Song (Love a child is ever crying) Literary Elements

A first-person female speaker (Pamphilia) cautioning her audience (the reader) against indulging erotic love. She is a character in the larger text (Urania) who is the queen of Pamphilia and harbors a secret, unrequited love for the inconstant Amphilanthus, king of Naples.

Five quatrains (4-line stanzas) in trochaic tetrameter. Each quatrain follows the rhyme scheme AABB.

"Love, a child, is ever crying" - the emotion of erotic love is equated to a greedy child.
"Feathers are as firm in staying" - love is even less stable than a feather
"Wolves no fiercer in their preying" - even predatory wolves are not so vicious as love.

Assonance:
"satisfied with having" - repetition of the hard /a/ sound

Alliteration;
"not one word" - repetition of the /w/ sound
"feathers are as firm" - repetition of the /f/ sound

"feathers are as firm in staying / wolves no fiercer in their praying" - love is both soft, light, and fleeting and strong, predatory, and dangerous.

The mood of the poem is also deeply ironic in that the maternal voice of Pamphilia is urging readers (presumably other women) to ignore the cries of their children in order to caution against falling in love.

Lyric poetry; Complaint

Spoken/written in private in context of the larger sonnet sequence.

cautionary, desperate, scornful, maternal

Speaker/man vs. love

The speaker's unrequited love has forced her to dwell on the paradoxical pleasure and pain of the emotion, while warning others to steer clear.

The poem avoids a climax by peppering tension throughout, only to return to the opening stanza in the final couplet. This lack of a particular climax suggests the lack of power or control the speaker has over her situation and reinforces the notion of being "trapped" by the experience of loving.

"These his virtues are, and slighter / Are his gifts, his favours lighter" - the child/love is granted a place for redemption but the speaker suggests that even the best aspects of love are the cause of misery.

The image of love as a child alludes to the classical representation of Cupid (god of erotic desire) as the young, mischievous son of Venus, goddess of love. The discussion of flattery and cozening in the third stanza alludes to the Christian bible and the story of the fall of man as told in Genesis. The general Petrarchan nature of the poem (the paradoxical pain/pleasure of love) alludes to the tradition pioneered by various male poets during the reign of Elizabeth I.

"Love, a child, is ever crying" - the emotion of love is likened to a live being that demands attention and must be taken care of.
"Feathers are as firm in staying" - feathers are granted the agency to remain constant despite their inanimate nature.

The ongoing cruelty of the child is a form of hyperbole as children are dependent on their parents and do not necessarily possess a nefarious agenda.

"wailing" - evokes the intense crying done in times of grief and mourning.