Did not thine age yield warrantise, old man,
Impatience would enforce me to offend thee;
Me list not now thy forward skill to scan,
Yet will I pray that love may mend or end thee.
Spring flowers, sea-tides, earth, grass, sky, stars shall banish,
Before the thoughts of love or Phillis vanish.

So get thee gone, and fold thy tender sheep,
For lo, the great automaton of day
In Isis stream his golden locks doth steep;
Sad even her dusky mantle doth display;
Light-flying fowls, the posts of night, disport them,
And cheerful-looking vesper doth consort them.

Come you, my careful flock, forego you master,
I'll fold you up and after fall a-sighing;
Words have no worth my secret wounds to plaster;
Naught may refresh my joys but Phillis nighing.
Farewell, old Demades.

DEMADES

Damon, farewell.
How 'gainst advice doth headlong youth rebel!

[Footnote C: Our?]

AN ELEGY

Ah cruel winds, why call you hence away?
Why make you breach betwixt my soul and me?
Ye traitorous floods, why nil your floats delay
Until my latest moans discoursed be?
For though ye salt sea-gods withhold the rain
Of all your floats and gentle winds be still,
While I have wept such tears as might restrain
The rage of tides and winds against their will.
Ah shall I love your sight, bright shining eyes?
And must my soul his life and glory leave?
Must I forsake the bower where solace lives,
To trust to tickle fates that still deceive?
Alas, so wills the wanton queen of change,
That each man tract this labyrinth of life
With slippery steps, now wronged by fortune strange,
Now drawn by counsel from the maze of strife!
Ah joy! No joy because so soon thou fleetest,
Hours, days, and times inconstant in your being!
Oh life! No life, since with such chance thou meetest!
Oh eyes! No eyes, since you must lose your seeing!
Soul, be thou sad, dissolve thy living powers
To crystal tears, and by their pores express
The grief that my distressed soul devours!
Clothe thou my body all in heaviness;
My suns appeared fair smiling full of pleasure,
But now the vale of absence overclouds them;
They fed my heart with joys exceeding measure
Which now shall die, since absence needs must shroud them.
Yea, die! Oh death, sweet death, vouchsafe th