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"And when the moon doth once appear, We'll trace the lower grounds, When fairies in their ringlets there Do dance their nightly rounds. "And have a flock of turtle-doves, A guard on us to keep, As witness of our honest loves

To watch us till we sleep."

Which spoke, I felt such holy fires
To overspread my breast,
As lent life to my chaste desires,
And gave me endless rest,
By Cynthia thus do I subsist,

On earth heaven's only pride;
Let her be mine, and let who list
Take all the world beside.

BALLAD OF DOWSABEL. FAR in the country of Arden, There won'd a knight, hight Cassamen, As bold as Isenbras: Fell was he and eager bent, In battle and in tournament,

As was the good Sir Topas.
He had, as antique stories tell,
A daughter cleped Dowsabel,
A maiden fair and free.

And for she was her father's heir,
Full well she was ycond the leir

Of mickle courtesy.

The silk well couth she twist and twine,
And make the fine march-pine,

And with the needle work:
And she couth help the priest to say
His mattins on a holy-day,

And sing a psalm in kirk.
She wore a frock of frolic green,
Might well become a maiden queen,
Which seemly was to see;

A hood to that so neat and fine,
In colour like the columbine,

Iwrought full featously.

Her features all as fresh above,
As is the grass that grows by Dove,
And lythe as lass of Kent.
Her skin as soft as Lemster wool,
As white as snow on Peakish Hull,
Or swan that swims in Trent.

This maiden in a morn betime,
Went forth when May was in the prime,
To get sweet setywall,

The honey-suckle, the harlock,
The lily, and the lady-smock,
To deck her summer hall.

Thus as she wander'd here and there,
And picked off the bloomy brier,
She chanced to espy

A shepherd sitting on a bank,
Like chanticleer he crowned crank,
And piped full merrily.

He learn'd his sheep, as he him list,
When he would whistle in his fist,
To feed about him round.
Whilst he full many a carol sang,
Until the fields and meadows rang,
And all the woods did sound.
In favour this same shepherd swain
Was like the bedlam Tamerlane,

Which held proud kings in awe:
But meek as any lamb might be;
And innocent of ill as he

Whom his lewd brother slaw.

The shepherd wore a sheep-gray cloak,
Which was of the finest lock,

That could be cut with sheer.
His mittens were of bauzons' skin,
His cockers were of cordiwin,

His hood of miniveer.

His awl and lingel in a thong,
His tar-box on his broad belt hung,

His breech of Cointree blue.
Full crisp and curled were his locks,
His brows as white as Albion rocks,
So like a lover true.

And piping still he spent the day,

So merry as the popinjay,

Which liked Dowsabel;

That would she ought, or would she nought, This lad would never from her thought,

She in love-longing fell.

At length she tucked up her frock,
White as a lily was her smock,

She drew the shepherd nigh:
But then the shepherd piped a good,
That all his sheep forsook their food,
To hear this melody.

Thy sheep, quoth she, cannot be lean,
That have a jolly shepherd swain,

The which can pipe so well:
Yea but (saith he) their shepherd may,
If piping thus he pine away,

In love of Dowsabel.

Of love, fond boy, take thou no keep,
Quoth she, look well unto thy sheep,
Lest they should hap to stray.
Quoth he, So had I done full well,
Had I not seen fair Dowsabel

Come forth to gather May.

With that she 'gan to veil her head,
Her checks were like the roses red,
But not a word she said.
With that the shepherd 'gan to frown,
He threw his pretty pipes adown,
And on the ground him laid.

Saith she, I may not stay till night,
And leave my summer hall undight,
And all for love of thee.

My cote, saith he, nor yet my fold,
Shall neither sheep nor shepherd hold,
Except thou favour me.

Saith she, Yet lever I were dead,
Than I should lose my maidenhead,

And all for love of men.
Saith he, Yet are you too unkind,
If in your heart you cannot find
To love us now and then.

And I to thee will be as kind
As Colin was to Rosalind,

Of courtesy the flower.

Then will I be as true, quoth she,
As ever maiden yet might be

Unto her paramour.

With that she bent her snow-white knee, Down by the shepherd kneeled she,

And him she sweetly kist,

With that the shepherd whoop'd for joy; Quoth he, There's never shepherd's boy That ever was so blest.

