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Adieu,
Fair shepherdesses!

Let garlands of sad yew

Adorn your dainty golden tresses!

I, that lov'd you, and often with my quill

Made music that delighted fountain, grove, and hill, I, whom you loved so, and with a sweet and chaste embrace, Yea, with a thousand rarer favours would vouchsafe to grace, I now must leave you all alone of love to plain; And never pipe, nor never sing again. I must, for evermore, be gone,

And therefore bid I you,

And every one,

Adieu !

I die!

For, oh! I feel

Death's horrors drawing nigh,

And all this frame of nature reel.

My hopeless heart, despairing of relief,

Sinks underneath the heavy weight of saddest grief, Which hath so ruthless torn, so rack'd, so tortur'd every vein; All comfort comes too late to have it ever cur'd again. My swimming head begins to dance death's giddy round, A shuddering chillness doth each sense confound, Benumb'd is my cold-sweating brow,

A dimness shuts my eye,

And now, oh now,

I die!

RICHARD BRATHWAYT,

Author of the "English Gentleman and Gentlewoman," was born in Westmoreland, 1588, entered at Oriel College, Oxford, 1604, and afterwards became a trained-band captain, a deputy lieutenant, a justice of peace, and a noted wit and poet. He died in 1673, leaving behind him (says Wood) the character of a well-bred gentleman, and a good neighbour. His publications were numerous. Vide Ath. Vol. II. p. 516.

SONG.

[From the Shepherd's Tales, contained in "Nature's "Embassie," 1621, 8vo.]

IF

F marriage life yield such content,

What heavy hap have I!

Whose life with grief and sorrow spent,

Wish death, yet cannot die.

She's bent to smile when I do storm,

When I am cheerful too

She seems to low'r. Then, who can cure
Or counterpoise my woe?

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My marriage-day chac'd joy away,

For I have found it true,

That bed which did all joys display

Became a bed of rue.

Where asps do browze on fancy's flow'r,
And beauty's blossom too;

Then where's that power on earth, may cure
Or counterpoise my woe?

I thought love was the lamp of life,
No life withouten love;

No love like to a faithful wife;

Which when I sought to prove,

I found her birth was not of earth,
For ought that I could know,
Of good ones I perceiv'd a dearth;
Then who can cure my woe?

My board no dishes can afford
But chafing-dishes all!

Where self-will domineers as lord

To keep poor me in thrall.
My discontent gives her content,

My friend she vows her foe;
How should I then my sorrows vent
Or cure my endless woe?

No cure to care, farewell all joy,
Retire poor soul, and die!

Yet ere thou die, thyself employ

That thou may'st mount the sky:
Where thou may'st move commanding Jove
That Pluto he might go

To wed thy wife, who ended thy life;
For this will cure thy woe!

CARE'S CURE, OR A FIG FOR CARE.

[From "Panedone, or Health from Helicon," 1621.]

HAPPY is that state of his,

Takes the world as it is.

Lose he honour, friendship, wealth,

Lose he liberty or health;

Lose he all that earth can give,
Having nought whereon to live;
So prepar'd a mind's in him,
He's resolv'd to sink or swim.

Should I ought dejected be,
'Cause blind fortune frowns on me?

Or put finger in the eye

When I see my Damon die?

Or repine such should inherit

More of honours than of merit?
Or put on a sourer face,

To see virtue in disgrace?

Should I weep, when I do try
Fickle friends' inconstancy?
Quite discarding mine and me,
When they should the firmest be;
Or think much when barren brains
Are possess'd of rich domains,
When in reason it were fit

They had wealth unto their wit?

Should I spend the morn in tears,
'Cause I see my neighbour's ears
Stand so slopewise from his head,
As if they were horns indeed?

Or to see his wife at once

Branch his brow and break his sconce,

Or to hear her in her spleen

Callet like a butter-quean?

Should I sigh, because I see
Laws like spider-webs to be,
Where lesser flies are quickly ta'en,

While the great break out again;

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