Now sythe my playnte dothe pytie move, Graunt grace that I may taste Such joys as angells feele above, That lovingly may last. ANSWER. I yeeld with harte and wylling mynde Doubtinge no deale suche faythe to fynde Now you have wealthe at your owne will, And lawe at your owne lust, To make or mar, to save or spill Then be a conqueror juste. REJOINDER. Fyrste shall the sunne in darknes dwell, The moone and starrs lacke lyghte, Before in thoughte I doe rebell Agaynste my lyve's delyghte: Tryed is my truste, knowne ys my truthe; In tyme, my sweete, provyde, Whilst bewtie florishe in thine youthe, And breathe in me abyde. EDWARD VERE, EARL OF OXFORD, Born about 1534, died 1604. THE BIRTH OF DESIRE WHEN Wert thou born, Desire? Tell me who was thy nurse? "Fresh Youth in sugared joy." What was thy meat and daily food? "Sore sighs and great annoy." What hadst thou, then, to drink? What cradle were you rocked in? What brought you, then, asleep? "Sweet speech that men liked best." And where is now your dwelling place? * This piece is printed in Nicholas Breton's Bower of Delights, 1597. Some of the verses appeared, in 1587, in Puttenham's Arte of Englishe Poesie, where they were ascribed to the Earl of Oxford. Doth company displease? "It doth in many a one." Where would Desire, then, chuse to be? "He likes to be alone." What feedeth most your sight? "To gaze on favour still." Who find you most to be your foe? Will ever age or death Bring you unto decay? "No, no; Desire both lives and dies GEORGE GASCOIGNE, A STRANGE PASSION OF A LOVER. AMID my bale I bathe in blisse; I swimme in heaven, I sinke in hell; And yet my mone no tongue can tell : I live and love, what would you more? I laugh sometime with little lust, These things seeme strange, yet are they trew; Beleeve me, sweete, my state is such : One pleasure which I would eschew Both slakes my greefe and breedes my grutch: So doth one paine, whiche I would shun, Renew my joyes where greefe begun. Then, like the larke that past the night How joyes approach when sorrowes shrinke. And as faire Philomene againe Can watch and sing when others sleepe, To wray the woe that makes her weepe : The lothsome life I leade alway. The which to thee (deare wench) I write, I cannot live, it will not bee; CERTAINE VERSES WRITTEN TO A GENTLEWOMAN WHOM HEE LYKED VERY WELL, AND YET HAD NEVER ANY OPPORTUNITY TO DISCOVER HIS AFFECTION, BEING ALWAIES BRIDLED BY JELOUSE LOOKES, WHICH ATTENDED THEM BOTH; AND THERE- THOU, with thy lookes, on whom I looke full oft, Thy face is faire, thy skin is smooth and soft, And every part seemes pleasant in my sight; Yet wote thou well, those lookes have wrought my woe, Because I love to looke upon them so. For first those lookes allured mine eye to looke, But still to looke, and though I looke too much, Thus in thy lookes my love and life have holde, Then, though thy lookes should cause me for to die, |