All the years that I have passed
In my services of love,
My soul's sacrifices prove
All the cares that hold me fast
And the faith that doth me move;
Wherefore for the ill I bear
I will ask no remedy,
Should I ask it willingly,
'Tis because, my lady fair,
Naught is faith but faith in thee.
In my soul's tempestuous ocean
Peace and calm I ne'er have found,
And my faith is never crowned
With that hope and glad emotion
Whereon faith itself doth ground;
Love and fortune I deplore
Yet revenge is not for me,
For they bring felicity
In that, though I hope no more,
Naught is faith but faith in thee.
Damon's song fully confirmed in Timbrio and in Silerio the good opinion they had formed of the rare wit of the shepherds who were there; and the more when, at the persuasion of Thyrsis and of Elicio, the now free and disdainful Lauso, to the sound of Arsindo's flute, released his voice in verses such as these:
LAUSO.
Fickle Love, disdain thy chains
Broke, and to my memory
Hath restored the liberty
Born from absence of thy pains;
Let him, whoso would, accuse
My faith as capricious, weak,
And as best he thinketh, seek
To convert me to his views.
I my love did soon forsake,
He may say, my faith was hung
By a hair so finely strung
That it e'en a breath could break;
All the plaints Love did provoke,
All my sighs, did feignèd prove,
Nay the very shafts of Love
Did not pierce beneath my cloke.
For no torture 'tis for me
To be callèd fickle, vain,
If I may behold again
My neck from the mad yoke free;
Who Silena is, I know,
And how strange her mood hath been,
How her peaceful face serene
Promise and deceit doth show.
To her wondrous dignity,
To her fair and downcast eyes,
'Tis not much to yield the prize
Of the will, whose'er it be,
For at first sight we adore;
Now we know her, fain would we
Life and more, if more could be,
Give to see her nevermore.
Ofttimes to her have I given
Heaven's Silena and my dear
For her name—she was so fair
That she seemed the child of Heaven;
Better now her name shall be—
Now that I need fear no more—
Not Silena, Heaven's flower,
But false Siren of the sea.