Henry Constable.

BORN 1562 (?). DIED 1604 (?).]

DIAPHENIA.

IAPHENIA, like the daffadoundilly,
White as the sun, fair as the lily,
Heigh-ho, how I do love thee!
I do love thee as my lambs

Are beloved of their dams;

How blest I were if thou wouldst prove me.

Diaphenia, like the spreading roses,
That in thy sweets all sweets encloses,
Fair sweet, how I do love thee!

I do love thee as each flower

Loves the sun's life-giving power;

For dead, thy breath to life might move me.

Diaphenia, like to all things blessed,
When all thy praises are expressed,
Dear joy, how I do love thee!
As the birds do love the spring,
Or the bees their careful king:

Then in requite, sweet virgin, love me!

Joshua Sylvester.

[BORN 1563. DIED 1618.]

W

LOVE'S OMNIPRESENCE.

EREI as base as is the lowly plain,

And you, my Love, as high as heaven above, Yet should the thoughts of me, your humble

swain,

Ascend to heaven, in honor of my Love.

Were I as high as heaven above the plain,
And you, my Love, as humble and as low
As are the deepest bottoms of the main,
Wheresoe'er you were, with

Were

you

you my

love should go.

the earth, dear Love, and I the skies,

My love should shine on you like to the sun,

And look upon you with ten thousand eyes

Till heaven waxed blind, and till the world were

done.

Wheresoe'er I am, below, or else above you,
Wheresoe'er you are, my heart shall truly love you.

Michael Drayton.

[BORN 1563. DIED 1631.)

LOVE'S FAREWELL.

INCE there's no help, come let us kiss and

part,

Nay, I have done, you get no more of

me;

And I am glad, yea glad with all my heart,
That thus so cleanly I myself can free;

Shake hands forever, cancel all our vows,
And when we meet at any time again,
Be it not seen in either of our brows

That we one jot of former love retain.

Now at the last gasp of love's latest breath,
When his pulse failing, passion speechless lies,
When faith is kneeling by his bed of death,
And innocence is closing up his eyes,

-Now if thou wouldst, when all have given him

over,

From death to life thou might'st him yet recover.

William Shakspeare.

[BORN 1564. DIED 1616.]

"TAKE, OH, TAKE THOSE LIPS AWAY.

AKE, oh, take those lips away,

That so sweetly were forsworn!
And those eyes, the break of day,
Lights that do mislead the morn;
But my kisses bring again,
Seals of love, but sealed in vain.

Hide, oh, hide those hills of snow,
Which thy frozen bosom bears!
On whose tops the pinks that grow
Are of those that April wears;
But first set my poor heart free,

Bound in those icy chains by thee.

*The authorship of the above is an unsettled question. The first stanza will be found in Measure for Measure; and the idea contained in "Seals of love, but sealed in vain,” is to be found in one of Shakspeare's sonnets, and in Venus and Adonis. Both stanzas are in one of Beaumont and Fletcher's plays. The probability is that the first stanza is by Shakspeare, and the next by Fletcher.

A DESCRIPTION.

NE of her hands one of her cheeks lay under,
Cozening the pillow of a lawful kiss,

Which therefore swelled, and seemed to part
asunder,

As angry to be robbed of such a bliss,

The one looked pale, and for revenge did long,
While th' other blushed, 'cause it had done the wrong.

Out of the bed the other fair hand was

On a green satin quilt, whose perfect white Looked like a daisy in a field of grass,

And showed like unmelt snow unto the sight.*

*Sir John Suckling completed this unfinished poem, but the addition

is an inferior one.