Then, good Apollo, do away thy bow:
Take harp and sing in this our versing time,
And in my brain some sacred humour flow,
That all the earth my woes, sighs, tears may know;
And see you not that I fall low to rhyme.
As for my mirth, how could I but be glad,
Whilst that methought I justly made my boast
That only I the only mistress had?
But now, if e’er my face with joy be clad,
Think Hannibal did laugh when Carthage lost.
Sweet lady, as for those whose sullen cheer,
Compared to me, made me in lightness sound;
Who, stoic-like, in cloudy hue appear;
Who silence force to make their words more dear;
Whose eyes seem chaste, because they look on ground:
Believe them not, for physic true doth find,
Choler adust is joyed in woman-kind.
A DIALOGUE BETWEEN TWO SHEPHERDS.
Uttered in a Pastoral Show at Wilton.
Will. Dick, since we cannot dance, come, let a cheerful voice
Show that we do not grudge at all when others do rejoice.
Dick. Ah Will, though I grudge not, I count it feeble glee,
With sight made dim with daily tears another’s sport to see.
Whoever lambkins saw, yet lambkins love to play,
To play when that their lovéd dams are stolen or gone astray?
If this in them be true, as true in men think I,
A lustless song forsooth thinks he that hath more lust to cry.
Will. A time there is for all, my mother often says,
When she, with skirts tucked very high, with girls at football plays
When thou hast mind to weep, seek out some smoky room:
Now let those lightsome sights we see thy darkness overcome.
Dick. What joy the joyful sun gives unto blearéd eyes;
That comfort in these sports you like, my mind his comfort tries.