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What now, Sir Fool? said he, I would no less:
Look here, I say; I looked, and Stella spied;
Who, hard by, made a window send forth light;

My heart then quaked, then dazzled were mine eyes, One hand forgot to rule, th' other to fight;

Nor trumpet's sound I heard, nor friendly cries:

My foe came on, and beat the air for me,

Till that her blush taught me my shame to see.

Because I breathe not love to every one,
Nor do not use set colours for to wear;
Nor nourish special locks of vowed hair;

Nor give each speech a full point of a groan;
The courtly nymphs, acquainted with the moan
Of them who, in their lips, Love's standard bear;
What he say they of me, now dare I swear,

He cannot love; no, no; let him alone.
And think so still, so Stella know my mind;
Profess, indeed, I do not, Cupid's art;
But you, fair maids, at length this true shall find,
That his right badge is worn but in the heart.
Dumb swans, not chattering pies, do lovers prove;
They love indeed who quake to say they love.

Dear! why make you more of a dog than me?

If he do love, I burn, I burn in love;
If he wait well, I never thence would move:
If he be fair, yet but a dog can be:
Little he is, so little worth is he;

He barks, my songs thine own voice oft doth prove;
Bidden, perhaps, he fetcheth thee a glove,

But I, unbid, fetch even my soul to thee.
Yet, while I languish, him that bosom clips,
That lap doth lap, nay lets, in spite of spite,
This sour-breathed mate taste of those sugared lips:
Alas! if you grant only such delight.

To witless things, then Love, I hope (since wit
Becomes a clog) will soon ease me of it.

Highway, since you my chief Parnassus be, And that my Muse, to some ears not unsweet, Tempers her words to trampling horses' feet, More oft than to a chamber melody:

Now blessed you, bear onward blessed me, To her, where I my heart, safe left, shall meet; My Muse and I must you of duty greet

With thanks and wishes, wishing thankfully. Be you still fair, honoured by public heed;

By no encroachment wronged, nor time forgot: Nor blamed for blood, nor shamed for sinful deed; And that you know I envy you no lot

Of highest wish, I wish you so much bliss,
Hundreds of years you Stella's feet may kiss.

Stella! think not that I by verse seek fame, Who seek, who hope, who love, who live but thee; Thine eyes my pride, thy lips my history:

If thou praise not, all other praise is shame.
Nor so ambitious am I, as to frame

A nest for my young praise, in laurel tree:
In truth I swear, I wish not there should be
Graved in my epitaph a Poet's name:
Ne, if I would, I could just title make,

That any laud to me thereof should grow,
Without my plumes from others' wings I take;

For nothing from my wit, or will, doth flow: Since all my words thy beauty doth indite, And Love doth hold my hand, and makes me write.

O happy Thames! that did'st my Stella bear, I saw thee with full many a smiling line,

Upon thy cheerful face joy's livery wear; While those fair planets on thy streams did shine, The boat for joy could not to dance forbear, While wanton winds, with beauties so divine

Ravished, stayed not, till in her golden hair They did themselves (O sweetest prison!) twine. And fain those Eol's youth there would their stay Have made, but forced by Nature still to fly,

First did with puffing kiss those locks display:
She, so dishevelled blushed; from window I

With sight thereof cried out, "O fair disgrace!
Let Honour's self to thee grant highest place."

Unhappy sight, and hath she vanished by So near, in so good time, so free a place? Dead glass, dost thou thy object so embrace,

As what my heart still sees thou can'st not spy? I swear by her I love, and lack, that I Was not in fault, who bent thy dazzling race Only unto the heaven of Stella's face;

Counting but dust what in the way did lie. But cease, mine eyes, your tears do witness well,

That you, guiltless thereof, your nectar missed. Cursed be the page, from whom the bad torch fell;

Cursed be the night which did your will resist : Cursed be the coachman which did drive so fast, Which no less curse than absence makes me taste.

ROBERT GREENE.

1560-1592.

["Menaphon." 1587.]

DORON'S DESCRIPTION OF SAMELA.

LIKE to Diana in her summer weed,

Girt with a crimson robe of brightest dye,

Goes fair Samela;

Whiter than be the flocks that straggling feed,

When washed by Arethusa faint they lie,

Is fair Samela.

As fair Aurora in her morning gray,

Decked with the ruddy glister of her love,

Is fair Samela ;

Like lovely Thetis on a calméd day,

When as her brightness Neptune's fancy move,

Shines fair Samela;

Her tresses gold, her eyes like glassy streams,
Her teeth are pearl, the breasts are ivory

Of fair Samela;

Her cheeks, like rose and

lily yield forth gleams,

Her brows' bright arches framed of ebony;

Thus fair Samela

Passeth fair Venus in her bravest hue,
And Juno in the show of majesty,

For she's Samela,

Pallas in wit; all three, if you well view,
For beauty, wit, and matchless dignity

Yield to Samela.

["Pandosto. The Triumph of Time." 1588.]

THE PRAISE OF FAWNIA.

Ah, were she pitiful as she is fair,

Or but as mild as she is seeming so,
Then were my hopes greater than my despair,
Then all the world were heaven, nothing woe.
Ah! were her heart relenting as her hand,

That seems to melt even with the mildest touch, Then knew I where to seat me in a land,

Under wide heavens, but yet (I know) not such. So as she shows, she seems the budding rose,

Yet sweeter far than is an earthly flower, Sovereign of beauty, like the spray she grows, Compassed she is with thorns and cankered flower, Yet were she willing to be plucked and worn, She would be gathered, though she grew on thorn.

Ah, when she sings, all music else be still,
For none must be comparéd to her note;
Ne'er breathed such glee from Philomela's bill,
Nor from the morning-singer's swelling throat.
Ah, when she riseth from her blissful bed,

She comforts all the world as doth the sun,
And at her sight the nights' foul vapour's fled;
When she is set, the gladsome day is done.

O glorious sun, imagine me the west,

Shine in my arms, and set thou in my breast!

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