TO HIS COY LOVE.

FROM HIS ODES.

I PRAY thee, love, love me no more,
Call home the heart you gave me;
I but in vain that saint adore,

That can, but will not save me:
These poor half kisses kill me quite;

Was ever man thus served?

Amidst an ocean of delight,

For pleasure to be starved.

Show me no more those snowy breasts,
With azure rivers branched,
Where whilst mine eye with plenty feasts,
Yet is my thirst not staunched.
O Tantalus, thy pains ne'er tell!

By me thou art prevented;
"Tis nothing to be plagued in hell,

But thus in heaven tormented.
Clip me no more in those dear arms,

Nor thy life's comfort call me;
O, these are but too powerful charms,
And do but more enthral me.
But see how patient I am grown,
In all this coil about thee;
Come, nice thing, let thy heart alone,
I cannot live without thee.

SONNET

TO HIS FAIR IDEA.

IN pride of wit, when high desire of fame
Gave life and courage to my labouring pen,
And first the sound and virtue of my name
Won grace and credit in the ears of men;
With those the thronged theatres that press,
I in the circuit for the laurel strove,
Where, the full praise, I freely must confess,
In heat of blood, a modest mind might move.
With shouts and claps, at every little pause,
When the proud round on every side hath rung,
Sadly I sit unmoved with the applause,
As though to me it nothing did belong:
No public glory vainly I pursue;
The praise I strive, is to eternize you.

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Gilds every lofty top, which late the humorous night Bespangled had with pearl, to please the morning's sight:

On which the mirthful quires, with their clear open throats,

Unto the joyful morn so strain their warbling notes, That hills and valleys ring, and even the echoing air Seems all composed of sounds, about them everywhere.

The throstel, with shrill sharps; as purposely he sung T' awake the lustless sun; or chiding, that so long He was in coming forth, that should the thickets thrill;

The woosel near at hand, that hath a golden bill; As nature him had markt of purpose, t' let us see That from all other birds his tunes should different be:

For, with their vocal sounds, they sing to pleasant

May;

Upon his dulcet pipe the merle doth only play. When in the lower brake, the nightingale hard by, In such lamenting strains the joyful hours doth ply, As though the other birds she to her tunes would draw

And, but that nature (by her all-constraining law) Each bird to her own kind this season doth invite, They else, alone to hear that charmer of the night, (The more to use their ears) their voices sure would spare,

That moduleth her tunes so admirably rare,
As man to set in parts at first had learn'd of her.
To Philomel the next, the linnet we prefer;
And by that warbling bird, the wood-lark place we
then,

The red-sparrow, the nope, the red-breast, and the

wren.

The yellow-plate; which though she hurt the blooming tree,

Yet scarce hath any bird a finer pipe than she. And of these chaunting fowls, the goldfinch not behind,

That hath so many sorts descending from her kind.
The tydy for her notes as delicate as they,
The laughing hecco, then the counterfeiting jay,
The softer with the shrill (some hid among the
leaves,

Some in the taller trees, some in the lower greaves)
Thus sing away the morn, until the mounting sun

Through thick exhaled fogs his golden head hath

run,

And through the twisted tops of our close covert

creeps

To kiss the gentle shade, this while that sweetly sleeps.

And near to these our thicks, the wild and frightful herds,

Not hearing other noise but this of chattering birds, Feed fairly on the lawns; both sorts of season'd deer: Here walk the stately red, the freckled fallow there: The bucks and lusty stags amongst the rascals strew'd,

As sometime gallant spirits amongst the multitude. Of all the beasts which we for our venerial name, The hart among the rest, the hunter's noblest game: Of which most princely chase sith none did e'er report,

Or by description touch, t' express that wondrous sport

(Yet might have well beseem'd th' ancients nobler songs)

To our old Arden here, most fitly it belongs:
Yet shall she not invoke the muses to her aid;
But thee, Diana bright, a goddess and a maid:
In many a huge-grown wood, and many a shady
grove,

Which oft hast borne thy bow (great huntress, used to rove)

At many a cruel beast, and with thy darts to pierce The lion, panther, ounce, the bear, and tiger fierce; And following thy fleet game, chaste mighty forest's

