Philomela's Second Ode

It was frosty winter-season,

And fair Flora's wealth was geason.

Meads that erst with green were spread,

With choice flowers diaper'd,

Had tawny veils; cold had scanted

What the springs and nature planted.

Leafless boughs there might you see,

All except fair Daphne's tree;

On their twigs no birds perch'd,

Warmer coverts now they search'd;

And by nature's secret reason.

Fram'd their voices to the season,

With their feeble tunes bewraying,

How they griev'd the spring's decaying.

Frosty winter thus had gloom'd

Each fair thing that summer bloom'd;

Fields were bare, and trees unclad,

Flowers wither'd, birds were sad.

When I saw a shepherd fold

Sheep in cote, to shun the cold.

Himself sitting on the grass,

That with frost wither'd was,

Sighing deeply, thus 'gan say;

"Love is folly when astray.

Like to love no passion such,

For 'tis madness, if too much;

If too little, then despair;

If too high, he beats the air

With bootless cries; if too low,

An eagle matcheth with a crow:

Thence grows jars. Thus I find,

Love is folly, if unkind;

Yet do men most desire

To be heated with this fire,

Whose flame is so pleasing hot,

That they burn, yet feel it not.

Yet hath love another kind,

Worse than these unto the mind;

That is, when a wanton's eye

Leads desire clean awry,

And with the bee doth rejoice,

Every minute to change choice,

Counting he were then in bliss,

If that each fair face were his.

Highly thus is love disgrac'd,

When the lover is unchaste,

And would taste of fruit forbidden,

'Cause the scape is easily hidden.

Though such love be sweet in brewing,

Bitter is the end ensuing;

For the honour of love he shameth,

And himself with lust defameth,

For a minute's pleasure gaining,

Fame and honour ever staining.

Gazing thus so far awry,

Last the chip falls in his eye;

Then it burns that erst but heat him,

And his own rod gins to beat him;

His choicest sweets turn to gall;

He finds lust his sin's thrall;

That wanton women in their eyes,

Men's deceivings do comprise.

That homage done to fair faces

Doth dishonour other graces.

If lawless love be such a sin,

Curs'd is he that lives therein,

For the gain of Venus' game

Is the downfall unto shame.—

Here he paus'd and did stay,

Sigh'd, and rose, and went away.