LOOKING GLASS FOR ENGLAND AND LONDON.

225

Alv. To talk, sweet friend! who would not talk with

thee?

Oh be not coy; art thou not only fair?

Come twine thine arms about this snow-white neck,
A love-nest for the Great Assyrian King.
Blushing I tell thee, fair Cilician Prince,
None but thyself can merit such a grace.

Cil. Madam, I hope you mean not for to mock me.
Alv. No, King, fair King, my meaning is to yoke thee,
Hear me but sing of Love: then by my sighs,
My tears, my glancing looks, my changed cheer,
Thou shalt perceive how I do hold thee dear.

Cil. Sing, madam, if you please; but love in jest.
Alv. Nay, I will love, and sigh at every jest.

(She sings.)

Beauty, alas! where wast thou born,

Thus to hold thyself in scorn,

When as Beauty kiss'd to wooe thee;

Thou by Beauty dost undo me.
Heigho, despise me not.

I and thou in sooth are one,
Fairer thou, I fairer none :

Wanton thou; and, wilt thou, wanton,
Yield a cruel heart to plant on?
Do me right, and do me reason;
Cruelty is cursed treason.

Heigho, I love; heigho, I love;
Heigho, and yet he eyes me not.

Cil. Madam your Song is passing passionate.
Alv. And wilt thou then not pity my estate?
Cil. Ask love of them who pity may impart.
Alv. I ask of thee, sweet; thou hast stole my heart.
Cil. Your love is fixed on a greater King.

VOL. II.

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Alv. Tut, women's love—it is a fickle thing. I love my Rasni for my dignity:

I love Cilician King for his sweet eye.

I love my Rasni, since he rules the world:
But more I love this Kingly little world.
How sweet he looks!-O were I Cynthia's sphere,
And thou Endymion, I should hold thee dear:
Thus should mine arms be spread about thy neck,
Thus would I kiss my Love at every beck.
Thus would I sigh to see thee sweetly sleep;
And if thou wak'st not soon, thus would I weep;
And thus, and thus, and thus: thus much I love thee.

TETHYS' FESTIVAL. BY SAMUEL DANIEL, 1610.
Song at a Court Masque.

Are they shadows that we see
And can shadows pleasure give?—
Pleasures only shadows be,

Cast by bodies we conceive;
And are made the things we deem
In those figures which they seem.-
But these pleasures vanish fast,
Which by shadows are exprest :-
Pleasures are not, if they last;
In their passing is their best.
Glory is most bright and gay
In a flash, and so away.
Feed apace then, greedy eyes,
On the wonder you behold;
Take it sudden as it flies,
Tho' you take it not to hold:

When your eyes have done their part,
Thought must lengthen it in the heart.

THE SILVER AGE: AN HISTORICAL PLAY. BY
THOMAS HEYWOOD, 1613.

Proserpine seeking Flowers.

Pros. O may these meadows ever barren be,
That yield of flowers no more variety!

Here neither is the White nor Sanguine Rose,
The Strawberry Flower, the Paunce, nor Violet;
Methinks I have too poor a meadow chose:
Going to beg, I am with a Beggar met,
That wants as much as I. I should do ill
To take from them that need.—

Ceres, after the Rape of her Daughter.

Cer. Where is my fair and lovely Proserpine? Speak, Jove's fair Daughter, whither art thou stray'd? I've sought the meadows, glebes, and new-reap'd fields Yet cannot find my Child. Her scatter'd flowers, And garland half made up, I have lit upon;

But her I cannot spy. Behold the trace

Of some strange wagon*, that hath scorcht the trees, And singed the grass: these ruts the sun ne'er sear'd Where art thou, Love, where art thou, Proserpine?

Cer.

She questions Triton for her Daughter.

thou that on thy shelly trumpet Summons the sea-god, answer from the depth.

Trit. On Neptune's sea-horse with my concave trump Thro' all the abyss I've shrill'd thy daughter's loss. The channels clothed in waters, the low cities

In which the water-gods and sea-nymphs dwell,

The car of Dis.

I have perused; sought thro' whole woods and forests
Of leafless coral, planted in the deeps;

Toss'd up the beds of pearl; rouzed up huge whales,
And stern sea-monsters, from their rocky dens;
Those bottoms, bottomless; shallows and shelves,
And all those currents where th' earth's springs break in;
Those plains where Neptune feeds his porpoises,
Sea-morses, seals, and all his cattle else:

Thro' all our ebbs and tides my trump hath blazed her,
Yet can no cavern shew me Proserpine.

She questions the Earth.

Cer. Fair sister Earth, for all these beauteous fields, Spread o'er thy breast; for all these fertile crops, With which my plenty hath enrich'd thy bosom ; For all those rich and pleasant wreaths of grain, With which so oft thy temples I have crowned; For all the yearly liveries, and fresh robes, Upon thy summer beauty I bestow

Shew me my Child!

Earth. Not in revenge, fair Ceres,

That your remorseless ploughs have rak't my breast,
Nor that your iron-tooth'd harrows print my face
So full of wrinkles; that you dig my sides

For marle and soil, and make me bleed my springs
Thro' all my open'd veins to weaken me—
Do I conceal your daughter. I have spread
My arms from sea to sea, look'd o'er my mountains,
Examin'd all my pastures, groves, and plains,
Marshes and wolds, my woods and champain fields,
My dens and caves-and yet, from foot to head,

I have no place on which the Moon* doth tread.

Cer. Then, Earth, thou'st lost her; and for Proserpine,

Proserpine; who was also Luna in Heaven, Diana on Earth.

I'll strike thee with a lasting barrenness.

No more shall plenty crown thy fertile brows;
I'll break thy ploughs, thy oxen murrain-strike:
With idle agues I'll consume thy swains;

Sow tares and cockles in thy lands of wheat,

Whose spikes the weed and cooch-grass shall outgrow,
And choke it in the blade. The rotten showers

Shall drown thy seed, which the hot sun shall parch,
Or mildews rot; and what remains, shall be
A prey to ravenous birds.-Oh Proserpine !—
You Gods that dwell above, and you below,
Both of the woods and gardens, rivers, brooks,
Fountains and wells, some one among you all
Shew me her self or grave: to you I call.

Arethusa riseth.

Are. That can the river Arethusa do.
My streams you know, fair Goddess, issue forth
From Tartary by the Tenarian isles :

My head's in Hell where Stygian Pluto reigns,
There did I see the lovely Proserpine,

Whom Pluto hath rapt hence: behold her girdle,
Which on her way dropt from her lovely waist,
And scatter'd in my streams.-Fair Queen, adieu !
Crown you my banks with flowers, as I tell true.