Summeris y-comen in!Loud sing cuckoo!Groweth seed and bloweth mead,And springeth the wood new.Sing cuckoo! cuckoo!
Ewe bleateth after lamb,Loweth cow after calf;Bullock starteth, buck verteth;Merry sing cuckoo!Cuckoo! cuckoo!Nor cease thou ever now.Sing cuckoo now!Sing cuckoo!
Evensuch is time, that takes in trustOur youth, our joys, our all we have,And pays us but with earth and dust;Who, in the dark and silent grave,When we have wandered all our ways,Shuts up the story of our days;But from this earth, this grave, this dust,My God shall raise me up, I trust!
Mostglorious Lord of life! that on this dayDidst make thy triumph over death and sin;And, having harrowed hell, didst bring awayCaptivity then captive, us to win:This glorious day, dear Lord, with joy begin,And grant that we, for whom thou diddest die,Being with thy dear blood clean washed from sin,May live for ever in felicity!
And that thy love we weighing worthily,May likewise love thee for the same again;And for thy sake, that all like dear didst buy,With love may one another entertain.So let us love, dear Love, like as we ought;Love is the lesson which the Lord us taught.
FreshSpring, the herald of love’s mighty king,In whose coat-armour richly are displayedAll sorts of flowers, the which on earth do springIn goodly colours gloriously arrayed:Go to my love, where she is careless laid,Yet in her winter bower not well awake;Tell her the joyous time will not be stayed,Unless she do him by the forelock take;
Bid her therefore herself soon ready make,To wait on Love amongst his lovely crew;Where every one that misseth there her makeShall be by him amerced with penance due.Make haste therefore, sweet love, whilst it is prime,For none can call again the passed time.
Likeas a ship, that through the ocean wide,By conduct of some star doth make her way,When, as a storm hath dimmed her trusty guide,Out of her course doth wander far astray!So I, whose star, that wont with her bright rayMe to direct, with clouds is overcast,Do wander now, in darkness and dismay,Through hidden perils round about me placed;
Yet hope I well that, when this storm is past,My Helice, the loadstar of my life,Will shine again, and look on me at last,With lovely light to clear my cloudy grief:Till then I wander, careful, comfortless,In secret sorrow and sad pensiveness.
Yelearned sisters, which have oftentimesBeen to me aiding, others to adorn,Whom ye thought worthy of your graceful rhymes,That even the greatest did not greatly scornTo hear their names sung in your simple lays,But joyed in their praise;And when ye list your own mishaps to mourn,Which death, or love, or fortune’s wreck did raise,Your string could soon to sadder tenor turn,And teach the woods and waters to lamentYour doleful dreariment:Now lay those sorrowful complaints aside;And, having all your heads with garlands crowned,Help me mine own love’s praises to resound;Ne let the same of any be envied:So Orpheus did for his own bride!So I unto myself alone will sing;The woods shall to me answer, and my echo ring.
Early, before the world’s light-giving lampHis golden beam upon the hills doth spread,Having dispersed the night’s uncheerful damp,Do ye awake; and, with fresh lusty-head,Go to the bower of my beloved love,My truest turtle dove;Bid her awake; for Hymen is awake,And long since ready forth his mask to move,With his bright tead that names with many a flake,And many a bachelor to wait on him,In their fresh garments trim.Bid her awake therefore, and soon her dight,For lo! the wished day is come at last,That shall, for all the pains and sorrows past,Pay to her usury of long delight:And, whilst she doth her dight,Do ye to her of joy and solace sing,That all the woods may answer, and your echo ring.
Bring with you all the Nymphs that you can hearBoth of the rivers and the forests green,And of the sea that neighbours to her near:All with gay garlands goodly well beseen.And let them also with them bring in handAnother gay garland,For my fair love, of lilies and of roses,Bound truelove wise, with a blue silk riband.And let them make great store of bridal posies,And let them eke bring store of other flowers,To deck the bridal bowers.And let the ground whereas her foot shall tread,For fear the stones her tender foot should wrong,Be strewed with fragrant flowers all along,And diapred like the discoloured mead.Which done, do at her chamber door await,For she will waken straight;The whiles do ye this song unto her sing,The woods shall to you answer, and your echo ring.
