Let now the chimneys blaze,
And cups o'erflow with wine;
Let well-tuned words amaze
With harmony divine.

5

Now yellow waxen lights

Shall wait on honey love,

While youthful revels, masques, and courtly sights

Sleep's leaden spells remove.

This time doth well dispense
With lovers' long discourse;
Much speech hath some defence
Though beauty no remorse.
All do not all things well:
Some measures comely tread,
Some knotted riddles tell,
Some poems smoothly read.

The summer hath his joys,
And winter his delights;

Though love and all his pleasures are but toys,
They shorten tedious nights.

About 1617.

ΙΟ

15

20

GOOD WIFE

What is it all that men possess, among themselves conversing? Wealth or fame or some such boast, scarce worthy the rehearsing. Women only are men's good, with them in love conversing.

If

weary, they prepare us rest; if sick, their hand attends us; When with grief our hearts are pressed, their comfort best

befriends us;

Sweet or sour, they willing go to share what fortune sends us.

What pretty babes with pain they bear, our name and form presenting.

What we get, how wise they keep, by sparing, wants preventing, Sorting all their household cares to our observed contenting.

5

All this, of whose large use I sing, in two words is expressed 10
Good wife is the good I praise, if by good men possessed;
Bad with bad in ill suit well, but good with good live blessed.

About 1617.

144

THRICE TOSS THESE OAKEN ASHES IN THE AIR

Thrice toss these oaken ashes in the air,
Thrice sit thou mute in this enchanted chair,
And thrice three times tie up this true-love's knot,
And murmur soft, "She will or she will not."

Go burn these poisoned weeds in yon blue fire,
These screech-owl's feathers and this prickling briar,
This cypress gathered at a dead man's grave,
That all thy fears and cares an end may have.

Then come, you fairies, dance with me a round;
Melt her hard heart with your melodious sound.-
In vain are all the charms I can devise:
She hath an art to break them with her eyes.

About 1617.

SHALL I, THEN, HOPE WHEN FAITH IS FLED

Shall I, then, hope when faith is fled?
Can I seek love when hope is gone?
Or can I live when love is dead?

5

ΙΟ

Poorly he lives that can love none.

Her vows are broke, and I am free:

5

She lost her faith in losing me.

When I compare mine own events,
When I weigh others' like annoy,
All do but heap up discontents
That on a beauty build their joy.

Thus I of all complain, since she
All faith hath lost in losing me.

So my dear freedom have I gained,
Through her unkindness and disgrace;
Yet could I ever live enchained,
As she my service did embrace.

But she is changed, and I am free:
Faith failing her, love died in me.

About 1617.

10

15

THERE IS A GARDEN IN HER FACE

There is a garden in her face,
Where roses and white lilies grow;

A heavenly paradise is that place,
Wherein all pleasant fruits do flow;

There cherries grow which none may buy
Till "Cherry-Ripe" themselves do cry.
Those cherries fairly do enclose
Of orient pearl a double row,

Which when her lovely laughter shows,
They look like rose-buds filled with snow,
Yet them nor peer nor prince can buy
Till "Cherry-Ripe" themselves do cry.

Her eyes like angels watch them still;
Her brows like bended bows do stand,
Threatening with piercing frowns to kill
All that attempt with eye or hand
Those sacred cherries to come nigh
Till "Cherry-Ripe" themselves do cry.

About 1617.

5

ΙΟ

15

SIR HENRY WOTTON
THE CHARACTER OF A HAPPY LIFE
How happy is he born and taught
That serveth not another's will;
Whose armour is his honest thought,
And simple truth his utmost skill;

Whose passions not his masters are;
Whose soul is still prepared for death,

Untied unto the world by care

Of princes' grace or vulgar breath;

Who envieth none whom chance doth raise,
Or vice; who never understood

How deepest wounds are given by praise;

Nor rules of state, but rules of good;

5

ΙΟ

Who hath his life from rumours freed;
Whose conscience is his strong retreat;
Whose state can neither flatterers feed,

Nor ruin make oppressors great;

Who God doth late and early pray

More of His grace than gifts to lend;

And entertains the harmless day

With a well-chosen book or friend.

This man is freed from servile bands
Of hope to rise or fear to fall;
Lord of himself, though not of lands,
And, having nothing, yet hath all.

1614?

SIR JOHN DAVIES

FROM

ORCHESTRA

The sovereign castle of the rocky isle,

Wherein Penelope the princess lay,

Shone with a thousand lamps, which did exile

The dim dark shades and turned the night to day.

15

20

Not Jove's blue tent, what time the sunny ray

5

Behind the bulwark of the earth retires,

Is seen to sparkle with more twinkling fires.

That night the queen came forth from far within,
And in the presence of her court was seen;
For the sweet singer Phoemius did begin

ΤΟ

To praise the worthies that at Troy had been:
Somewhat of her Ulysses, she did ween,

In his grave hymn the heavenly man would sing,
Or of his wars, or of his wandering.

Pallas, that hour, with her sweet breath divine
Inspired immortal beauty in her eyes,

15

That with celestial glory she did shine

Brighter than Venus when she doth arise
Out of the waters to adorn the skies.
The wooers, all amazèd, do admire,
And check their own presumptuous desire.

Only Antinoüs, when at first he viewed

20

Her star-bright eyes, that with new honour shined,
Was not dismayed, but therewithal renewed

The noblesse and the splendour of his mind;

25

And as he did fit circumstances find,

Unto the throne he boldly 'gan advance,

And with fair manners wooed the queen to dance.

"Goddess of women, sith your heavenliness

Hath now vouchsafed itself to represent

30

To our dim eyes, which though they see the less,

With this, the modest princess blushed and smiled
Like to a clear and rosy eventide,

45

And softly did return this answer mild:
"Fair sir, you needs must fairly be denied
Where your demand cannot be satisfied.
My feet, which only nature taught to go,
Did never yet the art of footing know.

"But why persuade you me to this new rage?
For all disorder and misrule is new:
For such misgovernment in former age
Our old divine forefathers never knew;
Who if they lived, and did the follies view

50