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Sweetly dear, and dearly sweet;
Blessed where these blessings meet!
Sweet, fair, wise, kind, blessed, true,-
Blessed be all these in you!

IT

WHAT IS LOVE?

T is too clear a brightness for man's eye;
Too high a wisdom for his wits to find;
Too deep a secret for his sense to try;
And all too heavenly for his earthly mind;
It is a grace of such a glorious kind

As gives the soul a secret power to know it,
But gives no heart nor spirit power to show it.

It is of heaven and earth the highest beauty,
The powerful hand of heaven's and earth's creation,
The due commander of all spirits' duty,

The Deity of angels' adoration,

The glorious substance of the soul's salvation:
The light of truth that all perfection trieth,
And life that gives the life that never dieth.

It is the height of good and hate of ill,
Triumph of truth, and falsehood's overthrow;
The only worker of the highest will;

And only knowledge that doth knowledge know;
The only ground where it doth only grow:

It is in sum the substance of all bliss,

Without whose blessing all thing nothing is.

ANONYMOUS LYRICS.

(1588-1603.)

The writing of lyrics was an art to almost everyone's hand in the days of Elizabeth. Songs sung themselves; the music of words as well as of tones was in the air. The authorship of hundreds of these songs consequently is now unknown,-they came easily, and were easily forgotten.

THE QUIET LIFE.

From William Byrd's Psalms, Sonnets, and Songs, 1588.

WHAT pleasure have great princes

More dainty to their choice

Than herdsmen wild, who careless
In quiet life rejoice,

And fortune's fate not fearing,
Sing sweet in summer morning?

Their dealings plain and rightful,
Are void of all deceit;

They never know how spiteful.
It is to kneel and wait

On favourite presumptuous
Whose pride is vain and sumptuous.

All day their flocks each tendeth;
At night, they take their rest;
More quiet than who sendeth
His ship into the East,

Where gold and pearl are plenty;
But getting, very dainty.

For lawyers and their pleading,
They 'steem it not a straw;
They think that honest meaning
Is of itself a law:

Whence conscience judgeth plainly,

They spend no money vainly.

O happy who thus liveth!
Not caring much for gold;
With clothing which sufficeth
To keep him from the cold.
Though poor and plain his diet,
Yet merry it is, and quiet.

LOVE'S PERFECTIONS.

This and the following piece are translations from the Italian, and appear in Yonge's Musica Transalpina, 1588, reprinted in Arber's Garner, vol. iii.

N vain he seeks for beauty that excelleth,

IN

That hath not seen her eyes where Love sojourneth; How sweetly here and there the same she turneth. He knows not how Love healeth, and how he quelleth: That knows not how she sighs, and sweet beguileth; And how she sweetly speaks, and sweetly smileth.

I

SWEET LAMENTING.

SAW my lady weeping, and Love did languish,
And of their plaint ensued so rare consenting
That never yet was heard more sweet lamenting,
Made all of tender pity and mournful anguish.
The floods forsaking their delightful swelling,
Stayed to attend their plaint. The winds enraged,
Still and content, to quiet calm assuaged
Their wonted storming and every blast rebelling.

SET

THE TEST.

From The Phonix Nest, 1593.

ET me where Phoebus' heat the flowers slayeth, Or where continual snow withstands his forces; Set me where he his temperate rays displayeth, Or where he comes, or where he never courses!

Set me in Fortune's grace, or else discharged;

In sweet and pleasant air, or dark and glooming; Where days and nights are lesser or enlarged;

In years of strength, in failing age, or blooming!

Set me in heaven, or earth, or in the centre;
Low in a vale, or on a mountain placed;
Set me to danger, peril, or adventure,
Graced by fame, or infamy disgraced!

Set me to these, or any other trial
Except my Mistress' anger and denial.

THE SHEPHERD'S PRAISE OF HIS SACRED

DIANA.

From The Phænix Nest, 1593.

PRAISED be Diana's fair and harmless light,

Praised be the dews, wherewith she moists the ground: Praised be her beams, the glory of the night,

Praised be her power, by which all powers abound

Praised be her nymphs, with whom she decks the woods,
Praised be her knights, in whom true honour lives:
Praised be that force by which she moves the floods,
Let that Diana shine which all these gives.

In heaven Queen she is among the spheres;
She, mistress-like, makes all things to be pure:
Eternity in her oft change she bears;

She beauty is, by her the fair endure.

Time wears her not, she doth his chariot guide;
Mortality below her orb is placed;

By her the virtue of the stars down slide,
In her is Virtue's perfect image cast.

(M 349)

K

A knowledge pure it is her worth to know:
With Circes let them dwell that think not so.

THE SHEPHERD TO THE FLOWERS.
From The Phænix Nest, 1593.

WEET violets, Love's paradise, that spread

SWEET

Your gracious odours, which you couchèd bear
Within your paly faces,

Upon the gentle wing of some calm breathing wind,
That plays amidst the plain,

If by the favour of propitious stars you gain
Such grace as in my lady's bosom place to find,

Be proud to touch those places:

And when her warmth your moisture forth doth wear,
Whereby her dainty parts are sweetly fed,

You honours of the flow'ry meads, I pray,
You pretty daughters of the earth and sun,
With mild and seemly breathing straight display
My bitter sighs, that have my heart undone.

Vermilion roses, that with new day's rise
Display your crimson folds fresh looking fair,
Whose radiant bright disgraces

The rich adornèd rays of roseate rising morn;
Ah, if her virgin's hand

Do pluck your pure, ere Phoebus view the land, And veil your gracious pomp, in lovely Nature's scorn; If chance my mistress traces

Fast by your flowers to take the summer's air,
Then woful blushing tempt her glorious eyes,

To spread their tears, Adonis' death reporting,
And tell Love's torments, sorrowing for her friend,
Whose drops of blood, within your leaves consorting

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