_Dick_. Good Will, I cannot take thy good advice; before
That foxes leave to steal, they find they die therefore.
_Will_. Then, Dick, let us go hence lest we great folks annoy:
For nothing can more tedious be than plaint in time of joy.
_Dick_. Oh hence! O cruel word! which even dogs do hate:
But hence, even hence, I must needs go; such is my dogged fate.
SONG.
_To the tune of_ “_Wilhelmus van Nassau_,” _&c._
WHO hath his fancy pleased,
With fruits of happy sight,
Let here his eyes be raised
On Nature’s sweetest light;
A light which doth dissever,
And yet unite the eyes;
A light which, dying, never
Is cause the looker dies.
She never dies, but lasteth
In life of lover’s heart;
He ever dies that wasteth
In love his chiefest part.
Thus is her life still guarded,
In never dying faith;
Thus is his death rewarded,
Since she lives in his death.
Look then and die, the pleasure
Doth answer well the pain;
Small loss of mortal treasure,
Who may immortal gain.
Immortal be her graces,
Immortal is her mind;
They, fit for heavenly places,
This heaven in it doth bind.
But eyes these beauties see not,
Nor sense that grace descries;
Yet eyes deprivéd be not
From sight of her fair eyes:
Which, as of inward glory
They are the outward seal,
So may they live still sorry,
Which die not in that weal.
But who hath fancies pleaséd,
With fruits of happy sight,
Let here his eyes be raiséd
On Nature’s sweetest light.
THE SMOKES OF MELANCHOLY.
I.
WHO hath e’er felt the change of love,
And known those pangs that losers prove,
May paint my face without seeing me,
And write the state how my fancies be,
The loathsome buds grown on Sorrow’s tree.
But who by hearsay speaks, and hath not fully felt
What kind of fires they be in which those spirits melt,
Shall guess, and fail, what doth displease,
Feeling my pulse, miss my disease.
II.
O no! O no! trial only shows
The bitter juice of forsaken woes;
Where former bliss, present evils do stain;
Nay, former bliss adds to present pain,
While remembrance doth both states contain.
Come, learners, then to me, the model of mishap,
Ingulphéd in despair, slid down from Fortune’s lap;
And, as you like my double lot,
Tread in my steps, or follow not.
III.
For me, alas! I am full resolved
Those bands, alas! shall not be dissolved;
Nor break my word, though reward come late;
Nor fail my faith in my failing fate;
Nor change in change, though change change my state:
But always own myself, with eagle-eyed Truth, to fly
Up to the sun, although the sun my wings do fry;
For if those flames burn my desire,
Yet shall I die in Phoenix’ fire.
ODE.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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