Like to Juno's birds of pride,
Scarce each other can abide;

Friends like to black swans appearing,

Sooner these than those in hearing.

Therefore Pan, if thou mayst be
Made to listen unto me,
Grant, I say, if seely man

May make treaty to god Pan,

That I, without thy denying,

May be still to thee relying.

Only for my two loves' sake,
In whose love I pleasure take;
Only two do me delight

With their ever-pleasing sight;

Of all men to thee retaining,

Grant me with those two remaining.

So shall I to thee always,

With my reeds, sound mighty praise;
And first lamb that shall befall,
Yearly deck thine altar shall,
If it please thee be reflected,
And I from thee not rejected."

So I left him in that place,
Taking pity on his case;

Sir Ed. D. and M. F. G.

Learning this among the rest,
That the mean estate is best;
Better filled with contenting,

Void of wishing and repenting.

SONNET.

LOVE'S SEVEN DEADLY SINS.d

By H. C.*

MINE eye with all the deadly sins is fraught, 1. First Proud, sith it presum'd to look so high; A watchman being made, stood gazing by, 2. And Idle took no heed till I was caught: 3. And Envious bears envy, that my thought Should in his absence be to her so nigh: 4. To kill my heart, mine eye let in her eye,

And so consent gave to a murder wrought: 5. And Covetous, it never would remove

From her fair hair, gold so doth please his sight. 6. Unchaste, a bawd between my heart and love: 7. A Glutton eye, with tears drunk every night. These sins procured have a Goddess' ire; Wherefore

my heart is damn'd in Love's sweet fire.

d Omitted 1st and 2d.

* Omitted 3d and 4th. This is supposed to be Henry Constable.

SONNET.

TO TWO MOST HONOURABLE AND VIRTUOUS LADIES AND
SISTERS, THE LADY MARGARET, COUNTESS OF CUM-
BERLAND, AND THE LADY ANNE, COUNTESS
OF WARWICK.

By the same.

YE Sister Muses, do not yee repine,

That I two Sisters do with nine compare;

Since each of these is far more truly rare, Than the whole troop of all the heavenly nine. But if ye ask me which is more divine,

I answer, like to their twin eyes they are,

Of which each is more bright than brightest star. Yet neither doth more bright than other shine. Sisters of spotless fame, of whom alone

Malicious tongues take pleasure to speak well,
How should I one commend, sith either one

All things in heaven and earth so far excell?
The only praise I can you give, is this,
That one of you, like to the other is.

INSCRIPTIONS.

THISBE.

YE woeful Sires, whose causely hate hath bred

Grief to yourselves, death to my love and me,
Let us not be disjoin'd when we are dead,
Though we alive conjoin'd could never be.

• You, 3d and 4th.

f You, 3d and 4th.

Though cruel stars divide us two one bed,
Yet in one tomb us two entombed see:

Like as the dart was one, and one the knife,
That did begin our love and our life.

CLYTEMNESTRA TO HER SON ORESTES,

Coming to kill her for murdering his Father AGAMEMNON.

HOLD, hold thy hand, vile son of viler mother,
Death I deserve: but, O! not by thy knife;
One parent to revenge wilt thou kill the other, h
And give her death that gave thee (wretch) thy life?
Furies will plague thy murder execrable,

Stages will play thee, and all mothers curse thee:

To wound this womb or breast how art thou able,

When the one did bear thee, and the other nurse thee?

AJAX.

THE

HIS sword is mine, or will Laertes' son

Win this as he Achilles' armour won?

This sword which you, O Greeks, oft bath'd have known

In Trojan blood, I'll now bathe in mine own.

This fearless breast which all minek enemies fierce

Have left unpierc'd, now I myself will pierce.

So men shall say, AJAX to none did yield

But t' AJAX self, and AJAX AJAX kill'd.

Denied, 3d and 4th.

h Tother, 4th.

i Fearful, 4th.

k My, 4th.

ROMULUS.

No common womb was fit me forth to bring,
But a pure virgin priest, child to a king.
No mortal father worthy was to breed me,
Noer human milk was ferce enough to feed me:
Therefore the God of War by wonder bred me,
And a she wolf by no less wonder fed me.

In fine, the Gods because earth was too base
T entomb me dead, did me in heaven place.

FABRITIUS CURIO,

Who refused gold of the Samnites, and discovered to King Pirrhus
his Physician that offered to poison him.

My famous country values gold far less,
Than conquest brave of such as gold possess.
To be o'ercome with wealth I do not use,
And to o'ercome with poison I refuse.

No hand loves more than mine to give to many,

No heart hates more than mine to take of any.
With so firm steel Virtue my mind hath armed,
That not by gold, nor iron it can be harmed.

CATO UTICEN,

Who slew himself because he would not fall into Cæsar's hands.
CESAR, thou hast o'ercome, to thy great fame,
Proud Germans, valiant Gauls, and Britains rude.
Rome's liberty (but to thine eternal shame)
And her great champion thou hast eke subdu'd.