I

P ITTIE mee, Chloris, and the flame
Disdaine, and distance, cannot tame;
And pittie my necessitie,
That makes my Court-shippe, wanting thee,
Nothing but fond Idolatrie.

II

In darke, and Melancholly Groves,
Where prettie birds discourse their Loves,
I dayly worshippe on my knee,
Thy shaddow, all I have of thee,
And sue to that to pittie me.

III

I vow to it the sacred vow,
To thee, and only thee, I owe
When (as it knew my true intent)

Heaven, if it be thy undisputed will
That still
This charming Sex we must adore,
Let us love less, or they love more;
For so the Ills that we endure,
Will find some ease, if not a cure:
Or if their hearts from the first Gangrene be
Infected to that desperate degree
As will no Surgery admit;
Out of thy love to Men at least forbear
To make their faces so subduing fair,
And if thou wilt give Beauty, limit it:
For moderate Beauty, though it bear no price,
Is yet a mighty enemy to Vice,

This is the dusk-hour when for old love's sake
Ghosts in this garden might arise and move
Down vanished paths, and memories might awake
Out of the death that is so chill to love.
You whose old sins have in the later time
Become a legend perilous and sweet
With tragic whisperings of courtly rhyme, —
Lovely dead chatelaine! — are these your feet
That now across my silence slowly pace
Thrilling the darkness of this garden-close?
Turn! ... No, this is no golden harlot's face, —
This is the bud that is not yet the rose,

Great are thy gifts and greater yet shall be —
For thou alone, dear Sire, canst conquer thee.
But 'tis not they that our affection move;
It is because of thee thy gifts we love.

Weep for your crime, weep o'er the Lucrine lake,
Ye Naiads, till your cries e'en Thetis wake.
For Eutychos 'neath Baiae's waves you drew
And for my Castricus his comrade slew,
Who was his comfort and his chiefest joy,
Loved by our bard as Virgil loved his boy.

Did the nymph see thee naked in the mere
And give Alcides back his Hylas dear?
Or does the goddess in thy love delight
And for thy arms neglect Hermaphrodite?
Whate'er the cause of rape so sudden be,
Let earth, I pray, and wave be kind to thee.

Me kindly Rome loves, quotes my books, and buys them;
But till that critic feigning to despise them
Blushed and turned pale, then yawned and looked confounded,
I never felt my fame was surely grounded.

As Glycera was perfect, so
Lycoris is to me,
How can the past be present, tho'
Their futures may agree?

" Love," " Loved," ah, Time's omnipotence!
His grammar rules are crude;
By merely altering a tense
He brings a change of mood.

You want me, dear lady, to be always ready.
But love, you must know, is a thing most unsteady.
Your words and your gestures invite me to go
To extremities with you. Your face — that says. " No."

  Giul. I HUNGER for her, and am all athirst!
Her scorn affronts me, and doth make me mad.
Mine eyes— these eyes, are wet with heavy drops!
Would'st think me such a fool?
  Ferd. If she disdain thee,
Love, and be quiet, coz.
  Giul. How? What? Be still?
Dost think I am a wild beast tamed by wrongs?
If one, I am the hyæna!—for he sheds tears,
And bites the while he's howling:—but, I'm quiet!
  Ferd. I thought thou lov'dst a rose cheek'd-girl, and merry;
A laugher of sixteen summers; such there are:
But she is paler than a primrose morning,

  Iol. I laugh at thy base verse.
  Jul. That is not well.
You should have mercy on my desperate pain.
Disdain'st thou? Well,—so be it! I will love
Through all misfortune; even through thy disdain.
I've striven—for years—against this frightful woe,
Though thou didst never know't. The lonely Night
Has seen me wander midst her silent hours,
Darker than they, with my too great despair;
And the poor rhymes, which thou dost scorn so much,
Were dug out of my heart!—ay, forced, at times,
Through burning, blinding tears! Dost thou despise