SHAFALUS & PROCRIS.  
NARCISSUS. Aurora musae amica.  
LONDON Imprinted by john Wolf. 1595.   

To the Right worshipful Master Thomas Argall Esquire.  

Dear Sir the titles resyant to your state,  
Meritorious due: because my pen is stateless,  
I not set down, nor will I strain it forth,  
To tilt against the Sun, with seeming speeches,  
Sufficeth all are ready and await,  
With their hartes-soule, and Arts persuasive mistress,  
To tell the lovely honour, and the worth,  
Of your deserving praise, Heroic graces:  
What were it then for me to praise the light?  
When none, but one, commends dark shady night.   

Then as the day is made to shame the sinner,  
To stain obscurity, enured supposes,  
And maintain Arts inestimable treasure,  
To blindfold Envy, barbarism scorning.  
O with thy favour, light a young beginner,  
From margining reproach, Satyric gloss,  
And gentle Sir, at your best pleasing leisure,  
Shine on these cloudy lines, that want adorning,  
That I may walk, where never path was seen,  
In shady groves, twisting the myrtle greene.   
Thomas Edward's.   

To the Honourable Gentlemen & true favourites of Poetry.  
IVdiciall and courteous, lest I be thought in this my boldness, to Imitate Irus, that cared not to whom he barred his nakedness, so he might be clothed. Thus much under your favours I protest, that in writing of these two imperfect Poems, I have overgonne myself, in respect of what I wish to be performed: but for that divers of my friends have slaked that fear in me, & (as it were) heaved me onwards to touch the lap of your accomplished virtues. I have thus boldly, what in a year been studiously a doing now in one day (as our custom is) set to the view of your Heroic censures.  
Base necessity, which scholars hate as ignorance, hath been Englanddes' shame, and made many live in bastardy a long time: Now is the sap of sweet science budding, and the true honour of Cynthia under our climate girt in a rob of bright tralucent lawn: Decked gloriously with bays, and under her fair reign▪ honoured with everlasting renown, fame and Majesty.  
O what is Honour without the complements of Fame? or the living sparks in any heroic gentleman? not sowzed by the adamantine Goate-bleeding impression of some Artist.  
Well could Homer paint on Ulysses' shield, for that Ulysses' favour made Homer paint.  
Thrice happy Amintas that bided his pen to steep in the muses golden type of all bounty: whose golden pen bode all knights stoop, to thy O thrice honoured and honourable virtues.  
The tears of the muses have been teared from Helicon. Most have endeavoured to appease jupiter, some to applause Mercury, all to honour the deities. jupiter hath been found pleasant, Mercury plausive, all pliant; but few known to distill Ambrosia from heaven to feast men that are mortal on earth.  
How many when they toss their pens to eternize some of their favourites, that although it be never so exquisite for the Poem, or excellent for memorial: that either begin or end not with the description of black and ugly night, as who would say, my thoughts are obscured and my soul darkened with the terror of oblivion.  
For me this rests, to wish that such were either dumb & could not speak, or deaf and could not hear, so not to tune their stately verse to enchant others, or open their ears to the hurt of themselves.  
But why temporize I thus, on the intemperature of this our climate? wherein live to themselves, Scholars and Emperors; esteeming bounty as an ornament to dazzle the eye, and telling to themselves wonders of themselves, wherein they quench honour with fame's wings, and burn majesty with the title of ingratitude, and some there are (I know) that hold fortune at hazard, & trip it of in buskin, till I fear me they will have nothe but skin.  
Silly one, how thou tatlest of others want? is it not an ordinary guise, for some to set their neighbour's house on fire, to warm themselves? believe me courteous gentlemen, I walk not in clouds, nor can I shro'dly morralize on any, as to describe a banquet because I am hungry, or to show how coldly scholars are recompensed, because I am poor, only I am urged as it were to paraphrase on their doings with my pen, because I honour learning with my heart. And thus benign gentlemen, as I began, so in duty I end, ever priest to do you all service.  
Thomas Edward's.   

