LOVE'S SERVILE LOT.

Love, mistress is of many minds,

Yet few know whom they serve; They reckon least how little Love

Their service doth deserve.

The will she robbeth from the wit,

The sense from reason's lore ; She is delightful in the rind,

Corrupted in the core.

She shroudeth vice in virtue's veil;

Pretending good in ill;
She offereth joy, affordeth grief,

A kiss where she doth kill.

A honey-shower rains from her lips,

Sweet lights shine in her face; She hath the blush of virgin mind,

The mind of viper's race.

She makes thee seek, yet fear to find;

To find, but not enjoy:
In

many frowns some gliding smiles
She yields to more annoy.

She wooes thee to come near her fire,

Yet doth she draw it from thee; Far off she makes thy heart to fry,

And yet to freeze within thee.

She letteth fall some luring baits

For fools to gather up;
Too sweet, too sour, to every taste

She tempereth her cup.
Soft souls she binds in tender twist,

Small flies in spinner's web;
She sets afloat some luring streams,

But makes them soon to ebb.

Her wat'ry eyes have burning fórce *;

Her foods and flames conspire :
Tears kindle sparks, sobs fuel are,

And sighs do blow her fire.
May never was the month of love,

For May is full of flowers;
But rather April, wet by kind,

For love is full of showers.

Like tyrant, cruel wound she gives,

Like surgeop, salve she lends;
But salve and sore have equal force,

For death is both their ends.

With soothing words enthralled souls

She chains in servile bands;
Her eye in silence hath a speech
Which eye

best understands t.

* Her wat’ry eyes have burning force.] Anacreon, in his directions to the painter, orders him to give his mistress the moist, watery eye :

Το δε βλέμμα νύν αληθώς
Από το συρος ποίησον,
"Αμα γλαυκών, ως 'Αθήνής,

"Αμα δ' υγρόν, ως Κυθήρής. In Amicam Suam. + Her eye in silence hath a speech

Which eye best understands.] The expression of silence was

never more poetically introduced, or applied with greater truth, than by Mr. Sheridan, in his noble verses to the memory of Garrick:

Th' expressive glance, whose subtil comment draws
Entranc'd affection, and a mute applause ;
Gesture that marks, with force and feeling fraught;

A sense in silence, and a will in thought. G. Fletcher has, in his description of Justice, with great sublimity, attributed to her the power of interpreting the silence of thought:

..... for she each wish could find
Within the solid heart; and with her ears
The silence of the thought, loud speaking hears.

Part I. St, 10.

Her sleep in sin doth end in wrath,

Remorse rings her awake;
Death calls her up, Shame drives ber out,

Despairs her upshot make.

Plough not the seas, sow not the sands,

Leave off your idle pain;
Seek other mistress for your minds,

Love's service is in vain.

ROBERT SOUTHWELL.

DESCRIPTION OF SPRING,

WHEREIN EACH THING RENEWS, SAVE ONLY THE LOVER.

The soote season that bud and bloom forth brings
With
green

hath clad the hill, and eke the vale;
The nightingale with feathers new she sings;
The turtle to her mate hath told her tale:
Summer is come, for every spray now springs ;
The hart hath hung his old head on the pale,
The buck in brake his winter coat he flings :
The fishes fleet with new repaired scale;
The adder all her slough away she flings ;
The swift swallow pursueth the flies smale,
The busy bee her honey now she mynges ;
Winter is worn that was the flowers' bale ;
And thus I see among these pleasant things
Each care decays, and yet my sorrow springs.

EARL OF SURREY.

VERSES,

BY QUEEN ELIZABETH.

I

GRIEVE,

Rieve, and dare not show my discontent,
I love, and yet am forc'd to seem to hate ;
I do, yet dare not say I ever meant,
I seem stark mute, hut inwardly do prate :

I am, and not, I freeze, and yet am burn'd,
Since from myself my other self I turn'd.

My care is like my shadow in the sun,
Follows me flying, flies when I pursue it;
Stands and lies by me, does what I have done,
This too familiar care does make me rue it.
No means I find to rid him from

my breast,
Till by the end of things it be suppress’d.

Some gentler passions slide into my mind,
For I am soft, and made of melting snow;
Or be more cruel, Love, and so be kind,
Let me or float or sink, be high or low,

Or let me live wiih some more sweet content,
Or die, and so forget what love e'er meant.

Signed, “ Finis, Eliza. Regina, upon

Moun-s departure," Ashmol. Mus.
MSS. 6969, (781) p. 142*.

S

* If these lines are genuine, they are extremely curious, as presenting us with a lively picture of the workings of a great mind on an interesting occasion; and they serve to ascertain a fact which does not appear to have been much noticed by historians, that an habitual in