean the good from ill," and "to comfort Misery." "Care," says Wit to Will, is both a curse and a comfort; all is in the use of it. Care is such a thing as has a great a-do in all things; why, Care is a king in his kind. Did you never hear my discourse of Care in verse?" and proceeds to rehearse the same to his friend Will.

* Concept, thinking.

3 Dainties.

His kingdom is the whole world round about,
Sorrow his sword to such as do rebel,
His counsel wisdom that decides each doubt,
His skill fore-sight, of things to come to tell;
His chief delight is studies of devise1
To keep his subjects out of miseries.

Oh courteous king, oh high and mighty Care,
What shall I write in honour of thy name?
But to the world, by due desert,2 declare

Thy royal state and thy immortal fame.
Then so I end as I at first begun,

Care is the king of kings, when all is done.

THOMAS LODGE.

(1556?-1625.)

THOMAS LODGE was the son of a grocer who was at one time Lord Mayor of London. He was educated at Trinity College, Oxford, and afterwards led a life of varied occupation and adventure. At successive periods he studied law in Lincoln's Inn, joined in two privateering expeditions to the Pacific, earned his living in London as an actor, and studied physic at Avignon. There he graduated as Doctor in Medicine; and finally he established himself as a Roman Catholic physician in London, with a considerable practice among his co-religionists. He died of the Plague in 1625. Lodge's literary works comprised both verse and prose. He wrote two dramas, one of them in company with Greene; a series of Pastoral Sonnets to Phyllis, published in 1593; also Satires in prose, and Histories, being stories in both prose and verse. The plot of Shakespeare's As You Like It is found in Lodge's pastoral tale of Rosalind, written during one of his voyages, and published in London in 1592. This was a prose idyll, with songs and sonnets interspersed, and had the following fanciful title :—

ROSALYNDE. EUPHUES' GOLDEN LEGACIE: found after his Death in his Cell at Silexedra. Bequeathed to Philautus Sonnes, noursed up with their Father in England. Fetcht from the Canaries by T. L. Gent.

FROM EUPHUES' GOLDEN LEGACY.1

ROSALIND'S MADRIGAL.

Love in my bosom like a bee

Doth suck his sweet:

Now with his wings he plays with me,
Now with his feet.

Within mine eyes he makes his nest,
His bed amidst my tender breast,
My kisses are his daily feast,
And yet he robs me of my rest.
Ah, wanton, will ye?"

And if I sleep, then percheth he
With pretty flight,

And makes his pillow of my knee
The live long night.

Strike I my lute, he tunes the string;
He music plays if so I sing;

He lends me every lovely thing;
Yet, cruel, he my heart doth sting:
Whist, wanton, still ye!

Else I with roses every day
Will whip you hence,

And bind you, when you long to play,
For your offence.

I'll shut my eyes to keep you in,

I'll make you fast it for your sin,

I'll count your power not worth a pin :
Alas, what hereby shall I win,

If he gainsay me?

What if I beat the wanton boy
With many a rod?

He will repay me with annoy,
Because a god.

Then sit thou safely on my knee,
And let thy bower my bosom be;
Lurk in mine eyes, I like of thee;
O Cupid, so thou pity me,
Spare not, but play thee.

1 Included in Mr. J. P. Collier's "Shakespeare's Library," a collection of Romances, etc., used by Shakespeare as the foundation of his dramas.

ROSALIND.

Her eyes are saphires set in snow,
Refining heaven by every wink;
The gods do fear whenas1 they glow,
And I do tremble when I think:

Heigh-ho, would she were mine!

Her cheeks are like the blushing cloud
That beautifies Aurora's face,

Or like the silver-crimson shroud
That Phoebus' smiling looks doth grace:
Heigh-ho, fair Rosalind!

Her lips are like two budded roses
Whom ranks of lilies neighbour nigh,
Within which bounds she balm incloses,
Apt to entice a deity :

Heigh-ho, would she were mine!

Her neck, like to a stately tower,
Where Love himself imprisoned lies,
To watch for glances every hour
From her divine and sacred eyes:
Heigh-ho, fair Rosalind !

LOVE IN SUMMER-TIME.

The earth, late choked with showers,
Is now arrayed in green;
Her bosom springs with flowers,
The air dissolves her teen;2

The heavens laugh at her glory,
Yet bide I, sad and sorry!

The woods are decked with leaves,
And trees are clothed gay,
And Flora, crowned with sheaves,
With oaken boughs doth play;

Where I am clad in black,

The token of my wrack.

The birds upon the trees

Do sing with pleasant voices,

And chant in their degrees

Their loves and lucky choices;
2 Sorrow.

1 When.