POETRY OF UNCERTAIN AUTHORS

OF

THE END OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.

THE SOUL'S ERRAND.

FROM DAVISON'S POETICAL RHAPSODY.

THIS bold and spirited poem has been ascribed to several authors, but to none on satisfactory authority. It can be traced to MS. of a date as early as 1593, when Francis Davison, who published it in his Poetical Rhapsody, was too young to be supposed, with much probability, to have written it; and as Davison's work was a compilation, his claims to it must be very doubtful. Sir Egerton Brydges has published it among Sir Walter Raleigh's poems, but without a tittle of evidence to shew that it was the production of that great man. Mr. Ellis gives it to Joshua Sylvester, evidently by mistake. Whoever looks at the folio vol. of Sylvester's poems, will see that Joshua uses the beautiful original merely as a text, and has the conscience to print his own stuff in a way that shews it to be interpolated. Among those additions there occur some such execrable stanzas as the following:

Say, soldiers are the sink
Of sin to all the realm,

Giv'n all to whore and drink,
To quarrel and blaspheme.

Tell townsmen, that because that
They prank their brides so proud,
Too many times it draws that

Which makes them beetle-brow'd.

Tell men of high condition

That rule affairs of state,
Their purpose is ambition,
Their practice only hate;
And if they once reply,
Then give them all the lie.

Tell them that brave it most,
They beg for more by spending,
Who, in their greatest cost,
Seek nothing but commending;
And if they make reply,
Then give them all the lie.

Tell Zeal it lacks devotion,

Tell Love it is but lust,
Tell Time it is but motion,
Tell Flesh it is but dust;
And wish them not reply,
For thou must give the lie.

Tell Age it daily wasteth,
Tell Honour how it alters,
Tell Beauty how she blasteth,
Tell Favour how she falters;
And as they shall reply,
Give every one the lie.

Tell Wit how much it wrangles In treble points of niceness,

Tell Wisdom she entangles
Herself in overwiseness;

And when they do reply,
Straight give them both the lie.

Tell Physic of her boldness,
Tell Skill it is pretension,
Tell Charity of coldness,
Tell Law it is contention;
And as they do reply,

So give them still the lie.

Tell Fortune of her blindness,

Tell Nature of decay,

Tell Friendship of unkindness,

Tell Justice of delay;

And if they will reply,

Then give them all the lie.

Tell arts they have no soundness,

But vary by esteeming,

Tell schools they want profoundness,

And stand too much on seeming;

If arts and schools reply,

Give arts and schools the lie.

Tell Faith its fled the city,
Tell how the country erreth,
Tell manhood shakes off pity,
Tell Virtue least preferreth;

And if they do reply,

Spare not to give the lie.

And when thou hast, as I
Commanded thee, done blabbing,
Although to give the lie

Deserves no less than stabbing;
Yet stab at thee who will.
No stab the Soul can kill.

CANZONET.

FROM DAVISON'S RHAPSODY. EDIT. 1608.

THE golden sun that brings the day,
And lends men light to see withal,
In vain doth cast his beams away,
When they are blind on whom they fall;
There is no force in all his light
To give the mole a perfect sight.

But thou, my sun, more bright than he
That shines at noon in summer tide,
Hast given me light and power to see
With perfect skill my sight to guide;
Till now I liv'd as blind as mole
That hides her head in earthly hole.

I heard the praise of Beauty's grace,
Yet deem'd it nought but poet's skill,