Ye Nymphs of Mulla, which with careful heedThe silver scaly trouts do tend full well,And greedy pikes which use therein to feed(Those trouts and pikes all others do excel);And ye likewise, which keep the rushy lake,Where none do fishes take;Bind up the locks the which hang scattered light,And in his waters, which your mirror make,Behold your faces as the crystal bright,That when you come whereas my love doth lie,No blemish she may spy.And eke, ye lightfoot maids, which keep the door,That on the hoary mountain used to tower;And the wild wolves, which seek them to devour,With your steel darts do chase from coming near;Be also present here,To help to deck her, and to help to sing,That all the woods may answer, and your echo ring.
Wake now, my love, awake! for it is time:The Rosy Morn long since left Tithon’s bed,All ready to her silver coach to climb;And Phœbus ’gins to show his glorious head.Hark! how the cheerful birds do chant their laysAnd carol of love’s praise.The merry Lark her matins sings aloft;The Thrush replies; the Mavis descant plays:The Ouzel shrills; the Ruddock warbles soft;So goodly all agree, with sweet consent,To this day’s merriment.Ah! my dear love, why do ye sleep thus long,When meeter were that ye should now awake,T’ await the coming of your joyous make,And hearken to the birds’ love-learned song,The dewy leaves among?For they of joy and pleasance to you sing,That all the woods them answer, and their echo ring.
My love is now awake out of her dreams,And her fair eyes, like stars that dimmed wereWith darksome cloud, now show their goodly beamsMore bright than Hesperus his head doth rear.Come now, ye damsels, daughters of delight,Help quickly her to dight!But first come, ye fair hours, which were begot,In Jove’s sweet paradise, of Day and Night;Which do the seasons of the year allot,And all, that ever in this world is fair,Do make and still repair:And ye three handmaids of the Cyprian Queen,The which do still adorn her beauty’s pride,Help to adorn my beautifullest bride:And, as ye her array, still throw betweenSome graces to be seen;And, as ye use to Venus, to her sing,The whiles the woods shall answer, and your echo ring.
Now is my love all ready forth to come:Let all the virgins therefore well await:And ye, fresh boys, that tend upon her groom,Prepare yourselves, for he is coming straight.Set all your things in seemly good array,Fit for so joyful day:The joyfullest day that ever Sun did see.Fair Sun! show forth thy favourable ray,And let thy life-full heat not fervent be,For fear of burning her sunshiny face,Her beauty to disgrace.O fairest Phœbus! father of the Muse!If ever I did honour thee aright,Or sing the thing that mote thy mind delight,Do not thy servant’s simple boon refuse;But let this day, let this one day, be mine;Let all the rest be thine.Then I thy sovereign praises loud will sing,That all the woods shall answer, and their echo ring.
Hark! how the minstrels ’gin to shrill aloudTheir merry Music that resounds from far,The pipe, the tabor, and the trembling crowd,That well agree withouten breach or jar.But, most of all, the damsels do delightWhen they their timbrels smite,And thereunto do dance and carol sweet,That all the senses they do ravish quite;The whiles the boys run up and down the street,Crying aloud with strong confused noise,As if it were one voice,Hymen! iö Hymen! Hymen, they do shout;That even to the heavens their shouting shrillDoth reach, and all the firmament doth fill;To which the people standing all about,As in approvance, do thereto applaud,And loud advance her laud;And evermore they Hymen, Hymen! sing,That all the woods them answer, and their echo ring.
Lo! where she comes along with portly pace,Like Phœbe, from her chamber of the East,Arising forth to run her mighty race,Clad all in white, that seems a virgin best.So well it her beseems, that ye would weenSome angel she had been.Her long loose yellow locks like golden wire,Sprinkled with pearl, and pearling flowers atween,Do like a golden mantle her attire;And, being crowned with a garland green,Seem like some maiden Queen.Her modest eyes, abashed to beholdSo many gazers as on her do stare,Upon the lowly ground affixed are;Ne dare lift up her countenance too bold,But blush to hear her praises sung so loud,So far from being proud.Nathless, do ye still loud her praises sing,That all the woods may answer, and your echo ring.
