CLIX.

PHILLADA FLOUTS ME.

OH! what a pain is love :
How shall I bear it?
She will inconstant prove,
I greatly fear it.

She so torments my mind,
That my strength faileth,
And wavers with the wind
As a ship saileth :

Please her the best I may,
She loves still to gainsay :
Alack and well-a-day!
Phillada flouts me.

At the fair yesterday
She did pass by me,
She looked another way
And would not spy me:
I woo'd her for to dine,
But could not get her;
Will had her to the wine-
He might intreat her.
With Daniel she did dance,
On me she looked askance :
Oh! thrice unhappy chance;
Phillada flouts me.

Fair maid! be not so coy,

Do not disdain me!

I am my mother's joy :

Sweet! entertain me!

She'll give me when she dies
All that is fitting :

Her poultry and her bees,
And her goose sitting,
A pair of mattrass beds,
And a bag full of shreds;
And yet, for all this guedes,
Phillada flouts me.

She hath a clout of mine,

Wrought with blue coventry, Which she keeps for a sign

Of my fidelity:
But, 'faith, if she flinch,
She shall not wear it ;
To Tib, my t'other wench,
I mean to bear it.

And yet it grieves my heart

So soon from her to part:

Death strike me with his dart!

Phillada flouts me.

Thou shalt eat crudded cream

All the year lasting,

And drink the crystal stream

Pleasant in tasting,

Whig and whey whilst thou lust,

And ramble-berries,

Pie-lid and pastry crust,

Pears, plums, and cherries;

;

Thy raiment shall be thin,

Made of a weevil's skin

Yet all's not worth a pin:
Phillada flouts me.

Fair maiden! have a care,

And in time take me ;

I can have those as fair,
If you forsake me;

For Doll the dairy-maid
Laughed at me lately,
And wanton Winifred
Favours me greatly.

One throws milk on my clothes,
T'other plays with my nose :
What wanting signs are those!
Phillada flouts me.

I cannot work nor sleep
At all in season:

Love wounds my heart so deep,
Without all reason.

I 'gin to pine away

In my love's shadow,
Like as a fat beast may

Penned in a meadow.
I shall be dead, I fear,
Within this thousand year:
And for all that my dear

Phillada flouts me.-Anon.

CLX.

WHAT IS THE WORLD?

WHAT is the world? tell, worldling, if thou know it. If it be good, why do all ills o'erflow it?

If it be bad, why dost thou like it so? If it be sweet, how comes it bitter then? If it be bitter, what bewitcheth men?

If it be friend, why kills it, as a foe, Vain-minded men that over-love and lust it? If it be foe, fondling, how dar'st thou trust it? Joshua Sylvester.

CLXI.

MYSTIC LOVE.

O THOU undaunted daughter of desires!
By all thy dower of lights and fires;
By all the eagle in thee, all the dove;
By all thy lives and deaths of love;
By thy large draughts of intellectual day,
And by thy thirsts of love more large than they;
By all thy brim-fill'd bowls of fierce desire,
By thy last morning's draught of liquid fire;
By the full kingdom of that final kiss

That seiz'd thy parting soul, and seal'd thee His;
By all the Heav'n thou hast in Him

(Fair sister of the seraphim!)

By all of Him we have in thee;
Leave nothing of myself in me.
Let me so read thy life, that I
Unto all life of mine may die.

Richard Crashaw.

CLXII.

A SONG OF FATE.

THE glories of our blood and state

Are shadows, not substantial things;

There is no armour against fate;

Death lays his icy hand on kings;
Sceptre and Crown

Must tumble down,

And in the dust be equal made

With the poor crooked scythe and spade.

Some men with swords may reap the field,

And plant fresh laurels where they kill : But their strong nerves at last must yield; They tame but one another still: