If this be love, to clothe me with dark thoughts,

Haunting untrodden paths to wail apart; My pleasures, horror, music, tragic notes,

Tears in mine eyes, and sorrow at my heart; If this be love, to live a living death ; Then do I love, and draw this weary breath.

SONNET.

I once may see when years shall wreck my wrong,

When golden hairs shall change to silver wire ;

And those bright rays that kindle all this fire, Shall fail in force, their working not so strong.

Then beauty (now the burden of my song)
Whose glorious blaze the world doth so admire,

Must yield up all to tyrant time's desire;
Then fade those flowers that deck'd her pride so

long.

When if she grieve to gaze her in her glass, .

Which then presents her winter-wither'd hue, Go you, my verse, go tell her what she was;

For what she was, she best shall find in you. Your fiery heat lets not her glory pass,

But (Phænix like) shall make her live anew.

SONNET.

BEAUTY, sweet love, is like the morning dew,

Whose short refresh upon the tender green, Cheers for a time, but till the sun doth shew,

And straight 'tis gone as it had never been.

Soon doth it fade that makes the fairest flourish,

Short is the glory of the blushing rose:
The hue which thou so carefully dost nourish,

Yet which at length thou must be forced to lose.

When thou, surcharg’d with burthen of thy years,

Shall bend thy wrinkles homeward to the earth, And when in beauty's lease, expir’d, appears

The date of age, the calends of our deathBut ah! no more--this must not be foretold, For women grieve to think they must be old.

SONNET.

I must not grieve my love, whose eyes would read

Lines of delight whereon her youth might smile; Flowers have time before they come to seed,

And she is young, and now must sport the while. And sport (sweet maid) in season of these years,

And learn to gather flowers before they wither, And where the sweetest blossom first appears,

Let love and youth conduct thy pleasures thither.

Lighten forth smiles to cheer the clouded air,

And calm the tempest which my sighs do raise; Pity and smiles do best become the fair,

Pity and smiles: must only yield thee praise. Make me to say, when all my griefs are gone, Happy the heart that sigh'd for such a one.

SONNET.

Now each creature joys the other,
· Passing happy days and hours,
One bird reports unto another,

In the fall of silent showers ;
Whilst the earth (our common mother)

Hath her bosom deck'd with flowers.

Whilst the greatest torch of heaven..

With bright rays warms Flora’lap,
Making days and nights both even,

Cheering plants with fresher sap; ;!

My field of flowers quite bereaven,

Wants refresh of better hap.

PASTORAL.

O HAPPY golden age! .
Not for that rivers ran
With streams of milk, and honey dropt from

trees;
Not for the earth did gage
Unto the husbandman

Her voluntary fruits, free, without fees;

Nor for no cold did freeze, Nor any cloud beguile,

Th' eternal flow’ring spring,

Wherein liv'd every thing,
And whereon th' heavens perpetually did smile;

Not for no ship had brought
From foreign shores, or warres, or wares

ill sought: : But only, for that name,

That idle name of wind, • That idol of deceit, that empty sound Calld honour, which became

The tyrant of the mind,

And so torments our nature without ground,

Was not yet vainly found :
Nor yet sad grief imparts,

Amidst the sweet delights

Of joyful amorous wights,
Nor were his hard laws known to freeborn

hearts :
But golden laws, like these,
Which nature wrote. That's lawful which

doth please. Then amongst flowers and springs,

Making delightful sport,

Sate lovers, without conflict, without shame, And nymphs and shepherds sings,

Mixing in wanton sort
Whisperings with songs, then kisses with the

same

Which from affection came. The naked virgin then

Her roses fresh reveals,

Which now her veil conceals, The tender apples in her bosom seen.

And oft in rivers clear

The lovers with their loves consorting were. Honour! thou first didst close

The spring of all delight,