My maid, to me relenting, Is fain for play; Her pure heart, unconsenting, Saith, "Lover, stay!" Hush, Philomel, thy singing, This little rest! Let the soul's song rise ringing Up from the breast! In desolate Decembers Man bides his time: Spring stirs the slumbering embers; Love-juices climb. Come, mistress, come, my maiden! Bring joy to me! Come, come, thou beauty-laden! I die for thee! O all abloom am I! It is a maiden love that makes me sigh, A new, new love it is wherewith I die! There is a very pretty _Invitation to Youth_, the refrain of which, though partly undecipherable, seems to indicate an Italian origin. I have thought it well to omit this refrain; but it might be rendered thus, maintaining the strange and probably corrupt reading of the last line:-- "List, my fair, list, _bela mia_, To the thousand charms of Venus! _Da hizevaleria_." THE INVITATION TO YOUTH. No. 8. Take your pleasure, dance and play, Each with other while ye may: Youth is nimble, full of grace; Age is lame, of tardy pace. We the wars of love should wage, Who are yet of tender age; 'Neath the tents of Venus dwell All the joys that youth loves well. Young men kindle heart's desire; You may liken them to fire: Old men frighten love away With cold frost and dry decay. A roundelay, which might be styled the _Praise of May_ or the exhortation to be liberal in love by _The Example of the Rose_, shall follow. THE EXAMPLE OF THE ROSE. No. 9. Winter's untruth yields at last, Spring renews old mother earth; Angry storms are overpast, Sunbeams fill the air with mirth; Pregnant, ripening unto birth, All the world reposes. Our delightful month of May, Not by birth, but by degree, Took the first place, poets say; Since the whole year's cycle he, Youngest, loveliest, leads with glee, And the cycle closes. From the honours of the rose They decline, the rose abuse, Who, when roses red unclose, Seek not their own sweets to use; 'Tis with largess, liberal dues, That the rose discloses. Taught to wanton, taught to play, By the young year's wanton flower, We will take no heed to-day, Have no thought for thrift this hour; Thrift, whose uncongenial power Laws on youth imposes. Another song, blending the praises of spring with a little pagan vow to Cupid, has in the original Latin a distinction and purity of outline which might be almost called Horatian. THE VOW TO CUPID. No. 10. Winter, now thy spite is spent, Frost and ice and branches bent! Fogs and furious storms are o'er, Sloth and torpor, sorrow frore, Pallid wrath, lean discontent.