LIKE truthless dreams so are my joys expir'd,
And past return are all my dandled days,
My love misled, and fancy quite retir'd,
Of all which past, the sorrow only stays.

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 wait the wrongs of death's delays,

Whose sweet spring spent, whose sound well nigh is done,

Of all which past, the sorrow only stays,

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

The Advice.

[From Le Prince d'Amour.]

MANY 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;
Therefore take heed, let fancy never swerve,
But unto him that will take leaves and all.

For this be sure, the flower once pluckt 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 obtain'd,
Farewell the rest, the soil will be disdain'd.

Verses by Sir Walter Ralegh.
[From the Ashmolean MSS.]

CALLING to mind, mine eye went long about
To cause my heart for to forsake my breast,

All in a rage I thought to pluck it out
By whose device I liv'd in such unrest.
What could I say then to regain my grace?
Forsooth that it had seen my mistress' face!

And then again I called unto mind,

It was my heart that all this woe had wrought,
Because that he to love his fort resign'd,
When on such wars my fancy never thought.
What could he say when I would have him slain?
That it was yours, and had forgone me clean.

At length, when I perceiv'd both eye and heart
Excuse themselves as guilty of mine ill;
I found myself the cause of all my smart,
And told myself, myself now slay I will.
Yet, when I saw myself to you was true,
I love myself, because myself loves you.

Moral Advice.

[From the Ashmolean MSS.]

WATER thy plants with grace divine, and hope to live

Then to thy Saviour Christ incline, in him make stead

fast stay;

Raw is the reason that doth lie within an atheist's head, Which saith the soul of man doth die, when that the body's dead.

A Lover's Verses.

[From the Bodleian MSS.]

FAIN would I but I dare not;
I dare, but yet I may not:

I may, although I care not
For pleasure when I play not.

You laugh, because you like not;
I jest, and yet I joy not:

Met you not with my true love
By the way as you came?
How shall I know your true love,
That have met many one
As I went to the holy land,

That have come, that have gone.
She is neither white nor brown,

But as the heavens fair;

There is none hath so divine a form

In the earth or the air.

Such a one did I meet, good sir,

Such an angelic face;

Who like a queen, like a nymph did appear,

By her gait, by her grace:

She hath left me here all alone,

All alone as unknown,

Who sometimes did me lead with herself,

And me loved as her own:

What's the cause that she leaves alone

And a new way doth take:
Who loved you once as her own
And her joy did you make?
I have loved her all my youth,
But now, old as you see,
Love likes not the falling fruit

From the withered tree:

you

Know that Love is a careless child

And forgets promise past,
He is blind, he is deaf, when he list,

And in faith never fast:

His desire is a dureless content,

And a trustless joy;

He is won with a world of despair,

And is lost with a toy:

Of women-kind such indeed is the love,

Or the word love abused;

Under which many childish desires

And conceits are excused: