Thomas Lodge

(15567-1625)

O SHADY vales, O fair enriched meads,

O sacred woods, sweet fields, and rising mountains;

O painted flowers, green herbs where Flora treads,

Refresh'd by wanton winds and wat'ry fountains!

O all you winged choristers of wood,

That perch'd aloft your former pains report, And straight again recount with pleasant mood

Your present joys in sweet and seemly sort! O all you creatures whosoever thrive

On mother earth, in seas, by air, by fire!More blest are you than I here under sun: Love dies in me, whenas he doth revive

In you: I perish under beauty's ire, Where after storms, winds, frosts, your life is

won.

Robert Greene

(1560-1592)

AH! were she pitiful as she is fair,
Or but as mild as she is seeming so,
Then were my hopes greater than my despair,
Then all the world were heaven, nothing woe.
Ah! were her heart relenting as her hand,
That seems to melt even with the mildest
touch,

Then knew I where to seat me in a land

Under wide heavens, but yet there is none such.

So as she shows she seems the budding rose, Yet sweeter far than is an earthly flower; Sov'ran of beauty, like the spray she grows; Compass'd she is with thorns and canker'd bower.

Yet were she willing to be pluck'd and worn,

She would be gather'd, though she grew on thorn.

benry Constable

(1562-1613)

TO SIR PHILIP SIDNEY'S SOUL

GIVE pardon, blessèd soul, to my bold cries, If they (importune) interrupt thy song Which now, with joyful notes, thou sing'st among

The angel-quiristers of heavenly skies;

Give pardon eke, sweet soul, to my slow cries,
That since I saw thee now it is so long,
And yet the tears that unto thee belong
To thee as yet they did not sacrifice.

I did not know that thou wert dead before,
I did not feel the grief I did sustain :
The greater stroke astonisheth the more,
Astonishment takes from us sense of pain.

I stood amazed when others' tears begun,
And now begin to weep when they have
done.

TO SAINT KATHARINE

BECAUSE thou wast the daughter of a king, Whose beauty did all Nature's works exceed, And wisdom wonder to the world did breed, A muse might rouse itself on Cupid's wing; But, sith the graces which from nature spring Were graced by those which from grace did proceed,

And glory have deserved, my Muse doth need

An angel's feathers when thy praise I sing.
For all in thee became angelical:

An angel's face had angels' purity,

And thou an angel's tongue didst speak withal; Lo! why thy soul, set free by martyrdom, Was crowned by God in angels' company, And angels' hands thy body did entomb.

Henry Constable.

Samuel Daniel

(1562-1619)

FAIR is my Love, and cruel as she's fair;
Her brow shades frowns, although her eyes

are sunny,

Her smiles are lightning, though her pride despair,

And her disdains are gall, her favours honey: A modest maid, deck'd with a blush of honour,

Whose feet do tread green paths of youth

and love;

The wonder of all eyes that look upon her, Sacred on earth, design'd a Saint above. Chastity and beauty, which were deadly foes, Live reconcilèd friends within her brow; And had she pity to conjoin with those,

Then who had heard the plaints I utter now? For had she not been fair, and thus unkind,

My Muse had slept, and none had known my mind.