Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. I. Early Poetry: Chaucer to Donne

Elizabethan Miscellanies

From The Paradyse of Dainty Devises: Amantium Irae (R. Edwards)

IN going to my naked bed, as one that would have slept,

I heard a wife sing to her child, that long before had wept:

She sighed sore and sang full sore, to bring the babe to rest,

That would not rest but cried still in sucking at her breast:

She was full weary of her watch, and grieved with her child,

She rocked it and rated it, until on her it smiled:

Then did she say now have I found the proverb true to prove

The falling out of faithful friends is the renewing of love.

I marvel much, pardy, quoth she, for to behold the rout,

To see man, woman, boy and beast, to toss the world about:

Some kneel, some crouch, some beck, some check, and some can smoothly smile,

And some embrace others in arms, and there think many a wile:

Some stand aloof at cap and knee, some humble and some stout,

Yet are they never friends indeed, until they once fall out:

Thus ended she her song, and said before she did remove,

The falling out of faithful friends is the renewing of love.