and ending with these lines,
ταῦτα στεψαμένη, λῆξον μεγδλαυχος ἐοῦσα,
ἀνθεις καἰ λήγεις καἰ σὐ καἰ ό στέφανος.
[P. 63], No. lxx.—Castara, to whom these beautiful lines are addressed, was a daughter of William Herbert, first Lord Percy, and either was already, or afterwards became, the wife of the poet. There are no purer and few more graceful records of a noble attachment than that which is contained in the poems to which Habington has given the name of the lady of his happy love. Phillips, writing in 1675, says, ‘His poems are now almost forgotten.’ How little they deserved this, how finished at times his versification was, lines such as the following—they are the first stanza of a poem for which I could not find room—will abundantly prove. It is headed, Against them who lay Unchastity to the sex of Women.
‘They meet with but unwholesome springs,
And summers which infectious are,
They hear but when the mermaid sings,
And only see the falling star,
Who ever dare