Specimens of the British Poets ...

With green hath clad the hill, and eke the vale; The nightingale, with feathers new, she sings, The turtle to her mate hath told her tale. Summer is come: for every spray now springs. The hart hath hung his old head on the pale; The buck in brake his winter coat he flings, The fishes foat, with new repaired scale; The adder all her slough away she flings; The swift swallow pursueth the flies small; The busy bee, her honey now she mings, Winter is gone, that was the flower's bale; And thus I see, among these pleasant things, Each care decays, and yet my sorrow springs!

GIVE place, ye lovers, here before

That spent your boasts and brags in vain;
My lady's beauty passeth more.
The best of yours, I dare well saine,
Than doth the sun the candle light,
Or brightest day the darkest night.
Vol. I.

B

And thereto hath a truth as just,
As had Penelope the fair;
For what she saith, ye may it trust,
As it by writing sealed were.
And virtues hath she many moe
Than I with pen have skill to show.

I could rehearse, if that I would,
The whole effect of nature's plaint ;
When she had lost the perfect mould,
The like to whom she could not paint.
With wringing hands how she did cry!
And what she said I know it, I:

I know she swore, with raging mind,
Her kingdom only set apart,
There was no loss by law of kind,
That could have gone so near her heart;

And this was chiefly all her pain,
She could not make the like again.

Sith Nature thus gåve her the praise,
To be the chiefest work she wrought;
In faith, methinks, some better ways
On your behalf might well be sought,
Than to compare (as ye have done)
To match the candle with the sun.

SONNETS. FROM Tuscane came my Lady's worthy race;

Fair Florence was sometime their ancient seat; The Western Isle, whose pleasant shore doth face Wild Camber's cliffs, did give her lively heat; Fostered she was, with milk of Irish breast: Her Sire an earl, her Dame of princes' blood; From tender years in Britain she doth rest With King's child, where she tastoth costly food.

Hunsdon did first present her to my eyne; Bright is her hue, and Geraldine she hight: Hampton me taught to wish her first for mine; Windsor, alas! doth chase me from her sight. Her beauty' of kind, her virtue from above; Happy is he that can obtain her love!

SET
ET me e'en where the Sun doth parch the green,

Or where his beams do not dissolve the ice ;
In temperate heat, where he is felt and seen;
In presence press'd of people, mad or wise;
Set me in high, or yet in low degree;
In longest night, or in the shortest day;
In clearest sky, or where clouds thickest be;
In lusty youth, or when the hairs are grey;
Set me in heaven, in earth, or else in hell,
On hill or dale, or on the foaming flood :
Thrall’d, or at large; wherever so I dwell,
Siek, or in health; in evil fame, or good;
Her's will I be, and only with this thought,
Content myself, although my chance be bought.

A
LAS! so all things now do hold their peace,

Heaven and earth disturbed in nothing;
The beasts, the air, the birds their song do cease;
The night's chair now the stars about doth bring;
Calm is the sea, the waves work less and less !
So am not I; whom Love, alas ! doth wring,
Bringing before my face the great increase
Of my desires; whereas I weep and sing,
In joy and woe, as in a doubtful case:
For my sweet thoughts, some time do pleasure bring
But, by and by, the cause of my disease
Gives me a pang that inwardly doth sting;
When that I think what grief it is, again,
To live and lack the thing should rid my pain.

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