Tell me, ye merchants’ daughters, did ye seeSo fair a creature in your town before;So sweet, so lovely, and so mild as she,Adorned with beauty’s grace and virtue’s store?Her goodly eyes like sapphires shining bright,Her forehead ivory white,Her cheeks like apples which the sun hath ruddied,Her lips like cherries charming men to bite,Her breast like to a bowl of cream uncrudded,Her paps like lilies budded,Her snowy neck like to a marble tower;And all her body like a palace fair,Ascending up, with many a stately stair,To honour’s seat and chastity’s sweet bower.Why stand ye still, ye virgins, in amaze,Upon her so to gaze,Whiles ye forget your former lay to sing,To which the woods did answer, and your echo ring?
But if ye saw that which no eyes can see,The inward beauty of her lively spright,Garnished with heavenly gifts of high degree,Much more then would ye wonder at that sight,And stand astonished like to those which readMedusa’s mazeful head.There dwells sweet love, and constant chastity,Unspotted faith, and comely womanhood,Regard of honour, and mild modesty;There virtue reigns as Queen in royal throne,And giveth laws alone,The which the base affections do obey,And yield their services unto her will;Ne thought of thing uncomely ever mayThereto approach to tempt her mind to ill.Had ye once seen these her celestial treasuresAnd unrevealed pleasures,Then would ye wonder, and her praises sing,That all the woods should answer, and your echo ring.
Open the temple gates unto my love,Open them wide that she may enter in,And all the posts adorn as doth behove,And all the pillars deck with garlands trim,For to receive this Saint with honour due,That cometh in to you.With trembling steps, and humble reverence,She cometh in before th’ Almighty’s view;Of her ye virgins learn obedience,When so ye come into those holy places,To humble your proud faces:Bring her up to th’ high altar, that she mayThe sacred ceremonies there partake,The which do endless matrimony make;And let the roaring organs loudly playThe praises of the Lord in lively notes;The whiles, with hollow throats,The choristers the joyous anthem sing,That all the woods may answer, and their echo ring.
Behold, whiles she before the altar stands,Hearing the holy priest that to her speaks,And blesseth her with his two happy hands,How the red roses flush up in her cheeks,And the pure snow with goodly vermeil stain,Lake crimson dyed in grain:That even th’ Angels, which continuallyAbout the sacred altar do remain,Forget their service and about her fly,Oft peeping in her face, that seems more fair,The more they on it stare.But her sad eyes, still fastened on the ground,Are governed with goodly modesty,That suffers not one look to glance awry,Which may let in a little thought unsound.Why blush ye, love, to give to me your hand,The pledge of all our band?Sing, ye sweet Angels, Alleluja sing,That all the woods may answer, and your echo ring.
Now all is done: bring home the Bride again;Bring home the triumph of our victory:Bring home with you the glory of her gain,With joyance bring her and with jollity.Never had man more joyful day than this,Whom heaven would heap with bliss.Make feast therefore now all this live-long day;This day for ever to me holy is.Pour out the wine without restraint or stay,Pour not by cups, but by the bellyful!Pour out to all that wull,And sprinkle all the posts and walls with wine,That they may sweat, and drunken be withal.Crown ye God Bacchus with a coronal,And Hymen also crown with wreaths of vine;And let the Graces dance unto the rest,For they can do it best:The whiles the maidens do their carol sing,To which the woods shall answer, and their echo ring.
Ring ye the bells, ye young men of the town,And leave your wonted labours for this day:This day is holy; do ye write it down,That ye for ever it remember may.This day the sun is in his chiefest height,With Barnaby the bright,From whence declining daily by degrees,He somewhat loseth of his heat and light,When once the Crab behind his back he sees.But for this time it ill ordained was,To choose the longest day in all the year,And shortest night, when longest fitter were:Yet never day so long, but late would pass.Ring ye the bells, to make it wear away,And bonfires make all day;And dance about them, and about them sing,That all the woods may answer, and your echo ring!
