Works

The mounting lark (day's herald) got on wing,
Bidding each bird choose out his bough and sing.
The lofty treble sung the little wren;
Robin the mean, that best of all loves men;...

Now as an angler melancholy standing
Upon a green bank yielding room for landing,
A wriggling yellow worm thrust on his hook,
Now in the midst he throws, then in a nook:...

Unto a pleasant grove or such like place,
Where here the curious cutting of a hedge:
There, by a pond, the trimming of the sedge:
Here the fine setting of well-shading trees:...

So when the pretty rill a place espies,
Where with the pebbles she would wantonize,
And that her upper stream so much doth wrong her
To drive her thence, and let her play no longer;...

All.

Now that the Spring hath fill'd our veins
With kind and active fire,
And made green liv'ries for the plains,
And every grove a quire:

Sing me a song of merry glee,...

Gentle nymphs, be not refusing,
Love's neglect is time's abusing,
They and beauty are but lent you;
Take the one and keep the other;
Love keeps fresh what age doth smother;...

Autumn it was when droop'd the sweetest flow'rs,
And rivers, swoll'n with pride, o'erlook'd the banks;
Poor grew the day of summer's golden hours,
And void of sap stood Ida's cedar-ranks....

Venus by Adonis' side
Crying kiss'd, and kissing cried,
Wrung her hands and tore her hair
For Adonis dying there.

Stay (quoth she) O stay and live!
Nature surely doth not give...