SEDLEY. 1639---1701.

Songs. Phillis, let's shun the common fate

2

199

Ode to the Memory of Mrs. Anne Killigrew. 208

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204

SPECIMENS

OF THE

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BRITISH POETS.

اه

LORD SURREY.

ODE.

THE soote season, that bud and bloom forth brings,
With green hath clad the hill, and eke the vale;

The nightingale, with feathers new, she sings,
The turtle to her mate hath told her tale.
Summer is come: for every spray now springs.
The hart hath hung his old head on the pale;
The buck in brake his winter coat he flings,
The fishes float, with new repaired scale;
The adder all her slough away she flings;
The swift swallow pursueth the flies small;
The busy bee, her honey now she mings,
Winter is gone, that was the flower's bale;
And thus I see, among these pleasant things,
Each care decays, and yet my sorrow springs!

GIVE place, ye lovers, here before

That spent your boasts and brags in vain;

My lady's beauty passeth more
The best of yours, I dare well saine,
Than doth the sun the candle light,
Or brightest day the darkest night.
Vol. I.

B

And thereto hath a truth as just,
As had Penelope the fair;

For what she saith, ye may it trust,
As it by writing sealed were.
And virtues hath she many moe
Than I with pen have skill to show.

I could rehearse, if that I would,
The whole effect of nature's plaint;
When she had lost the perfect mould,
The like to whom she could not paint.
With wringing hands how she did cry!
And what she said I know it, I:

I know she swore, with raging mind,
Her kingdom only set apart,
There was no loss by law of kind,
That could have gone so near her heart;
And this was chiefly all her pain,
She could not make the like again.

Sith Nature thus gave her the praise,
To be the chiefest work she wrought;
In faith, methinks, some better ways
On your behalf might well be sought,
Than to compare (as ye have done)
To match the candle with the sun.

V

SONNETS.

FROM Tuscane came my Lady's worthy race;

Fair Florence was sometime their ancient seat; The Western Isle, whose pleasant shore doth face Wild Camber's cliffs, did give her lively heat; Fostered she was, with milk of Irish breast: Her Sire an earl, her Dame of princes' blood; From tender years in Britain she doth rest With King's child, where she tasteth costly food.

Hunsdon did first present her to my eyne; Bright is her hue, and Geraldine she hight: Hampton me taught to wish her first for mine; Windsor, alas! doth chase me from her sight. Her beauty' of kind, her virtue from above; Happy is he that can obtain her love!

SET me e'en where the Sun doth parch the green,

Or where his beams do not dissolve the ice;

In temperate heat, where he is felt and seen;
In presence press'd of people, mad or wise;
Set me in high, or yet in low degree;
In longest night, or in the shortest day;
In clearest sky, or where clouds thickest be;
In lusty youth, or when the hairs are grey;
Set me in heaven, in earth, or else in hell,
On hill or dale, or on the foaming flood:
Thrall'd, or at large; wherever so I dwell,
Sick, or in health; in evil fame, or good;
Her's will I be, and only with this thought,
Content myself, although my chance be nought.

2

ALAS! so all things now do hold their peace,

Heaven and earth disturbed in nothing; The beasts, the air, the birds their song do cease; The night's chair now the stars about doth bring; Calm is the sea, the waves work less and less! So am not I; whom Love, alas! doth wring, Bringing before my face the great increase Of my desires; whereas I weep and sing, In joy and woe, as in a doubtful case: For my sweet thoughts, some time do pleasure bring But, by and by, the cause of my disease Gives me a pang that inwardly doth sting; When that I think what grief it is, again, To live and lack the thing should rid my pain.