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- 1. SPRING.
- Spring, the sweet Spring, is the year's pleasant king;
- Then blooms each thing, then maids dance in a ring,
- Cold doth not sting, the pretty birds do sing,
- Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!
- The palm and may make country houses gay,
- Lambs frisk and play, the shepherds pipe all day,
- And we hear aye birds tune their merry lay,
- Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!
- The fields breathe sweet, the daisies kiss our feet,
- Young lovers meet, old wives a-sunning sit,
- In every street these tunes our ears do greet,
- Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!
- Spring, the sweet Spring!
- T. NASH.
- 2. SUMMONS TO LOVE.
- Phoebus, arise!
- And paint the sable skies
- With azure, white, and red:
- Rouse Memnon's mother from her Tithon's bed
- That she may thy career with roses spread:
- The nightingales thy coming eachwhere sing:
- Make an eternal spring!
- Give life to this dark world which lieth dead;
- Spread forth thy golden hair
- In larger locks than thou wast wont before,
- And emperor-like decore
- With diadem of pearl thy temples fair:
- Chase hence the ugly night
- Which serves but to make dear thy glorious light.
- --This is that happy morn,
- That day, long wishéd day
- Of all my life so dark,
- (If cruel stars have not my ruin sworn
- And fates not hope betray),
- Which, purely white, deserves
- An everlasting diamond should it mark.
- This is the morn should bring unto this grove
- My Love, to hear and recompense my love.
- Fair King, who all preserves,
- But show thy blushing beams,
- And thou two sweeter eyes
- Shalt see than those which by Penéus' streams
- Did once thy heart surprize.
- Now, Flora, deck thyself in fairest guise:
- If that ye winds would hear
- A voice surpassing far Amphion's lyre,
- Your furious chiding stay;
- Let Zephyr only breathe
- And with her tresses play.
- --The winds all silent are,
- And Phoebus in his chair
- Ensaffroning sea and air
- Makes vanish every star:
- Night like a drunkard reels
- Beyond the hills, to shun his flaming wheels:
- The fields with flowers are deck'd in every hue,
- The clouds with orient gold spangle their blue;
- Here is the pleasant place--
- And nothing wanting is, save She, alas.
- WILLIAM DRUMMOND OF HAWTHORNDEN.
- 3. TIME AND LOVE.
- When I have seen by Time's fell hand defaced
- The rich proud cost of out-worn buried age;
- When sometime lofty towers I see down-razed,
- And brass eternal slave to mortal rage.
- When I have seen the hungry ocean gain
- Advantage on the kingdom of the shore,
- And the firm soil win of the watery main,
- Increasing store with loss, and loss with store.
- When I have seen such interchange of state,
- Or state itself confounded to decay,
- Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate--
- That Time will come and take my Love away.
- --This thought is as a death, which cannot choose
- But weep to have that which it fears to lose.
- W. SHAKESPEARE.
- 4.
- Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,
- But sad mortality o'ersways their power,
- How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,
- Whose action is no stronger than a flower?
- O how shall summer's honey breath hold out,
- Against the wreckful siege of battering days,
- When rocks impregnable are not so stout,
- Nor gates of steel so strong but time decays?
- O fearful meditation, where, alack!
- Shall Time's best jewel from Time's chest lie hid?
- Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back,
- Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid?
- O! none, unless this miracle have might,
- That in black ink my love may still shine bright.
- W. SHAKESPEARE.
- 5. THE PASSIONATE SHEPHERD TO HIS LOVE.
- Come live with me and be my Love,
- And we will all the pleasures prove
- That hills and valleys, dale and field,
- And all the craggy mountains yield.
- There will we sit upon the rocks
- And see the shepherds feed their flocks
- By shallow rivers, to whose falls
- Melodious birds sing madrigals.
- There will I make thee beds of roses
- And a thousand fragrant posies,
- A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
- Embroider'd all with leaves of myrtle.
- A gown made of the finest wool,
- Which from our pretty lambs we pull,
- Fair-lined slippers for the cold,
- With buckles of the purest gold.
- A belt of straw and ivy-buds
- With coral clasps and amber studs:
- And if these pleasures may thee move,
- Come live with me and be my Love.
- Thy silver dishes for thy meat
- As precious as the gods do eat,
- Shall on an ivory table be
- Prepared each day for thee and me.
