author:John Leyden

“ The heavenly colour of your angel face,
Which is the fire and flame whereby I burn,
And never is impaired by time nor place.
Wherefore, shall als behold in me, this space,
No other change but that of hair and hue:
As for my heart, which loves in pain, but peace,
Even as it was, so shall you find it, true. ”

“ My plaints, I speir what way they will me feed,
If for to stay with them I condescend:
"On green," say they, for green does hope aye breed,
Which feeds the wretches, as by proof they prove,
And brings despairing souls some ease in love. ”

“ From the panegyrical sonnet prefixed to the volume by Robert Hudson, Fowler appears then to have been a young man:
I saw, once, all the Muses, in my thought,
With poets als, bedecked with scarlet gowns;
Before, with sacred troop Mercurius brought
A youth, upon whose face was yet but downs';
There saw I them present him laurel crowns,
And with the rest the Tuscan Petrarch came;
Who said—"My son receive these right renowns,
As he who duly doth deserve the fame. ”

“ The extracts from The Triumphs of Petrarch may be concluded by the following passage of The Triumph of Love which alluded to the knights of chivalry:
—Behold that troop that fills with dreams
The papers on all side:
Whose works does make the vulgar sort
To read them, and require,
And vainly through their erring dreams,
So for them have desire. ”

“ The style of Fowler is often quaint, affected, and full of antithesis; while it exhibits much of the tinsel of Italian amatory poetry. In his Tarantula of Love, which consists of sonnets, he is a studious imitator of Petrarch, even in his most unnatural conceits. Sometimes, however, he aspires to the praise of simple elegance; and he possesses a facility of versification, and a harmony of numbers, which the best poets of that period were not always able to attain. ”

“ Remembering all the moments that are past,
Yea every hour that I have spent in vain,
In following you, where ye have fled as fast;
Unto this dial horolage, at last,
I me compare, where love the needle is ”

“ And crowned with orient stones;
Yea, crowned she was with thousand crowns
Of jewels braw, at once.
Who moving softly in herself,
She towards me did walk,
And lovingly beside my side
Did set her down to talk. ”

“ Upon the growing grass,
I quickly on the other part
Espied a dame to pass;
And nearer me for to arrive,
Who draws men from their grave,
And from their tomb, though being dead,
In longer life does save ”

“ Insert with finest gold,
To witness well that purity
Which they did always hold.
No human pace nor earthly steps
Their walking was and trace,
But heavenly all, and all their words
Were full of heavenly grace. ”

“ Two flying feathered wings,
Embroidered with ten thousand hues,
All bare in other things.
And round about him there did stand,
And round about his chair,
A number of such mortal men,
That none can them declare. ”

“ Now softly can arise;
The works through heat that lay behind,
Now men may enterprise.
Forth paires the flocks to seek their food,
On every hill and plain;
Each labourer as he thinkis good,
Steps to his turn again. ”

“ These whom he took in circling so
The world round about,
Even from the Indes to Thule isle,
The westmost part without—.
There roses gathered in that time
When winter's blast does boast;
There ice even in the hottest days ”

“ Did hang herself for love.
This Jason is, with him his dame
Medea, Ætes' child,
That followed him and Love also
Through towns and defarts wild.———
See Pyramus and Thisbe both
To stand the shadow by ”