A link to lost literature

Some little-known and rarely-anthologized Elizabethan gems  are on loan to us from a seldom-frequented underground chamber of the Vatican library, and are published here for the first time, with appropriate musical and painterly accompaniment

Present Mirth hath Present Laughter

In  praise of Muses, and in time’s despite,

with courtly music, and paintings of the time,

seek many a rare and curious rhyme

for thine own  rare  delight.

-- Anon, sixteenth century

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~  Posthumous Endorsement ~

"If I were alive today, and in the mood for a mystery,

this is what I'd be reading: "

I Don't Do Divorce Cases

Murphy on the Mount.

(I am the Bard of Avon, and I approved this message.)

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Also, the most celebrated sonnet ever written in Latin, available here for the first time:

     A Lost Sonnet of St Augustine


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