Strike I the lute, he tunes the string;
He music plays if I but sing;

He lends me every lovely thing,

Yet, cruel, he my heart doth sting:

Ah, wanton, will you?

Else I with roses every day

Will whip you hence,

And bind you when you long to play,
For your offence.

I'll shut my eyes to keep you in,
I'll make you fast it for your sin,

I'll count your power not worth a pin :
Alas! what hereby shall I win,

If he gainsay me?

What if I beat the wanton boy
With many a rod?

He will repay me with annoy,
Because a god.

Then sit thou softly on my knee,
And let thy bower my bosom be;

Lurk in my eyes, I like of thee,
O Cupid, so thou pity me;

Spare not, but play thee.

Thomas Lodge.

XLIV.

LOVE OMNIPRESENT.

TURN I my looks unto the skies,

Love with his arrows wounds mine eyes;

If so I gaze upon the ground,

Love then in every flower is found;

Search I the shade to fly my pain,
Love meets me in the shade again;
Want I to walk in secret grove,
Even there I meet with sacred love;

If so I bathe me in the spring,
E'en on the brink I hear him sing;
If so I meditate alone,

He will be partner of my moan;
If so I mourn, he weeps with me,
And where I am there will he be !

XLV.

Thomas Lodge.

LOVE EVER-PRESENT.

THE stars are with the voyager,
Wherever he may sail;

The moon is constant to her time,
The sun will never fail,

But follow, follow, round the world,
The green earth and the sea;
So love is with the lover's heart,
Wherever he may be.

Wherever he may be, the stars
Must daily lose their light,
The moon will veil her in the shade,
The sun will set at night;
The sun may set, but constant love

Will shine when he's away,
So that dull night is never night,
And day is brighter day.

Thomas Hood.

XLVI.

LOVE'S ASPIRATION.

FOR HER DEAR SAKE.

IF doughty deeds my lady please,
Right soon I'll mount my steed;
And strong his arm, and fast his seat
That bears frae me the meed.

I'll wear thy colours in my cap,

Thy picture at my heart;

And he that bends not to thine eye

Shall rue it to his smart!

Then tell me how to woo thee, Love;

O tell me how to woo thee!

For thy dear sake, nae care I'll take
Tho' ne'er another trow me.

If gay attire delight thine eye,
I'll dight me in array ;

I'll tend thy chamber door all night,
And squire thee all the day.
If sweetest sounds can win thine ear,
These sounds I'll strive to catch;
Thy voice I'll steal to woo thysell,
That voice that nane can match.

But if fond love thy heart can gain,
I never broke a vow;

Nae maiden lays her skaith to me,
I never loved but you.

For

you alone I ride the ring,

For you I wear the blue;

For you alone I strive to sing,

O tell me how to woo !

Then tell me how to woo thee, Love;

O tell me how to woo thee!

For thy dear sake, nae care I'll take

Though ne'er another trow me.

XLVII.

Graham of Gartmore.

LOVE'S ASPIRATION.

A PRAYER TO FORTUNE.

FOR ever, Fortune, wilt thou prove
An unrelenting foe to love,

And when we meet a mutual heart

Come in between, and bid us part?

Bid us sigh on from day to day,
And wish and wish the soul away;
Till youth and genial years are flown,
And all the life of life is gone?

But busy, busy, still art thou,
To bind the loveless, joyless vow,
The heart from pleasure to delude,
To join the gentle to the rude.

For once, O Fortune, hear my prayer,
And I absolve thy future care;

All other blessings I resign,

Make but the dear Amanda mine.

James Thomson.

XLVIII.

LOVE'S DEVOTION.

ALL June I bound the rose in sheaves :
Now, rose by rose, I strip the leaves,
And strew them where Pauline may pass.
She will not turn aside?-Alas!
Let them lie. Suppose they die?
The chance was they might take her eye.

Now many a month I strove to suit
These stubborn fingers to the lute!
To-day I venture all I know:
She will not hear my music? So!
Break the string; fold music's wing:
Suppose Pauline had bade me sing!

My whole life long I learned to love.
This hour my utmost art I prove
And speak my passion ;-Heaven or hell?
She will not give me Heaven? 'Tis well!
Lose who may--I still can say,

Those who win Heaven, blest are they!
Robert Browning.

XLIX.

THE CHORD OF LOVE.

LIKE some musician that with flying finger

Startles the voice of some new instrument,

And, though he know that in one string are blent All its extremes of sound, yet still doth linger Among the lighter threads, fearing to start

The deep soul of that one melodious wire,
Lest it, unanswering, dash his high desire,
And spoil the hopes of his expectant heart;-
Thus, with my mistress oft conversing, I

Stir every lighter theme with careless voice,
Gathering sweet music and celestial joys
From the harmonious soul o'er which I fly;
Yet o'er the one deep master-chord I hover,
And dare not stoop, fearing to tell-I love her.

William Caldwell Roscoe.

L.

LOVE THE PURSUER.

ESCAPE me?

Never

Beloved!

While I am I, and you are you,

So long as the world contains us both,
Me the loving and you the loth,

While the one eludes, must the other pursue.
My life is a fault at last, I fear :

It seems too much like a fate indeed!
Though I do my best I shall scarce succeed.

But what if I fail of my purpose here?
It is but to keep the nerves at strain,