Thus may'st thou safely say and swear That rigour reigns and ruth doth fail, In thankless thoughts thy thoughts do wear, Thy truth, thy faith may nought avail For thy good-will. Why shouldst thou so Still graff where grace it will not grow? Alas, poor heart, thus hast thou spent For of thy hope no fruit appears: And where thou seek'st a quiet port Thou dost but weigh against the wind; For where thou gladliest wouldst resort, There is no place for thee assign'd; Thy destiny hath set it so That thy true heart should cause thy woe. A Praise of his Lady. [Abridged from 56 lines.] GIVE place, you ladies, and be gone, The virtue of her lively looks In each of her two crystal eyes It would you all in heart suffice I think Nature hath lost the mould Or else I doubt if Nature could She may be well compared Whose like was never seen or heard, That any man can find. I life she is Diana chaste, In word and eke in deed stedfast, Her roseal colour comes and goes More ruddier too than doth the rose At Bacchus' feast none shall her meet, Ne at no wanton play; Nor gazing in an open street, Nor gadding as astray. The modest mirth that she doth use, Is mix'd with shamefastness; All vice she doth wholly refuse, And hateth idleness. O Lord, it is a world to see Whom Nature made so fair. Truly she doth as far exceed How might I do to get a graff For all the rest are plain but chaff This gift alone I shall her give. Her honest fame shall ever live The Lover accusing his Love for her unfaithfulness, purposeth to live in liberty. [Abridged from 56 lines.] THE smoky sighs, the bitter tears That I in vain have wasted, The broken sleeps, the woe and fears, That long in me have lasted, The love, and all I owe to thee, Here I renounce, and make me free.→→ The fruits were fair the which did grow The leaves were green of every bough, And moisture nothing wanted; Yet, ere the blossoms 'gan to fall Thy body was the garden-place, That hath won thee, and lost thy name. That all things sometime find ease of their pain, save only the Lover. [Abridged from 32 lines.] I SEE there is no sort Of things that live in grief, The chaced deer hath soil, |