We talked of love as coolly as we talked of nebulæ,

be a maid,

For we quite agreed in doubting whether matri

mony paid;

Besides, we had our higher loves, fair science

ruled my heart,

of being three.

'Well, good by, chum!" I took her hand, for the time had come to go.

up in art.

We scorned all sentimental trash, vows, kisses, tears, and sighs;

High friendship, such as ours, might well such childish arts despise ;

did not know.

I had lingered long, and said farewell with a very heavy heart ;

For although we were but friends, 't is hard for honest friends to part.

"Good-by, old fellow! don't forget your friends beyond the sea,

And some day, when you've lots of time, drop a line or two to me."

The words came lightly, gayly, but a great sob, just behind,

Welled upward with a story of quite a different kind.

was to say,

liquid eyes of blue,

sort of way.

We shared our secrets and our joys, together? hoped and feared,

With common purpose sought the goal that young Ambition reared;

TIME.

SONNET CVI.

WHEN in the chronicle of wasted time
I see descriptions of the fairest wights,
And beauty making beautiful old rhyme,
In praise of ladies dead, and lovely knights;
Then, in the blazon of sweet beauty's best
Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow,
I see their antique pen would have expressed
Even such a beauty as you master now.
So all their praises are but prophecies
Of this our time, all you prefiguring;
And, for they looked but with divining eyes,
They had not skill enough your worth to sing;
For we, which now behold these present days,
Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to
praise.

FROM "THE MERCHANT OF VENICE," ACT III. SC. 2.

FAIR Portia's counterfeit? What demi-god
Hath come so near creation? Move these eyes?
Or whether, riding on the balls of mine,
Seem they in motion? Here are severed lips,
Parted with sugar breath; so sweet a bar

Should sunder such sweet friends: Here in her hairs

The painter plays the spider; and hath woven A golden mesh to entrap the hearts of men, Faster than gnats in cobwebs : But her eyes,

Methinks it should have power to steal both his, And leave itself unfurnished.

OLIVIA.

SHAKESPEARE.

FROM TWELFTH NIGHT," ACT I, SC. 5.

VIOLA. T is beauty truly blent, whose red

and white

Nature's own sweet and cunning hand laid on:
Lady, you are the cruel'st she alive,
If you will lead these graces to the grave,
And leave the world no copy.

SHAKESPEARE.

TO MISTRESS MARGARET HUSSEY.
MERRY Margaret,

As midsummer flower,
Gentle as falcon,

Or hawk of the tower;
With solace and gladness,
Much mirth and no madness,
All good and no badness;

So joyously,

So maidenly,
So womanly
Her demeaning,
In everything
Far, far passing
That I can indite,
Or suffice to write,
Of merry Margaret,
As midsummer flower
Gentle as falcon

Or hawk of the tower;
As patient and as still,
And as full of good-will.
As fair Isiphil,
Coliander,

Sweet Pomander,
Good Cassander;

Stedfast of thought,
Well made, well wroug..
Far may be sought
Ere you can find

So courteous, so kind,
As merry Margaret,

This midsummer flower,
Gentle as falcon,

Or hawk of the tower.

JOHN SKELTON,

THE FORWARD VIOLET THUS DID

I CHIDE.

SONNET XCIX.

THE forward violet thus did I chide :

Sweet thief, whence didst thou steal thy sweet that smells,

If not from my love's breath? the purple pride
Which on thy soft cheek for complexion dwells,
In my love's veins thou hast too grossly dyed.
The lily I condemned for thy hand,
And buds of marjoram had stolen thy hair:
The roses fearfully on thorns did stand,
One blushing shame, another white despair;
A third, nor red nor white, had stolen of both,
And to this robbery had annexed thy breath;
But, for his theft, in pride of all his growth
A vengeful canker eat him up to death.

More flowers I noted, yet I none could see,
But sweet or color it had stolen from thee.

SHAKESPEARE.

THERE IS A GARDEN IN HER FACE. FROM AN HOURES RECREATION IN MUSICKE," 1606.

THERE is a garden in her face,

Where roses and white lilies blow; A heavenly paradise is that place,

Wherein all pleasant fruits do grow ; There cherries grow that none may buy, Till cherry-ripe themselves do cry.

Those cherries fairly do enclose

Of orient pearl a double row, Which when her lovely laughter shows, They look like rosebuds filled with snow; Yet them no peer nor prince may buy, Till cherry-ripe themselves do cry.

Her eyes like angels watch them still,

Her brows like bended bows do stand,
Threatening with piercing frowns to kill
All that approach with eye or hand
These sacred cherries to come nigh,
Till cherry-ripe themselves do cry.

RICHARD ALLISON.

GIVE PLACE, YE LOVERS.

MY SWEET SWEETING.

FROM A MS. TEMP. HENRY VIII,

Aн, my sweet sweeting;
My little pretty sweeting,

My sweeting will I love wherever I go ;
She is so proper and pure,

Full, steadfast, stable, and demure,

There is none such, you may be sure,
As my sweet sweeting.

GIVE place, ye lovers, here before

That spent your boasts and brags in vain ; My lady's beauty passeth more

The best of yours, I dare well sayen,
Than doth the sun the candle-light,
Or brightest day the darkest night.

And thereto hath a troth as just

As had Penelope the fair;
For what she saith, ye may it trust,
As it by writing sealed were: