THE SHEPHERD'S COMMENDATION OF HIS NYMPH. WHAT shepherd can express The favour of her face? I do appeal for grace; A thousand Cupids fly From which each throws a dart Within my sighing heart; Possessed by desire No sweeter life I try Than in her love to die. The lily in the field That glories in its white, For pureness now must yield Heaven pictur'd in her face Fair Cynthia's silver light So bright my nymph doth shine THE SHEPHERD'S COMMENDATION OF HIS NYMPH. With this there is a red, In sky there is no star But she surmounts it far. When Phoebus from the bed Of Thetis doth arise, The morning blushing red, In fair carnation wise; He shows in my nymph's face, As queen of every grace. This pleasant lily-white, This taint of roseate red, This Cynthia's silver light, This sweet fair Dea spread, These sunbeams in mine eye, These beauties make me die. EARL OF Oxford. THE wrathful winter 'proching on apace, With blust'ring blasts had all ybared the treen, And old Saturnus with his frosty face With chilling cold had pierced the tender green; The soil that erst so seemly was to seen, Was all despoil'd of her beauty's hue: And soote fresh flowers (wherewith the summer's queen Had clad the earth) now Boreas' blasts down blew, And small fowls flocking, in their song did rue The winter's wrath, wherewith cach thing defaced |