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XI. TO LUCASTA, ON GOING TO THE WARS.

By Colonel Richard Lovelace, from the volume of his poems, entitled Lucasta, Lond. 1649, 12mo.

TELL me not, sweet, I am unkinde,

That from the nunnerie

Of thy chaste breast and quiet minde,
To warre and armes I flie.

True, a new mistresse now I chase,
The first foe in the field;

And with a stronger faith imbrace
A sword, a horse, a shield.

Yet this inconstancy is such,
As you too shall adore;

I could not love thee, deare, so much,
Lov'd I not honour more.

XII. VALENTINE AND URSINE.

THE old story-book of Valentine and Orson (which suggested the plan of this tale, but it is not strictly followed in it) was originally a translation from the French, being one of their earliest attempts at romance. See Le Bibliothèque de Romans, etc.

The circumstance of the bridge of bells is taken from the old metrical legend of Sir Bevis, and has also been copied in the Seven Champions. The original lines are,

"Over the dyke a bridge there lay,

That man and beest might passe away:

Under the brydge were sixty belles;
Right as the Romans telles ;

That there might no man passe in,

But all they rang with a gyn."

In the Editor's folio MS. was an old poem on this subject, in a wretched corrupt state, unworthy the press, from which were taken such particulars as could be adopted.*

PART THE FIRST.

WHEN Flora 'gins to decke the fields

With colours fresh and fine,
Then holy clerkes their mattins sing
To good Saint Valentine!

The king of France that morning fair
He would a hunting ride:
To Artois forest prancing forth
In all his princelye pride.

To grace his sports a courtly train
Of gallant peers attend;

And with their loud and cheerful cryes
The hills and valleys rend.

Through the deep forest swift they pass,

Through woods and thickets wild;
When down within a lonely dell
They found a new-born child;

All in a scarlet kercher lay'd
Of silk so fine and thin:

*The title given to it there is, The Emperour and Childe,

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