(1) The sweet season, that bud and bloom forth brings, With green hath clad the hill and eke the vale. The nightingale, with feathers new, she sings; The turtle to her mate hath told her tale; Summer is come, for every spray now springs. The hart hath hung his old head on the pale: The buck in brake his winter coat he flings; The fishes fleet with new repaired scale; The adder all her slough away she flings; The swift swallow pursueth the flies small; The busy bee her honey how she mings! Winter is worn, that was the flowers’ bale, And thus I see among these pleasant things Each care decays, and yet my sorrow springs. SURREY, _To Spring_, 1557 (2) Sweet is the rose, but growes upon a brere; Sweet is the juniper, but sharpe his bough; Sweet is the eglantine, but pricketh nere, Sweet is the firbloome, but his braunches rough; Sweet is the cyprese, but his rynd is tough; Sweet is the nut, but bitter is his pill;[114] Sweet is the broome flowre, but yet sowre enough; And sweet is moly, but his root is ill; So, every sweet, with soure is tempred still, That maketh it be coveted the more: For easie things that may be got at will Most sorts of men doe set but little store. Why then should I accompt of little paine That endlesse pleasure shall unto me gaine! SPENSER, _Amoretti_, 1595 (3) Since there’s no help, come, let us kiss and part,-- Nay, I have done, you get no more of me; And I am glad, yea, glad with all my heart, That thus so cleanly I myself can free; Shake hands for ever, cancel all our vows, And when we meet at any time again, Be it not seen in either of our brows That we one jot of former love retain. Now at the last gasp of love’s latest breath, When, his pulse failing, passion speechless lies, When faith is kneeling by his bed of death, And innocence is closing up his eyes, --Now if thou wouldst, when all have given him over, From death to life thou mightest him yet recover! DRAYTON, 1620 4. Hooker’s is sometimes considered to be the most highly developed of Elizabethan prose styles. In the following two extracts examine the vocabulary, sentence-construction, and general competence of the first, and compare it with the second, which was written about two hundred years earlier.