Ah! when will this long weary day have end,And lend me leave to come unto my love?How slowly do the hours their numbers spend;How slowly does sad Time his feathers move!Haste thee, O fairest Planet, to thy home,Within the Western foam:Thy tired steeds long since have need of rest.Long though it be, at last I see it gloom,And the bright evening-star with golden crestAppear out of the East,Fair child of beauty! glorious lamp of love!That all the host of heaven in ranks dost lead,And guidest lovers through the night’s sad dread,How cheerfully thou lookest from above,And seem’st to laugh atween thy twinkling light,As joying in the sightOf these glad many, which for joy do sing,That all the woods them answer, and their echo ring!
Now cease, ye damsels, your delights forepast;Enough it is that all the day was yours:Now day is done, and night is nighing fast,Now bring the Bride into the bridal bowers.The night is come; now soon her disarray,And in her bed her lay;Lay her in lilies and in violets,And silken curtains over her display,And odoured sheets, and arras coverlets.Behold how goodly my fair love does lie,In proud humility!Like unto Maia, when as Jove her tookIn Tempe, lying on the flowery grass,’Twixt sleep and wake, after she weary was,With bathing in the Acidalian brook.Now it is night, ye damsels may be gone,And leave my love alone,And leave likewise your former lay to sing:The woods no more shall answer, nor your echo ring.
Now welcome, night! thou night so long expected,That long day’s labour dost at last defray,And all my cares, which cruel Love collected,Hast summed in one, and cancelled for aye:Spread thy broad wing over my love and me,That no man may us see;And in thy sable mantle us enwrap,From fear of peril and foul horror free.Let no false treason seek us to entrap,Nor any dread disquiet once annoyThe safety of our joy;But let the night be calm, and quietsome,Without tempestuous storms or sad affray:Like as when Jove with fair Alcmena lay,When he begot the great Tirynthian groom:Or like as when he with thy self did lieAnd begot Majesty.And let the maids and young men cease to sing;Ne let the woods them answer, nor their echo ring.
Let no lamenting cries nor doleful tearsBe heard all night within, nor yet without;Ne let false whispers, breeding hidden fears,Break gentle sleep with misconceived doubt.Let no deluding dreams, nor dreadful sights,Make sudden sad affrights;Ne let house-fires, nor lightning’s helpless harms,Ne let the Pouke, nor other evil sprights,Ne let mischievous witches with their charms,Ne let hobgoblins, names whose sense we see not,Fray us with things that be not:Let not the shriek-owl nor the stork be heard,Nor the night raven, that still deadly yells;Nor damned ghosts, called up with mighty spells,Nor grisly vultures, make us once afeard:Ne let the unpleasant choir of frogs still croakingMake us to wish their choking!Let none of these their dreary accents sing;Ne let the woods them answer, nor their echo ring.
But let still Silence true night-watches keep,That sacred Peace may in assurance reign,And timely Sleep, when it is time to sleep,May pour his limbs forth on your pleasant plain;The whiles an hundred little winged loves,Like divers-feathered doves,Shall fly and flutter round about your bed,And in the secret dark, that none reproves,Their pretty stealths shall work, and snares shall spreadTo filch away sweet snatches of delight,Concealed through covert night.Ye sons of Venus, play your sports at will!For greedy Pleasure, careless of your toys,Thinks more upon her paradise of joys,Then what ye do, albeit good or ill!All night therefore attend your merry play,For it will soon be day:Now none doth hinder you, that say or sing;Ne will the woods now answer, nor your echo ring.
Who is the same, which at my window peeps,Or whose is that fair face that shines so bright?Is it not Cynthia, she that never sleeps,But walks about high heaven all the night?O! fairest goddess, do thou not envyMy love with me to spy:For thou likewise didst love, though now unthought,And for a fleece of wool, which privilyThe Latmian shepherd once unto thee brought,His pleasures with thee wrought!Therefore to us be favourable now;And sith of women’s labours thou hast charge,And generation goodly dost enlarge,Incline thy will to effect our wishful vow,And the chaste womb inform with timely seed,That may our comfort breed:Till which we cease our hopeful hap to sing;Ne let the woods us answer, nor our echo ring.
