Ere famous Winthrops bones are laid to rest
The pagans Chelmsford with sad flames arrest,
Making an artificial day of night
By that plantations formidable light.
Here's midnight shrieks and Soul-amazing moanes,
Enough to melt the very marble stones:
Fire-brands and bullets, darts and deaths and wounds
Confusive outcryes every where resounds:
The natives shooting with the mixed cryes,
With all the crueltyes the foes devise
Might fill a volume, but I leave a space
For mercyes still successive in there place

Erce, Erce, Erce, Mother of earth,
May the All-Wielder, Lord Eternal,
Give flourishing acres of sprouting shoots,
Acres bountiful bringing to harvest
Tall stalks and shining growth,
Acres of broad harvest of barley,
Acres of white harvest of wheat,
And all the harvests of earth!
May Eternal God and His saints in heaven
Defend earth's growth from every foe
That it may be shielded from every evil,
And every sorcery sowed through the land.
Now I pray the All-Wielder who shaped the world
That there be no woman so wagging of tongue,

I PLAY this sweet prelùde
For the best heart, and queen
Of gentle womanhood,
From here unto Messene;
Of flowers the fairest one;
The star that 's next the sun;
The brightest star of all.
What time I look at her,
My thoughts do crowd and stir
And are made musical.

Sweetest my lady, then
Wilt thou not just permit,
As once I spoke, again
That I should speak of it?
My heart is burning me
Within, though outwardly
I seem so brave and gay.
Ah! dost thou not sometimes
Remember the sweet rhymes

Lady , with all the pains that I can take,
I'll sing my love renewed, if I may, well,
And only in your praise.
The stag in his old age seeks out a snake
And eats it, and then drinks, (I have heard tell)
Fearing the hidden ways
Of the snake's poison, and renews his youth.
Even such a draught, in truth,
Was your sweet welcome, which cast out of me,
With whole cure instantly,
Whatever pain I felt, for my own good,
When first we met that I might be renew'd.

A thing that has its proper essence changed

Let Friday be your highest hunting-tide, —
No hound nor brach nor mastiff absent thence, —
Through a low wood, by many miles of dens,
All covert, where the cunning beasts abide:
Which now driven forth, at first you scatter wide, —
Then close on them, and rip out blood and breath:
Till all your hunstmen's horns wind at the death,
And you count up how many beasts have died.
Then, men and dogs together brought, you'll say:
Go fairly greet from us this friend and that,
Bid each make haste to blithest wassailings.

Now with the moon the day-star Lucifer
Departs, and night is gone at last, and day
Brings, making all men's spirits strong and gay,
A gentle wind to gladden the new air.
Lo! this is Monday, the week's harbinger;
Let music breathe her softest matin-lay,
And let the loving damsels sing to-day,
And the sun wound with heat at noontide here.
And thou, young lord, arise and do not sleep,
For now the amorous day inviteth thee
The harvest of thy lady's youth to reap.
Let coursers round the door, and palfreys, be,

DEDICATION

There is among my thoughts the joyous plan
To fashion a bright-jewelled carcanet,
Which I upon such worthy brows would set,
To say, it suits them fairly as it can.
And now I have newly found a gentleman,
Of courtesies and birth commensurate,
Who better would become the imperial state
Than fits the gem within the signet's span.
Carlo di Messer Guerra Cavicciuoli,
Of him I speak, — brave, wise, of just award

1

Maid of dark eyes, that glow with shy sweet fire,
 Song lingers on thy beauty till it dies
In awe and longing on the smitten Iyre:
 Maid of dark eyes.
Grant me thy love, earth's last surpassing prize,
 Me, cast upon the faggots of love's pyre
For love of the white bosom that underlies
The subtle passion of thy snowy attire,
 The shadowy secret of thine amorous thighs,
The inmost shrine of my supreme desire,
 Maid of dark eyes!

2

Were ye but constant, Guelfs, in war or peace,
As in divisions ye are constant still!
There is no wisdom in your stubborn will,
Wherein all good things wane, all harms increase.
But each upon his fellow looks, and sees
And looks again, and likes his favour ill;
And traitors rule ye; and on his own sill
Each stirs the fire of household enmities.
What, Guelfs! and is Monte Catini quite
Forgot,—where still the mothers and sad wives
Keep widowhood, and curse the Ghibellins?
O fathers, brothers, yea, all dearest kins!

Love taking leave, my heart then leaveth me,
And is enamour'd even while it would shun;
For I have looked so long upon the sun
That the sun's glory is now in all I see.
To its first will unwilling may not be
This heart (though by its will its death be won),
Having remembrance of the joy forerun:
Yea, all life else seems dying constantly.
Ay and alas! in love is no relief,
For any man who loveth in full heart,
That is not rather grief than gratefulness.
Whoso desires it, the beginning is grief;