To the Spheares

Thou which do'st guide this little world of loue,Thy planets mansions heere thou mayst behold,My brow the spheare where Saturne still doth moue,Wrinkled with cares: and withered, dry, and cold;Mine eyes the Orbe where Iupiter doth trace,Which gently smile because they looke on thee,Mars in my swarty visage takes his place,Made leane with loue, where furious conflicts bee.Sol in my breast with his hote scorching flame,And in my hart alone doth Venus raigne:Mercury my hands the Organs of thy fame,And Luna glides in my fantastick braine;The starry heauen thy prayse by me exprest,Thou the first moouer, guiding all the rest.

Love banish'd heauen, in earth was held in scorne,Wandring abroad in neede and beggery,And wanting friends though of a Goddesse borne,Yet crau'd the almes of such as passed by.I like a man, deuout and charitable;Clothed the naked, lodg'd this wandring guest,With sighs and teares still furnishing his table,With what might make the miserable blest;But this vngratefull for my good desart,Entic'd my thoughts against me to conspire,Who gaue consent to steale away my hart,And set my breast his lodging on a fire:Well, well, my friends, when beggers grow thus bold,No meruaile then though charity grow cold.

O why should nature nigardly restraine,The Sotherne Nations relish not our tongue,Else should my lines glide on the waues of Rhene,And crowne the Pirens with my liuing song;But bounded thus to Scotland get you forth:Thence take you wing vnto the Orcades,There let my verse get glory in the North,Making my sighs to thawe the frozen seas,And let the Bards within the Irish Ile,To whom my Muse with fiery wings shall passe,Call backe the stifneckd rebels from exile,And molifie the slaughtering Galliglasse:And when my flowing numbers they rehearse,Let Wolues and Bears be charmed with my verse.

I gaue my faith to Loue, Loue his to mee,That hee and I, sworne brothers should remaine,Thus fayth receiu'd, fayth giuen back againe,Who would imagine bond more sure could be?Loue flies to her, yet holds he my fayth taken,Thus from my vertue raiseth my offence,Making me guilty by mine innocence;And surer bond by beeing so forsaken,He makes her aske what I before had vow'd,Giuing her that, which he had giuen me,I bound by him, and he by her made free,Who euer so hard breach of fayth alow'd?Speake you that should of right and wrong discusse,Was right ere wrong'd, or wrong ere righted thus?