But I the prouder grew, and still thus spake therefore, Go, go, go! seek some other-where, importune me no more! Then spake brave Venus' son, that brave victorious boy, Saying, "you dainty dame, for that you be so coy, "I will so pull your plumes, as you shall say no "more "Go, go, go, seek some other-where, importune me no more." As soon as he had said, such care grew in my breast, That neither night nor day I could take any rest, Wherefore I did repent that I had said before,— Go, go, go, seek some other-where, importune me no more! THE BIRTH OF DESIRE. [From Breton's Bower of Delights, 1597.) WHEN wert thou born, Desire? By whom, sweet boy, wert thou begot? Tell me who was thy nurse? Fresh youth, in sugar'd joy. What hadst thou then to drink? What cradle were you rocked in? What brought you then asleep? Sweet speech, that liked men best. And where is now your dwelling place? In gentle hearts I rest. Doth company displease? Where would Desire then chuse to be? He likes to muse alone. What feedeth most your sight? To gaze on favour still. Who find you most to be your foe? Will ever age or death Bring you unto decay? No, no: Desire both lives and dies Ten thousand times a day. GEORGE GASCOIGNE. "Among the lesser late poets (says Edmund Bolton, in his "Hypercritica) George Gascoigne's works may be endured.” Puttenham praises him for "a good metre and a plentiful "vein ;" and Nash says of him, that "he first beat the "path to that perfection which our best poets have aspired to, since his departure." He is mentioned with praise by the editor of the Reliques of Ancient Poetry (Vol. II. p. 138); and Mr. Warton is of opinion that he" has much exceeded "all the poets of his age, in smoothness and harmony of ❝versification." His "Jocasta," in which he was assisted by Francis Kynwelmersh, is a very respectable performance: his "Supposes," a comedy translated from the Suppotiti of Ariosto, is distinguished by an uncommon ease and elegance of dialogue; but in his smaller poems he is certainly too diffuse, and full of conceit. Gascoigne was educated at both universities; studied at Gray's Inn; quitted the law for the army, and served in the war in the Low Countries, and died in 1577, or 1578. If Wood's account be accurate, his birth may perhaps be placed about the year 1540: but as he mentions his "crooked age and 66 hoary hairs," I suspect that he was born much earlier. There are three collected editions of his poems, in 1572, 1575, and 1587, all of which are rare, and seldom found complete. A STRANGE PASSION OF A LOVER. I LAUGH Sometimes with little lust; * Then like the lark, that past the night She sends sweet notes from out her breast: So sing I now, because I think How joys approach when sorrows shrink. And as fair Philomele again Can watch and sing when others sleep, And taketh pleasure in her pain, To wray the woe that makes her weep: So sing I now, for to bewray The loathsome life I lead alway. |