Thou art my life! my Love! my heart!
The very eyes of me!
And hast command of every part,
To live and die for thee!

THE PRIMROSE.

Ask me, Why I send you here
This sweet Infanta of the year?
Ask me, Why I send to you

This Primrose, thus bepearled with dew?
I will whisper to your ears,

'The sweets of Love are mixed with tears!'

Ask me, Why this flower does show
So yellow-green, and sickly too?
Ask me, Why the stalk is weak
And bending; yet it doth not break?
I will answer, 'These discover
What fainting hopes are in a Lover!'

HOW ROSES CAME RED.

'Tis said, as CUPID danced among
The Gods, he down the nectar flung;
Which on the White Rose being shed,
Made it, for ever after, red.

[See also page 120.]

A HYMN TO VENUS AND CUPID.

SEA-BORN Goddess! let me be

By thy son thus graced, and thee!
That, whene'er I woo, I find
Virgins coy; but not unkind!

Let me, when I kiss a Maid,
Taste her lips so overlaid
With Love's syrup, that I may,
In your Temple, when I pray,
Kiss the altar; and confess,
'There's in Love no bitterness!'

THE CURSE.

Go, perjured man! and if thou e'er return To see the small remainders in mine urn; When thou shalt laugh at my religious dust, And ask, 'Where 's now the colour, form, and trust, Of Woman's beauty?' and, with hand more rude, Rifle the flowers which the Virgins strewed: Know, I have prayed to Fury, that some wind May blow my ashes up; and strike thee blind!

UPON BEN JONSON.

HERE lies JONSON with the rest Of the Poets; but the best!

Reader! wouldst thou more have known?

Ask his story; not this stone!

That will speak, what this can't tell,

Of his glory! So, farewell!

TO ELECTRA.

I DARE not ask a kiss!
I dare not beg a smile!
Lest, having that, or this,

I might grow proud the while.

No! no! The utmost share
Of my desire shall be,
Only to kiss that air

That lately kissèd thee!

TO THE ROSE.

Go, happy Rose! and, interwove
With other flowers, bind my Love!
Tell her too, She must not be
Longer flowing! longer free!
That, so oft, has fettered me!

Say, (if She's fretful!) I have bands
Of pearl and gold, to bind her hands!
Tell her, (if She struggle still!)
I have myrtle rods, at will,

For to tame; though not to kill!

Take thou my blessing thus; and go;
And tell her this. But do not so!
Lest a handsome anger fly,

Like a lightning, from her eye;
And burn thee up, as well as I!

HOW LILIES CAME WHITE.

WHITE though ye be; yet, Lilies, know,
From the first, ye were not so!
But I'll tell ye,

What befell ye!

CUPID and his mother lay

In a cloud. While both did play,
He, with his pretty finger, prest
The ruby niplet of her breast:

Out of the which, the cream of light,
Like to a dew,

Fell down on you;
And made ye white!

THE MAD MAID'S SONG.

'GOOD morrow to the day so fair!
Good morning, Sir, to you!
Good morrow to mine own torn hair,
Bedabbled with the dew!

'Good morning to this primrose too!

Good morrow to each Maid,

That will with flowers the tomb bestrew, Wherein my Love is laid!

'Ah! woe, woe, woe, woe, woe is me!

Alack, and well-a-day!

For pity, Sir, find out that bee;
Which bore my Love away.

'I'll seek him in your bonnet brave! I'll seek him in your eyes!

Nay, now I think, th' 'ave made his grave I' th' bed of strawberries!

'I'll seek him there! I know, ere this,
The cold, cold earth doth shake him!

But I will go! or send a kiss
By you, Sir, to awake him!