2. CUPID AND CAMPASPE.
CUPID and my Campaspe played
At cards for kisses; Cupid paid:
He stakes his quiver, bow and arrows,
His mother's doves, and team of sparrows;
Loses them too; then down he throws
The coral of his lip, the rose
Growing on's cheek (but none knows how );
With these the crystal of his brow,
And then the dimple of his chin :
All these did my Campaspe win.
At last he set her both his eyes,
She won and Cupid blind did rise.
O Love! has she done this to thee?
What shall, alas! become of me?
XXVI. STERNHOLD AND HOPKINS.
THE LORD.
The Lord descended from above,
And bowed the heavens high,
And underneath his feet he cast
The darkness of the sky.
On Cherubs and on Cherubims
Full royally he rode,
And on the wings of mighty winds
Came flying all abroad.
XXVII. GEORGE CHAPMAN.
1. DEDICATION TO PRINCE HENRY.
Perfect happiness by princes sought, Is not with birth born, nor exchequers bought, Nor follows in great trains, nor is possest With any outward state, but makes him blest That governs inward, and beholdeth there All his affections stand about him bare, That by his power can send to Tower and death All traitorous passions, marshalling beneath His justice his mere will, and in his mind
Holds with a sceptre as can keep confined
His whole life's actions in the royal bounds
Of virtue and religion . . .
2. VOYAGE TO CHRYSE.
The youths crowned cups of wine, Drank off and filled again to all: that day was held divine, And spent in pæans to the Sun, who heard with pleased
When whose bright chariot stooped to sea, and twilight held the clear,
All soundly on their cables slept, e'en till the night was
And when the Lady of the Light, the rosy-finger'd morn, Rose from the hills, all fresh arose and to the camp retired, While Phoebus with a fore-right wind their swelling bark inspired.
The feeble eyes of our aspiring thoughts
Behold things present,and record things past;
But things to come exceed our human reach,
And are not painted yet in angels' eyes.
For those, submit thy sense, and say, Thou power
That now art framing of the future world,
Know'st all to come, not by the course of heaven,
By frail conjectures of inferior signs,
By monstrous floods, by flocks and flights of birds,
By bowels of a sacrificed beast,
Or by the figures of some hidden art,
But by a true and natural presage,
Laying the ground, and perfect architect
Of all our actions now before thine eyes,
From Adam to the end of Adam's seed.
O heaven! protect my weakness with thy strength:
So look on me that I may view thy face,
And see these secrets written in thy brows.
O sun! come dart thy rays upon my moon:
That now mine eyes eclipséd to the earth,
PEELE-QUEEN ELIZ.-HARRINGTON.
May brightly be refined, and shine to heaven.
Transform me from this flesh, that I may live
Before my death regenerate with thee.
That when I think, thy thought may be my guide,
And when I speak I may be made by choice
The perfect echo of thy heavenly voice.
XXIX. QUEEN ELIZABETH.
HER COMPLAINT.
Oh Fortune! how thy restless wavering state
Hath fraught with cares my troubled wit!
Witness this present prison, whither fate
Could bear me, and the joys I quit.
Thou causedest the guilty to be loosed
From bands, wherein are innocents enclosed;
Causing the guiltless to be strait reserved,
And freeing those that death hath well deserved.
But by her envy can be nothing wrought,
So God send to my foes all they have thought.
XXX. SIR JOHN HARRINGTON
Bv Babel's brooks we sit and weep,
O Sion, when on thee we think;
Our harps hanged up do silence keep
On trees along the river's brink:
Yet they that thral us thus by wrong,
Amid our sorrows ask a song.
Come, sing us now a song, say they,
As once you sang at any hand:
Alas! how can we sing or play
Jehovah's songs in stranger's land?
Yet let my hand forget all plays,
If Salem I forget to praise.
If Salam bide not firm in mind,
Let to my roof my tongue be glued,
If other joys than her I find.
Lord, think on Eden's race so rude
That thus that day did whet this nation,
Root
up, root
up her strong foundation.
Close in the bosom of a bended hill,
Of fair and fruitful trees a forest stood; Balm, myrtle, bdellium from their bark distil;
Ray, smilax, myrtle (Cupid's arrow-wood,) Grew there; and cypress with his kiss-sky tops, And Ferrea's tree, whence pure rose-water drops. The golden bee, buzzing with tinsel wings,
Sucked amber honey from the silken flower; The dove sad love-groans on her sackbut sings,
The throstle whistles from his oaken tower; And sporting lay the nymphs of woods and hills, On beds of heart's-ease, rue, and daffodils.
XXXII. MICHAEL DRAYTON.
1. SUMMER'S EVE.
Clear had the day been from the dawn,
All chequered was the sky,
Thin clouds, like scarfs of cobweb lawn,
Veil'd heaven's most glorious eye.
The wind had no more strength than this,
That leisurely it blew,
To make one leaf the next to kiss,
That closely by it grew.
The flowers, like brave embroider'd girls,
Looked as they most desired
To see whose head with orient pearls
Most curiously was tired.
The rills that on the pebbles played,
Might now be heard at will;
This world the only music made,
Else every thing was still.
And to itself the subtle air
Such sovereignty assumes,
That it received too large a share
From nature's rich perfumes.
That noble Chaucer, in those former times,
Who first enriched our English with his rhymes,
And was the first of ours that ever broke
Into the Muse's treasures, and first spoke
In mighty numbers; delving in the mine
Of perfect knowledge which he could refine
And pass for current, and so much as then
The English language could express for men,
He made it do.
Now, when the hart doth hear
The often bellowing hounds to vent his secret leir,
He rousing rusheth out and through the brakes doth drive,
As though up by the roots the bushes he would rive;
And, through the cumbrous thicks as fearfully he makes,
He with his branched head the tender saplings shakes,
That, sprinkling their moist pearls, do seem for him to
weep,
When after goes the cry, with yellings loud and deep,
That all the forest rings, and every neighbouring place,
And there is not a hound but falleth to the chace;
Rechating with his horn, which then the hunter cheers,
Whilst still the lusty stag his high-palmed head uprears,
His body showing state, with unbent knees upright,
Expressing, from all beasts, his courage in his flight.
But when, the approaching foes still following, he per-
That he his speed must trust, his usual walk he leaves, And o'er the champain flies; which when the assembly find.
Each follows as his horse were footed with the wind.
But, being then embost, the noble stately deer,
When he hath gotten ground (the kennel cast arear)
Doth beat the brooks and ponds for sweet refreshing soil;
That serving not, then proves if he his scent can foil,
And makes amongst the herds, and flocks of shag-woolled
sheep,
Them frighting from the guard of these who had their
keep;
But, when as all his shifts his safety still denies,
Put quite out of his walk, the ways and fallows tries,
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