Adieu, Let garlands of sad yew Adorn your dainty golden tresses! I, that lov'd you, and often with my quill Made music that delighted fountain, grove, and hill, I, whom you loved so, and with a sweet and chaste embrace, Yea, with a thousand rarer favours would vouchsafe to grace, I now must leave you all alone of love to plain; And never pipe, nor never sing again. I must, for evermore, be gone, And therefore bid I you, And every one, Adieu ! I die! For, oh! I feel Death's horrors drawing nigh, And all this frame of nature reel. My hopeless heart, despairing of relief, Sinks underneath the heavy weight of saddest grief, Which hath so ruthless torn, so rack'd, so tortur'd every vein; All comfort comes too late to have it ever cur'd again. My swimming head begins to dance death's giddy round, A shuddering chillness doth each sense confound, Benumb'd is my cold-sweating brow, A dimness shuts my eye, And now, oh now, I die! RICHARD BRATHWAYT, Author of the "English Gentleman and Gentlewoman," was born in Westmoreland, 1588, entered at Oriel College, Oxford, 1604, and afterwards became a trained-band captain, a deputy lieutenant, a justice of peace, and a noted wit and poet. He died in 1673, leaving behind him (says Wood) the character of a well-bred gentleman, and a good neighbour. His publications were numerous. Vide Ath. Vol. II. p. 516. SONG. [From the Shepherd's Tales, contained in "Nature's "Embassie," 1621, 8vo.] IF F marriage life yield such content, What heavy hap have I! Whose life with grief and sorrow spent, Wish death, yet cannot die. She's bent to smile when I do storm, When I am cheerful too She seems to low'r. Then, who can cure My marriage-day chac'd joy away, For I have found it true, That bed which did all joys display Became a bed of rue. Where asps do browze on fancy's flow'r, Then where's that power on earth, may cure I thought love was the lamp of life, No love like to a faithful wife; Which when I sought to prove, I found her birth was not of earth, My board no dishes can afford Where self-will domineers as lord To keep poor me in thrall. My friend she vows her foe; No cure to care, farewell all joy, Yet ere thou die, thyself employ That thou may'st mount the sky: To wed thy wife, who ended thy life; CARE'S CURE, OR A FIG FOR CARE. [From "Panedone, or Health from Helicon," 1621.] HAPPY is that state of his, Takes the world as it is. Lose he honour, friendship, wealth, Lose he liberty or health; Lose he all that earth can give, Should I ought dejected be, Or put finger in the eye When I see my Damon die? Or repine such should inherit More of honours than of merit? To see virtue in disgrace? Should I weep, when I do try They had wealth unto their wit? Should I spend the morn in tears, Or to see his wife at once Branch his brow and break his sconce, Or to hear her in her spleen Callet like a butter-quean? Should I sigh, because I see While the great break out again; 1 |