THE LIE.

Go, tell the court it glows,

And shines like rotten wood; Go, tell the church it shows What's good, and doth no good: If church and court reply, Then give them both the lie.

Tell potentates, they live

Acting by others' action,
Not loved unless they give,
Not strong but by a faction:
If potentates reply,
Give potentates the lie.

Tell men of high condition
That manage the estate,
Their purpose is ambition,
Their practice only hate:

And if they once reply,
Then give them all the lie.

Tell them that brave it most,
They beg for more by spending,
Who in their greatest cost,

Seek nothing but commending.
And if they make reply,
Then give them all the lie.

Tell zeal it wants devotion,
Tell love it is but lust,
Tell time it is but motion,
Tell flesh it is but dust:

THE LIE.

And wish them not reply,
For thou must give the lie.

Tell age it daily wasteth,
Tell honour how it alters,
Tell beauty how she blasteth,
Tell favour how it falters :
And as they shall reply,
Give every one the lie.

Tell wit how much it wrangles
In tickle points of niceness :
Tell wisdom she entangles

Herself in over-wiseness:

And when they do reply,
Straight give them both the lie.

Tell physic of her boldness,
Tell skill it is pretension,
Tell charity of coldness,
Tell law it is contention :
And as they do reply,
So give them still the lie.

Tell fortune of her blindness,
Tell nature of decay,
Tell friendship of unkindness,
Tell justice of delay:
And if they will reply,
Then give them all the lie.

THE LIE.

Tell arts they have no soundness
But vary by esteeming,

Tell schools they want profoundness,
And stand too much on seeming :

If arts and schools reply,

Give arts and schools the lie.

Tell faith it's fled the city,

Tell how the country erreth, Tell, manhood shakes off pity, Tell, virtue least preferreth : And if they do reply, Spare not to give the lie.

So when thou hast, as I

Commanded thee, done blabbing:

Although to give the lie

Deserves no less than stabbing ;

Stab at thee he that will,

No stab the soul can kill.

SIR WALTER RALEIGH.

SONNET.

FAIR is my love, and cruel as she's fair;

Her brow shades frown, although her eyes are sunny,
Her smiles are lightning, though her pride despair,
And her disdains are gall, her favours honey:

A modest maid, deck'd with a blush of honour,
Whose feet do tread green paths of youth and love;
The wonder of all eyes that look upon her,
Sacred on earth, design'd a saint above.
Chastity and Beauty, which are deadly foes,
Live reconciled friends within her brow;
And had she Pity to conjoin with those,
Then who had heard the plaints I utter now?
For had she not been fair, and thus unkind,

My Muse had slept, and none had known my mind.

SAMUEL DANIEL.

BIRDS IN SPRING.

WHEN Phoebus lifts his head out of the winter's wave,
No sooner doth the earth her flowery bosom brave,
At such time as the year brings on the pleasant spring,
But hunts-up to the morn the feath'red sylvans sing:

And in the lower grove, as on the rising knole,
Upon the highest spray of every mounting pole,

BIRDS IN SPRING.

Those quiristers are perch't, with many a speckled breast,
Then from her burnisht gate the goodly glitt'ring east
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 throstle, with shrill sharps, as purposely he song T'awake the listless sun; or chiding, that so long