When I saw a shepheard fold,
Sheepe in coate to shunne the cold:
Himselfe sitting on the grasse,
That with frost withered was:
Sighing deepely, thus gan say,
Love is folly when astray :
Like to love no passion such,
For his madnesse, if too much :
If too little, then despaire:
If too high, he beates the ayre:
With bootlesse cries, if too low:
An eagle matcheth with a crow.
Thence growes iarres, thus I find,
Love is folly, if unkind;
Yet doe men most desire
To be heated with this fire:
Whose flame is so pleasing hot,
That they burne, yet feele it not:
Yet hath love another kind,
Worse than these unto the mind:
That is, when a wantons eye
Leades desire cleane awry,
And with the bee doth reioyce,
Every minute to change choyce,
Counting he were then in blisse,
If that his fare fall were his :
Highly thus in love disgraste,
When the lover is unchaste :
And would taste of fruit forbidden.
Cause the scape is easily hidden.
Though such love be sweet in brewing,
Bitter is the sad ensuing;
For the humour of love he shameth,
And himselfe with lust defameth:
For a minutes pleasure gayning,
Fame and honour ever stayning.
Gazing thus so farre awry,
Last the chip fals in his eye,
Then it burns that earst but heate him,
And his owne rod gins to beate him.
His choycest sweets turne to gall,
He finds lust his sins thrall:
That wanton women in their eyes,
Mens deceivings doe comprise.
That homage done to fayre faces,
Doth dishonour other graces:
If lawlesse love be such a sinne,
Curst is he that lives therein :
For the gaine of Venus game,
Is the downefall unto shame :
Here he paus'd, and did stay,
Sigh'd and rose, and went away.
WHAT is love once disgraced,
But a wanton thought ill placed?
Which doth blemish whom it payneth,
And dishonours whom it daineth,
Seene in higher powers most,
Though some fooles doe fondly bost,
That who so is high of kin,
Sanctifies his lover's sinne.
Jove could not hide Ios scape,
Nor conceal Calistos rape.
Both did fault, and both were framed,
Light of loves, whom lust had shamed.
Let not women trust to men,
They can flatter now and then.
And tell them many wanton tales,
Which doe breed them after bales.
Sinne in kings is sinne wee see,
And greater sinne, cause great of gree.
Majus peccatum, this I reed,
If he be high that doth the deed.
Mars for all his deity,
Could not Venus dignifie,
But Vulcan trapt her, and her blame
Was punisht with an open shame.
All the gods laught them to scorne,
For dubbing Vulcan with the horne.
Whereon may a woman bost,
If her chastity be lost.
Shame awaitt'h upon her face,
Blushing cheekes, and foule disgrace.
Report will blab, this is she
That with her lust wins infamy.
If lusting love be so disgrac't,
Die before you live unchast:
For better die with honest fame,
Than lead a wanton life with shame.
FROM GREENE'S HISTORY OF ARBASTO.
WHEREAT erewhile I wept, I laugh,
That which I feard, I now despise :
My victor once, my vassaile is,
My foe constrain'd, my weale supplies.
Thus doe I triumph on my foe,
I weepe at weale, I laugh at woe.
My care is cur'd, yet hath no end,
Not that I want, but that I have,
My charge was change, yet still I stay,
I would have lesse, and yet I crave:
Aye me poor wretch that thus doe live,
Constrain'd to take, yet forc't to give.
Shee whose delights are signes of death,
Who when shee smiles, begins to lowre,
Constant in this, that still shee change,
Her sweetest gifts time proves but soure
I live in care, crost with her guile,
Through her I weepe, at her I smile.
THE numerous publications which have succeeded each other, from the Muses' Library to Mr. Ellis's, more polished, and more extensive volumes, have all been acceptable to the lovers of poetry.
These extracts which succeed, are not, I believe, to be found, except in the original works from which they are transcribed, all of which are, in my opinion, more or less entitled to the character of rare books. The specimens themselves, from their intrinsic merit, I conceive to be worthy of preservation, and many of them in particular were written by literary characters eminent in other branches of science, but whose talents were not often directed to poetical exercises on this account, therefore, they be
come objects of curiosity.
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