Political, religious, and love poems. Some by Lydgate, Sir Richard Ros, Henry Baradoun, Wm. Huchen, etc. from the Archbishop of Canterbury's Lambeth Ms. no. 306, and other sources, with a fragment of The Romance of Peare of Provence and the fair Magnelone, and a sketch, with the prolog and epilog, of The Romance of the knight Amoryus and the Lady Cleopes,

Unto my Lady, the Flower of Womanhood.

[Lambeth MS. 306, leaf 137, back.]

(1)

That pasaunt Goodnes, the Rote of all vertve, Line 1 whiche Rotide is in youre femynete, whos stepes glade to Ensue. ys eueri woman in their degre! And sethe that ye are floure of bewte, Line 5 Constreyned y am, magre myn hede, hartely to loue youre womanhede. Line 7

(2)

Your sade, Demewre, appert, goueronance Line 8 Of eliquens prengnavnt sauns coloure, So it Renyth in my Rememberaunce that dayly, nyghtly, tyde, tyme, and owre, hit is my will to purches youre fauoure, Line 12 whiche, wilde to Crist I myght atteyn, As ye of all floures Are my Souerayn. Line 14

(3)

Whan Reste And slepe y shulde haue noxiall, Line 15 As Requereth bothe nature and kynde, than trobled are my wittes all, so sodeynly Renyth in my mynde your grete bewte! me thynketh than y fynde Line 19 you as gripyng in myn armes twey; Bute whan y wake, ye Are away. Line 21

Line 21

(4)

Entirmet this with woo And gladnes, Line 22 bothe Ioye and sorowe in woo memorall, for than me thynkithe y see your likenes: Hit is nat so, it is fantasticall; the whiche my herte with þe swarde mortall Line 26 that nothinge is, saue uery Dethe, my wette is thynne, so schortithe my breth. Line 28

(5)

Nowe, lady myn, in whomë Vertus Alle [folio 138] Line 29 ar Ioined, and also comprehendide, as ye of al women y call moste principall, lette my gref in youre herte be entenderde, And also my veri treue loue Rememberde, Line 33 And, for my treve loue, ayene me to loue, As welethe nature, and god that setithe Above. Line 35

(6)

Go litill bill, with all humblis, Line 36 vnto my lady, of womanhede þe floure, and saie hire howe newe troiles lithe in distreȝ All onely for hire sake, and in mortall langoure; Line 39 And if sche wot nat whoo it is, bute stonde in erore, Say it is hire olde louer [The word looks like loli in the MS., but u, with the con|traction for er, is written the same way at the end of disseuer (p. 70, l. 26), showing that louer is the right reading here.] þat loueth hire so trewe, hire louynge a-lone, not schanginge for no newe. Line 42

EXPLICIT.