Mertilla. O Cloris, Can there be a Spring,

O my deare Nimph, there may not,
Wanting thine eyes it forth to bring,
Without which Nature cannot:  20
Say what it is that troubleth thee
Encreast by thy concealing,
Speake; sorrowes many times we see
Are lesned by reuealing.

  Cloris. Being of late too vainely bent

And but at too much leisure;
Not with our Groves and Downes content,
But surfetting in pleasure;
Felicia’s Fields I would goe see,
Where fame to me reported, 30
The choyce Nimphes of the world to be
From meaner beauties sorted;
Hoping that I from them might draw
Some graces to delight me,
But there such monstrous shapes I saw,
That to this houre affright me. 
Throw the thick Hayre, that thatch’d their Browes,
Their eyes vpon me stared,
Like to those raging frantique Froes
For Bacchus Feasts prepared:  40
Their Bodies, although straight by kinde,
Yet they so monstrous make them,
That for huge Bags blowne vp with wind,
You very well may take them. 
Their Bowels in their Elbowes are,
Whereon depend their Panches,
And their deformed Armes by farre
Made larger than their Hanches: 
For their behauiour and their grace,
Which likewise should haue priz’d them, 50
Their manners were as beastly base
As th’ rags that so disguisd them;
All Anticks, all so impudent,
So fashon’d out of fashion,
As blacke Cocytus vp had sent
Her Fry into this nation,
Whose monstrousnesse doth so perplex,
Of Reason and depriues me,
That for their sakes I loath my sex,
Which to this sadnesse driues me. 60

  Mertilla. O my deare Cloris be not sad,

Nor with these Furies danted,
But let these female fooles be mad,
With Hellish pride inchanted;
Let not thy noble thoughts descend
So low as their affections;
Whom neither counsell can amend,
Nor yet the Gods corrections: 
Such mad folks ne’r let vs bemoane,
But rather scorne their folly, 70
And since we two are here alone,
To banish melancholly,
Leaue we this lowly creeping vayne
Not worthy admiration,
And in a braue and lofty strayne,
Lets exercise our passion,
With wishes of each others good,
From our abundant treasures,
And in this iocund sprightly mood: 
Thus alter we our measures. 80

  Mertilla. O I could wish this place were strewd with Roses,

And that this Banck were thickly thrumd with Grasse
As soft as Sleaue, or Sarcenet euer was,
Whereon my Cloris her sweet selfe reposes.