Philomela’s Second Ode

It was frosty winter season,
And faire Floras wealth was geason:
Meades that earst with greene were spred,
With choyce flowers diapred,
Had tawny vales: cold had scanted
What the Spring and Nature planted:
Leauelesse boughes there might you see,
All except fayre Daphnes tree,
On their twigs no byrdes pearched,
Warmer couerts now they searched;
And by Natures secret reason,
Trained their voyces to the season:
With their feeble tunes bewraying,
How they grieued the springs decaying:
Frosty Winter thus had gloomed
Each fayre thing that sommer bloomed,
Fields were bare, and trees vnclad,
Flowers withered, byrdes were sad:
When I saw a shepheard fold,
Sheepe in Coate to shunne the cold:
Himselfe sitting on the grasse,
That with frost withered was:
Sighing deepely, thus gan say,
Loue is folly when astray:
Like to loue no passion such,
For ’tis madnesse, if too much:
If too little, then despaire:
If too high, he beates the ayre;
With bootlesse cries, if too low:
An eagle matcheth with a crow.
Thence growes iarres, thus I find,
Loue is folly, if vnkind;
Yet doe men most desire
To be heated with this fire:
Whose flame is so pleasing hot,
That they burne, yet feele it not:
Yet hath loue another kind,
Worse than these vnto the mind:
That is, when a wantons eye
Leades desire cleane awry,
And with the Bee doth reioyce,
Euery minute to change choyce,
Counting he were then in blisse,
If that each fare fere were his:
Highly thus is loue disgraste,
When the louer is vnchaste;
And would taste of fruit forbidden,
Cause the scape is easily hidden.
Though such loue be sweet in brewing
Bitter is the end ensuing;
For the honour of loue he shameth,
And himselfe with lust defameth;
For a minutes pleasure gayning,
Fame and honour euer stayning,
Gazing thus so farre awry,
Last the chip fals in his eye,
Then it burns that earst but heate him,
And his owne rod gins to beate him;
His choycest sweets turne to gall,
He finds lust his sins thrall:
That wanton women in their eyes,
Mens deceiuings doe comprise.
That homage done to fayre faces,
Doth dishonour other graces:
If lawlesse loue be such a sinne,
Curst is he that liues therein:
For the gaine of Venus game,
Is the downefalle vnto shame:
Here he paus’d and did stay,
Sigh’d and rose, and went away.