Are in the upper glass, yet unrefined.

When we are fit, with him so truly just,

We shall fall down, and sleep with him in dust.

Before 1643.

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1815.

ON THE COUNTESS DOWAGER OF PEMBROKE

Underneath this sable herse
Lies the subject of all verse:
Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother.
Death, ere thou hast slain another
Fair and learn'd and good as she,
Time shall throw a dart at thee.
Marble piles let no man raise
To her name; for after days
Some kind woman born as she,
Reading this, like Niobe

Shall turn marble, and become
Both her mourner and her tomb.

Before 1643.

1660.

RICHARD CORBET

THE FAIRIES' FAREWELL

"Farewell rewards and fairies,"

Good housewives now may say,

For now foul sluts in dairies

Do fare as well as they.

And though they sweep their hearths no less

Than maids were wont to do,

Yet who of late for cleanliness

Finds sixpence in her shoe?

Lament, lament, old abbeys,

The fairies' lost command:

They did but change priests' babies,

But some have changed ycur land;

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And all your children sprung from thence

Are now grown Puritans,
Who live as changelings ever since
For love of your demains.

At morning and at evening both
You merry were and glad,
So little care of sleep or sloth

These pretty ladies had:

When Tom came home from labour,

Or Ciss to milking rose,

Then merrily, merrily went their tabor,
And nimbly went their toes.

Witness those rings and roundelays
Of theirs, which yet remain,
Were footed in Queen Mary's days

On many a grassy plain;

But since, of late, Elizabeth
And, later, James came in,

They never danced on any heath
As when the time hath been.

A CONTEMPLATION UPON FLOWERS
Brave flowers, that I could gallant it like you,
And be as little vain!

You come abroad, and make a harmless show,
And to your beds of earth again.

You are not proud: you know your birth,

For your embroidered garments are from earth.

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You do obey your months and times, but I
Would have it ever spring;

My fate would know no winter, never die,

Nor think of such a thing.

O that I could my bed of earth but view
And smile, and look as cheerfully as you!

O teach me to see death and not to fear,
But rather to take truce.

How often have I seen you at a bier,

And there look fresh and spruce.

You fragrant flowers, then teach me, that my breath,

Like yours, may sweeten and perfume my death.

1657.

GEORGE WITHER

SHALL I, WASTING IN DESPAIR

Shall I, wasting in despair,

Die, because a woman's fair?

Or make pale my cheeks with care,
'Cause another's rosy are?

Be she fairer than the day

Or the flow'ry meads in May,

If she be not so to me

What care I how fair she be?

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Be she with that goodness blest
Which may gain her name of best,
If she be not such to me

What care I how good she be?

'Cause her fortune seems too high,
Shall I play the fool and die?
Those that bear a noble mind,

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Where they want of riches find,

Think, "What, with them, they would do

Two pretty rills do meet, and, meeting, make
Within one valley a large silver lake,
About whose banks the fertile mountains stood,
In ages passèd bravely crowned with wood,
Which, lending cold sweet shadows, gave it grace
To be accounted Cynthia's bathing place.
And from her father Neptune's brackish court,
Fair Thetis thither often would resort,
Attended by the fishes of the sea,

Which in those sweeter waters came to play.
There would the daughter of the sea-god dive;
And thither came the land-nymphs every eve,
To wait upon her, bringing for her brows
Rich garlands of sweet flowers and beechy boughs.

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