And thou, great Juno! which with awful mightThe laws of wedlock still dost patronize,And the religion of the faith first plightWith sacred rites hast taught to solemnize;And eke for comfort often called artOf women in their smart;Eternally bind thou this lovely band,And all thy blessings unto us impart.And thou, glad Genius! in whose gentle handThe bridal bower and genial bed remain,Without blemish or stain;And the sweet pleasures of their love’s delightWith secret aid dost succour and supply,Till they bring forth the fruitful progeny;Send us the timely fruit of this same night.And thou, fair Hebe! and thou, Hymen free!Grant that it may so be.Till which we cease your further praise to sing;Ne any woods shall answer, nor your echo ring.
And ye high heavens, the Temple of the Gods,In which a thousand torches flaming brightDo burn, that to us wretched earthly clodsIn dreadful darkness lend desired light;And all ye powers which in the same remain,More than we men can feign!Pour out your blessing on us plenteously,And happy influence upon us rain,That we may raise a large posterity,Which from the earth, which they may long possessWith lasting happiness,Up to your haughty palaces may mount;And, for the guerdon of their glorious merit,May heavenly tabernacles there inherit,Of blessed saints for to increase the count.So let us rest, sweet Love, in hope of this,And cease till then our timely joys to sing:The woods no more us answer, nor our echo ring!
Song!made in lieu of many ornaments,With which my Love should duly have been decked.Which cutting off through hasty accidents,Ye would not stay your due time to expect,But promised both to recompense;Be unto her a goodly ornament,And for short time an endless monument.
Whatbird so sings, yet does so wail?O, ’tis the ravished nightingale!‘Jug, jug, jug, jug, tereu,’ she cries,And still her woes at midnight rise.Brave prick-song! who is’t now we hear?None but the lark so shrill and clear;Now at heaven’s gate she claps her wings,The morn not waking till she sings.Hark, hark, with what a pretty throatPoor robin-redbreast tunes his note;Hark, how the jolly cuckoos sing!Cuckoo to welcome in the spring,Cuckoo to welcome in the spring!
Mytrue-love hath my heart, and I have his,By just exchange one for the other given:I hold his dear, and mine he cannot miss,There never was a better bargain driven:His heart in me keeps him and me in one,My heart in him his thoughts and senses guides:He loves my heart, for once it was his own,I cherish his because in me it bides:His heart his wound received from my sight;My heart was wounded with his wounded heart;For as from me on him his hurt did light,So still methought in me his hurt did smart:Both, equal hurt, in this change sought our bliss.My true-love hath my heart, and I have his.
Withhow sad steps, O Moon, thou climb’st the skies!How silently, and with how wan a face!What, may it be that e’en in heavenly placeThat busy archer his sharp arrows tries!Sure, if that long-with-love-acquainted eyesCan judge of love, thou feel’st a lover’s case;I read it in thy looks; thy languished grace,To me, that feel the like, thy state descries.Then, e’en of fellowship, O Moon, tell me,Is constant love deemed there but want of wit?Are beauties there as proud as here they be?Do they above love to be loved, and yetThose lovers scorn whom that love doth possess?Do they call virtue, there, ungratefulness?
Lovestill a boy and oft a wanton is,Schooled only by his mother’s tender eye;What wonder, then, if he his lesson miss,When for so soft a rod dear play he try?And yet my Star, because a sugared kissIn sport I sucked while she asleep did lie,Doth lower, nay chide, nay threat, for only this.—Sweet, it was saucy Love, not humble I!But no ’scuse serves; she makes her wrath appearIn Beauty’s throne; see now, who dares come nearThose scarlet judges, threatening bloody pain!O heavenly fool, thy most kiss-worthy faceAnger invests with such a lovely grace,That Anger’s self I needs must kiss again.
Alas! whence comes this change of looks? If IHave changed desert, let mine own conscience beA still-felt plague to self-condemning me,Let woe gripe on my heart, shame load mine eye;But if all faith, like spotless ermine, lieSafe in my soul, which only doth to thee,As his sole object of felicity,With wings of love in air of wonder fly,O ease your hand, treat not so hard your slave;In justice, pains come not till faults do call:Or if I needs, sweet Judge, must torments have,Use something else to chasten me withalThan those blest eyes, where all my hopes do dwell:No doom should make one’s heaven become his hell.