- The shepherd swains shall dance and sing
- For thy delight each May-morning:
- If these delights thy mind may move,
- Then live with me and be my Love.
- C. MARLOWE.
- 6. A MADRIGAL.
- Crabbed Age and Youth
- Cannot live together:
- Youth is full of pleasance,
- Age is full of care;
- Youth like summer morn,
- Age like winter weather;
- Youth like summer brave,
- Age like winter bare:
- Youth is full of sport,
- Age's breath is short,
- Youth is nimble, Age is lame:
- Youth is hot and bold,
- Age is weak and cold;
- Youth is wild, and Age is tame:--
- Age, I do abhor thee,
- Youth, I do adore thee;
- O! my Love, my Love is young!
- Age, I do defy thee--
- O, sweet shepherd, hie thee,
- For methinks thou stay'st too long.
- W. SHAKESPEARE.
- 7.
- Under the greenwood tree
- Who loves to lie with me,
- And tune his merry note
- Unto the sweet bird's throat--
- Come hither, come hither, come hither!
- Here shall we see
- No enemy
- But winter and rough weather.
- Who doth ambition shun
- And loves to live i' the sun,
- Seeking the food he eats
- And pleased with what he gets--
- Come hither, come hither, come hither!
- Here shall he see
- No enemy
- But winter and rough weather.
- W. SHAKESPEARE.
- 8.
- It was a lover and his lass
- With a hey, and a ho, and a hey-nonino!
- That o'er the green cornfield did pass,
- In the spring time, the only pretty ring time,
- When birds do sing hey ding a ding:
- Sweet lovers love the Spring.
- Between the acres of the rye
- These pretty country folks would lie:
- This carol they began that hour,
- How that life was but a flower:
- And therefore take the present time
- With a hey, and a ho, and a hey-nonino!
- For love is crownéd with the prime
- In spring time, the only pretty ring time,
- When birds do sing, hey ding a ding;
- Sweet lovers love the Spring.
- W. SHAKESPEARE.
- 9. PRESENT IN ABSENCE.
- Absence, hear thou my protestation
- Against thy strength,
- Distance, and length:
- Do what thou canst for alteration:
- For hearts of truest mettle
- Absence doth join, and Time doth settle.
- Who loves a mistress of such quality,
- He soon hath found
- Affection's ground
- Beyond time, place, and all mortality.
- To hearts that cannot vary
- Absence is Presence, Time doth tarry.
- By absence this good means I gain,
- That I can catch her,
- Where none can watch her,
- In some close corner of my brain:
- There I embrace and kiss her,
- And so I both enjoy and miss her.
- ANON.
- 10. ABSENCE.
- Being your slave what should I do but tend
- Upon the hours and times of your desire?
- I have no precious time at all to spend,
- Nor services to do, till you require:
- Nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour
- Whilst I, my sovereign, watch the clock for you,
- Nor think the bitterness of absence sour
- When you have bid your servant once adieu:
- Nor dare I question with my jealous thought
- Where you may be, or your affairs suppose,
- But like a sad slave, stay and think of nought
- Save where you are, how happy you make those;--
- So true a fool is love, that in your will,
- Though you do any thing, he thinks no ill.
- W. SHAKESPEARE.
- 11.
- How like a winter hath my absence been
- From Thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year!
- What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen,
- What old December's bareness everywhere!
- And yet this time removed was summer's time:
- The teeming autumn, big with rich increase,
- Bearing the wanton burden of the prime
- Like widow'd wombs after their lords' decease:
- Yet this abundant issue seem'd to me
- But hope of orphans, and unfather'd fruit;
- For summer and his pleasures wait on thee,
- And, thou away, the very birds are mute;
- Or if they sing, 'tis with so dull a cheer,
- That leaves look pale, dreading the winter's near.
- W. SHAKESPEARE.
- 12. A CONSOLATION.
- When in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes
- I all alone beweep my outcast state,
- And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
- And look upon myself, and curse my fate;
- Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
- Featured like him, like him with friends possest,
- Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,
- With what I most enjoy contented least;
- Yet in these thoughts my self almost despising,
- Haply I think on Thee--and then my state,
- Like to the lark at break of day arising
- From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;
- For thy sweet love remember'd, such wealth brings
- That then I scorn to change my state with kings.
- W. SHAKESPEARE.
- 13. THE UNCHANGEABLE.
