lad voice heavenward flinging--
No check, no stay.

Flower of girls love-laden
Is my sweetheart;
Of roses red the maiden
For whom I smart.

The promise that she gives me
Makes my heart bloom;
If she denies, she drives me
Forth to the gloom.

My maid, to me relenting,
Is fain for play;
Her pure heart, unconsenting,
Saith, "Lover, stay!"

Hush, Philomel, thy singing,
This little rest!
Let the soul's song rise ringing
Up from the breast!

In desolate Decembers
Man bides his time:
Spring stirs the slumbering embers;
Love-juices climb.

Come, mistress, come, my maiden!
Bring joy to me!
Come, come, thou beauty-laden!
I die for thee!
O all abloom am I!
It is a maiden love that makes me sigh,
A new, new love it is wherewith I die!

There is a very pretty _Invitation to Youth_, the refrain of which,
though partly undecipherable, seems to indicate an Italian origin. I
have thought it well to omit this refrain; but it might be rendered
thus, maintaining the strange and probably corrupt reading of the last
line:--

"List, my fair, list, _bela mia_,
To the thousand charms of Venus!
_Da hizevaleria_."

THE INVITATION TO YOUTH.

No. 8.

Take your pleasure, dance and play,
Each with other while ye may:
Youth is nimble, full of grace;
Age is lame, of tardy pace.

We the wars of love should wage,
Who are yet of tender age;
'Neath the tents of Venus dwell
All the joys that youth loves well.

Young men kindle heart's desire;
You may liken them to fire:
Old men frighten love away
With cold frost and dry decay.

A roundelay, which might be styled the _Praise of May_ or the
exhortation to be liberal in love by _The Example of the Rose_, shall
follow.

THE EXAMPLE OF THE ROSE.

No. 9.

Winter's untruth yields at last,
Spring renews old mother earth;
Angry storms are overpast,
Sunbeams fill the air with mirth;
Pregnant, ripening unto birth,
All the world reposes.

Our delightful month of May,
Not by birth, but by degree,
Took the first place, poets say;
Since the whole year's cycle he,
Youngest, loveliest, leads with glee,