Noble thoughts
Meet freedom in captivity: the Tower,
Our childhood's dreadful nursery!

_King Henry_--

Was ever so much impudence in forgery?
The custom, sure, of being styled a king
Hath fastened in his thought that he is such.

PENTHEA'S DYING SONG

From 'The Broken Heart'

Oh, no more, no more,--too late;
Sighs are spent; the burning tapers
Of a life as chaste as fate,
Pure as are unwritten papers,
Are burnt out; no heat, no light
Now remains; 'tis ever night.
Love is dead; let lovers' eyes
Locked in endless dreams,
Th' extremes of all extremes,
Ope no more, for now Love dies;
Now Love dies--implying
Love's martyrs must be ever, ever dying.

FROM 'THE LOVER'S MELANCHOLY'

AMETHUS AND MENAPHON

_Menaphon--_

Passing from Italy to Greece, the tales
Which poets of an elder time have feigned
To glorify their Temple, bred in me
Desire of visiting that paradise.
To Thessaly I came; and living private
Without acquaintance of more sweet companions
Than the old inmates to my love, my thoughts,
I day by day frequented silent groves
And solitary walks. One morning early
This accident encountered me: I heard
The sweetest and most ravishing contention
That art and nature ever were at strife in.

_Amethus_--

I cannot yet conceive what you infer
By art and nature.

_Menaphon_--

I shall soon resolve ye.
A sound of music touched my ears, or rather
Indeed entranced my soul. As I stole nearer,
Invited by the melody, I saw
This youth, this fair-faced youth, upon his lute,
With strains of strange variety and harmony,
Proclaiming, as it seemed, so bold a challenge
To the clear quiristers of the woods, the birds,
That, as they flocked about him, all stood silent,
Wondering at what they heard: I wondered too.

_Amethus_--

And so do I: good, on!

_Menaphon--_

A nightingale,
Nature's best skilled musician, undertakes
The challenge, and for every several strain
The well-shaped youth could touch, she sung her own;
He could not run division with more art
Upon his quaking instrument than she,
The nightingale, did with her various notes
Reply to: for a voice and for a sound,
Amethus, 'tis much easier to believe
That such they were than hope to hear again.

_Amethus_--

How did th