(From Phillis Honoured with Pastoral Sonnets, 1593)
My Phillis hath the morning sun
At first to look upon her.
And Phillis hath morn-waking birds
Her risings for to honour.
My Phillis hath prime-feathered flowers
That smile when she treads on them;
And Phillis hath a gallant flock
That leaps since she doth own them.
But Phillis hath so hard a heart
(Alas that she should have it),
As yields no mercy to desert
Nor grace to those that crave it:
Sweet sun, when thou lookest on
Pray her regard my moan.
Sweet birds, when you sing to her
To yield some pity woo her.
Sweet flowers, when as she treads on
Tell her her beauty deads one
And if in life her love she nill agree me,1
Pray her before I die she will come see me.
George Peele
c. 1558-c. 1598
Thus charged he; nor Argicides denied, But to his feet his fair wing'd shoes he tied, Ambrosian, golden; that in his command Put either sea, or the unmeasured land, With pace as speedy as a puft of wind. Then up his rod went, with which he declined The eyes of any waker, when he pleased, And any sleeper, when he wish'd, diseased. This took; he stoop'd Pieria, and thence Glid through the air, and Neptune's confluence, Kiss'd as he flew, and check'd the waves as light
As any sea-mew in her fishing flight
Her thick wings sousing in the savoury seas.
Like her, he pass'd a world of wilderness;
But when the far-off isle he touch'd, he went 15
Up from the blue sea to the continent,
And reach'd the ample cavern of the Queen,
Whom he within found; without seldom seen.
A sun-like fire upon the hearth did flame;
The matter precious, and divine the frame; 20
|