NEVER TOO LATE: EURYMACHUS IN LAUDEM MIRIMIDAE by ROBERT GREENE

WHEN Flora, proud in pomp of all her flowers,
Sat bright and gay,
And gloried in the dew of Iris' showers,
And did display
Her mantle checker'd all with gaudy green;
Then I
Alone
A mournful man in Erecyne was seen.

With folded arms I trampled through the grass,
Tracing as he
That held the throne of Fortune brittle glass,
And Love to be,
Like Fortune, fleeting as the restless wind,
Mixèd
With mists,
Whose damp doth make the clearest eyes grow blind.

Thus in a maze, I spied a hideous flame;
I cast my sight,
And saw where, blithely bathing in the same
With great delight,
A worm did lie, wrapt in a smoky sweat,
And yet
'Twas strange,
It careless lay and shrunk not at the heat.

I stood amaz'd and wondering at the sight,
While that a dame,
That shone like to the heaven's rich sparkling light,
Discours'd the same;
And said, "My friend, this worm within the fire
Which lies
Content,
Is Venus' worm, and represents desire.

"A salamander is this princely beast:
Deck'd with a crown,
Given him by Cupid as a gorgeous crest
'Gainst Fortune's frown,
Content he lies and bathes him in the flame,
And goes
Not forth,
For why he cannot live without the same.

"As he, so lovers lie within the fire
Of fervent love,
And shrink not from the flame of hot desire,
Nor will not move
From any heat that Venus' force imparts,
But lie
Content
Within a fire, and waste away their hearts.'

Up flew the dame, and vanish'd in a cloud:
But there stood I,
And many thoughts within my mind did shroud
Of love; for why
I felt within my heart a scorching fire,
And yet,
As did
The salamander, 'twas my whole desire.

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