No More Learning

582. A FROLIC.

Bring me my rosebuds, drawer, come;
So, while I thus sit crown'd,
I'll drink the aged Caecubum,
Until the roof turn round.

_Drawer_, waiter.
_Caecubum_, Caecuban, an old Roman wine.


583. CHANGE COMMON TO ALL.

All things subjected are to fate;
Whom this morn sees most fortunate,
The evening sees in poor estate.


584. TO JULIA.

The saints'-bell calls, and, Julia, I must read
The proper lessons for the saints now dead:
To grace which service, Julia, there shall be
One holy collect said or sung for thee.
Dead when thou art, dear Julia, thou shalt have
A trentall sung by virgins o'er thy grave:
Meantime we two will sing the dirge of these,
Who dead, deserve our best remembrances.

_Trentall_, a service for the dead.


585. NO LUCK IN LOVE.
I do love I know not what,
Sometimes this and sometimes that;
All conditions I aim at.

But, as luckless, I have yet
Many shrewd disasters met
To gain her whom I would get.

Therefore now I'll love no more
As I've doted heretofore:
He who must be, shall be poor.


586. IN THE DARK NONE DAINTY.

Night hides our thefts, all faults then pardon'd be;
All are alike fair when no spots we see.
Lais and Lucrece in the night-time are
Pleasing alike, alike both singular:
Joan and my lady have at that time one,
One and the self-same priz'd complexion:
Then please alike the pewter and the plate,
The chosen ruby, and the reprobate.

_Lais and Lucrece_, opposite types of incontinence and purity. Cp.
665, 885.


587. A CHARM, OR AN ALLAY FOR LOVE.

If so be a toad be laid
In a sheep's-skin newly flay'd,
And that tied to man, 'twill sever
Him and his affections ever.


590. TO HIS BROTHER-IN-LAW, MASTER JOHN WINGFIELD.

For being comely, consonant, and free
To most of men, but most of all to me;
For so decreeing that thy clothes' expense
Keeps still within a just circumference;
Then for contriving so to load thy board
As that the messes ne'er o'erlade the lord;
Next for ordaining that thy words not swell
To any one unsober syllable:
These I could praise thee for beyond another,
Wert thou a Winstfield only, not a brother.