The mellow plum doth fall, the green sticks fast; Or, being early plucked, is sour to taste. 'Look, the world's comforter, with weary gait, His day's hot task hath ended in the west: The owl, night's herald, shrieks;* 'tis very late; The sheep are gone to fold, birds to their nest; And coal-black clouds, that shadow heaven's light, Do summon us to part, and bid good night. 'Now let me say, Good night, and so say you; If you will say so, you shall have a kiss.' 'Good night,' quoth she; and, ere he says, Adieu, The honey fee of parting tendered is:

Her arms do lend his neck a sweet embrace; Incorporate then they seem; face grows to face: Till, breathless, he disjoined, and backward drew The heavenly moisture, that sweet coral mouth, Whose precious taste her thirsty lips well knew, Whereon they surfeit, yet complain on drought:

He with her plenty pressed, she faint with dearth, (Their lips together glued) fall to the earth.

Now quick Desire hath caught the yielding prey,
And glutton-like she feeds, yet never filleth:
Her lips are conquerors, his lips obey,
Paying what ransom the insulter willeth;

Whose vulture thought doth pitch the price so high,
That she will draw his lips' rich treasure dry:

And, having felt the sweetness of the spoil,
With blindfold fury she begins to forage;

Her face doth reek and smoke, her blood doth boil,
And careless lust stirs up a desperate courage,

*It was the owl that shrieked, the fatal bellman
Which gives the stern'st good night.—Macbeth, ii. 2.
The owl shrieked at thy birth.-3 Henry VI. v. 6.
For night-owls shriek, where mounting larks should sing.
Richard II. iii. 3.

Planting oblivion, beating reason back,

Forgetting shame's pure blush, and honour's wreck.

Hot, faint, and weary with her hard embracing,
Like a wild bird being tamed with too much handling;
Or as the fleet-foot roe, that's tired with chasing;
Or like the froward infant, stilled with dandling;
He now obeys, and now no more resisteth,
While she takes all she can, not all she listeth.

What wax so frozen but dissolves with tempering,*
And yields at last to every light impression?
Things out of hope are compassed oft with venturing,
Chiefly in love, whose leave exceeds commission.

Affection faints not like a pale-faced coward;

But then woos best, when most his choice is froward. When he did frown, O, had she then gave over, Such nectar from his lips she had not sucked. Foul words and frowns must not repel a lover: What though the rose have prickles? yet 'tis plucked. Were beauty under twenty locks kept fast,

Yet Love breaks through, and picks them all at last.

For pity now she can no more detain him;
The poor fool prays her that he may depart:
She is resolved no longer to restrain him;
Bids him farewell, and look well to her heart,
The which, by Cupid's bow she doth protest,
He carries thence encaged in his breast.

'Sweet boy,' she says, 'this night I'll waste in sorrow,
For my sick heart commands mine eyes to watch.
Tell me, Love's master, shall we meet to morrow?
Say, shall we? shall we? wilt thou make the match?'
He tells her, no; to-morrow he intends

To hunt the boar with certain of his friends.

It should be remembered, observes Malone, that it was the custom formerly to seal with soft wax, which was tempered between the fingers before the impression was made.

'The boar!' quoth she; whereat a sudden pale,
Like lawn being spread upon the blushing rose,
Usurps her cheek;* she trembles at his tale,
And on his neck her yoking arms she throws:
She sinketh down, still hanging by his neck;
He on her belly falls, she on her back.

Now is she in the very lists of love,

Her champion mounted for the hot encounter:
All is imaginary she doth prove;

He will not manage her, although he mount her;
That worse than Tantalus' is her annoy,
To clip+ Elysium, and to lack her joy.

Even as poor birds, deceived with painted grapes,‡
Do surfeit by the eye, and pine the maw,
Even so she languisheth in her mishaps,

As those poor birds that helpless berries§ saw:
The warm effects which she in him finds missing,
She seeks to kindle with continual kissing;

But all in vain: good queen, it will not be:
She hath assayed as much as may be proved;
Her pleading hath deserved a greater fee;
She's Love, she loves, and yet she is not loved.

Fie, fie!' he says: 'you crush me; let me go:

You have no reason to withhold me so.'

'Thou hadst been gone,' quoth she, 'sweet boy, ere this,
But that thou told'st me, thou wouldst hunt the boar.
O, be advised! thou know'st not what it is
With javelin's point a churlish swine to gore,

+ Embrace.

* At the name of boar

Venus seemed dying;

Deadly-colored pale

Roses overcast.

Sheepheard's Song of Venus and Adonis.

An allusion to the picture of Zeuxis, mentioned by Pliny, in which the grapes were represented so naturally, that the birds pecked at them. § Berries that afford no help or nourishment.

Whose tushes never-sheathed he whetteth still,
Like to a mortal* butcher, bent to kill.

'On his bow-back he hath a battle set
Of bristly pikes, that ever threat his foes;
His eyes like glow-worms shine when he doth fret;
His snout digs sepulchres where'er he goes:

Being moved, he strikes whate'er is in his way;
And whom he strikes, his cruel tushes slay.

'His brawny sides, with hairy bristles armed,
Are better proof than thy spear's point can enter;
His short thick neck cannot be easily harmed;
Being ireful, on the lion he will venture:

The thorny brambles and embracing bushes,
As fearful of him, part; through whom he rushes.

'Alas, he naught esteems that face of thine,
To which Love's eyes pay tributary gazes;
Nor thy soft hands, sweet lips, and crystal eyne,
Whose full perfection all the world amazes:

But having thee at vantage, (wondrous dread!)
Would root these beauties as he roots the mead.

'O, let him keep his loathsome cabin still!
Beauty hath nought to do with such foul fiends:
Come not within his danger by thy will:
They that thrive well, take counsel of their friends.
When thou didst name the boar, not to dissemble,
I feared thy fortune, and my joints did tremble.

'Didst thou not mark my face? Was it not white?
Saw'st thou not signs of fear lurk in mine eye?
Grew I not faint? And fell I not downright?
Within my bosom, whereon thou dost lie,

My boding heart pants, beats, and takes no rest; But, like an earthquake, shakes thee on my breast:

* Deadly.

'For where Love reigns, disturbing Jealousy
Doth call himself Affection's sentinel;
Gives false alarms, suggesteth mutiny,
And in a peaceful hour doth cry, 'Kill, kill;'
Distempering gentle love in his desire,
As air and water do abate the fire.

'This sour informer, this bate-breeding* spy,
This canker that eats up love's tender spring,†
This carry-tale, dissensious Jealousy,

That sometime true news, sometime false doth bring,
Knocks at my heart, and whispers in mine ear,
That, if I love thee, I thy death should fear:

'And more than so, presenteth to mine eye
The picture of an angry, chafing boar,
Under whose sharp fangs on his back doth lie
An image like thyself, all stained with gore;

Whose blood upon the fresh flowers being shed, Doth make them droop with grief, and hang the head.

'What should I do, seeing thee so indeed,

That tremble at the imagination?

The thought of it doth make my faint heart bleed,
And fear doth teach it divination:

I prophesy thy death, my living sorrow,
If thou encounter with the boar to-morrow.

'But if thou needs wilt hunt, be ruled by me;
Uncouple at the timorous, flying hare;‡

Bate is an old word, signifying strife, contention :--
Shall ever civil bate

Gnaw and devour our taste?

Countess of PEMBROKE'S Antonius.

+ Spring is here used in the sense of a young shoot or bud. Speak, said she, no more

Of following the boar,

Thou unfit for such a chase;

Course the fearful hare,

Venison do not spare.

Sheepheard's Song of Venus and Adonis.