Oh, no more, no more,--too late; Sighs are spent; the burning tapers Of a life as chaste as fate, Pure as are unwritten papers, Are burnt out; no heat, no light Now remains; 'tis ever night. Love is dead; let lovers' eyes Locked in endless dreams, Th' extremes of all extremes, Ope no more, for now Love dies; Now Love dies--implying Love's martyrs must be ever, ever dying. FROM 'THE LOVER'S MELANCHOLY' AMETHUS AND MENAPHON _Menaphon--_ Passing from Italy to Greece, the tales Which poets of an elder time have feigned To glorify their Temple, bred in me Desire of visiting that paradise. To Thessaly I came; and living private Without acquaintance of more sweet companions Than the old inmates to my love, my thoughts, I day by day frequented silent groves And solitary walks. One morning early This accident encountered me: I heard The sweetest and most ravishing contention That art and nature ever were at strife in. _Amethus_-- I cannot yet conceive what you infer By art and nature. _Menaphon_-- I shall soon resolve ye. A sound of music touched my ears, or rather Indeed entranced my soul. As I stole nearer, Invited by the melody, I saw This youth, this fair-faced youth, upon his lute, With strains of strange variety and harmony, Proclaiming, as it seemed, so bold a challenge To the clear quiristers of the woods, the birds, That, as they flocked about him, all stood silent, Wondering at what they heard: I wondered too. _Amethus_-- And so do I: good, on! _Menaphon--_ A nightingale, Nature's best skilled musician, undertakes The challenge, and for every several strain The well-shaped youth could touch, she sung her own; He could not run division with more art Upon his quaking instrument than she, The nightingale, did with her various notes Reply to: for a voice and for a sound, Amethus, 'tis much easier to believe That such they were than hope to hear again. _Amethus_-- How did the rivals part? _Menaphon--_ You term them rightly; For they were rivals, and their mistress harmony. Some time thus spent, the young man grew at last Into a pretty anger, that a bird, Whom art had never taught cliffs, moods, or notes, Should vie with him for mastery, whose study Had busied many hours to perfect practice. To end the controversy, in a rapture Upon his instrument he plays so swiftly So many voluntaries and so quick, That there was curiosity and cunning, Concord in discord, lines of differing method Meeting in one full centre of delight. _Amethus_-- Now for the bird. _Menaphon--_