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WRONG NOT, SWEET MISTRESS
OF MY HEART.

RONG not, sweet mistress of my heart,
The merit of true passion,

With thinking that he feels no smart,
Who sues for no compassion.

Since, if my plaints were not t' approve
The conquest of thy beauty,
It comes not from defect of love,
But fear t' exceed my duty.

For, knowing that I sue to serve
A saint of such perfection,
As all desire, but none deserve,
A place in her affection;

I rather choose to want relief,
Than venture the revealing:
Where glory recommends the grief,
Despair disdains the healing.

Silence in love betrays more woe

Than words, though ne'er so witty:

A beggar that is dumb, you know,

May challenge double pity.

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Then wrong not, dearest to my heart,
My love for secret passion:

He smarteth most who hides his smart,
And sues for no compassion.

SIR WALTER RALEIGH.

1552-1618.

AGE.

[graphic]

M I despised, because you say
And I believe that I am grey ?

Know, lady, you have but your day;

And night will come, when men will

swear

Time has spilt snow upon your hair.
Then, when before your glass you seek
But find no rosebud on your cheek,
No, nor the bed to give the shew
Whence such a rare carnation grew,

And such a smiling tulip too,

Ah, then, too late, close on your chamber keeping, It will be told,

That you are old,

By those true tears you're weeping.

"Ayres and Dialogues," by IIenry Lawes.

1653.

TO THE QUEEN OF BOHEMIA.

[graphic]

OU meaner beauties of the night,
That poorly satisfy our eyes

More by your number than your light,

You common people of the skies, What are you when the sun shall rise?

You curious chanters of the wood,

That warble forth dame Nature's lays,
Thinking your voices understood

By your weak accents, what's your praise
When Philomel her voice shall raise ?

You violets that first appear,

By your pure purple mantles known,
Like the proud virgins of the year,

As if the spring were all your own,
What are you when the rose is blown?

So, when my mistress shall be seen
In form and beauty of her mind,
By virtue, first, then choice, a queen,
Tell me if she were not design'd
Th' eclipse and glory of her kind?

SIR HENRY WOTTON.

1568-1639.

AWAKE, AWAKE, MY LYRE.

ODE.

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WAKE, awake, my lyre!

And tell thy silent master's humble tale,
In sounds that may prevail;

Sounds that gentle thoughts inspire:

Though so exalted she,

And I so lowly be,

Tell her such different notes make all thy harmony.

Hark! how the strings awake,

And though the moving hand approach not near, Themselves with awful fear

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A kind of numerous trembling make.

Now all thy forces try,

Now all thy charms apply;

Revenge upon her ear the conquests of her eye!

Weak lyre! thy virtue sure

Is useless here, since thou art only found

To cure, but not to wound,

And she to wound, but not to cure ;

C

Too weak, too, wilt thou prove

My passion to remove,

Physic to other ills, thou'rt nourishment to love.

Sleep, sleep again, my lyre!

For thou canst never tell my humble tale

In sounds that will prevail,

Nor gentle thoughts in her inspire:

All thy vain mirth lay by ;

Bid thy strings silent lie;

Sleep, sleep again, my lyre, and let thy master die.

COWLEY. 1618-1667.

THE SHEPHERD TO HIS LOVE.

OME, live with me, and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove
That hills and valleys, dale and field,
And all the craggy mountains yield.

[graphic]

There will we sit upon the rocks,
And see the shepherds feed their flocks
By shallow rivers, to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.

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