SHAFALUS and Procris.  
Fair and bright Cynthia, Ioues great ornament,  
Richly adorning nights dark firmament,  
Scoured amidst the starry Canopy, 
A pariphrisis of the Night.   
Of heavens celestial government, well nigh  
Down to the ever overswelling tide,  
Where old Oceanus was wont t' abide,  
At last began to cry, and call amain,  
Oh what is he, my love so long detains!  
Or is't Ioues pleasure Cynthia shall alone,  
Obscure by night, still walk as one forlorn:  
Therewith away she headlong posts along  
Salt washing waves, rebellious clouds among,  
So as it seemed minding the heavens to leave,  
And them of light, thus strangely to bereave.  

* A description of the Morning.  With that Aurora starting from her bed,  
As one that stands devising, shakes his head,  
Not minding either this or that to do,  
So are her thoughts, nor quick, nor overslow;  
Phoebus' half wroth to see the globe stand still,  
The world want light, a woman have her will:  
To post forth 'gan another Phaeton,  
And swore once more, he should the world upon,  
Or as 'tis thought to try th'adventurous boy.  
Yet some suppose, he meant upon this day,  
A Sympathy of sorrows to advance.  
The boy thus proude-made, hotly 'gan to prance,  
And now heavens cope, Ioues palace crystalline  
Down dingeth Atlas, and strait doth decline  
In such abundant measure, as 'tis said,  
Since that same day the light of heaven's decayed,  
A metamorphosis on earth 'mongst men,  
As touching constancy hath been since then,  
And this is true maidens, since that same day,  
Are said for lovers never more to pray.  
But to return, Phebe in million tears,  
Moans to herself, and for a time forbears,  
Aurora she her swift bright shining rays,  
On Phoebus' chariot toss, and oft assays,  
With her sweet looks, her father's wroth t' appease,  
But all she doth, he tells her, doth disease,  
Like to the uncorrected headstrong child,  
That never felt his parent's strokes but mild,  
Grown up to riper years, disdains a check:  
(For nature overgon comes to defect:)  
So now Aurora having felt the pride  
Of heaven and earth, turning herself a side,  
Rapt with a sudden ecstasy of mind,  
Unto herself (thus said) Goddess divine:  
How happed that Phoebus moved amid his chase,  
Should such kind friendship scorn for to embrace,  
I will no more (quoth she) god it along  
Such unaccustomed ways, ne yet among  
Such as is Titan, better fits it me,  
With Vesper still to live, than such as he,  
Though well I wots, honour is set on high,  
Yet gentle Humility, is best say I.  
No more she spoke, but like the swelling tide,  
That having passage skymes, scorning a guide,  
Until the vast receit of Neptune's bower,  
Kills the hot fume, even so, away she skoures,  
Lawless as 'twere sans thought or any dread,  
Like to banditoes 'mongst the mountain heard.  
And now upon her gentle lovely 
* Aurora filia Titanis & Terrae.  mother,  
Bright as the morning, comes the morning's honour,  
All snowy white, save purpled here and there,  
So beautiful as beauty might despair,  
And stand amazed, noting her wanton eye,  
Which at a trice could all the world espy,  
Upon her head, a coronet did stand,  
Of several flowers gathered by Titan.  

* An imitation taken from the Thracians called Acroconiae that usually wear long hair down to their wastes.  A vale she wore down trailing to her thighs,  
The stuff whereof, I guess, of such emprize,  
As Gods themselves are doubtful of the art,  
Seeming as air with otomie dispersed,  
Her hands, a many Poets 
* Dead as men.  dead and gone,  
Have heretofore (excelling) wrote upon.  
It shall suffice Venus doth grace to her,  
In that she waits before, like to a Star,  
Directing of her steps alongst the zone,  
Never overtaken by the Horizon,  
Ne yet in danger put of any Lake,  
The frozen Pole she warns her to forsake:  
And all 
* Pleiades the seven stars, supposed to be the daughters of Lycurgus.  Lycurgus daughters Dion notes,  
Base in respect of duty, and out-coates,