I sighed hersighs, and wailed for her woe; Yet swam in joy, such love in her was seen. Thus, while th' effect most bitter was to me, And nothing then the cause more sweet could be, I had been vexed, if vexed I had not been. 90. Stella, think not that I by verse seek fame, Who seek, who hope, who love, who live but thee; Thine eyes my pride, thy lips mine history: If thou praise not, all other praise is shame. Nor so ambitious am I, as to frame A nest for my young praise in laurel tree: In truth, I swear I wish not there should be Graved in my epitaph a poet's name. Nor, if I would, could I just title make, That any laud thereof to me should grow, Without my plumes from others' wings I take: For nothing from my wit or will doth flow, Since all my words thy beauty doth endite, And love doth hold my hand, and makes me write. 107. Stella, since thou so right a princess art Of all the powers which life bestows on me, That ere by them ought undertaken be, They first resort unto that sovereign part; Sweet, for a while give respite to my heart, Which pants as though it still should leap to thee: And on my thoughts give thy lieutenancy To this great cause, which reeds both use and art. And as a queen, who from her presence sends Whom she employs, dismiss from thee my wit, Till it have wrought what thy own will attends, On servants' shame oft masters' blame doth sit: O let not fools in me thy works reprove, And scorning say, "See what it is to love!" JOHN LYLY. 1554-1606. [LITTLE is known of Lyly's life. He was born in Kent, in 1554, studied at Magdalen College, Oxford, was patronized by Lord Burghley, and wrote plays for the Child players at the Chapel Royal,the" aery of children," alluded to in Hamlet, "little eyases, that cry out on the top of the question and are most tyrannically clapped for't." He died in 1606. His Euphues was published, first part in 1579, second part in 1580.] CUPID AND CAMPASPE. [From Alexander and Campaspe.] CUPID and my Campaspe play'd At cards for kisses; Cupid paid: He stakes his quiver, bow and arrows, His mother's doves,and team of sparrows; Loses them too; then down he throws The coral of his lip, the rose Growing on's cheek (but none knows how), With these, the crystal of his brow, O Love! has she done this to thee? THOMAS LODGE. 1556-1625. [THOMAS LODGE was born in Lincolnshire about 1556, entered Trinity College, Oxford, in 1573, and died of the plague at Low Leyton, in Essex, in 1625. The most important of his numerous works are, Scilla's Metamorphosis, 1589; Rosalynde Euphues' Golden Legacy, 1590; Phillis, 1593: A Fig for Momus, 1595; A Margarite of America, 1596.] ROSALIND'S COMPLAINT. LOVE in my bosom, like a bee, Doth suck his sweet; Now with his wings he plays with me, Within mine eyes he makes his nest, Ah, wanton, will you? And if I sleep, then pierceth he And makes his pillow of my knee Strike I the lute, he tunes the string; ROBERT GREENE. 1560-1592. [ROBERT GREENE was born at Norwich, probably in 1560. He was a graduate of St. John's College, Cambridge, in 1578, but took his degree of M.A. five years later at Clare Hall. After this he travelled in Italy and Spain, and, returning to London, gained his living as a playwright and pamphleteer. He died in Dowgate, Sept. 3, 1592. His first work was the novel of Mamilia, 1580, which was followed by a rapid succession of tales, poems, plays, and pamphlets. His most remarkable lyrics appeared in Menaphon, 1587; Never Too Late, 1590; and The Mourning Garment, 1590.] A DEATH-BEDd lament. DECEIVING world, that with alluring toys Hast made my life the subject of thy scorn, And scornest now to lend thy fading joys, T'out-length my life, whom friends have left forlorn; How well are they that die ere they be born, And never see thy slights, which few men shun, Till unawares they helpless are undone ! O that a year were granted me to live, And for that year my former wits restored! What rules of life, what counsel I would give, How should my sin with sorrow be de- But I must die of every man abhorred: won; My time is loosely spent, and I undone. ROBERT SOUTHWELL. 1562-1595. [BORN at Horsham St. Faith's, Norfolk, about 1562; entered the Society of Jesus, 1578, at Rome; accompanied Father Garnet to England, was captured; and was executed at Tyburn, 1594-5. St. Peter's Complaint, with other Poems, was first published in 1595; Maeoniae in the same year; Marie Magdalen's Funerall Teares, 1609.] [IN a tract dated 1637, Dekker speaks of himself as a man of threescore years. This is the only clue to his age that has been discovered. He was born in London, and apparently lived all his life there, as playwright, pamphleteer, and miscellaneous literary hack. His plays were published separately at various dates from 1600 to 1636. He frequently worked with other dramatists, Webster, Middleton, Massinger, Ford, etc.] CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE. 1564-1593 [CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE was born at Canterbury, in February, 1564, and educated at the King's School, in his birth-place, and at Benet (Corpus Christi) College, Cambridge. He was killed in a tavern brawl, and was buried at Deptford, June 1, 193. The dates and order of his works are somewhat uncertain. Of his plays, the first, Tamburlaine the Great, a tragedy in two parts, must have been acted in public by 1587. It was followed by The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus, The Jew of Malta (probably in 1589 or 1590), The Massacre at Paris (not earlier than the end of 1589), Edward II., and The Tragedy of Queen Dido, which was probably lef: unfinished at Marlowe's death, and completed by Nash. Another play, Lust's Dominion, was for some time wrongly attributed to Marlowe; but, in return for this injustice, the probability that he may have had at least a share ia Shakespeares's 2 and 3 Henry VI, or in the plays on which those dramas were based, is now rather widely admitted. Of his poems, the translations of Ovid's Amores and the first book of Lucan's Pharsalia are of uncertain date. The Passionate Shepherd to his Love was first printed complete in England's Helicon, 1600, but is quoted in The Jew of Malta. Hero and Leander was left unfinished at Marlowe's death; Chapman completed it, dividing Marlowe's fragment into two parts, which now form the first two Sestiads of the poem.] THE PASSIONATE SHepherd TO HIS LOVE. COME live with me, and be my love, And I will make thee beds of roses, A gown made of the finest wool, A belt of straw and ivy-buds, Thy silver dishes, for thy meat, The shepherd swains shall dance and sing ANSWER BY SIR WALTER RALEIGH. IF all the world and love were young, But time drives flocks from field to fold, The flowers do fade, and wanton fields Thy gowns, thy shoes, thy beds of roses, Thy belt of straw and ivy-buds, What should we talk of dainties, then, 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. WILLIAM BROWNE. 1588-1643. [WILLIAM BROWNE was born at Tavistock in 1588, and died, probably, in the year 1643. He went to Oxford as a member of Exeter College; entered the Inner Temple in 1612; published his elegy on Prince Henry in a volume along with another by his friend Christopher Brooke in 1613: the first book of his Britannia's Pastorals in the same year; his Shepherd's Pipe in 1614; and the second book of his Pastorals in 1616, the year of the death of Shakespeare. The third book of his Britannia's Pastorals was unknown till 1851, when it was published for the Percy Society from a manuscript in the Cathedral Library at Salisbury. The most complete edition of Browne is that published in the Roxburghe Library by Mr. W. Carew Hazlitt in 1868.] |