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Save those the best of chase, the tall and lusty red, The stag for goodly shape, and stateliness of head, Is fitt'st to hunt at force. For whom, when with his hounds

The labouring hunter tufts the thick unbarbed grounds

Where harbour'd is the hart; there often from his feed

The dogs of him do find; or thorough skilful heed, The huntsman by his slot, or breaking earth, perceives,

On ent'ring of the thick by pressing of the greaves, Where he had gone to lodge. Now when the hart doth hear

The often-bellowing hounds to vent his secret leir, He rousing rusheth out, and through the brakes

doth drive,

As though up by the roots the bushes he would rive.

And through the cumbrous thicks, as fearfully he makes,

He with his branched head the tender saplings shakes,

That sprinkling their moist pearl do seem for him to weep;

When after goes the cry, with yellings loud and deep,

That all the forest rings, and every neighbouring place:

And there is not a hound but falleth to the chase. Rechating with his horn, which then the hunter cheers,

Whilst still the lusty stag his high-palm'd head upbears,

His body showing state, with unbent knees upright, Expressing from all beasts, his courage in his flight.

But when th' approaching foes still following he perceives,

That he his speed must trust, his usual walk he leaves:

And o'er the champain flies: which when th' assembly find,

Each follows, as his horse were footed with the

wind.

But being then imbost, the noble stately deer When he hath gotten ground (the kernel cast

arrear)

Doth beat the brooks and ponds for sweet refreshing soil:

That serving not, then proves if he his scent can foil,

And makes amongst the herds, and flocks of shagwool'd sheep,

Them frighting from the guard of those who had their keep.

But when as all his shifts his safety still denies, Put quite out of his walk, the ways and fallows tries.

Whom when the ploughman meets, his team he letteth stand

T'assail him with his goad: so with his hook in hand,

The shepherd him pursues, and to his dog doth hallo:

When, with tempestuous speed, the hounds and huntsmen follow;

Until the noble deer through toil bereaved of strength,

His long and sinewy legs then failing him at length, The villages attempts, enraged, not giving way To any thing he meets now at his sad decay. The cruel ravenous hounds and bloody hunters

near,

This noblest beast of chase, that vainly doth but fear,

Some bank or quickset finds; to which his haunch opposed,

He turns upon his foes, that soon have him enclosed. The churlish-throated hounds then holding him at bay,

And as their cruel fangs on his harsh skin they lay, With his sharp-pointed head he dealeth deadly wounds.

The hunter, coming in to help his wearied hounds,

He desperately assails; until opprest by force,
He who the mourner is to his own dying corse,
Upon the ruthless earth his precious tears lets fall.

EDWARD FAIRFAX.

[Died, 1632 ?]

EDWARD FAIRFAX, the truly poetical translator of Tasso, was the second son of Sir Thomas Fairfax, of Denton, in Yorkshire. His family were all soldiers; but the poet, while his brothers were seeking military reputation abroad, preferred the quiet enjoyment of letters at home. He married and settled as a private gentleman at Fuyston, a place beautifully situated between the family seat at Denton and the forest of Knaresborough. Some of his time was devoted to the management of his brother Lord Fairfax's property, and to superintending the education of his lordship's children. The prose MSS. which he left in the library of Denton sufficiently attest his literary industry. They have never been published, and, as they relate chiefly to religious controversy, are not likely to be so; although his treatise on witchcraft, recording its supposed operation upon his own family, must form a curious relic of superstition. Of Fairfax it might, therefore, well be said

"Prevailing poet, whose undoubting mind

Believed the magic powers which he sung."

Of his original works in verse, his History of Edward the Black Prince has never been pub

FROM FAIRFAX'S TRANSLATION OF TASSO'S JERUSALEM DELIVERED,

BOOK XVIII. STANZAS XII. TO XLI.

