VIII.

THE FAREWELL TO LOVE,

From Beaumont and Fletcher's play, entitled The Lover's Progress, act iii. sc. I.

ADIEU, fond love, farewell you wanton powers;

I am free again.

Thou dull disease of bloud and idle hours,

Bewitching pain,

Fly to fools, that sigh away their time:

5

My nobler love to heaven doth climb,

And there behold beauty still young,

'That time can ne'er corrupt, nor death destroy,

Immortal sweetness by fair angels sung,

And honoured by eternity and joy:

10

There lies my love, thither my hopes aspire,

Fond love declines, this heavenly love grows higher.

IX. ULYSSES

IX.

ULYSSES AND THE SYREN,

-affords a pretty poetical contest between Pleasure and Honour. It is found at the end of " Hymen's Tri"umph: a pastoral tragicomedie," written by Daniel, and printed among his works, 4to. 1623 *.-DANIEL, who was a contemporary of Drayton's, and is said to have been poet laureat to Queen Elizabeth, was born in 1562, and died in 1619. ANNE Countess of Dorset, Pembroke, and Montgomery (to whom Daniel had been Tutor), has inserted a small Portrait of him in a fulllength Picture of herself, preserved at Appleby Castle, in Cumberland.

This little poem is the rather selected for a specimen of Daniel's poetic powers, as it is omitted in the later edition of his works, 2 vols. 12mo. 1718.

SYREN.

COME, worthy Greeke, Ulysses come,
Possesse these shores with me,

The windes and seas are troublesome,

And here we may be free.

Here may we sit and view their toyle,

That travaile in the deepe,

Enjoy the day in mirth the while,

And spend the night in sleepe.

5

*In this edition it is collated with a copy printed at the end of his "Tragedie of Cleopatra. London, 1607," 12mo.

ULYSSES.

ULYSSES.

Faire nymph, if fame or honour were

To be attain'd with ease,

Then would i come and rest with thee,

And leave such toiles as these :

But here it dwels, and here must I

With danger seek it forth;

To spend the time luxuriously
Becomes not men of worth.

SYREN.

Ulysses, O be not deceiv'd

With that unreall name:

This honour is a thing conceiv'd,
And rests on others' fame.

Begotten only to molest

Our peace, and to beguile

(The best thing of our life) our rest, And give us up to toyle!

ULYSSES.

SYREN.

Then pleasure likewise seemes the shore,
Whereto tendes all your toyle;

Which you forego to make it more,

And perish oft the while.

Who may disport them diversly,

Find never tedious day;

And ease may have variety,

As well as action may.

ULYSSES.

But natures of the noblest frame

These toyles and dangers please; And they take comfort in the same,

As much as you in ease:

And with the thought of actions past

Are recreated still :

When pleasure leaves a touch at last

To shew that it was ill.

SYREN.

That doth opinion only cause,
That's out of custom bred;

Which makes us many other laws

Than ever nature did.

No widdowes waile for our delights,

Our sports are without blood; The world we see by warlike wights Receives more hurt than good.

35

40

45

30

55

ULYSSES,

ULYSSES.

But yet the state of things require
These motions of unrest,

And these great spirits of high desire
Seem borne to turne them best:

Το

purge the mischiefes, that increase
And all good order mar :

For oft we see a wicked peace
To be well chang'd for war.

SYREN.

60

This beautiful poem, which possesses a classical elegance hardly to be expected in the age of James I, is printed from the 4th edition of Davison's Poems *, &c. 1621. It is also found in a later miscellany, entitled,

* See the full title in vol. ii. book iii. no. iv,

"Le