Ah fleeting weal, ah sly deluding sleep, That in one moment giv'st me joy and pain! How do my hopes dissolve to tears in vain, As wont the snows, 'fore angry sun to weep! Ah noisome life that hath no weal in keep! My forward grief hath form and working might; My pleasures like the shadows take their flight; My path to bliss is tedious, long and steep. Twice happy thou Endymion that embracest The live-long night thy love within thine arms, Where thou fond dream my longed weal defacest Whilst fleeting and uncertain shades thou placest Before my eyes with false deluding charms! Ah instant sweets which do my heart revive, How should I joy if you were true alive! XVIII As where two raging venoms are united, Which of themselves dissevered life would sever, The sickly wretch of sickness is acquited, Which else should die, or pine in torments ever; So fire and frost, that hold my heart in seizure, Restore those ruins which themselves have wrought, Where if apart they both had had their pleasure, The earth long since her fatal claim had caught. Thus two united deaths keep me from dying; I burne in ice, and quake amidst the fire, No hope midst these extremes or favour spying; Thus love makes me a martyr in his ire. So that both cold and heat do rather feed My ceaseless pains, than any comfort breed. XIX Thou tyrannizing monarch that dost tire My love-sick heart through those assaulting eyes, That are the lamps which lighten my desire! If nought but death thy fury may suffice, Not for my peace, but for thy pleasure be it, That Phillis, wrathful Phillis that repines me All grace but death, may deign to come and see it, And seeing grieve at that which she assigns me. This only boon for all my mortal bane I crave and cry for at thy mercy seat: That when her wrath a faithful heart hath slain, And soul is fled, and body reft of heat, She might perceive how much she might command, That had my life and death within her hand. XX Some praise the looks, and others praise the locks Of their fair queens, in love with curious words; Some laud the breast where love his treasure locks, All like the eye that life and love affords. But none of these frail beauties and unstable Shall make my pen riot in pompous style; More greater gifts shall my grave muse enable, Whereat severer brows shall never smile. I praise her honey-sweeter eloquence, Which from the fountain of true wisdom floweth, Her modest mien that matcheth excellence, Her matchless faith which from her virtue groweth; And could my style her happy virtues equal, Time had no power her glories to enthral. EGLOGA PRIMA DEMADES DAMON DEMADES