RINALDO, after offering his devotions on Mount Olivet,
enters on the adventure of the Enchanted Wood.
Ir was the time, when 'gainst the breaking day,
Rebellious night yet strove, and still repined;
For in the east appear'd the morning gray,
And yet some lamps in Jove's high palace shined,
When to Mount Olivet he took his way,
And saw, as round about his eyes he twined,
Night's shadows hence, from thence the morn-
ing's shine;

This bright, that dark; that earthly, this divine:
Thus to himself he thought: how many bright
And splendent lamps shine in heaven's temple high!
Day hath his golden sun, her moon the night,
Her fix'd and wand'ring stars the azure sky;
So framed all by their Creator's might,
That still they live and shine, and ne'er shall die,
"Till, in a moment, with the last day's brand
They burn, and with them burn sea, air, and land.
Thus as he mused, to the top he went,
And there kneel'd down with reverence and fear;
His eyes upon heaven's eastern face he bent;
His thoughts above all heavens up-lifted were—
The sins and errors, which I now repent,
Of my unbridled youth, O Father dear,
Remember not, but let thy mercy fall,
And purge my faults and my offences all.

[The fourth eclogue alone is in print; nor is a MS. copy of the whole known to exist.-C.]

lished; but Mr. A. Chalmers (Biog. Dict. art. Fairfax) is, I believe, as much mistaken in supposing that his Eclogues have never been collectively printed, as in pronouncing them entitled to high commendation for their poetry.* A more obscurely stupid allegory and fable can hardly be imagined than the fourth eclogue, preserved in Mrs. Cooper's Muse's Library: its being an imitation of some of the theological pastorals of Spenser is no apology for its absurdity. When a fox is described as seducing the chastity of a lamb, and when the eclogue writer tells us that

"An hundred times her virgin lip he kiss'd,
As oft her maiden finger gently wrung,"

who could imagine that either poetry, or ecclesiastical history, or sense or meaning of any kind, was ever meant to be conveyed under such a conundrum?

The time of Fairfax's death has not been discovered; it is known that he was alive in 1631; but his translation of the Jerusalem was published when he was a young man, was inscribed to Queen Elizabeth, and forms one of the glories of her reign.

Thus prayed he; with purple wings up-flew
In golden weed the morning's lusty queen,
Begilding, with the radiant beams she threw,
His helm, his harness, and the mountain green :
Upon his breast and forehead gently blew
The air, that balm and nardus breathed unseen;
And o'er his head, let down from clearest skies,
A cloud of pure and precious dew there flies:
The heavenly dew was on his garments spread,
To which compared, his clothes pale ashes seem,
And sprinkled so, that all that paleness fled,
And thence of purest white bright rays outstream:
So cheered are the flowers, late withered,
With the sweet comfort of the morning beam;
And so, return'd to youth, a serpent old
Adorns herself in new and native gold.
The lovely whiteness of his changed weed
The prince perceived well and long admired;
Toward the forest march'd he on with speed,
Resolved, as such adventures great required:
Thither he came, whence, shrinking back for dread
Of that strange desert's sight, the first retired;
But not to him fearful or loathsome made
That forest was, but sweet with pleasant shade.
Forward he pass'd, and in the grove before
He heard a sound,that strange, sweet, pleasing was;
There roll'd a crystal brook with gentle roar,
There sigh'd the winds, as through the leaves they

pass;

There did the nightingale her wrongs deplore, There sung the swan, and singing died, alas! There lute, harp, cittern, human voice, he heard, And all these sounds one sound right well declared,

A dreadful thunder-clap at last he heard,
The aged trees and plants well nigh that rent,
Yet heard the nymphs and sirens afterward,
Birds, winds, and waters, sing with sweet consent;
Whereat amazed, he stay'd, and well prepared
For his defence, heedful and slow forth-went;

Nor in his way his passage ought withstood,
Except a quiet, still, transparent flood:

On the green banks, which that fair stream inbound,
Flowers and odours sweetly smiled and smell'd,
With reaching out his stretched arms around,
All the large desert in his bosom held,
And through the grove one channel passage found;
This in the wood, in that the forest dwell'd:
Trees clad the streams, streams green those trees
aye made,

And so exchanged their moisture and their shade.

The knight some way sought out the flood to pass,
And as he sought, a wondrous bridge appear'd;
A bridge of gold, an huge and mighty mass,
On arches great of that rich metal rear'd:
When through that golden way he enter'd was,
Down fell the bridge; swelled the stream,and wear'd
The work away, nor sign left, where it stood,
And of a river calm became a flood.

