With fragrant flowers we strew the way,
And make this our chief holiday:
For though this clime was blest of yore,
Yet was it never proud before.
O beauteous queen of second Troy,
Accept of our unfeigned joy.
Now the air is sweeter than sweet balm,
And satyrs dance about the palm;
Now earth with verdure newly dight,
Gives perfect signs of her delight:
O beauteous queen!
Now birds record new harmony,
And trees do whistle melody:
And everything that nature breeds
Doth clad itself in pleasant weeds.
SONNET.
Actaeon lost, in middle of his sport,
Both shape and life for looking but awry:
Diana was afraid he would report
What secrets he had seen in passing by.
To tell the truth, the self-same hurt have I,
By viewing her for whom I daily die;
I lose my wonted shape, in that my mind
Doth suffer wreck upon the stony rock
Of her disdain, who, contrary to kind,
Does bear a breast more hard than any stock;
And former form of limbs is changed quite
By cares in love, and want of due delight.
I leave my life, in that each secret thought
Which I conceive through wanton fond regard,
Doth make me say that life availeth nought,
Where service cannot have a due reward.
I dare not name the nymph that works my smart,
Though love hath graven her name within my heart.
THOMAS TURBERVILLE.
Of this author—Thomas Turberville—once famous in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, but now almost totally forgotten, and whose works are altogether omitted in most selections, we have preserved a little. He was a voluminous author, having produced, besides many original pieces, a translation of Ovid's Heroical Epistles, from which Warton has selected a short specimen.
IN PRAISE OP THE RENOWNED LADY ANNE, COUNTESS OF WARWICK.
When Nature first in hand did take
The clay to frame this Countess' corse,
The earth a while she did forsake,
And was compell'd of very force,
With mould in hand, to flee to skies,
To end the work she did devise.
The gods that then in council sate,
Were half-amazed, against their kind,[1]
To see so near the stool of state
Dame Nature stand, that was assign'd
Among her worldly imps[2] to wonne,[3]
As she until that day had done.