University of Virginia Library

A Newyeres gift to Mistresse C. P.

Sweet wight be glad, pluck vp your sprites,
Old Friendship is renewd:
Milde Concord hath thrown down the broth,
That Discord lately brewd.
Fowle Enuie, Malice, and Debate,
In teares their time doe spend:
In that the platforme which they layde,
Came not to wished end.
The mightie Ioue, which ruleth all,
Their prayers heard, no doubt:
Else could not their hot kindled wrath,
So soone bee quenched out.
Thus farre their furie did preuaile,
A time and place was set,
Wheras at their appoynted houre,
To try it out, they met,
And dealt. For vowes had rashly past,
So long foes to abide:
Untill the one, the others force,
In open field had tried:
I shrinke, to thinke what horror great,
Now gripes your heart through feare.
I seeme to see ech member quake,
As if yee had beene there:
To heare my muse vnto your eares.
This dolefull tale to tell.
Put feare to flight, cast care aside,
All things are ended well:
But Rancour vile, couldst thou powre forth,
Thy spite vpon none other:
But that to combat thou must bring,
My father and my brother?
And I my selfe with eies must see,
And view this dolefull sight?
Goe packe, thou hast sustaind the foyle,
For all thy poysoned might.
For by the blowes that they did giue,
Theyr friendship doth encrease,
And in their heartes establisht is,
An euerduring peace.
The seedes that thou in them didst plant,
Are pluckt vp by the roote:
Thy sister Discord neuer shall,
Againe set in her foote.
For if in dealing of their blowes,
Their handes had not bene blest:
A late repent had made them rew,
For harbouring such a gest.
But of vngrate discurtesies,
Wee iustly might complaine:
In that entreaties would not serue,
To make them friendes againe.
If in their mad and brainsicke heads,
Dame Reason had borne sway:
But malice, rancour, and debate,
Had banisht wit away.
So that occasion of this broyle,
Was not our faythfull friendes:
But these forenamed furies fell,
And other hellish fiendes.
Whose daily driftes are to deface,
Of friends the pure estate:
And makes them barbour in their hearts,
Great heapes of deadly hate:
In that things past, betwixt them are
Forgiuen and forgot:
Let vs imbrace and loue them so,
As if this happened not.
If straunge it seems, that straunger I,
in verse to you doe write:
Assure your selfe, it doeth proceede,
through greatnesse of delite,
That I conceaue in that I see,
them reconcilde so well,
Whome no perswasions latelie serude,
their furies to expell.
These simple verses to your viewe,
I haue thought good to sende,
In token of a good neweyeere,
and so farewel, I ende.