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Description of the restless state of a lover, with suit to his lady to rue on his dying heart.

THE sun hath twice brought forth his tender green,
Twice clad the earth in lively lustiness;
Once have the winds the trees despoiled clean,
And once again begins their cruelness;

Since I have hid under my breast the harm,
That never shall recover healthfulness.

The winter's hurt recovers with the warm;
The parched green restored is with shade:
What warmth, alas! may serve for to disarm
The frozen heart that mine in flame hath made?

What cold again is able to restore

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My fresh green years, that wither thus and fade?

And like as time list to my cure apply,

So doth each place my comfort clean refuse. All thing alive that see'th the heavens with eye With cloak of night may cover and excuse

Itself from travel of the day's unrest,
Save I, alas, against all others use,

VOL. II.

1

Ed. 1567, "inflame."

F

That then stir up the torments of my breast,

And curse each star as causer of my fate; And when the sun hath eke the dark opprest, And brought the day, it doth nothing abate

The travels of mine endless smart and pain,
For then, as one that hath the light in hate,

I wish for night more covertly to plain,

And me withdraw from every haunted place, Lest by my cheer my chance appear too plain; And, in my mind, I measure pace by pace,

To seek the place where I myself had lost.

*

Lo, if I seek, how I do find my sore,

And if I flee, I carry with me still

The venom'd shaft which doth his force restore By haste of flight, and I may plain my fill.

Unto myself, unless this careful song

Print in your heart some parcel of my teen,1 For I, alas, in silence all too long,

Of mine old hurt yet feel the wound but green.

Rue on my life, or else your cruel wrong

Shall well appear, and by my death be seen!

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Complaint of a lover rebuked.

Love, that liveth and reigneth in my thought,
That built his seat within my captive breast,
Clad in the arms wherein with me he fought,
Oft in my face he doth his banner rest.
She that me taught to love, and suffer pain,
My doubtful hope and eke my hot desire
With shamefac'd cloak to shadow and restrain,
Her smiling grace converteth straight to ire.
And coward Love then to the heart apace

Taketh his flight, whereas he lurks and plains
His purpose lost, and dare not shew his face:
For my lord's guilt thus faultless 'bide I pains.
Yet from my lord shall not my foot remove.
Sweet is his death, that takes his end by Love.

NICHOLAS GRIMOALD.

No better account can be given of this author than that afforded by Mr. Warton, from which an abridgment here follows.

Grimoald was a native of Huntingdonshire, educated first at Christ's College, Cambridge. Removing to Oxford in 1542, he was elected fellow of Merton, and in 1547 was transplanted to Christ Church, where he gave the rhetorical lecture, and wrote a Latin play. In 1548, he explained all Virgil's Georgics by a prose Latin paraphrase in the College-hall: he also wrote commentaries on the Andria of Terence, Horace's Epistles, and many pieces of Cicero. His translation of Tully's Offices into English was first printed in 1553; but those of the Cyropædia and other Greek classics never reached the press.

He was chaplain to Bishop Ridley, imprisoned for heresy in Queen Mary's reign, and saved by a recantation. "But "theology does not seem to have been his talent, nor "the glories of martyrdom to have made any part of his "ambition."

"As a writer of verses in rhyme, Grimoald yields to none of "his cotemporaries, for a masterly choice of chaste expres❝sion, and the concise elegancies of didactic versification. "Some of the couplets in his poem in praise of modera"tion have all the smartness which mark the modern "style of sententious poetry, and would have done honour "to Pope's ethic epistles."

But he is still more remarkable as being the second English poet, after lord Surrey, who wrote in blank verse; to

whose style he added new strength, elegance, and modulation. In the disposition and conduct of his cadencies he often approaches to the legitimate structure of the improved blank verse, though not entirely free from those dissonancies and asperities which still adhered to the general character of our diction.

Mr. Ritson in his Bibliographia observes, that Grimoald died about 1563, and that his death of Zoroas is translated from the Alexandreid of Gualtherus.

The following specimens are all taken from Tottel's miscellany before-mentioned.

THE

Praise of Measure-keeping.

HE ancient time commended not for nought The mean: what better thing can there be sought? In mean is virtue plac'd: on either side, Both right and left, amiss a man shall slide. Icar, with sire hadst thou the midway flown, Icarian beck1 by name had no man known. If middle path kept had proud Phaeton, No burning brand this earth had fall'n upon. Ne cruel power, ne none too2 soft, can reign : That keeps a mean, the same shall still remain. Thee, Julie, once did too much mercy spill! Thee, Nero stern, rigour extreme did kill. How could August so many years well pass?

Nor

1

over meek, nor over fierce he was.

Water, strait.

1 Ed. 1567," so."

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