SONNET.

BY SIR PHILIP SIDNEY.

HAPPY Thames that didst my Stella bear;

I saw myself with many a smiling line

Upon thy cheerful face, joy's livery wear,

While those fair planets on thy streams did shine; The boat for joy could not to dance forbear; While wanton winds, with beauties so divine Ravished, staid not till in her golden hair

They did themselves, oh sweetest prison ! twine; And fain those Eol's youth there would their stay Have made, but forced by nature still to fly, First did with puffing kiss those locks display. She so dishevelled, blushed: from window I, With sight thereof, cried out, oh fair disgrace! Let honor's self to thee grant highest place.

A PRAISE OF HIS LADY.

G

BY JOHN HEYWOOD.

IVE place, you ladies, and be gone;

Boast not yourselves at all!

For here at hand approacheth One
Whose face will stain you all.

The virtue of her lively looks

Excels the precious stone;
I wish to have none other books
To read or look upon.

In each of her two crystal eyes
Smileth a naked boy;

It would you all in heart suffice
To see that lamp of joy.

I think Nature hath lost the mould,
Where she her shape did take;
Or else I doubt if Nature could

So fair a creature make.

She may be well compared
Unto the Phoenix kind,

Whose like was never seen or heard,
That any man can find.

In life she is Diana chaste;

In truth Penelope ;

In word and eke in deed steadfast;
What will you more we say?

If all the world were sought so far,
Who could find such a wight?
Her beauty twinkleth like a star
Within the frosty night.

Her rosial color comes and goes

With such a comely grace,

More ruddier too than doth the rose,

Within her lovely face.

At Bacchus' feast none shall her meet,

Nor at no wanton play,

Nor gazing in an open street,

Nor gadding as astray.

L

The modest mirth that she doth use,

Is mixed with shamefastness;
All vice she wholly doth refuse,

And hateth idleness.

O Lord! it is a world to see
How virtue can repair,
And deck her in such modesty,
Whom Nature made so fair.

Truly she doth as far exceed
Our women now-a-days,
As doth the gilly-flower a weed,
And more a thousand ways.

How might I do to get a graff
Of this unspotted tree?

For all the rest are plain but chaff
Which seem good corn to be.

This gift alone I shall her give:
When Death doth what he can,

Her honest fame shall ever live
Within the mouth of man.

SAMELA.

BY ROBERT GREENE.

IKE to Diana in her summer weed,

Girt with a crimson robe of brightest dye,
Goes fair Samela.

Whiter than be the flocks that straggling feed
When washed by Arethusa faint they lie,
Is fair Samela.

As fair Aurora in her morning grey,

Decked with the ruddy glister of her love,
Is fair Samela.

Like lovely Thetis on a calmèd day,

When as her brightness Neptune's fancy move,
Shines fair Samela.

Her tresses gold, her eyes like glassy streams,
Her teeth are pearl, the breasts are ivory,
Of fair Samela.

Her cheeks, like rose and lily, yield forth gleams,
Her brows' bright arches framed of ebony:

Thus fair Samela

Passeth fair Venus in her bravest hue,

And Juno in the show of majesty,

For she's Samela,

Pallas in wit; all three, if you well view,
For beauty, wit, and matchless dignity
Yield to Samela.

MENAPHON'S ECLOGUE.

BY ROBERT GREENE.

OO weak the wit, too slender is the brain,

That means to mark the power and worth of love;

Not one that lives, except he hap to prove,

Can tell the sweet, or tell the secret pain.

Yet I that have been 'prentice to the grief,
Like to the cunning sea-man from afar,
By guess will take the beauty of that star,
Whose influence must yield me chief relief.

You censors of the glory of my dear,

With reverence and lowly bend of knee,
Attend and mark what her perfections be ;
For in my words my fancies shall appear.

Her locks are plighted like the fleece of wool
That Jason with his Grecian mates achieved;
As pure as gold, yet not from gold derived,
As full of sweets, as sweet of sweets is full.

Her brows are pretty tables of conceit,

Where Love his records of delight doth quote ;
On them her dallying locks do daily float,

As Love full oft doth feed upon the bait.

Her eyes, fair eyes, like to the purest lights
That animate the sun, or cheer the day;
In whom the shining sunbeams brightly play,
Whiles fancy doth on them divine delights.

Her cheeks like ripened lilies steeped in wine,
Or fair pomegranate kernels washed in milk,
Or snow-white threads in nets of crimson silk,
Or gorgeous clouds upon the sun's decline.

Her lips are roses over-washed with dew,

Or like the purple of Narcissus' flower,

No frost their fair, no wind doth waste their power, But by her breath her beauties do renew.