English

Mr. Thomas Manwood

T O me more known than you is your sad chance.
Oh! had I still enjoy'd such ignorance;
Then I by these spent tears had not been known,
Nor left another's grief to sing mine own.
Yet since his late hath wrought these throes,
Permit a Partner in your woes:
The cause doth yield, and still may do,
Enough for You , and others too.
But if such plaints for You are kept,
Yet may I grieve since you have wept.

PIERS . T HOMALIN .

Thomalin.

Where is every piping lad
That the fields are not yclad
With their milk-white sheep?
Tell me: is it holiday,
Or if in the month of May
Use they long to sleep?

Piers.

Thomalin, 'tis not too late,
For the turtle and her mate
Sitten yet in nest:
And the thrustle hath not been
Gath'ring worms yet on the green,
But attends her rest.
Not a bird hath taught her young,
Nor her morning's lesson sung

W ILLIE . J OCKIE .

Willie.

J OCKIE , say: what might he be
That sits on yonder hill?
And tooteth out his notes of giee
So uncouth and so shrill?

Jockie.

Notes of glee? bad ones I trow:
I have not heard beforn
One so mistook as Willie now:
'Tis some sow-gelder's horn.
And well thou asken might'st if I
Do know him, or from whence

If any such thing be, tell out thy rede,
And ye shall been all whole I you beheet;
Else mine art is naught, withouten drede.
O Lord, she thought, health is a thing full sweet,
Therewith desire I sovereignly to meet:
Since I it by confession may recover.
A fool am I but I my guilt discover.

How falsely to the son of th' Emperor,
Jonathas, had she done, before them all
As ye han heard above, all that error
By knew she. O Fellicula thee call

Roget.

Whilom an Emperor, prudent and wise,
Reigned in Rome, and had sons three,
Which he had in great cherete and great price;
And when it shop so that th' infirmity
Of death, which no wight may eschew or flee,
Him threw down in his bed, he let to call
His sons, and before him they came all.

And to the first he said in this manneer:
All th'eritage which at the dying
Of my fadir, he me left, all in feere
Leave I thee: and all that of my buying

W ILLE . R OGET .

Willie.

R OGET , droop not, see the spring
Is the earth enamelling,
And the birds on every tree
Greet this morn with melody:
Hark, how yonder thrustle chants it,
And her mate as proudly vants it;
See how every stream is dress'd
By her margin with the best
Of Flora's gifts; she seems glad
For such brooks such flow'rs she had.
All the trees are quaintly tired
With green buds, of all desired;
And the hawthorn every day

Into her chariot she him quickly takes,
And swift as time, cutting the yielding air,
Her discontent she tells him, as she makes
Towards Psyche's sweet abode a sad repair.
Psyche the lady hight, that now awakes
Fair Venus' fury; look, quoth she, and there
Behold my grief; O Cupid, shut thine eyne,
Or that which now is hers will soon be thine.

See yonder girl, quoth she, for whom my shrine
Is left neglected and of all forlorn;
Hark how the poets court the sacred Nine
To give them raptures full and highly born

Of royal parents in a country rich
Were born three daughters, with all beauties crown'd
That could the eyes of men or gods bewitch,
Or poets' sacred verse did ever sound;
But Nature's favour flew a higher pitch,
When with the youngest she enrich'd this round,
Though her first work for praise much right might hold,
Her last outwent it, and she broke the mould.

From countries far remote, wing'd with desire,
Strangers pass'd gladly o'er a tedious way
To see if fame would now be found a liar,

As when a lusty sawyer, well prepar'd,
His breakfast eaten, and his timber squar'd,
About to raise up as he thinketh fit
A good sound tree above his sawing pit,
His neighbours call'd; each one a lusty heaver,
Some steer the roller, others ply the lever;
Heave here, says one; another calls, shove thither;
Heave, roll, and shove! cry all, and altogether;
Look to your foot, sir, and take better heed,
Cries a by-stander, no more haste than need;
Lift up that end there; bring it gently on;

The first course thus serv'd in, next follow'd on
The fairy nobles, ushering Oberon,
Their mighty king, a prince of subtle pow'r,
Clad in a suit of speckled gilliflow'r.
His hat by some choice master in the trade
Was (like a helmet) of a lily made.
His ruff a daisy was, so neatly trim,
As if of purpose it had grown for him.
His points were of the lady-grass, in streaks,
And all were tagg'd, as fit, with titmouse beaks.
His girdle, not three times as broad as thin,
Was of a little trout's self-spangled skin.