XVII

SWEET stroke, so might I thrive as I must praise

But sweeter hand that gives so sweet a stroke ! The lute itself is sweetest when she plays.

But what hear I? A string through fear is

broke!

The lute doth shake as if it were afraid.

O sure some goddess holds it in her hand, A heavenly power that oft hath me dismayed, Yet such a power as doth in beauty stand! Cease lute, my ceaseless suit will ne'er be heard! Ah, too hard-hearted she that will not hear it! If I but think on joy, my joy is marred; My grief is great, yet ever must I bear it; But love 'twixt us will prove a faithful page,

And she will love my sorrows to assuage.

XVIII

O SHE must love my sorrows to assuage.
O God, what joy felt I when she did smile,
Whom killing grief before did cause to rage!
Beauty is able sorrow to beguile.

Out, traitor absence! thou dost hinder me,
And mak'st my mistress often to forget,
Causing me to rail upon her cruelty,

Whilst thou my suit injuriously dost let;
Again her presence doth astonish me,

And strikes me dumb as if my sense were gone; Oh, is not this a strange perplexity?

In presence dumb, she hears not absent moan; Thus absent presence, present absence maketh, That hearing my poor suit, she it mistaketh.

XIX

My pain paints out my love in doleful verse,
The lively glass wherein she may behold it;
My verse her wrong to me doth still rehearse,
But so as it lamenteth to unfold it.

Myself with ceaseless tears my harms bewail,
And her obdurate heart not to be moved;
Though long-continued woes my senses fail,
And curse the day, the hour when first I loved.
She takes the glass wherein herself she sees,
In bloody colours cruelly depainted;

And her poor prisoner humbly on his knees,

Pleading for grace, with heart that never

fainted.

She breaks the glass; alas, I cannot choose

But grieve that I should so my labour lose!

XX

GREAT is the joy that no tongue can express! Fair babe new born, how much dost thou delight me !

But what, is mine so great? Yea, no whit less! So great that of all woes it doth acquite me. It's fair Fidessa that this comfort bringeth,

Who sorry for the wrongs by her procured, Delightful tunes of love, of true love singeth, Wherewith her too chaste thoughts were ne'er

inured.

She loves, she saith, but with a love not blind.
Her love is counsel that I should not love,
But upon virtues fix a stayèd mind.

But what! This new-coined love, love doth

reprove?

If this be love of which you make such store,

Sweet, love me less, that you may love me more!

XXI

HE that will Cæsar be, or else not be-
Who can aspire to Cæsar's bleeding fame,
Must be of high resolve; but what is he
That thinks to gain a second Cæsar's name?
Whoe'er he be that climbs above his strength,
And climbeth high, the greater is his fall!
For though he sit awhile, we see at length,
His slippery place no firmness hath at all,
Great is his bruise that falleth from on high.
This warneth me that I should not aspire;
Examples should prevail; I care not, I !
I perish must or have what I desire!
This humour doth with mine full well agree
I must Fidessa's be, or else not be!