I MUST NOT GRIEVE.

BY SAMUEL DANIEL.

[SAMUEL DANIEL was born near Taunton in Somersetshire, in 1562; and was educated at Oxford, at the charge of the Countess of Pembroke, the sister of Sir Philip Sidney. He became Poet Laureate at the death of Spenser, but was soon superseded by Ben Jonson. In the reign of James I. he was made groom of the Privy Chamber to the Queen. Some years before his death he retired to a farm in Somersetshire, where he died in 1619.

Daniel was a good and amiable man: his diction is admirable, and his poems abound in beautiful passages.]

I MUST not grieve, my love, whose eyes would read
Lines must delight, whereon her youth might smile;
Flowers have time before they come to seed,
And she is young, and now must sport the while.
And sport, sweet maid, in season of these years,
And learn to gather flowers before they wither;
And where the sweetest blossom first appears,
Let love and youth conduct thy pleasures thither,
Lighten forth smiles to clear the clouded air,
And calm the tempest which my sighs do raise :
Pity and smiles do best become the fair;
Pity and smiles must only yield thee praise.
Make me to say, when all my griefs are gone,
Happy the heart that sighed for such a one.

FAIR is my love, and cruel as she's fair;

Her brow shades frown, although her eyes are sunny; Her smiles are lightning, though her pride despair;

And her disdains are gall, her favours honey.

A modest maid, deck'd with a blush of honour,

Whose feet do tread green paths of youth and love;

The wonder of all eyes that look upon her :

Sacred on earth; design'd a saint above;
Chastity and Beauty, which are deadly foes,
Live reconciled friends within her brow;
And had she Pity to conjoin with those,
Then who had heard the plaints I utter now?

For had she not been fair, and thus unkind,

My muse had slept, and none had known my mind.

"LOVE IS THE BLOSSOM.”

BY GILES FLETCHER.

[GILES FLETCHER. The time and place of his birth are unknown; but it is recorded that he was educated at Cambridge, and that he became a clergyman. He died, most probably, about the year 1625.

Fletcher, himself no mean poet, was the son and brother of poets, and the cousin of the great dramatist. He wrote little more than "Christ's Victory and Triumph," but this has gained him immortality. His productions are not, however, without faults; thus he mixes up heathen mythology with the most venerable events and dogmas of Christianity. But his style is lofty and energetic; his verse is graceful and harmonious.]

LOVE is the blossome where there blowes
Every thing that lives or growes:
Love doth make the Heav'ns to move,
And the Sun doth burne in love:

Love the strong and weake doth yoke,
And makes the yvie climbe the oke;
Under whose shadowes lions wilde,
Soften'd by love, growe tame and mild:
Love no med'cine can appease,

He burnes the fishes in the seas;

Not all the skill his wounds can stench,

Not all the sea his fire can quench:

Love did make the bloody spear

Once a levie coat to wear,

While in his leaves there shrouded lay

Sweete birds, for love that sing and play:

And of all love's joyfull flame,

I the bud and blossome am.

Onely bend thy knee to me,

Thy wooing shall thy winning be.

See, see the flowers that belowe,
Now as fresh as morning blowe,
And of all, the virgin rose,
That as bright Aurora showes:

How they all unleaved die,

Losing their virginitie;

Like unto a summer-shade,

But now borne, and now they fade.

Every thing doth passe away,

There is danger in delay:

Come, come, gather then the rose,

Gather it, or it you lose.

All the sande of Tagus' shore

Into my bosome casts his ore :

All the valley's swimming corne
To my house is yerely borne :
Every grape of every vine

Is gladly bruised to make me wine;
While ten thousand kings, as proud,
To carry up my traine have bow'd,
And a world of ladies send me

In my chambers to attend me.

All the starres in Heav'n that shine,
And ten thousand more, are mine.

Onely bend thy knee to me,
Thy wooing shall thy winning be.

"WHEN PHOEBUS LIFTS HIS HEAD.”

FROM "THE POLYOLBION," BY MICHAEL DRAYTON.

[MICHAEL DRAYTON was born at Harsul in Warwickshire, in 1563. After having spent some time at the University of Oxford, he entered the army; but he soon turned his attention to poetry, for which he had shown the most extraordinary predilection from his earliest years, and was made Poet Laureate. Though he served James I. in the intrigues which preceded his accession, he was treated by him not only with neglect, but indignity. He died in 1631, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.

Drayton, though in many respects a pleasing writer, often tires by the monotony of his measures, and the sameness of his personifications. His productions reach to 100,000 verses, most of which were published before he was thirty years of age. His most famous poem is the "Polyolbion," a topographical description of England. ]

WHEN Phoebus lifts his head out of the winter's wave,
No sooner doth the earth her flowery bosom brave,
At such time as the year brings on the pleasant spring,
But hunts-up to the morn the feath'red sylvans sing:
And in the lower grove, as on the rising knole,

Upon the highest spray of every mountain pole,
Those quiristers are percht, with many a speckled breast,
Then from her burnisht gate the goodly glitt'ring east
Gilds every lofty top, which late the humorous night
Bespangled had with pearl, to please the morning's sight;
On which the mirthful quires, with their clear open throats,
Unto the joyful morn so strain their warbling notes,
That hills and valleys ring, and even the echoing air

Seems all composed of sounds, about them everywhere.