Come, Sleep! O Sleep, the certain knot of peace,The baiting-place of wit, the balm of woe,The poor man’s wealth, the prisoner’s release,The indifferent judge between the high and low;With shield of proof shield me from out the preaseOf those fierce darts Despair at me doth throw:O make in me those civil wars to cease;I will good tribute pay, if thou do so.Take thou of me smooth pillows, sweetest bed,A chamber deaf of noise and blind of light,A rosy garland and a weary head:And if these things, as being thine in right,Move not thy heavy grace, thou shalt in meLivelier than elsewhere Stella’s image see.
Latetired with woe, even ready for to pine,With rage of love, I called my love unkind;She in whose eyes love, though unfelt, doth shine,Sweet said that I true love in her should find.I joyed; but straight thus wat’red was my wine,That love she did, but loved a love not blind;Which would not let me, whom she loved, declineFrom nobler course, fit for my birth and mind:And therefore, by her love’s authority,Wiled me these tempests of vain love to fly,And anchor fast myself on virtue’s shore.Alas, if this the only metal beOf love new-coined to help my beggary,Dear, love me not, that you may love me more.
Lovein my bosom, like a bee,Doth suck his sweet;Now with his wings he plays with me,Now with his feet.Within mines eyes he makes his nest,His bed amidst my tender breast;My kisses are his daily feast,And yet he robs me of my rest:Ah! wanton, will ye?
And if I sleep, then percheth heWith pretty flight,And makes his pillow of my kneeThe livelong night.Strike I my lute, he tunes the string;He music plays if so I sing:He lends me every lovely thing,Yet cruel he my heart doth sting:Whist, wanton, will ye?
Else I with roses every dayWill whip you hence,And bind you, when you long to play,For your offence;I’ll shut my eyes to keep you in,I’ll make you fast it for your sin,I’ll count your power not worth a pin:Alas! what hereby shall I win,If he gainsay me?
What if I beat the wanton boyWith many a rod?He will repay me with annoy,Because a god.Then sit thou safely on my knee,And let thy bower my bosom be;Lurk in mine eyes, I like of thee!O Cupid! so thou pity me,Spare not, but play thee!
Liketo the clear in highest sphereWhere all imperial glory shines,Of selfsame colour is her hairWhether 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 cloudThat beautifies Aurora’s face,Or like the silver crimson shroudThat Phœbus’ smiling looks doth grace;Heigh ho, fair Rosaline!Her lips are like two budded rosesWhom ranks of lilies neighbour nigh,Within which bounds she balm enclosesApt to entice a deity:Heigh ho, would she were mine!
Her neck is like a stately towerWhere Love himself imprisoned lies,To watch for glances every hourFrom 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 lightTo feed perfection with the same:Heigh ho, would she were mine!
With orient pearl, with ruby red,With marble white, with sapphire blueHer 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 firesAnd at her eyes his brand doth light:Heigh ho, would she were mine!
Then muse not, Nymphs, though I bemoanThe 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!
Oshadyvale, O fair enriched meads,O sacred woods, sweet fields, and rising mountains;O painted flowers, green herbs where Flora treads,Refreshed by wanton winds and watery fountains!
O all ye winged choristers of wood,That perched aloft, your former pains report;And straight again recount with pleasant moodYour present joys in sweet and seemly sort!
O all you creatures whosoever thriveOn mother earth, in seas, by air, by fire;More blest are you than I here under sun!Love dies in me, whenas he doth reviveIn you; I perish under Beauty’s ire,Where after storms, winds, frosts, your life is won.
Isawmy Lady weep,And Sorrow proud to be advanced soIn those fair eyes where all perfections keep.Her face was full of woe,But such a woe (believe me) as wins more heartsThan Mirth can do with her enticing parts.
Sorrow was there made fair,And Passion, wise; Tears, a delightful thing;Silence, beyond all speech, a wisdom rare:She made her sighs to sing,And all things with so sweet a sadness moveAs made my heart at once both grieve and love.
