TO CUPID

Yet in a fine net,

That a spider set,

The maidens had caught him;
Had she not been near him,
And chanced to hear him,

More good they had taught him.

Coy Love

A CANZONET

I pray thee, leave, love me no more,
Call home the heart you gave me,
I but in vain that saint adore,

That can, but will not save me:
These poor half kisses kill me quite;
Was ever man thus served?
Amidst an ocean of delight,
For pleasure to be starved.

Show me no more those snowy breasts
With azure riverets branched,
Where whilst mine eye with plenty feasts,
Yet is my thirst not stanched.
O Tantalus, thy pains ne'er tell,
By me thou art prevented;

'Tis nothing to be plagued in hell,
But thus in heaven tormented.

TO HIS COY LOVE

Clip me no more in those dear arms,
Nor thy life's comfort call me;
O, these are but too powerful charms,
And do but more enthrall me.
But see how patient I am grown,
In all this coil about thee;

Come, nice thing, let thy heart alone;
I cannot live without thee.

Her loved I most,

By thee that's lost,

Though she were won with leisure; She was my gain,

But to my pain

Thou spoil'st me of my treasure.

The ship full fraught

With gold, far sought,

Though ne'er so wisely helmed,
May suffer wrack

In sailing back

By tempest overwhelmed.

But she, good sir,

Did not prefer

You, for that I was ranging;

But for that she

Found faith in me,

And she loved to be changing.

Therefore boast not

Your happy lot,

Be silent now you have her;

TO HIS RIVAL

The time I knew
She slighted you,

When I was in her favour.

None stands so fast

But may be cast

By fortune, and disgraced:

Once did I wear

Her garter there

Where you her glove have placed.

I had the vow

That thou hast now

And glances to discover

Her love to me,

And she to thee

Reads but old lessons over.

She hath no smile

That can beguile,

But as my thought I know it;
Yea, to a hair,

Both when and where

And how she will bestow it.

What now is thine

Was only mine,

And first to me was given;
Thou laugh'st at me,

I laugh at thee,

And thus we two are even.