936. LOSS IN DELAYS

SHUN delays, they breed remorse,
Take thy time while time doth serve thee,
Creeping snails have weakest force,

Fly their fault lest thou repent thee,
Good is best when soonest wrought,
Lingering labours come to nought.

Time wears all his locks before,
Take thou hold upon his forehead;
When he flies he turns no more
And behind his scalp is naked.

Works adjourned have many stays;
Long demurs breed new delays.

R. SOUTHWELL.

937. TIMES GO BY TURNS

THE lopped tree in time may grow again,
Most naked plants renew both fruit and flower;
The sorriest wight may find release of pain,
The driest soil suck in some moistening shower;
Times go by turns, and chances change by course,
From foul to fair, from better hap to worse.

The sea of Fortune doth not ever flow,
She draws her favours to the lowest ebb;
Her tides have equal times to come and go,

Her loom doth weave the fine and coarsest web;
No joy so great but runneth to an end,

No hap so hard but may in fine amend.

Not always fall of leaf, nor ever spring,
No endless night, yet not eternal day;
The saddest birds a season find to sing,
The roughest storm a calm may soon allay:
Thus, with succeeding turns, God tempereth all,
That man may hope to rise, yet fear to fall.

A chance may win that by mischance was lost;
That net that holds no great, takes little fish ;
In some things all, in all things none are crossed;
Few all they need, but none have all they wish.
Unmingled joys here to no man befall;

Who least, hath some; who most, hath never all.
R. SOUTHWELL.

938. ΤΟ

Too late I stayed-forgive the crime;
Unheeded flew the hours;

How noiseless falls the foot of Time,
That only treads on flowers!

What eye with clear account remarks
The ebbing of the glass,

When all its sands are diamond sparks,
That dazzle as they pass !

Oh, who to sober measurement
Time's happy swiftness brings,

When birds of Paradise have lent
Their plumage for his wings!

W. R. SPENCER.

939. THE REDCROSS KNIGHT

A GENTLE knight was pricking on the plain,
Yclad in mighty arms and silver shield,
Wherein old dints of deep wounds did remain,
The cruel marks of many a bloody field;
Yet arms till that time did he never wield.
His angry steed did chide his foaming bit,
As much disdaining to the curb to yield:
Full jolly knight he seemed and fair did sit,
As one for knightly jousts and fierce encounters fit.

And on his breast a bloody cross he bore,
The dear remembrance of his dying Lord,
For whose sweet sake that glorious badge he wore,
And dead, as living, ever Him adored:
Upon his shield the like was also scored,
For sovereign hope, which in his help he had.
Right faithful true he was in deed and word;
But of his cheer did seem too solemn sad:
Yet nothing did he dread, but ever was ydrad.
E. SPENSER (The Faerie Queene).

940. FROM PROTHALAMION'

CALM was the day, and through the trembling air
Sweet-breathing Zephyrus did softly play,

A gentle spirit that lightly did delay

Hot Titan's beams, which then did glister fair;
When I (whom sullen care,

Through discontent of my long fruitless stay
In Prince's court, and expectation vain

Of idle hopes, which still do fly away,

Like empty shadows, did afflict my brain)
Walked forth to ease my pain

Along the shore of silver streaming Thames ;
Whose rutty bank, the which his river hems,
Was painted all with variable flowers,

And all the meads adorned with dainty gems
Fit to deck maidens' bowers

And crown their paramours

Against the bridal day, which is not long :
Sweet Thames! run softly, till I end my song.

There, in a meadow, by the river's side,
A flock of nymphs I chanced to espy,
All lovely daughters of the flood thereby,
With goodly greenish locks, all loose untied,
As each had been a bride;

And each one had a little wicker basket,
Made of fine twigs, entrailèd curiously,

In which they gathered flowers to fill their flasket,
And with fine fingers cropped full feateously
The tender stalks on high.

Of every sort, which in that meadow grew,

They gathered some; the violet, pallid blue,
The little daisy that at evening closes,
The virgin lily, and the primrose true,
With store of vermeil roses,

To deck their bridegrooms' posies

Against the bridal day, which was not long :
Sweet Thames! run softly, till I end my song.

With that I saw two swans of goodly hue
Come softly swimming down along the lea;
Two fairer birds I yet did never see;

The snow, which doth the top of Pindus strew,
Did never whiter show;

Nor Jove himself, when he a swan would be,
For love of Leda, whiter did appear;

Yet Leda was (they say) as white as he,

Yet not so white as these, nor nothing near;

So purely white they were,

That even the gentle stream, the which them bare,
Seemed foul to them, and bade his billows spare

To wet their silken feathers, lest they might
Soil their fair plumes with water not so fair,
And mar their beauties bright,

That shone as heaven's light,

Against their bridal day, which was not long :
Sweet Thames! run softly till I end my song.

E. SPENSER.

941. WHAT HELL IT IS

FULL little knowest thou that hast not tried,
What hell it is in suing long to bide;

To lose good days that might be better spent ;
To waste long nights in pensive discontent,
To speed to-day, to be put back to-morrow;
To feed on hope, to pine with fear and sorrow;
To have thy princess' grace, yet want her peers';
To have thy asking, yet wait many years;
To pet thy soul with crosses and with cares ;
To eat thy heart through comfortless despairs;
To fawn, to crouch, to wait, to ride, to run,
To spend, to give, to wait, to be undone.

E. SPENSER (Mother Hubbard's Tale).

942. MOST GLORIOUS LORD OF LIFE
MOST glorious Lord of life! that, on this day,
Didst make Thy triumph over death and sin;
And, having harrowed hell, didst bring away
Captivity thence captive, us to win:

This joyous day, dear Lord, with joy begin ;
And grant that we, for whom Thou didest die,
Being with Thy dear blood clean washed from sin,
May live for ever in felicity!

And that Thy love we weighing worthily,

May likewise love Thee for the same again;
And for Thy sake that all like dear didst buy,
With love may one another entertain:

So let us love, dear Love, like as we ought;
Love is the lesson which the Lord us taught.
E. SPENSER.

943. ONE DAY I WROTE HER NAME ONE day I wrote her name upon the strand, But came the waves and washed it away: Again I wrote it with a second hand,

But came the tide and made my pains his prey. 'Vain man,' said she, that dost in vain essay A mortal thing so to immortalize;

For I myself shall like to this decay,

And eke my name be wiped out likewise.'
'Not so,' quoth I; 'let baser things devise
To die in dust, but you shall live by fame;
My verse your virtues rare shall eternize,
And in the heavens write your glorious name:
Where, whenas Death shall all the world subdue,
Our love shall live, and later life renew. E. SPENSER.