When I recount love's many frights,
My sighs and tears, my waking nights,
My jealous fits; O mine hard fate
I now repent, but 'tis too late.
No torment is so bad as love,
So bitter to my soul can prove.

All my griefs to this are jolly,
Nought so harsh as melancholy.

Friends and companions, get you gone! 'Tis my desire to be alone;

Ne'er well, but when my thoughts and I

Do domineer in privacy.

No gem, no treasure like to this,

'Tis my delight, my crown, my bliss. All my joys to this are folly, Nought so sweet as melancholy.

'Tis my sole plague to be alone;
I am a beast, a monster grown ;
I will no light nor company,
I find it now my misery.

The scene is turn'd, my joys are gone,
Fear, discontent, and sorrows come.
All my griefs to this are jolly,
Nought so fierce as melancholy.

I'll not change life with any king;
I ravish'd am! can the world bring

More joy, than still to laugh and smile,
In pleasant toys time to beguile?
Do not, O do not trouble me,

So sweet content I feel and see.
All my joys to this are folly,
None so divine as melancholy.

I'll change my state with any
wretch
Thou canst from jail or dunghill fetch.
My pain past cure; another hell;
I may not in this torment dwell;
Now, desperate, I hate my life:
Lend me a halter or a knife.

All my griefs to this are jolly,
Nought so damn'd as melancholy.

FRANCIS DAVISON,

SON of the secretary of state who suffered so much from the affair of Mary Queen of Scots, published a poetical miscellany, in 1602, under the title of " A Poetical Rapsody," containing small pieces by the compiler himself, by his brother Walter, by a friend whom he calls Anomos, by Sir John Davis, the Countess of Pembroke, Sir P. Sidney, Dr. Campion, &c. A second edition appeared in 1608, a third in 1611, and a fourth in 1621.

WHEN I to you of all my woes complain,
Which you make me endure without release,
With scornful smiles you answer me again,

That lovers true must bear, and hold their peace.
Dear, I will bear, and hold my peace, if you
Will hold your peace, and bear what I shall do.

Desires Government.

WHERE Wit is over-rul'd by Will,
And Will is led by fond desire,
There Reason were as good be still,
As speaking, kindle greater fire.
For where Desire doth bear the sway,
The heart must rule, the head obey.

What boots the cunning pilot's skill,

To tell which way to shape their course,
When he that steers will have his will,

And drive them where he list perforce?
So Reason shows the truth in vain
Where fond Desire as king doth reign.

An Altar and Sacrifice to Disdain, for freeing him from Love.

My Muse, by thee restored to life,
To thee, Disdain, this altar rears;
Whereon she offers causeless strife,
Self-spending sighs, and bootless tears.
Long suits in vain,
Hate for good will,
Still-dying pain,
Yet living still :
Self-loving pride,

Looks coyly strange,
Will, reason's guide,

Desire of change,
And last of all

Blind Fancy's fire,
False Beauty's thrall,

That binds Desire:

All these I offer to Disdain,
By whom I live from Fancy free;
With vow that if I love again
My life the sacrifice shall be.

Strephon's Palinode.

SWEET, I do not pardon crave
Till I have

By deserts this fault amended:
This, I only this desire,
That your ire

May with penance be suspended.

Not my will, but fate did fetch
Me, poor wretch,

Into this unhappy error ;

Which to plague, no tyrant's mind Pain can find

Like my heart's self-guilty terror.

Then, O then! let that suffice,
Your dear eyes

Need not, need not more afflict me ;
Nor your sweet tongue dipt in gall
Need at all

From your presence interdict me.