O fairer than aught elseThe world can show, leave off in time to grieve!Enough, enough: your joyful look excels:Tears kill the heart, believe.O strive not to be excellent in woe,Which only breeds your beauty’s overthrow.
Hisgolden locks time hath to silver turned;O time too swift! O swiftness never ceasing!His youth ’gainst age, and age at time, hath spurned,But spurned in vain; youth waneth by increasing:Beauty, strength, youth, are flowers but fading seen;Duty, faith, love, are roots and ever green.
His helmet now shall make an hive for bees,And lovers’ sonnets turn to holy psalms;A man-at-arms must now serve on his knees,And feed on prayers, that are old age’s alms:But though from court to cottage he depart,His saint is sure of his unspotted heart.
And when he saddest sits in homely cell,He’ll teach his swains this carol for a song,—‘Blessed be the hearts that wish my sovereign well,Cursed be the souls that think her any wrong!’Goddess, allow this aged man his rightTo be your beadsman now that was your knight.
Ah, were she pitiful as she is fair,Or but as mild as she is seeming so,Then were my hopes greater than my despair,Then all the world were heaven, nothing woe!Ah, were her heart relenting as her hand,That seems to melt even with the mildest touch,Then knew I where to seat me in a landUnder wide heavens, but yet I know not such.So as she shows, she seems the budding rose,Yet sweeter far than is an earthly flower,Sovereign of beauty, like the spray she grows,Compassed she is with thorns and cankered flower;Yet were she willing to be plucked and worn,She would be gathered, though she grew on thorn.
Ah, when she sings, all music else be still,For none must be compared to her note;Ne’er breathed such glee from Philomela’s bill,Nor from the morning-singer’s swelling throat.Ah, when she riseth from her blissful bed,She comforts all the world, as doth the sun,And at her sight the night’s foul vapour’s fled;When she is set, the gladsome day is done.O glorious sun, imagine me thy west,Shine in mine arms, and set thou in my breast!
Weepnot, my wanton, smile upon my knee,When thou art old there’s grief enough for thee.Mother’s wag, pretty boy,Father’s sorrow, father’s joy;When thy father first did seeSuch a boy by him and me,He was glad, I was woe,Fortune changed made him so,When he left his pretty boyLast his sorrow, first his joy.
Weep not, my wanton, smile upon my knee,When thou art old, there’s grief enough for thee.Streaming tears that never stint,Like pearl drops from a flint,Fell by course from his eyes,That one another’s place supplies;Thus he grieved in every part,Tears of blood fell from his heart,When he left his pretty boy,Father’s sorrow, father’s joy.
Weep not, my wanton, smile upon my knee,When thou art old, there’s grief enough for thee.The wanton smiled, father wept,Mother cried, baby leapt;More he crowed, more we cried,Nature could not sorrow hide:He must go, he must kissChild and mother, baby bless,For he left his pretty boy,Father’s sorrow, father’s joy.Weep not, my wanton, smile upon my knee,When thou art old, there’s grief enough for thee.
Comelive with me and be my Love,And we will all the pleasures proveThat hills and valleys, dale and field,And all the craggy mountains yield.
There will we sit upon the rocksAnd see the shepherds feed their flocks,By shallow rivers, to whose fallsMelodious birds sing madrigals.
There will I make thee beds of rosesAnd a thousand fragrant posies,A cap of flowers, and a kirtleEmbroidered 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 budsWith 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 meatAs precious as the gods do eat,Shall on an ivory table bePrepared each day for thee and me.
The shepherd swains shall dance and singFor thy delight each May-morning;If these delights thy mind may move,Then live with me and be my Love.
Care-charmerSleep, son of the sable Night,Brother to Death, in silent darkness born,Relieve my languish, and restore the light;With dark forgetting of my care return.And let the day be time enough to mournThe shipwreck of my ill-adventured youth:Let waking eyes suffice to wail their scorn,Without the torment of the night’s untruth.Cease, dreams, the images of day-desires,To model forth the passions of the morrow;Never let rising Sun approve you liars,To add more grief to aggravate my sorrow:Still let me sleep, embracing clouds in vain,And never wake to feel the day’s disdain.
