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The secret thoughts, imparted with such trust;
The wanton talk, the divers change of play;
The friendship sworn, each promise kept so just,
Wherewith we passed the winter night away.

And with this thought the blood forsakes the face;
The tears berain my cheeks of deadly hue:
The which, as soon as sobbing sighs, alas!
Upsupped have, thus I my plaint renew:
'O place of bliss, renewer of my woes!
Give me account, where is my noble fere1,
Whom in thy walls thou dost each night enclose,
To other lief, but unto me most dear.'

Echo, alas! that doth my sorrow rue
Returns thereat a hollow sound of plaint.
Thus I alone, where all my freedom grew,
In prison pine, with bondage and restraint;
And with remembrance of the greater grief,
To banish the less, I find my chief relief.

THE MEANS TO ATTAIN HAPPY LIFE.
[Translated from Martial.]

Martial, the things that do attain

The happy life be these, I find;
The riches left, not got with pain,
The fruitful ground, the quiet mind.
The equal friend, no grudge, no strife,
No charge of rule nor governance;
Without disease, the healthful life;

The household of continuance.
The mean diet, no delicate fare;

True wisdom joined with simpleness;

The night discharged of all care,

Where wine the wit may not oppress.

The faithful wife, without debate;

Such sleeps as inay beguile the night;
Contented with thine own estate,

Ne wish for death, ne fear his might.
3 moderate.

companion.

2 dear.

A PRAISE OF HIS LOVE.

[Wherein he reproveth them that compare their ladies with his.]

Give place, ye lovers, here before

That spent your boasts and brags in vain ;

My lady's beauty passeth more

The best of yours, I dare well sayen,

Than doth the sun the candle light

Or brightest day the darkest night.

And thereto hath a troth as just
As had Penelope the fair;
For what she saith, ye may it trust,
As it by writing sealed were:
And virtues hath she many moe
Than I with pen have skill to show.

I could rehearse, if that I would,
The whole effect of Nature's plaint,
When she had lost the perfect mould,
The like to whom she could not paint:
With wringing hands, how she did cry,
And what she said, I know it, I.

I know she swore with raging mind,
Her kingdom only set apart,

There was no loss by law of kind

That could have gone so near her heart;

And this was chiefly all her pain;
'She could not make the like again.'

Sith Nature thus gave her the praise,
To be the chiefest work she wrought;
In faith, methinks! some better ways
On your behalf might well be sought,
Than to compare, as ye have done,
To match the candle with the sun.

AN EPITAPH ON CLERE, SURREY'S FAITHFUL FRIEND AND

FOLLOWER.

Norfolk sprung thee, Lambeth holds thee dead; A

Clere, of the Count of Cleremont, thou hight;
Within the womb of Ormond's race thou bred,
And saw'st thy cousin' crowned in thy sight.
Shelton for love, Surrey for lord thou chase2;
(Aye me! whilst life did last that league was tender)
Tracing whose steps thou sawest Kelsal blaze,\
Landrecy burnt, and battered Boulogne render.`.
At Montreuil gates, hopeless of all recure,
Thine Earl, half dead, gave in thy hand his will;
Which cause did thee this pining death procure,
Ere summers four times seven thou couldst fulfill.
Ah! Clere! if love had booted, care, or cost,
Heaven had not won, nor earth so timely lost.

ON THE DEATH OF SIR THOMAS WYATT.
Wyatt resteth here that quick could never rest :
Whose heavenly gifts increased by disdain,
And virtue sank the deeper in his breast;
Such profit he by envy could obtain.

A head where wisdom mysteries did frame,

Whose hammers beat still in that lively brain,
As on a stithe where that some work of fame
Was daily wrought, to turn to Britain's gain.
A visage stern and mild: where both did grow
Vice to contemn, in virtue to rejoice;
Amid great storms whom grace assured so

To live upright, and smile at fortune's choice.

A hand that taught what might be said in rhyme;
That reft Chaucer the glory of his wit;

A mark, the which (unperfected for time)

Some may approach, but never none shall hit.

Thomas Clere was first cousin of Anne Boleyn.

Didst choose.

A tongue that served in foreign realms his king;

Whose courteous talk to virtue did inflame Each noble heart: a worthy guide to bring Our English youth by travail unto fame.

An eye whose judgment none affect could blind,
Friends to allure and foes to reconcile,
Whose piercing look did represent a mind
With virtue fraught reposed void of guile.

A heart where dread was never so imprest

To hide the thought that might the truth advance; In neither fortune loft', nor yet represt,

To swell in wealth, or yield unto mischance.

A valiant corpse, where force and beauty met,
Happy alas, too happy but for foes,

Lived, and ran the race that nature set;

Of manhood's shape where she the mould did lose.

But to the heavens that simple soul is fled,
Which left, with such as covet Christ to know,
Witness of faith that never could be dead;
Sent for our health, but not received so.

Thus for our guilt this jewel have we lost;
The earth his bones, the heavens possess his ghost.

1 exalted.

GEORGE GASCOIGNE.

[GEORGE GASCOIGNE was born circ. 1536; died 1577. The dates of his poems are:

1572. A hundred Sundry Flowers bound up in one small Posy.

1575. The Posies corrected, perfected, and augmented by the Author.

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1576. The Steel Glass, with the Complaint of Philomene.

1587. The Pleasantest Works of George Gascoigne, newly compiled into one volume.]

Amongst the poets that immediately preceded the great Elizabethan Period, which may be said to begin with the publication of The Shepherd's Calendar in 1580, Gascoigne occupied, and occupies, a notable place. Bolton indeed, in his Hypercritica, speaks slightingly of him: 'Among the lesser late poets George Gascoigne's Works may be endured'; but for the most part he is mentioned with high respect and praise. Raleigh commends The Steel Glass in what are his earliest known verses. Puttenham distinguishes him for 'a good metre and for a plentiful vein.' Webbe calls him 'a witty gentleman, and the very chief of our late rimers'; 'gifts of wit,' he says, ' and natural promptness appear in him abundantly.' Amongst other eulogists may be named Nash ̧ Gabriel Harvey, Whetstone.

He was a man of family and position, well known to and amongst the 'Inns of Court men,' who, in the Elizabethan age, as in that of Queen Anne, passed for the arch wits and critics as well as the first gentlemen of the day; and when campaigning in the Low Countries he met with adventures which added to his personal prestige. Thus he was a conspicuous figure in the society of his time, and for this reason, if for nothing else, his verses would win esteem and circulation.

Gascoigne, then, is interesting as a poet who was popular during Shakspere's boyhood and Spenser's adolescence. But he is yet more important as one who did real service in the way of extending and improving the form of literature-as a pioneer of the

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