Both ash, and elm, and oak so high,
Do all lament my woful cry.

While winter, black with hideous storms, Doth spoil the ground of summer's green, While spring-time sweet the leaf returns, That, late, on tree could not be seen; While summer burns, while harvest reigns, Still, still do rage my restless pains.

No end I find in all my smart,

But endless torment I sustain;

Since first, alas, my woful heart

By sight of thee, was forced to plain: Since that I lost my liberty,

Since that thou madest a slave of me.

My heart, that once abroad was free,

Thy beauty hath in durance brought;

Once, reason ruled and guided me,

And now is wit consumed with thought. Once, I rejoiced above the sky;

And now, for thee, alas, I die.

Once, I rejoiced in company;

And now, my chief and whole delight

ab

Is from my

friends away to fly,

And keep, alone, my wearied spright. Thy face divine, and my desire,

From flesh, hath me transform'd to fire.

O nature! thou that first didst frame
My lady's hair of purest gold;
Her face of chrystal to the same;

Her lips of precious rubies mould;
Her neck of alabaster white
Surmounting far each other wight;

Why didst thou not, that time, devise,
Why didst thou not foresee before,

The mischief that thereof doth rise,

And grief on grief doth heap with store,

To make her heart of wax alone,

And not of flint, and marble stone.

O lady! shew thy favour yet!

Let not thy servant die for thee; Where rigour ruled, let mercy sit: Let pity conquer cruelty!

Let not disdain, a fiend of hell,

Possess the place where grace should dwell,

GEORGE TUBERVILLE,

One of the most celebrated sonneteers in this sonnet-making age, was born, probably, about 1540. Being of a respectable family, and having acquired an early reputation for talents, he was employed as secretary by Randolph, during his mission to Russia. Here he wrote to his friends, some very amusing poetical epistles, descriptive of the manners and customs of that country. They are to be found in Hakeluyt's Voyages, Vol. I. p. 384, &c. On his return he published a volume of "Epitaphs, Epigrams, Songs, and "Sonnets, 1567 ;" and in 1587, a set of " Tragical Tales." He also composed a translation of Ovid's Epistles, 1567, and of Mantuan's Eclogues, 1594.

His songs and sonnets are now extremely scarce; a circumstance which (if any excuse be thought necessary) will serve as an apology for the length of the following extracts.

The Lover confesseth himself to be in love, &c.

Ir banish'd sleep, and watchful care,

F

If mind, affright with dreadful dreams, If torments rife, and pleasure rare,

If face besmear'd with often streams, If change of cheer from joy to smart, If alter'd hue from pale to red,

If falt'ring tongue with trembling heart,
If sobbing sighs with fury fed,
If sudden hope by fear oppress'd,

If fear by hope suppress'd again,

Be proofs, that love within the breast

Hath bound the heart with fancy's chainThen I, of force, no longer may

In covert keep my piercing blame,

Which ever doth itself bewray,

But yield myself to fancy's frame, &c.

The Lover wisheth to be conjoined and fast linked with his Lady, never to sunder.

I READ how Salmacis, sometime, with sight
On sudden loved Cyllenus' son, and sought
Forthwith, with all her pow'r, and forced might,
To bring to pass her close-conceived thought:
Whom as by hap she saw in open mead,
She sued unto, in hope to have been sped.

With sugar'd words she woo'd and spared no speech, But bourded him with many a pleasant tale; Requesting him, of ruth, to be her leech,'

For whom she had abid such bitter bale:

• Physician.

But he, replete with pride and scornful cheer,
Disdain'd her earnest suit and songs to hear.

Away she went; a woful, wretched wight,

And shrouded her, not far from thence, a space; When that at length the stripling saw in sight

No creature there, but all were out of place,
He shifts his robes, and to the river ran,
And there to bathe himself, the boy began.

The nymyh in hope as then to have attain'd
Her long-desired love, retired to flood,
And in her arms the naked noory' strain'd,

Whereat the boy began to strive a-good;
But struggling nought availed in that plight,
For why? the nymph surpass'd the boy in might,

"O gods, (quoth tho3 the girl) this gift I crave, "This boy and I may never part again! "But so our corpses may conjoined have, "As one we may appear; not bodies twain." The gods agreed; the water so it wrought, As both were one; thy self would so have thought,

A boy, probably from nourisson. Fr.

• In earnest

a Then,