- O never say that I was false of heart,
- Though absence seem'd my flame to qualify:
- As easy might I from my self depart
- As from my soul which in thy breast doth lie;
- That is my home of love, if I have ranged,
- Like him that travels, I return again,
- Just to the time, not with the time exchanged,
- So that myself bring water for my stain.
- Never believe, though in my nature reign'd
- All frailties that besiege all kinds of blood,
- That it could so preposterously be stain'd
- To leave for nothing all thy sum of good:
- For nothing this wide universe I call,
- Save thou, my rose, in it thou art my all.
- W. SHAKESPEARE.
- 14.
- To me, fair Friend, you never can be old,
- For as you were when first your eye I eyed
- Such seems your beauty still. Three winters cold
- Have from the forests shook three summers' pride;
- Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turn'd,
- In process of the seasons have I seen,
- Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burn'd,
- Since first I saw you fresh which yet are green.
- Ah! yet doth beauty, like a dial hand,
- Steal from his figure, and no pace perceived;
- So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand,
- Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceived:
- For fear of which, hear this, thou age unbred,--
- Ere you were born, was beauty's summer dead.
- W. SHAKESPEARE.
- 15. DIAPHENIA.
- Diaphenia like the daffadowndilly,
- White as the sun, fair as the lily,
- Heigh ho, how do I love thee!
- I do love thee as my lambs
- Are belovéd of their dams;
- How blest were I if thou would'st prove me.
- Diaphenia like the spreading roses,
- That in thy sweets all sweets encloses,
- Fair sweet, how do I love thee!
- I do love thee as each flower
- Loves the sun's life-giving power;
- For dead, thy breath to life might move me.
- Diaphenia like to all things blesséd
- When all thy praises are expresséd,
- Dear joy, how do I love thee!
- As the birds do love the spring,
- Or the bees their careful king:
- Then in requite, sweet virgin, love me!
- H. CONSTABLE.
- 16. ROSALINE.
- Like to the clear in highest sphere
- Where all imperial glory shines,
- Of selfsame colour is her hair
- Whether unfolded, or in twines:
- Heigh ho, fair Rosaline!
- Her eyes are sapphires set in snow,
- Resembling heaven by every wink;
- The Gods do fear whenas they glow,
- And I do tremble when I think
- Heigh ho, would she were mine!
- Her cheeks are like the blushing cloud
- That beautifies Aurora's face,
- Or like the silver crimson shroud
- That Phoebus' smiling looks doth grace;
- Heigh ho, fair Rosaline!
- Her lips are like two budded roses
- Whom ranks of lilies neighbour nigh,
- Within which bounds she balm encloses
- Apt to entice a deity:
- Heigh ho, would she were mine!
- Her neck like to a stately tower
- Where Love himself imprison'd lies,
- To watch for glances every hour
- From her divine and sacred eyes:
- Heigh ho, fair Rosaline!
- Her paps are centres of delight,
- Her breasts are orbs of heavenly frame,
- Where Nature moulds the dew of light
- To feed perfection with the same:
- Heigh ho, would she were mine!
- With orient pearl, with ruby red,
- With marble white, with sapphire blue,
- Her body every way is fed,
- Yet soft in touch and sweet in view:
- Heigh ho, fair Rosaline!
- Nature herself her shape admires;
- The Gods are wounded in her sight;
- And Love forsakes his heavenly fires
- And at her eyes his brand doth light:
- Heigh ho, would she were mine!
- Then muse not, Nymphs, though I bemoan
- The absence of fair Rosaline,
- Since for a fair there's fairer none,
- Nor for her virtues so divine:
- Heigh ho, fair Rosaline!
- Heigh ho, my heart! would God that she were mine!
- T. LODGE.
- 17. COLIN.
- Beauty sat bathing by a spring
- Where fairest shades did hide her;
- The winds blew calm, the birds did sing,
- The cool streams ran beside her.
- My wanton thoughts enticed mine eye
- To see what was forbidden:
- But better memory said, fie!
- So vain desire was chidden:--
- Hey nonny nonny O!
- Hey nonny nonny!
- Into a slumber then I fell,
- When fond imagination
- Seeméd to see, but could not tell
- Her feature or her fashion.
- But ev'n as babes in dreams do smile,
- And sometimes fall a-weeping,
- So I awaked as wise this while
- As when I fell a-sleeping:--
- Hey nonny nonny O!
- Hey nonny nonny!
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