Her murd'ring glances, snaring hairs, The sweet afflictions that displease me. Hide not those panting balls of snow In a sweet smile of love unfolding. And let those eyes, whose motion wheels Survey the pains my sick-heart feels And wounds themselves have made discover. LOVE WILL FIND OUT THE WAY. Over the mountains, And over the waves; Under the fountains, And under the graves; Where there is no place For the glow-worm to lie; For receipt of a fly; Where the midge dares not venture, And soon find out his way. You may esteem him A child for his might; A coward from his flight: But if she, whom love doth honour, Set a thousand guards upon her, Some think to lose him, You may train the eagle Or you may inveigle The phoenix of the East; He will find out his way. only give it from a modern copy." Ritson accuses the poetical ["This excellent song," says Percy, "is ancient; but we could divine of giving it "some of his own brilliant touches." These alterations occur in the third verse, thus printed by Allan Ramsay in the Tea-table Miscellany: You may esteem him A child in his force; A coward, which is worse. In Forbes' Aberdeen Cantus, 1666, there are some additional stanzas, but of no great merit.] BEAUTY INCOMPATIBLE WITH CHASTITY. All the materials are the same Of beauty and desire, In a fair woman's goodly frame No brightness is without a flame, No flame without a fire. Then tell me what those creatures are If on her necke her haire be spred In many a curious ringe, Why half the heat that curles her head Will make her madde to be a bed, And do the tother thinge. Then tell me what those creatures are That would be thought both chaste and fair. Though modesty itselfe appeare With blushes in her face, Doest thinke the bloud that dances there Can revel it no other where, Nor warm another place? Then tell me what those creatures are Go ask of thy philosophy, What gives her lips the balm, What sp'rit gives lightning to her eye And moystnesse to her palm. Then tell me what those creatures are That would be thought both chaste and fair. Then be not nice, for that alas I know thou louest, and not one grace But pimpes within for me. Then tell me what those creatures are 'This song," says Ritson in his Ancient Songs, " is printed by Dryden in the third part of his Miscellany Poems, where it is called 'A New Ballad': which is certainly a mistake, the following copy being given from a MS. in the Harleian Collection (No. 3889) as old as Charles the First's time." See Ritson's Ancient Songs.] DISPRAISE OF LOVE AND LOVER'S FOLLIES. FRANCIS DAVISON. If love be life, I long to die, Live they that list for me: And he that gains the most thereby, A fool, at least shall be. But he that feels the sorest fits Scapes with no less than loss of wits: Which love do entertain. In day by fained looks they live, By lying dreams by night, Each frown a deadly wound doth give, If't hap the lady pleasant seem, If void she seem of joy, Such is the peace that lovers find, Blown here and there with every wind, Like flowers in the mead. Now war, now peace, now war again; Francis Davison was the son of the Secretary of that name to Queen Elizabeth, "who suffered," says Ritson," so much through that princesses caprice and cruelty in the tragical affair of Mary Queen of Scots."] PLEASURES, BEAUTY, YOUTH ATTEND YE. JOHN FORD. Born 1586. Pleasures, beauty, youth attend ye, She is cruel that denies it, Bounty best appears in granting, Stealth of sport as soon supplies it, [From the "Ladie's Triall," 1639.] |