st.

I woo thee, Phillis, with more earnest weeping
Than Niobe for her dead issue spent;
I pray thee, nymph who hast our spring in keeping,
Thou mistress of our flowers and my content,
Come home, and glad our meads of winter weary,
And make thy woeful Damon blithe and merry.

Else will I captive all my hopes again,
And shut them up in prisons of despair,
And weep such tears as shall destroy this plain,
And sigh such sighs as shall eclipse the air,
And cry such cries as love that hears my crying
Shall faint and weep for grief and fall a-dying.

My little world hath vowed no sun shall glad it,
Except thy little world her light discover,
Of which heavens would grow proud if so they had it.
Oh how I fear lest absent Jove should love her!
I fear it, Phillis, for he never saw one
That had more heaven-sweet looks to lure and awe one.

I swear to thee, all-seeing sovereign
Rolling heaven's circles round about our center,
Except my Phillis safe return again,
No joy to heart, no meat to mouth shall enter.
All hope (but future hope to be renowned,
For weeping Phillis) shall in tears be drowned.

DEMADES

How large a scope lends Damon to his moan,
Wafting those treasures of his happy wit
In registering his woeful woe-begone!
Ah bend thy muse to matters far more fit!
For time shall come when Phillis is interred,
That Damon shall confess that he hath erred.

When nature's riches shall, by time dissolved,
Call thee to see with more judicial eye
How Phillis' beauties are to dust resolved,
Thou then shalt ask thyself the reason why
Thou wert so fond, since Phillis was so frail,
To praise her gifts that should so quickly fail.

Have mercy on thyself, cease being idle,
Let reason claim and gain of will his homage;
Rein in these brain-sick thoughts with judgment's bridle,
A short prevention helps a mighty domage.
If Phillis love, love her, yet love her so
That if she fly, thou may'st love's fire forego.

Play with the fire, yet die not in the flame;
Show passions in thy words, but not in heart;
Lest when thou think to bring thy thoughts in frame,
Thou prove thyself a prisoner by thine art.
Play with these babes of love, as apes with glasses,
And put no trust in feathers, wind, or lasses.

DAMON