Ah pained heart, thou gap'st for grace
E'en there where pity hath no place!

As easy 't is the stony rock

From place to place for to remove, As by thy plaint for to provoke

A frozen heart from hate to love. What should I say? such is thy lot, To fawn on them that force thee not.

I

Thus may'st thou safely say and swear
That rigour reign'th and ruth doth fail,
In thankless thoughts thy thoughts do wear,
Thy truth, thy faith may nought avail
For thy good will. Why should thou so
Still graft where grace it will not grow?

Alas, poor heart, thus hast thou spent
Thy flowering time, thy pleasant years!
With sighing voice weep and lament,

For of thy hope no fruit appears:
Thy true meaning is paid with scorn,
That ever sow'th and reap'th no corn.

And where thou seeks a quiet port,

Thou dost but weigh against the wind;

I Love.
6

For where thou gladdest1 wouldst resort, There is no place for thee assign'd. Thy destiny hath set it so

That thy true heart should cause thy wo.

A Praise of his Lady.

GIVE place, you ladies, and be gone.
Boast not yourselves at all!
For here at hand approacheth one
Whose face will stain you all!

The virtue of her lively looks
Excels the precious stone:

I wish to have none other books
To read or look upon.

In each of her two chrystal eyes
Smileth a naked boy:

It would you all in heart suffice
To see that lamp" of joy.

I think Nature hath lost the mould
Where she her shape did take;
Or else I doubt if Nature could

So fair a creature make.

1 So ed. I.-Ed. 1567," gladdiest."
? So ed. I.-Ed. 1567," lamb."

She may be well compared

Unto the phenix kind,

Whose like was never seen nor heard, That any man can find.

In life she is Diana chaste,

In troth Penelope,

In word and eke in deed steadfast:
What will you more we say?

Her roseal colour comes and goes
With such a comely grace,

More ruddier too than doth the rose,

Within her lively face.

At Bacchus' feast none shall her meet,

Ne at no wanton play;

Nor gazing in an open street,

Nor gadding as a stray.

The modest mirth that she doth use

Is mix'd with shamefac'dness; All vice she doth wholly refuse,

And hateth idleness.

O Lord, it is a world to see

How virtue can repair,

And deck in her such honesty
Whom Nature made so fair!

Truly she doth as far exceed
Our women now-a-days,
As doth the gilly-flower a weed,
And more a thousand ways.

How might I do to get a graff
Of this unspotted tree?

For all the rest are plain but chaff
Which seem good corn to be.

This gift alone I shall her give:
When Death doth what he can,
Her honest fame shall ever live
Within the mouth of man.

The Lover, accusing his Love for her Unfaithfulness, purposeth to live in Liberty.

THE Smoky sighs, the bitter tears

That I in vain have wasted,

The broken sleeps, the wo and fears,

That long in me have lasted,

The love, and all I owe to thee,
Here I renounce, and make me free.

*

The fruits were fair the which did grow
Within my garden planted,

I

The leaves were green of every bough,

2

And moisture nothing wanted;

Yet, or the blossoms 'gan [to] fall
The caterpillar wasted all.

Thy body was the garden-place,
And sugar'd words it beareth ;
The blossoms all, thy faith it was,
Which, as the canker, weareth.

The caterpillar is the same

That hath won thee, and lost thy name.

*

That all Things sometime find Ease of their Pain,

save only the Lover.

I SEE there is no sort

Of things that live in grief,

Which at some time may not resort
Whereas they have relief.

*

*

The chased deer hath soil

To cool him in his heat t;

So ed. 1567-Ed. I. "thy."
2 So ed. I.-Ed. 1567, " never."