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A belt of straw and ivy-buds,
With coral clasps and amber-studs:
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Come love with me, and be my love.

The shepherd-swains shall dance and sing
For thy delight each May-morning;
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me, and be my love.

2. RALEIGH'S REPLY.

(Before 1599.)

F all the world and love were young,
And truth in every shepherd's tongue,
These pretty pleasures might me move
To live with thee and be thy love.

But time drives flocks from field to fold,
When rivers rage and rocks grow cold;
And Philomel becometh dumb;
The rest complains of cares to come.

The flowers do fade, and wanton fields
To wayward winter reckoning yields:
A honey tongue, a heart of gall,
Is fancy's spring, but sorrow's fall.

1 The first verse was printed in the "Passionate Pilgrim" in 1599, and the whole in " England's Helicon," 1600, where the signature is Ignoto. Also in Walton's " Complete Angler," 1653, as "made by Sir Walter Raleigh in his younger days."

Thy gowns, thy shoes, thy beds of roses,
Thy cap, thy kirtle, and thy posies,
Soon break, soon wither, soon forgotten,-
In folly ripe, in reason rotten.

Thy belt of straw and ivy buds,
Thy coral clasps and amber studs,—
All those in me no means can move
To come to thee and be thy love.

But could youth last, and love still breed;
Had joys no date, nor age no need;
Then those delights my mind might move
To live with thee and be thy love.

VII.

LIKE HERMIT POOR.1

(Before 1593.)

IKE hermit poor in pensive place obscure
I mean to spend my days of endless

doubt,

To wail such woes as time cannot recure, Where nought but love shall ever find me out. And at my gates despair shall linger still, To let in death when love and fortune will.

Ascribed to Raleigh in "To-day a Man, to-morrow none," 1643-4; King's Pamphlets, B. M. vol. 139. It is anonymous in the "Phoenix Nest," 1593, p. 69; in "Tixall Poetry," p. 115; in MS. Rawl. 85, fol. 21, verso; in Harl. MS. 6910, fol. 139, verso, &c.

A gown of grief my body shall attire,

And broken hope shall be my strength and stay; And late repentance, linked with long desire,

Shall be the couch whereon my limbs I'll lay. And at my gates despair shall linger still, To let in death when love and fortune will.

My food shall be of care and sorrow made;

My drink nought else but tears fallen from mine eyes;

And for my light, in such obscured shade,

The flames may serve which from my heart arise. And at my gates despair shall linger still, To let in death when love and fortune will.

VIII.

FAREWELL TO THE COURT.1
(Before 1593.)

IKE truthless dreams, so are my joys
expired,

And past return are all my dandled
days,

My love misled, and fancy quite retired ;
Of all which past, the sorrow only stays.

1 Signed W. R., with the above title, in "Le Prince d'Amour," 1660, p. 132, and on that authority, acknowledged by Oldys, p. clxxiii. note, and inserted in the Oxford edition of Raleigh's "Works," viii. 730: correctly, for it is quoted as his own by Raleigh himself in the Hatfield MS.; see No. XX. line 144. There is an anonymous copy in the "Phoenix Nest," 1593, p. 70.

My lost delights, now clean from sight of land,

Have left me all alone in unknown ways, My mind to woe, my life in fortune's hand; Of all which past, the sorrow only stays. As in a country strange without companion,

I only wail the wrong of death's delays, Whose sweet spring spent, whose summer well nigh done;

Of all which past, the sorrow only stays;

Whom care forewarns, ere age and winter cold, To haste me hence to find my fortune's fold.

IX.

THE ADVICE.1

ANY desire, but few or none deserve
To win the fort of thy most constant

will;

Therefore take heed; let fancy never

swerve

But unto him that will defend thee still: For this be sure, the fort of fame once won, Farewell the rest, thy happy days are done! Many desire, but few or none deserve

To pluck the flowers, and let the leaves to fall;

1 Signed W. R., like the last piece, in "Le Prince d'Amour," 1660, p. 133; and therefore accepted by Oldys and the (xford editors, viii. 731. There is an anonymous copy in MS. Rawl. Poet. 85, fol. 116, as "written to Mris A. V."

Therefore take heed; let fancy never swerve

But unto him that will take leaves and all: For this be sure, the flower once plucked away, Farewell the rest, thy happy days decay!

Many desire, but few or none deserve

To cut the corn, not subject to the sickle; Therefore take heed; let fancy never swerve,

But constant stand, for mowers' minds are fickle; For this be sure, the crop being once obtained, Farewell the rest, the soil will be disdained.

X.

IN THE GRACE OF WIT, OF TONGUE,

H

AND FACE.1

(Before 1593.)

ER face, her tongue, her wit, so fair, so sweet, so sharp,

First bent, then drew, now hit, mine

eye, mine ear, my heart:

Mine eye, mine ear, my heart, to like, to learn, to love,

A shorter copy than the above occurs anonymously in the "Phoenix Nest," 1593, p. 71, and is repeated in "Le Prince d'Amour," 1660, p. 131, as "The Lover's Maze," with the signature W. R., as in the last two cases. Hence it was accepted by Oldys and the Oxford editors, viii. 730. The above copy is taken from Davison's "Poetical Rhapsody," where it is anonymous; the title from editions 1611 and 1621. In editions 1602 and 1608, it is called " A reporting Sonnet."

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