Follow those pure beams whose beauty burneth That so have scorched thee As thou still black must be, Till her kind beams thy black to brightness turneth.
Follow her while yet her glory shineth; There comes a luckless night That will dim all her light; And this the black unhappy shade divineth.
Follow still since so thy fates ordained; The sun must have his shade, Till both at once do fade; The sun still proved, the shadow still disdained.
WHEN thou must home to shades of underground, And there arrived, a new admired guest, The beauteous spirits do engird thee round, White Iope, blithe Helen, and the rest, To hear the stories of thy finished love, From that smooth tongue whose music hell can move; Then wilt thou speak of banqueting delights, Of masks and revels which sweet youth did make, Of tourneys and great challenges of knights, And all these triumphs for thy beauties’ sake: When thou hast told these honours done to thee, Then tell, O tell, how thou didst murther me.
THE peaceful western wind The winter storms hath tamed, And nature in each kind The kind heat hath inflamed: The forward buds so sweetly breathe Out of their earthly bowers, That heav’n, which views their pomp beneath, Would fain be decked with flowers.
See how the morning smiles On her bright eastern hill, And with soft steps beguiles Them that lie slumbering still! The music-loving birds are come From cliffs and rocks unknown, To see the trees and briars bloom That late were overflown.
What Saturn did destroy, Love’s Queen revives again; And now her naked boy Doth in the fields remain, Where he such pleasing change doth view In every living thing, As if the world were born anew To gratify the Spring.
If all things life present, Why die my comforts then? Why suffers my content? Am I the worst of men? O beauty, be not thou accus’d Too justly in this case! Unkindly if true love be used, ’Twill yield thee little grace.
FOLLOW your saint, follow with accents sweet! Haste you, sad notes, fall at her flying feet! There, wrapped in cloud of sorrow, pity move, And tell the ravisher of my soul I perish for her love; But if she scorns my never-ceasing pain, Then burst with sighing in her sight and ne’er return again.