A LOVER'S PROTESTATION. First shall the heavens want starry light, The day want sun, and sun want bright, The night want shade, the dead men graves, The April flowers and leaf and tree, Before I false my faith to Thee. First shall the tops of highest hills First direful hate shall turn to peace, And pleasure mourn, and sorrow smile, First Time shall stay his stayless race, And Winter spring, and Summer mourn, PHILLIS. Love guards the roses of thy lips, If I approach he forward skips, Love in thine eyes doth build his bower, And if I look the Boy will lour, And from their orbs shoots shafts divine. Love works thy heart within his fire, And of my plaints doth make a game. Love! let me cull her choicest flowers, But if thou do not, Love! I'll truly serve her HUMFREY GIFFORD. 15- 16 IN THE PRAISE OF friendsHIP. Reveal, O tongue! the secrets of my thought! If that the seeds of envy and debate Might yield no fruit, but wither and decay, - No canker'd minds would hoard up heaps of hate, No hollow hearts dissembling parts should play, No claw-back then would fawn in hope of meed : Such life to lead were perfect life indeed. But nowadays desire of worldly pelf Let us still pray unto the Lord above, GEORGE PEELE. 1558?-1596? CUPID'S CURSE. CENONE-Fair and fair and twice so fair, The fairest shepherd on our green, Thy Love is fair for thee alone CENONE-My Love is fair, my Love is gay, They that do change old love for new, Pray Gods they change for worse! BOTH-They that do change old love for new, Pray Gods they change for worse! CENONE-Fair and fair and twice so fair, The fairest shepherd on our green, Thy Love is fair for thee alone, CENONE-My Love can pipe, my Love can sing, My merry merry roundelays: Amen to Cupid's Curse! They that do change old love for new, Pray Gods they change for worse! BOTH-They that do change old love for new, Pray Gods they change for worse! COLIN'S SONG. O gentle Love! ungentle for thy deed: A bloody mark, With piercing shot to bleed. Shoot soft, sweet Love! for fear thou shoot amiss, For fear too keen Thy arrows been And hit the heart where my Beloved is ! Too fair that fortune were, nor never I Among the rest, That Love shall seize on her by sympathy: To cease my pain : I take the wound and die at Venus' foot. ROBERT GREENE. 1560 ?-1592? SWEET CONTENT. Sweet are the thoughts that savour of content; Sweet are the nights in careless slumber spent ; Such sweet content, such minds, such sleep, such bliss, The homely house that harbours quiet rest, SAMELA. Like to Diana in her summer weed, Whiter than be the flocks that straggling feed, As fair Aurora, in her morning grey Like lovely Thetis on a calmed day, Her tresses gold, her eyes like glassy streams, |