Chapter II: Lyrics Printed Only in the Edition of 1651

THE CURE.

_Nymph._

What busy cares, too timely born,
Young swain! disturb thy sleep?
Thy early sighs awake the morn,
Thy tears teach her to weep.

_Shepherd._

Sorrows, fair nymph, are full alone, 5
Nor counsel can endure.

_Nymph._

Yet thine disclose; for, until known,
Sickness admits no cure.

_Shepherd._

My griefs are such as but to hear
Would poison all thy joys; 10
The pity which thou seem'st to bear
My health, thine own destroys.

_Nymph._

How can diseased minds infect?
Say what thy grief doth move!

_Shepherd._

Call up thy virtue to protect 15
Thy heart, and know--'twas love.

_Nymph._

Fond swain!

_Shepherd._

By which I have been long
Destin'd to meet with hate.

_Nymph._

Fie! shepherd, fie! thou dost love wrong,
To call thy crime thy fate. 20

_Shepherd._

Alas! what cunning could decline,
What force can love repel?

_Nymph._

Yet there's a way to unconfine
Thy heart.

_Shepherd._

For pity, tell.

_Nymph._

Choose one whose love may be assur'd 25
By thine: who ever knew
Inveterate diseases cur'd
But by receiving new?

_Shepherd._

All will, like her, my soul perplex.

_Nymph._

Yet try.

_Shepherd._

Oh, could there be 30
But any softness in that sex,
I'd wish it were in thee!

_Nymph._

Thy prayer is heard: learn now t'esteem
The kindness she hath shown,
Who, thy lost freedom to redeem, 35
Hath forfeited her own.

TO THE COUNTESS OF S[UNDERLAND?] WITH THE HOLY COURT.[1:1]

Since every place you bless, the name
This book assumes may justlier claim.
(What more a court than where you shine?
And where your soul, what more divine?)
You may perhaps doubt at first sight 5
That it usurps upon your right;
And praising virtues that belong
To you, in others, doth you wrong.
No, 'tis yourself you read, in all
Perfections earlier ages call 10
Their own; all glories they e'er knew
Were but faint prophecies of you.
You then have here sole interest, whom 'tis meant
As well to entertain, as represent.

DRAWN FOR VALENTINE BY THE L[ADY] D[OROTHY] S[PENCER?].[2:1]

Though 'gainst me Love and Destiny conspire,
Though I must waste in an unpitied fire,
By the same deity, severe as fair,
Commanded adoration and despair;
Though I am mark'd for sacrifice, to tell 5
The growing age what dangerous glories dwell
In this bright dawn, who, when she spreads her rays,
Will challenge every heart, and every praise;
Yet she who to all hope forbids my claim,
By Fortune's taught indulgence to my flame, 10
Great Queen of Chance! unjustly we exclude
Thy power an interest in beatitude,
Who with mysterious judgement dost dispense
The bounties of unerring Providence;
Whilst we, to whom the causes are unknown, 15
Would style that blindness thine, which is our own.
As kind, in justice to thyself, as me,
Thou hast redeem'd thy name and votary:
Nor will I prize this less for being thine,
Nor longer at my destiny repine. 20
Counsel and choice are things below thy state:
Fortune relieves the cruelties of Fate.