1023. RAPINE BRINGS RUIN.

What's got by justice is established sure:
_No kingdoms got by rapine long endure_.

1024. COMFORT TO A YOUTH THAT HAD LOST HIS LOVE.

What needs complaints,
When she a place
Has with the race
Of saints?
In endless mirth,
She thinks not on
What's said or done
In earth.
She sees no tears,
Or any tone
Of thy deep groan
She hears:
Nor does she mind,
Or think on't now,
That ever thou
Wast kind;
But chang'd above,
She likes not there.
As she did here,
Thy love.
Forbear, therefore,
And lull asleep
Thy woes, and weep
No more.

1026. SAINT DISTAFF'S DAY, OR THE MORROW AFTER TWELFTH DAY.

Partly work and partly play
Ye must on S. Distaff's day:
From the plough soon free your team,
Then come home and fodder them.
If the maids a-spinning go,
Burn the flax and fire the tow;
Scorch their plackets, but beware
That ye singe no maidenhair.
Bring in pails of water, then,
Let the maids bewash the men.
Give S. Distaff all the right,
Then bid Christmas sport good-night;
And next morrow everyone
To his own vocation.

_Plackets_, petticoats.

1027. SUFFERANCE.

In the hope of ease to come,
Let's endure one martyrdom.

1028. HIS TEARS TO THAMESIS.

I send, I send here my supremest kiss
To thee, my silver-footed Thamesis.
No more shall I reiterate thy Strand,
Whereon so many stately structures stand:
Nor in the summer's sweeter evenings go
To bathe in thee, as thousand others do;
No more shall I along thy crystal glide
In barge with boughs and rushes beautifi'd,
With soft-smooth virgins for our chaste disport,
To Richmond, Kingston, and to Hampton Court.
Never again shall I with finny oar
Put from, or draw unto the faithful shore:
And landing here, or safely landing there,
Make way to my beloved Westminster,
Or to the golden Cheapside, where the earth
Of Julia Herrick gave to me my birth.
May all clean nymphs and curious water-dames
With swan-like state float up and down thy streams:
No drought upon thy wanton waters fall
To make them lean and languishing at all.
No ruffling winds come hither to disease
Thy pure and silver-wristed Naiades.
Keep up your state, ye stream