Now scourge of winter's wrack is well nigh spent, And sun gins look more longer on our clime, And earth no more to sorrow doth consent, Why been thy looks forlorn that view the prime? Unneth thy flocks may feed to see thee faint, Thou lost, they lean, and both with woe attaint. For shame! Cast off these discontented looks; For grief doth wait on life, though never sought; So Thenot wrote admired for pipe and books. Then to the spring attemper thou thy thought, And let advice rear up thy drooping mind, And leave to weep thy woes unto the wind. DAMON Ah Demades, no wonder though I wail, For even the spring is winter unto me! Look as the sun the earth doth then avail, When by his beams her bowels warmed be; Even so a saint more sun-bright in her shining First wrought my weal, now hastes my winter's pining. Which lovely lamp withdrawn from my poor eyes, Both parts of earth and fire drowned up in woe In winter dwell. My joy, my courage dies; My lambs with me that do my winter know For pity scorn the spring that nigheth near, And pine to see their master's pining cheer. The root which yieldeth sap unto the tree Draws from the earth the means that make it spring; And by the sap the scions fostered be, All from the sun have comfort and increasing And that fair eye that lights this earthly ball Kills by depart, and nearing cheereth all. As root to tree, such is my tender heart, Whose sap is thought, whose branches are content; And from my soul they draw their sweet or smart, And from her eye, my soul's best life is lent; Which heavenly eye that lights both earth and air, Quells by depart and quickens by repair. DEMADES Give period to the process of thy plaint, Unhappy Damon, witty in self-grieving; Tend thou thy flocks; let tyrant love attaint Those tender hearts that made their love their living. And as kind time keeps Phillis from thy sight, So let prevention banish fancy quite. Cast hence this idle fuel of desire, That feeds that flame wherein thy heart consumeth; Let reason school thy will which doth aspire, And counsel cool impatience that presumeth; Drive hence vain thoughts which are fond love's abettors, For he that seeks his thraldom merits fetters. The vain idea of this deity Nursed at the teat of thine imagination, Was bred, brought up by thine own vanity, Whose being thou mayst curse from the creation; And so thou list, thou may as soon forget love, As thou at first didst fashion and beget love. DAMON