O COME, soft rest of cares! come, Night! Come, naked Virtue's only tire, The reaped harvest of the light Bound up in sheaves of sacred fire. Love calls to war: Sighs his alarms, Lips his swords are, The field his arms. Come, Night, and lay thy velvet hand On glorious Day's outfacing face; And all thy crowned flames command For torches to our nuptial grace. Love calls to war: Sighs his alarms, Lips his swords are, The field his arms. Robert Southwell. 1561-95 108. Times go by Turns THE lopped tree in time may grow again, Most naked plants renew both fruit and flower; The sorest wight may find release of pain, The driest soil suck in some moist'ning shower; Times go by turns and chances change by course, From foul to fair, from better hap to worse. The sea of Fortune doth not ever flow, She draws her favours to the lowest ebb; Her tides hath equal times to come and go, Her loom doth weave the fine and coarsest web; No joy so great but runneth to an end, No hap so hard but may in fine amend. Not always fall of leaf nor ever spring, No endless night yet not eternal day; The saddest birds a season find to sing, The roughest storm a calm may soon allay: Thus with succeeding turns God tempereth all, That man may hope to rise, yet fear to fall. A chance may win that by mischance was lost; The net that holds no great, takes little fish; In some things all, in all things none are crost, Few all they need, but none have all they wish; Unmeddled joys here to no man befall: Who least, hath some; who most, hath never all. unmeddled] unmixed. Robert Southwell. 1561-95 109. The Burning Babe AS I in hoary winter's night Stood shivering in the snow, Surprised I was with sudden heat Which made my heart to glow; And lifting up a fearful eye To view what fire was near, A pretty babe all burning bright Did in the air appear; Who, scorched with excessive heat, Such floods of tears did shed, As though His floods should quench His flames, Which with His tears were bred: 'Alas!' quoth He, 'but newly born In fiery heats I fry, Yet none approach to warm their hearts Or feel my fire but I! 'My faultless breast the furnace is; The fuel, wounding thorns; Love is the fire, and sighs the smoke; The ashes, shames and scorns; The fuel Justice layeth on, And Mercy blows the coals, The metal in this furnace wrought Are men's defiled souls: For which, as now on fire I am To work them to their good, So will I melt into a bath, To wash them in my blood.' With this He vanish'd out of sight And swiftly shrunk away, And straight I called unto mind That it was Christmas Day. Henry Constable. 1562?-1613? 110. On the Death of Sir Philip Sidney