blurring, and the disappointing inequalities,
_Phillis_ takes a high place among the sonnet-cycles, and must ever be
dear to lovers of quiet, melodious verse, who have made themselves at
home in the golden world of the pastoral poets and mislike not the
country-carolling heard therein.

THE INDUCTION

I that obscured have fled the scene of fame,
Intitling my conceits to nought but care,
I that have lived a phoenix in love's flame,
And felt that death I never would declare,
Now mount the theater of this our age,
To plead my faith and Cupid's cursed rage.

Oh you high sp'rited paragons of wit,
That fly to fame beyond our earthly pitch,
Whose sense is sound, whose words are feat and fit,
Able to make the coyest ear to itch;
Shroud with your mighty wings that mount so well,
These little loves, new crept from out the shell.

And thou the true Octavia of our time,
Under whose worth beauty was never matched,
The genius of my muse and ragged rime,
Smile on these little loves but lately hatched,
Who from the wrastling waves have made retreat,
To plead for life before thy judgment seat.

And though the fore-bred brothers they have had,
Who in their swan-like songs Amintas wept,
For all their sweet-thought sighs had fortune bad,
And twice obscured in Cinthia's circle slept,
Yet these I hope, under your kind aspect,
Most worthy Lady, shall escape neglect.

And if these infants of mine artless brain,
Not by their worth but by thy worthiness,
A mean good liking of the learned gain,
My Muse enfranchised from forgetfulness
Shall hatch such breed in honour of thy name,
As modern poets shall admire the same.

As modern poets shall admire the same;
I mean not you (you never matched men)
Who brought the chaos of our tongue in frame,
Through these Herculean labours of your pen;
I mean the mean, I mean no men divine,
But such whose feathers are but waxed like mine.

Go, weeping truce-men in your sighing weeds,
Under a great Maecenas I have passed you;
If so you come where learned Colin feeds
His lovely flock, pack thence and quickly haste you;
You are but mists before so bright a sun,
Who hath the palm for deep invention won.

Kiss Delia's hand for her sweet prophet's sake,
Whose not affected but well couched