Four Songs

Brittle beauty that nature made so frail,
Whereof the gift is small, and short the season,
Flow’ring to-day, to-morrow apt to fail,
Tickle treasure, abhorrèd of reason;
Dangerous to deal with, vain, of none avail,
Costly in keeping, past not worth two peason,
Slipper in sliding, as in an eelës tail,
Hard to obtain, once gotten, not geason;
Jewel of jeopardy that peril doth assail,
False and untrue, enticèd oft to treason,
Enemy to youth; that most may I bewail.
Ah, bitter sweet, infecting as the poison,
  Thou fairest as fruit that with the frost is taken,
  To-day ready ripe, to-morrow all to-shaken.

Why fearest thou thy outward foe,
When thou thyself thy harm dost feed ?
Of grief, or hurt, of pain, or woe,
Within each thing is sown a seed.

So fine was never yet the cloth,
No smith so hard his iron did beat,
But the one consumed was with moth,
The other with canker all to fret. 

The knotty oak and wainscoat old
Within doth eat the silly worm : 
Even so a mind in envy roll'd 
Always within itself doth burn.

Thus every thing that Nature wrought
Within itself his hurt doth bear : 
No outward harm need to be sought
Whose enemies be within so near.

Shall I thus ever long, and be no whit the neare?
And shall I still complain to thee, the which me will not hear?
  Alas! say nay! say nay! and be no more so dumb,
But open thou thy manly mouth and say that thou wilt come:
  Whereby my heart may think, although I see not thee,
That thou wilt come — thy word so sware — if thou a live man be.
  The roaring hugy waves they threaten my poor ghost,
And toss thee up and down the seas in danger to be lost.
  Shall they not make me fear that they have swallowed thee?
— But as thou art most sure alive, so wilt thou come to me.
  Whereby I shall go see thy ship ride on the strand,
And think and say Lo where he comes and Sure here will he land:
  And then I shall lift up to thee my little hand,
And thou shalt think thine heart in ease, in health to see me stand.
  And if thou come indeed (as Christ thee send to do!)
Those arms which miss thee now shall then embrace  ...  thee too:
  Each vein to every joint the lively blood shall spread
Which now for want of thy glad sight doth show full pale and dead.
  But if thou slip thy troth, and do not come at all,
As minutes in the clock do strike so call for death I shall:
  To please both thy false heart and rid myself from woe,
That rather had to die in troth than live forsaken so!

As lawrell leaves that cease not to be green
From parching sun, nor yet from winter's threat:
As harden'd oak that fear'th no sword so keen,
As flint for tool in twain that will not fret,
As fast as rock or pillar surely set
So fast I am to you, and aye have been,
Assuredly whom I cannot forget,
For joy, for pain, for torment nor for tene,
For loss, for gain, for frowning nor for threat,
But ever one, yea, both in calm and blast,
Your faithful friend, and will be to my last.