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VIII.

The Farewell to Lobe.

From Beaumont and Fletcher's play, entitled The Lover's Progress, act iii. sc. i.

ADIEU, fond love, farewell you wanton powers;
I am free again.

Thou dull disease of bloud and idle hours,

Bewitching pain,

Fly to fools, that sigh away their time:
My nobler love to heaven doth climb,

And there behold beauty still young,

That time can ne'er corrupt, nor death destroy, Immortal sweetness by fair angels sung,

And honoured by eternity and joy:

There lies my love, thither my hopes aspire,

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Fond love declines, this heavenly love grows higher.

IX.

Ulysses and the Syren,

Affords a pretty poetical contest between Pleasure and Honour. It is found at the end of "Hymen's Triumph : a pastoral tragi-comedie," written by Daniel, and printed among his works, 4to. 1623.* Daniel, who was a contemporary of Drayton's, and is said to have been poet-laureate to Queen Elizabeth, was born in 1562, and died in 1619.

* In this edition, it is collated with a copy printed at the end of his "Tragedie of Cleopatra. Lond. 1607," 12mo.

Anne Countess of Dorset, Pembroke, and Montgomery, (to whom Daniel had been tutor,) has inserted a small portrait of him in a full-length picture of herself, preserved at Appleby Castle, in Cumberland.

This little poem is the rather selected for a specimen of Daniel's poetic powers, as it is omitted in the later edition of his works, 2 vols. 12mo. 1718.

SYREN.

COME, worthy Greeke, Ulysses come,
Possesse these shores with me,
The windes and seas are troublesome,

And here we may be free.

Here may we sit and view their toyle,

That travaile in the deepe,

Enjoy the day in mirth the while,

And spend the night in sleepe.

ULYSSES.

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This honour is a thing conceiv'd,

And rests on others' fame.

Begotten only to molest

Our peace, and to beguile

(The best thing of our life) our rest, And give us up to toyle!

ULYSSES.

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Then pleasure likewise seemes the shore,
Whereto tendes all your toyle;

Which you forego to make it more,

And perish oft the while.

Who may disport them diversly,

Find never tedious day;

And ease may have variety,

As well as action may.

ULYSSES.

But natures of the noblest frame

These toyles and dangers please;

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And they take comfort in the same,

As much as you in ease:

And with the thought of actions past

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Are recreated still:

When pleasure leaves a touch at last

To shew that it was ill.

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To purge the mischiefes, that increase

And all good order mar:

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And therefore I will come to thee,
And take my fortune there.

I must be wonne that cannot win,

Yet lost were I not wonne :
For beauty hath created bin
T' undoo or be undone.

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X.

Cupid's Pastime.

This beautiful poem, which possesses a classical elegance hardly to be expected in the age of James I., is printed from the fourth edition of Davison's Poems,* &c. 1621. It is also found in a later miscellany, entitled, Le Prince d'Amour, 1660, 8vo. Francis Davison, editor of the poems above referred to, was son of that unfortunate secretary of state, who suffered so much from the affair of Mary Queen of Scots. These poems, he tells us in his preface, were written by himself, by his brother [Walter,] who was a soldier in the wars of the Low Countries, and by some dear friends "anonymoi." Among them are found some pieces by Sir J. Davis, the Countess of Pembroke, Sir Philip Sidney, Spenser, and other wits of those times.

In the fourth volume of Dryden's Miscellanies, this poem is attributed to Sydney Godolphin, Esq., but erroneously, being probably written before he was born. One edition of Davison's book was published in 1608. Godolphin was born in 1610, and died in 1642–3.—Ath. Ox. ii. 23.

* See the full title in vol. ii. book iii. no. iv.

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