from Pamphilia to Amphilanthus: 4

Why did my parents send me to the schools
That I with knowledge might enrich my mind?
Since the desire to know first made men fools,
And did corrupt the root of all mankind.

Even as the sun with purple-colour’d face
Had ta’en his last leave of the weeping morn,
Rose-cheek’d Adonis tried him to the chase;
Hunting he lov’d, but love he laugh’d to scorn;
Sick-thoughted Venus makes amain unto him,
And like a bold-fac’d suitor ‘gins to woo him.

‘Thrice fairer than myself,’ thus she began,

Sweet shades why doe you seeke to give delight
To mee who deeme delight in this vilde place
Butt torment, sorrow, and mine owne disgrace
To taste of joy, or your vaine pleasing sight;

Show them your pleasures who saw never night
Of greife, wher joyings fauning, smiling face
Appeers as day, wher griefe found never space
Yett for a sigh, a grone, or envies spite;

Butt O on mee a world of woes doe ly,
Or els on mee all harmes strive to rely,
And to attend like servants bound to mee,

Heat in desire, while frosts of care I prove,

Time only cause of my unrest
By whom I hop’d once to bee blest
How cruell art thou turned?
That first gav’st lyfe unto my love,
And still a pleasure nott to move
Or change though ever burned;

Have I thee slack’d, or left undun
One loving rite, and soe have wunn
Thy rage or bitter changing?
That now noe minutes I shall see,
Wherein I may least happy bee
Thy favors soe estranging.

Blame thy self, and nott my folly,

Love leave to urge, thou know’st thou hast the hand;
’T’is cowardise, to strive wher none resist:
Pray thee leave off, I yeeld unto thy band;
Doe nott thus, still, in thine owne powre persist,

Beehold I yeeld: lett forces bee dismist;
I ame thy subject, conquer’d, bound to stand,
Never thy foe, butt did thy claime assist
Seeking thy due of those who did withstand;

Butt now, itt seemes, thou would’st I should thee love;
I doe confess, t’was thy will made mee chuse;
And thy faire showes made mee a lover prove
When I my freedome did, for paine refuse.

Lo I the man, whose Muse whilome did maske,
As time her taught in lowly Shepheards weeds,
Am now enforst a far unfitter taske,
For trumpets sterne to chaunge mine Oaten reeds,
And sing of Knights and Ladies gentle deeds;
Whose prayses having slept in silence long,
Me, all too meane, the sacred Muse areeds
To blazon broad emongst her learned throng:
Fierce warres and faithful loves shall moralize my song.
Helpe then, O holy Virgin chiefe of nine,
Thy weaker Novice to performe thy will,
Lay forth out of thine everlasting scryne
The antique rolles, which there lye hidden still,
Of Faerie knights and fairest Tanaquill,
Whom that most noble Briton Prince so long

New England.
Alas, dear Mother, fairest Queen and best,
With honour, wealth, and peace happy and blest,
What ails thee hang thy head, and cross thine arms,
And sit i’ the dust to sigh these sad alarms?
What deluge of new woes thus over-whelm
The glories of thy ever famous Realm?
What means this wailing tone, this mournful guise?
Ah, tell thy Daughter; she may sympathize.

Old England.
Art ignorant indeed of these my woes,
Or must my forced tongue these griefs disclose,
And must my self dissect my tatter’d state,
Which Amazed Christendom stands wondering at?

[Introduction]
Lo now! four other acts upon the stage,
Childhood, and Youth, the Manly, and Old-age.
The first: son unto Phlegm, grand-child to water,
Unstable, supple, moist, and cold’s his Nature.
The second: frolic claims his pedigree;
From blood and air, for hot and moist is he.
The third of fire and choler is compos’d,
Vindicative, and quarrelsome dispos’d.
The last, of earth and heavy melancholy,
Solid, hating all lightness, and all folly.
Childhood was cloth’d in white, and given to show,
His spring was intermixed with some snow.
Upon his head a Garland Nature set:
Of Daisy, Primrose, and the Violet.

Let mans Soule be a Spheare, and then, in this,
The intelligence that moves, devotion is,
And as the other Spheares, by being growne
Subject to forraigne motion, lose their owne,
And being by others hurried every day,
Scarce in a yeare their naturall forme obey:
Pleasure or businesse, so, our Soules admit
For their first mover, and are whirld by it.
Hence is't, that I am carryed towards the West
This day, when my Soules forme bends toward the East.
There I should see a Sunne, by rising set,
And by that setting endlesse day beget;
But that Christ on this Crosse, did rise and fall,
Sinne had eternally benighted all.
Yet dare I'almost be glad, I do not see