For they can do it best,

The whiles the maidens do their carol sing,

To which the woods shall answer, and their echo ring.

'Ring ye the bells, ye young men of the town,

And leave your wonted labours for this day;

This day is holy; do you write it down, That ye for ever it remember may.

"Now cease, ye damsels! your delights forepast,

Enough it is that all the day was yours; Now day is done, and night is nighing fast, Now bring the bride into the bridal bowers;

Now night is come, now soon her disarray, And in her bed her lay;

Lay her in lilies and in violets,

And silken curtains over her display,
And odour'd sheets, and arras coverlets.
Behold how goodly my fair love does lie,
In proud humility;

Like unto Maia, when as Jove her took
In Tempe, lying on the flow'ry grass,
'Twixt sleep and wake, after she weary was
With bathing in the Acidalian brook:
Now it is night, ye damsels may be gone,
And leave my love alone,

And leave likewise your former lays to sing;

The woods no more shall answer, nor your echo ring.

To me, that feel the like, thy state descries.

Then, ev'n of fellowship, O Moon, tell me,

Is constant love deemed there but want of wit ?

Are beauties there as proud as here they be?

Do they above love to be loved, and yet Those lovers scorn, whom that love doth possess?

Do they call virtue there-ungratefulness?

[ANONYMOUS. 1570.]

LOVE ME LITTLE-LOVE ME

LONG.

LOVE me little, love me long,
Is the burden of my song.
Love that is too hot and strong
Burneth soon to waste.

Still I would not have thee cold,
Not too blackward or too bold;
Love that lasteth till 'tis old

Fadeth not in haste.

If thou lovest me too much,
It will not prove as true as touch;
Love me little, more than such,
For I fear the end.

I am with little well content,
And a little from thee sent
Is enough, with true intent,
To be steadfast friend.

Say thou lov'st me while thou live,
I to thee my love will give,
Never dreaming to deceive

While that life endures :
Nay, and after death, in sooth,
I to thee will keep my truth,
As now, when in my May of youth,
This my love assures.

Constant love is moderate ever,
And it will through life persever;
Give me that, with true endeavou
I will it restore.

A suit of durance let it be,
For all weathers; that for me,

Lurk in my eyes, I like of thee, O Cupid! so thou pity me;

Spare not, but play thee.

[JAMES SHIRLEY. 1596-1666.] DEATH'S FINAL CONQUEST.

THE glories of our birth and state,
Are shadows, not substantial things;
There is no armour against fate:
Death lays his icy hand on kings
Sceptre and crown

Must tumble down,
And in the dust be equal made
With the poor crooked scythe and
spade.

Some men with swords may reap the field,

And plant with laurels where they kill; But their strong nerves at last must yield,

They tame but one another still;
Early or late,

They stoop to fate,
And must give up their murmuring
breath,

When they, pale captives! creep to

death.

The garlands wither on your brow;

Then boast no more your mighty deeds;
Upon death's purple altar, now,
See where the victor victim bleeds!
All heads must come

To the cold tomb,
Only the actions of the just
Smell sweet and blossom in the dust.

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VICTORIOUS MEN OF EARTH.
VICTORIOUS men of earth, no more
Proclaim how wide your empires are;
Though you bind in every shore,
And your triumphs reach as far
As night or day;

Yet you proud monarchs must obey, And mingle with forgotten ashes, when Death calls ye to the croud of common

men.

How well are they that die ere they be born,

And never see thy slights, which few men shun,

Till unawares they helpless are undone !

O that a year were granted me to live, And for that year my former wits restored! What rules of life, what counsel I would give,

How should my sin with sorrow be deplored!

But I must die of every man abhorred : Time loosely spent will not again be won; My time is loosely spent, and I undone.

[JOHN LYLY. 1554-1600.]

CUPID AND CAMPASPE.
CUPID and my Campaspe playd
At cards for kisses; Cupid paid:

He stakes his quiver, bow and arrows,
His mother's doves, and team of spar-

rows;

Loses them too; then down he throws
The coral of his lip, the rose
Growing on's cheek (but none knows
how),

With these, the crystal of his brow,
And then the dimple of his chin;
All these did my Campaspe win.
At last he set her both his eyes,
She won, and Cupid blind did rise.

O Love! has she done this to thee?
What shall, alas! become of me?

[WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 1564-1616.] ADVICE OF POLONIUS TO HIS SON, ON SETTING FORTH ON HIS TRAVELS.

Hamlet.

GIVE thy thoughts no tongue, Nor any unproportioned thought his act, Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar. The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,

Grapple them to thy soul with hooks of steel;

But do not dull thy palm with entertain

ment

Of each new-hatch'd, unfledg'd comrade. Beware

Of entrance to a quarrel; but, being in, Bear it, that the opposer may beware of thee.

Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice :

Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment.

Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy, But not express'd in fancy; rich not gaudy;

For the apparel oft proclaims the man; And they in France, of the best rank and station,

Are most select and generous, chief in that.

Neither a borrower nor a lender be:
For loan oft loses both itself and friend;
And borrowing dulls the edge of hus-
bandry.

This above all-to thine own self be true;
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou can'st not then be false to any man.
Farewell; my blessing season this in thee.

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause; there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life:
For who would bear the whips and scorns
of time,

The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,

The pangs of despis'd love, the law's delay,

The insolence of office, and the spurns That patient merit of the unworthy takes,

When he himself might his quietus make With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,

To grunt and sweat under a weary life;

But that the dread of something after death,

The undiscovered country, from whose bourn

No traveller returns,-puzzles the will; And makes us rather bear those ills we have,

Than fly to others that we know not of?

Thus conscience does make cowards of us

A station like the herald Mercury,
New-lighted on a heaven-kissing hill;
A combination, and a form, indeed,
Where every god did seem to set his
seal,

To give the world assurance of a man: This was your husband.-Look you now, what follows;

Here is your husband; like a mildew'd ear,

Blasting his wholesome brother. Have you eyes?

Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed,

And batten on this moor? Ha! have you eyes?

You cannot call it love: for, at your age,

The hey-day in the blood is tame, 'tis humble,

And waits upon the judgment: and what judgment

Would step from this to this? Sense, sure you have,

Else could you not have motion: but,

sure that sense

Is apoplex'd: for madness would not

err;

Nor sense to ecstasy was ne'er so thrall'd, | But it reserved some quantity of choice, To serve in such a difference. What devil was't

That thus hath cozen'd you at hoodman. blind?

Eyes without feeling, feeling without sight,

Ears without hands or eyes, smelling sans

all,

Or but a sickly part of one true sense
Could not so mope.

O shame! where is thy blush? Rebellious hell,

If thou canst mutine in a matron's bones, To flaming youth let virtue be as wax, And melt in her own fire: proclaim no shame,

When the compulsive ardour gives the charge;

Since frost itself as actively doth burn,
And reason panders will.

Queen. O Hamlet, speak no more: Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soul.