Sweet Thames! run softly, till I end my song.

From those high towers this noble lord issuing,
Like radiant Hesper, when his golden hair
In the Ocean's billows he hath bathed fair, 165
Descended to the river's open viewing,
With a great train ensuing.

Above the rest were goodly to be seen
Two gentle knights of lovely face and feature
Beseeming well the bower of any queen,
With gifts of wit, and ornaments of nature,
Fit for so goodly stature,

170

That like the twins of Jove they seemed in sight,
Which deck the baldrick of the heavens bright;
They two, forth pacing to the river's side, 175
Received those two fair brides, their love's de-
light;

Which, at the appointed tide,
Each one did make his bride'

Against their bridal day, which is not long: 179 Sweet Thames! run softly, till I end my song. 13 A palace adjoining the Temple, formerly occupied by Elizabeth's favorite, the Earl of Leicester (the "gentle lord" here referred to) and afterwards by the Earl of Essex, the "noble peer" alluded to in the next stanza.

14 The capture of Cadiz, June 1596, by Raleigh, Lord Howard of Effingham, and Essex.

1 i. e. The alarm you excite.

THE NYMPH'S REPLY TO THE PASSIONATE SHEPHERD

(From England's Helicon, 1600)

If all the world and Love were young,
And truth in every shepherd's tongue,
These pleasures might my passion move,
To live with thee, and be thy love.

But time drives flocks from field to fold,
When rivers rage and rocks grow cold;
And Philomel becometh dumb,
The rest complains of cares to come.
The flowers do fade, and wanton fields
To wayward winter reckoning yields;
A honey tongue, a heart of gall,

5

10

Is fancies spring but sorrows fall. 1XL and LXXV. These are from a series of eightyeight sonnets entitled Amoretti, published together with the splendid Epithalamion, or marriage hymn, in 1595. The sonnets commemorate Spenser's courtship of, and the Epithalamion his marriage to, a certain Irish country girl whose Christian name was certainly Elizabeth, and whose last name (according to Grosart) was Boyle.

Leave me, O Love! which reachest but to dust; And thou, my mind, aspire to higher things: Grow rich in that which never taketh rust; What ever fades, but fading pleasure brings. Draw in thy beams, and humble all thy might 5 To that sweet yoke, where lasting freedoms be, Which breaks the clouds, and opens forth the light,

That doth both shine, and give us sight to see.

O take fast hold! let that light be thy guide, In this small course, which birth draws out to death,

10

Sweet birds, when you sing to her To yield some pity woo her.

15

Sweet flowers, when as she treads on Tell her her beauty deads one

And think how ill becometh him to slide,
Who seeketh heav'n, and comes of heav'nly
breath.

Then farewell, World, thy uttermost I see,
Eternal Love, maintain thy life in Me!

Splendidis Longum Valedico Nugis1

Thomas Lodge

1558-1625

A PROTESTATION
(From Rosalind, 1590)

First shall the heavens want starry light,
The seas be robbed of their waves;

The day want sun, and sun want bright,

And if in life her love she nill agree me,1 Pray her before I die she will come see me.

George Peele

c. 1558-c. 1598

SONG

20

(From The Arraignment of Paris, printed, 1584)
ENONE. Fair and fair, and twice so fair,
As fair as any may be;

The fairest shepherd on our green,
A love for any lady.

The night want shade, the dead men graves; The April flowers and leaf and tree,

5

Before I false my faith to thee.

Thy love is fair for thee alone, And for no other lady.