XXXVIII.

Arion, when, through tempests cruel wracke,
He forth was thrown into the greedy seas,
Through the sweet musick which his harp did make
Allur’d a dolphin him from death to ease. 
But my rude musick, which was wont to please
Some dainty eares, cannot, with any skill,
The dreadfull tempest of her wrath appease,
Nor move the dolphin from her stubborn will. 
But in her pride she dooth persever still,
All carelesse how my life for her decayes: 
Yet with one word she can it save or spill. 
To spill were pitty, but to save were prayse! 
  Chuse rather to be praysd for doing good,
  Then to be blam’d for spilling guiltlesse blood.

XXXIX.

Sweet smile! the daughter of the Queene of Love,
Expressing all thy mothers powrefull art,
With which she wonts to temper angry Iove,
When all the gods he threats with thundring dart,
Sweet is thy vertue, as thy selfe sweet art. 
For when on me thou shinedst late in sadnesse,
A melting pleasance ran through every part,
And me revived with hart-robbing gladnesse;
Whylest rapt with ioy resembling heavenly madness,
My soule was ravisht quite as in a traunce,
And, feeling thence no more her sorrowes sadnesse,
Fed on the fulnesse of that chearfull glaunce. 
  More sweet than nectar, or ambrosiall meat,
  Seem’d every bit which thenceforth I did eat.

XL.

Mark when she smiles with amiable cheare,
And tell me whereto can ye lyken it;
When on each eyelid sweetly doe appeare
An hundred Graces as in shade to sit. 
Lykest it seemeth, in my simple wit,
Unto the fayre sunshine in somers day,
That, when a dreadfull storme away is flit,
Thrugh the broad world doth spred his goodly ray
At sight whereof, each bird that sits on spray. 
And every beast that to his den was fled,
Comes forth afresh out of their late dismay,
And to the light lift up their drouping hed. 
  So my storme-beaten hart likewise is cheared
  With that sunshine, when cloudy looks are cleared.
[Footnote:  XL. 4.—­An hundred Graces. E.K., in his commentary on the
Shepheards Calender, quotes a line closely resembling this from
Spenser’s Pageants: 

“An hundred Graces on her eyelids sat.”

The same fancy occurs in the Faerie Queene, and in the Hymn to Beauty.  It is copied from a poem ascribed to Musaeus.  C.]

XLI.

Is it her nature, or is it her will,
To be so cruell to an humbled foe? 
If nature, then she may it mend with skill;
If will, then she at will may will forgoe. 
But if her nature and her will be so,
That she will plague the man that loves her most,
And take delight t’encrease a wretches woe,
Then all her natures goodly guifts are lost;
And that same glorious beauties ydle boast
Is but a bayt such wretches to beguile,
As, being long in her loves tempest tost,
She meanes at last to make her pitious spoyle. 
  O fayrest fayre! let never it be named,
  That so fayre beauty was so fowly shamed.