Poem by Francis Beaumont

The Author to the Reader

I sing the fortune of a luckless pair,
Whose spotless souls now in one body be;
For beauty still is Prodromus to care,
Crost by the sad stars of nativity:
And of the strange enchantment of a well,
Given by the Gods, my sportive muse doth write,
Which sweet-lipp'd Ovid long ago did tell,
Wherein who bathes, straight turns Hermaphrodite:
 I hope my poem is so lively writ,
 That thou wilt turn half-mad with reading it.

1. To My Friend Mr. John Fletcher, upon His Faithful Sheperdess
2. A Funeral Elegy on the Death of the Lady Penelope Clifton
3. Mr. Francis Beaumont's Letter to Ben Jonson
4. The Glance
5. Ad Comitissam Rutlandiæ

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