He turn'd, amazed to see it troubled so,
Like sudden brooks, increased with molten snow;
The billows fierce, that tossed to and fro,
The whirlpools suck'd down to their bosoms low;
But on he went to search for wonders mo,
Through the thick trees, there high and broad
which grow;

And in that forest huge, and desert wide,
The more he sought, more wonders still he spied:
Where'er he stepp'd, it seem'd the joyful ground
Renew'd the verdure of her flowery weed;
A fountain here, a well-spring there he found;
Here bud the roses, there the lilies spread;
The aged wood o'er and about him round
Flourish'd with blossoms new,new leaves,new seed;
And on the boughs and branches of those treen
The bark was soften'd, and renew'd the green.

The manna on each leaf did pearled lie;
The honey stilled from the tender rind:
Again he heard that wondrous harmony
Of songs and sweet complaints of lovers kind;
The human voices sung a treble high,
To which respond the birds, the streams, the wind;
But yet unseen those nymphs,those singers were,
Unseen the lutes, harps, viols which they bear.
He look'd, he listen'd, yet his thoughts denied
To think that true, which he did hear and see:
A myrtle in an ample plain he spied,
And thither by a beaten path went he;
The myrtle spread her mighty branches wide,
Higher than pine, or palm, or cypress tree,

And far above all other plants was seen
That forest's lady, and that desert's queen.
Upon the tree his eyes Rinaldo bent,
And there a marvel great and strange began;
An aged oak beside him cleft and rent,

And from his fertile, hollow womb, forth ran,
Clad in rare weeds and strange habiliment,
A nymph, for age able to go to man;

An hundred plants beside, even in his sight,
Childed an hundred nymphs, so great, so dight.
Such as on stages play, such as we see
The dryads painted, whom wild satyrs love,
Whose arms half naked, locks untrussed be,
With buskins laced on their legs above,
And silken robes tuck'd short above their knee,
Such seem'd the sylvan daughters of this grove;
Save, that instead of shafts and bows of tree,
She bore a lute, a harp or cittern she;

And wantonly they cast them in a ring,
And sung and danced to move his weaker sense,
Rinaldo round about environing,

As does its centre the circumference;
The tree they compass'd eke, and 'gan to sing,
That woods and streams admired their excellence-
Welcome,dear Lord,welcome to this sweet grove,
Welcome, our lady's hope, welcome, her love!
Thou comest to cure our princess, faint and sick
For love, for love of thee, faint, sick, distress'd;
Late black, late dreadful was this forest thick,
Fit dwelling for sad folk, with grief oppress'd;
See, with thy coming how the branches quick
Revived are, and in new blossoms dress'd!

This was their song; and after from it went
First a sweet sound, and then the myrtle rent.
If antique times admired Silenus old,
Who oft appear'd set on his lazy ass,
How would they wonder, if they had behold
Such sights as from the myrtle high did pass !
Thence came a lady fair with locks of gold,
That like in shape, in face, and beauty was

To fair Armida; Rinald thinks he spies
Her gestures, smiles, and glances of her eyes:
On him a sad and smiling look she cast,
Which twenty passions strange at once bewrays;
And art thou come, quoth she, return'd at last
To her, from whom but late thou ran'st thy ways?
Comest thou to comfort me for sorrows past,
To ease my widow nights, and careful days?
Or comest thou to work me grief and harm?
Why nilt thou speak, why not thy face disarm?
Comest thou a friend or foe? I did not frame
That golden bridge to entertain my foe;

Nor open'd flowers and fountains, as you came,
To welcome him with joy, who brings me woe:
Put off thy helm: rejoice me with the flame
Of thy bright eyes, whence first my fires did grow;
Kiss me, embrace me; if you further venture,
Love keeps the gate, the fort is eath to enter.
Thus as she wooes, she rolls her rueful eyes
With piteous look, and changeth oft her chear;
An hundred sighs from her false heart up-fly;
She sobs, she mourns, it is great ruth to hear:
The hardest breast sweet pity mollifies;
What stony heart resists a woman's tear?

But yet the knight, wise, wary, not unkind,
Drew forth his sword, and from her careless
twined:

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