No More Learning

490. UPON HIMSELF.

I could never love indeed;
Never see mine own heart bleed:
Never crucify my life,
Or for widow, maid, or wife.

I could never seek to please
One or many mistresses:
Never like their lips to swear
Oil of roses still smelt there.

I could never break my sleep,
Fold mine arms, sob, sigh, or weep:
Never beg, or humbly woo
With oaths and lies, as others do.

I could never walk alone;
Put a shirt of sackcloth on:
Never keep a fast, or pray
For good luck in love that day.

But have hitherto liv'd free
As the air that circles me:
And kept credit with my heart,
Neither broke i' th' whole, or part.


491. FRESH CHEESE AND CREAM.

Would ye have fresh cheese and cream?
Julia's breast can give you them:
And, if more, each nipple cries:
To your cream here's strawberries.


492. AN ECLOGUE OR PASTORAL BETWEEN ENDYMION PORTER AND LYCIDAS HERRICK,
SET AND SUNG.

_End. _ Ah!
Lycidas, come tell me why
Thy whilom merry oat
By thee doth so neglected lie,
And never purls a note?

I prithee speak. _Lyc. _ I will. _End. _ Say on.
_Lyc. _ 'Tis thou, and only thou,
That art the cause, Endymion.
_End. _ For love's sake, tell me how.

_Lyc. _ In this regard: that thou do'st play
Upon another plain,
And for a rural roundelay
Strik'st now a courtly strain.

Thou leav'st our hills, our dales, our bowers,
Our finer fleeced sheep,
Unkind to us, to spend thine hours
Where shepherds should not keep.

I mean the court: Let Latmos be
My lov'd Endymion's court.
_End. _ But I the courtly state would see.