Whilst, like a willing patient, I will drink Potions of eyesell, (a) 'gainst my strong infection;

No bitterness that I will bitter think,

Nor double penance to correct correction.

Pity me then, dear friend, and I assure ye,
Even that your pity is enough to cure me.

Love is not love

LET me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments.
Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove :
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark,

That looks on tempests, and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,

Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle's compass come;

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error, and upon me prov'd,

I never writ, nor no man ever lov'd.

O NEVER say that I was false of heart,
Though absence seem'd my flame to qualify,
As easy might I from myself depart,

As from my soul which in thy breast doth lie:
That is my home of love: if I have rang'd,
Like him that travels, I return again;

(a) Vinegar; verjuice.

Just to the time, not with the time exchang'd;
So that myself bring water for my stain,
Never believe, though in my nature reign'd
All frailties that besiege all kinds of blood,
That it could so preposterously be stain'd,
To leave for nothing all thy sum of good;
For nothing this wide universe I call,
Save thou, my rose; in it thou art my all.

FROM THE PASSIONATE PILGRIM.
TAKE, oh! take those lips away,
That so sweetly were forsworn ;
And those eyes, the break of day,
Lights that do mislead the morn ;
But my kisses bring again,
Seals of love, but seal'd in vain.

Hide, oh! hide those hills of snow
Which thy frozen bosom bears,
On whose tops the pinks that grow,
Are of those that April wears.

But first set my poor heart free,
Bound in those icy chains by thee. (a)

SONG.

SIGH no more, ladies, sigh no more;
Men were deceivers ever;

One foot in sea, and one on shore,
To one thing constant never :

(a) This song is sometimes attributed to Beaumont and Fletcher.

Then sigh not so,

But let them go,

And be you blithe and bonny;
Converting all your sounds of wo
Into, Hey nonny, nonny.

Sing no more ditties, sing no mo
Of dumps so dull and heavy ;
The fraud of men was ever so,
Since summer first was leavy:
Then sigh not so, &c.

ARIEL'S SONG.

WHERE the bee sucks, there suck I;
In a cowslip's bell I lie ;

There I couch when owls do cry;
On the bat's back I do fly,

After summer, merrily;

Merrily, merrily shall I live now

Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.

WINTER, A SONG.

WHEN icicles hang by the wall,

And Dick the shepherd blows his nail, And Tom bears logs into the hall,

And milk comes frozen home in pail ;
When blood is nipt, and ways be foul,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
Tu-whoo!

Tu-whit! tu-whoo! a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

When all aloud the wind doth blow,
And coughing drowns the parson's saw,
And birds sit brooding in the snow,

And Marian's nose looks red and raw ;
When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
Tu-whoo!

Tu-whit! tu-whoo! a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

MICHAEL DRAYTON.

BORN 1563-DIED 1631.

DRAYTON, who is still read, and even admired, was born at Atherston, in Warwickshire. He studied at Oxford, but took no degree; neither was he bred to any profession, unless poetry be one. To him it proved but an indifferent calling. Through life he was dependent on patrons. Drayton's works, which are voluminous, consist of pastorals published while he was young; Polyolbion, or a Description of Great Britain, in verse; England's Heroical Epistles; and the Barons' Wars. All his poems contain fine and even splendid passages, interspersed with many as dull and tedious. "The Nymphidia," selected as a specimen of Drayton, has much of the sportive fancy and airy grace of the Rape of the Lock. The gallant Pigwiggen is the knight of Lilliputian romance, and the intrigue of Queen Mab the most amusing on poetical record. The pastoral tale of Dowsabel is one which every body likes, though no one has been able to tell precisely for what. It is lively and natural, and descriptive

of antique manners; and this is excellence enough with those who in reading seek only amusement.

FROM THE NYMPHIDIA,

But listen, and I shall you tell
A chance in Faery that befel,
Which certainly may please some well,
In love and arms delighting:

Of Oberon, that jealous grew

Of one of his own Fairy crew,

Too well (he fear'd) his queen that knew,
His love but ill requiting.

Pigwiggen was this Fairy knight,
One wondrous gracious in the sight
Of fair Queen Mab, which day and night
He amorously observed:

Which made King Oberon suspect
His service took too good effect.
His sauciness and often checkt,

And could have wish'd him starved.

Pigwiggen gladly would commend
Some token to Queen Mab to send,
If sea or land him aught could lend,
Were worthy of her wearing:
At length this lover doth devise
A bracelet made of emmet's eyes,
A thing he thought that she would prize,
No whit her state impairing.

And to the queen a letter writes,
Which he most curiously indites,
Conjuring her by all the rites

Of love, she would be pleased
To meet him her true servant, where
They might without suspect or fear
Themselves to one another clear,

And have their poor hearts eased.