Nor shall Death brag thou wanderest in hi shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest :-
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

SHAKESPEARE.

THE PORTRAIT.

GIVE place, ye ladies, and begone,
Boast not yourselves at all:

For here at hand approacheth one
Whose face will stain you all.

The virtue of her lively looks
Excels the precious stone:

I wish to have none other books
To read or look upon.

In each of her two crystal eyes
Smileth a naked boy:

It would you all in heart suffice
To see that lamp of joy.

I think Nature hath lost the mould
Where she her shape did take;

Or else I doubt if Nature could

So fair a creature make.

In life she is Diana chaste,

In truth Penelope;

In word and eke in deed steadfast:

What will you more we say?

all the world were sought so far,
W no could find such a wight?
Her beauty twinkleth like a star
Within the frosty night.

Her rosial color comes and goes

With such a comely grace,

More ruddier too than in the rose,

Within her lovely face.

At Bacchus' feast none shall her meet,

Nor at no wanton play,

Nor gazing in an open street,

Nor gadding as astray.

The modest mirth that she doth use

Is mixt with shamefastness;

All vice she doth wholly refuse,

And hateth idleness.

O Lord! it is a world to see
How virtue can repair

And deck in her such honesty,
Whom Nature made so fair!

How might I do to get a graffe

Of this unspotted tree?

For all the rest are plain but chaff,

Which seem good corn to be.

THOMAS HEYWOOD.

GIVE PLACE, YE LOVERS.

GIVE place, ye lovers, here before

That spent your boasts and brags in vain; My lady's beauty passeth more

The best of yours, I dare well sayen, Than doth the sun the candle-light,

Or brightest day the darkest night.

And thereto hath a troth as just
As had Penelope the fair;
For what she saith, ye may it trust,
As it by writing sealèd were:

And virtues hath she many mo'
Than I with pen have skill to show.

I could rehearse, if that I would,

The whole effect of Nature's plaint, When she had lost the perfect mould,

The like to whom she could not paint: With wringing hands, how she did cry, And what she said, I know it aye.

I know she swore with raging mind,
Her kingdom only set apart,
There was no loss by law of kind

That could have gone so near her heart;

And this was chiefly all her pain;

"She could not make the like again."

Sith Nature thus gave her the praise,

To be the chiefest work she wrought,

In faith, methink, some better ways
On your behalf might well be sought,
Than to compare, as ye have done,
To match the candle with the sun.

HENRY HOWARD, EARL OF SURREY.

TO HIS MISTRESS,

ELIZABETH, QUEEN OF BOHEMIA.

You meaner beauties of the night,
That poorly satisfy our eyes
More by your number than your light,—
You common people of the skies,
What are you when the moon shall rise?

You curious chanters of the wood,

That warble forth Dame Nature's lays, Thinking your passions understood

By your weak accents,-what's your praise When Philomel her voice shall raise?

You violets that first appear,

By your pure purple mantles known,
Like the proud virgins of the year,

As if the spring were all your own,-
What are you when the rose is blown?

So when my mistress shall be seen
In form and beauty of her mind:
By virtue first, then choice, a queen,-
Tell me, if she were not designed
The eclipse and glory of her kind?

SIR HENRY WOTTON.

THE FORWARD VIOLET THUS DID

I CHIDE.

SONNET XCIX.

THE forward violet thus did I chide:

Sweet thief, whence did thou steal thy sweet that smells,

If not from my love's breath? the purple pride
Which on thy soft cheek for complexion dwells,
In my love's veins thou hast too grossly dyed.
The lily I condemnèd for thy hand,
And buds of marjoram had stolen thy hair:
The roses fearfully on thorns did stand,
One blushing shame, another white despair;
A third, nor red nor white, had stolen of both,
And to this robbery had annexed thy breath;
But, for his theft, in pride of all his growth
A vengeful canker eat him up to death.

More flowers I noted, yet I none could see,
But sweet or color it had stolen from thee.
SHAKESPEARE.

THERE IS A GARDEN IN HER FACE.

66

FROM AN HOURE'S RECREATION IN MUSICKE,"

1606.

THERE is a garden in her face,

Where roses and white lilies blow;

A heavenly paradise is that place,

Wherein all pleasant fruits do grow;