Myspotless love hovers with purest wingsAbout the temple of the proudest frame,Where blaze those lights, fairest of earthly things,Which clear our clouded world with brightest flame.My ambitious thoughts, confined in her face,Affect no honour but what she can give;My hopes do rest in limits of her grace;I weigh no comfort unless she relieve.For she that can my heart imparadise,Holds in her fairest hand what dearest is,My fortune’s wheel’s the circle of her eyes,Whose rolling grace deign once a turn of bliss!All my life’s sweet consists in her alone;So much I love the most Unloving One.
Sincethere’s no help, come let us kiss and part,—Nay I have done, you get no more of me;And I am glad, yea, glad with all my heart,That thus so cleanly I myself can free;Shake hands for ever, cancel all our vows,And when we meet at any time again,Be it not seen in either of our brows,That we one jot of former love retain.Now at the last gasp of love’s latest breath,When, his pulse failing, passion speechless lies,When faith is kneeling by his bed of death,And innocence is closing up his eyes,—Now if thou would’st, when all have given him over,From death to life thou might’st him yet recover!
WereI as base as is the lowly plain,And you, my Love, as high as heaven above,Yet should the thoughts of me your humble swainAscend to heaven, in honour of my Love.Were I as high as heaven above the plain,And you, my Love, as humble and as lowAs are the deepest bottoms of the main,Wheresoe’er you were, with you my love should go.Were you the earth, dear Love, and I the skies,My love should shine on you like to the sun,And look upon you with ten thousand eyesTill heaven waxed blind, and till the world were done.Wheresoe’er I am, below, or else above you,Wheresoe’er you are, my heart shall truly love you.
PoorSoul, the centre of my sinful earth,[Foiled by] those rebel powers that thee array,Why dost thou pine within, and suffer dearth,Painting thy outward walls so costly gay?Why so large cost, having so short a lease,Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend?Shall worms, inheritors of this excess,Eat up thy charge? is this thy body’s end?Then, Soul, live thou upon thy servant’s loss,And let that pine to aggravate thy store;Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross;Within be fed, without be rich no more:—So shalt thou feed on death, that feeds on men,And death once dead, there’s no more dying then.
Ome! what eyes hath Love put in my headWhich have no correspondence with true sight;Or if they have, where is my judgment fledThat censures falsely what they see aright?If that be fair whereon my false eyes dote,What means the world to say it is not so?If it be not, then love doth well denoteLove’s eye is not so true as all men’s: No,How can it? O how can love’s eye be true,That is so vexed with watching and with tears?No marvel then though I mistake my view:The sun itself sees not till heaven clears.O cunning Love! with tears thou keep’st me blind,Lest eyes well-seeing thy foul faults should find!
ShallI compare thee to a summer’s day?Thou art more lovely and more temperate:Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines,And often is his gold complexion dimmed;And every fair from fair sometime declines,By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimmed.But thy eternal summer shall not fadeNor lose possession of that fair thou owest;Nor shall Death brag thou wanderest in his shade,When in eternal lines to time thou growest:—So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
Whenin the chronicle of wasted timeI see descriptions of the fairest wights,And beauty making beautiful old rhymeIn praise of ladies dead, and lovely knights;Then in the blazon of sweet beauty’s bestOf hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow,I see their antique pen would have exprestEv’n such a beauty as you master now,So all their praises are but propheciesOf this our time, all, you prefiguring;And for they looked but with divining eyes,They had not skill enough your worth to sing:For we, which now behold these present days,Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise.
Thattime of year thou may’st in me beholdWhen yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hangUpon those boughs which shake against the cold,Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang:In me thou see’st the twilight of such dayAs after sunset fadeth in the west,Which by and by black night doth take away,Death’s second self, that seals up all in rest:In me thou see’st the glowing of such fireThat on the ashes of his youth doth lie,As the death-bed whereon it must expire,Consumed with that which it was nourished by:This thou perceiv’st, which makes thy love more strong,To love that well which thou must leave ere long.
Howlike a winter hath my absence beenFrom 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 primeLike widowed wombs after their lord’s decease:Yet this abundant issue seemed to meBut hope of orphans, and unfathered 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.
Beingyour slave, what should I do but tendUpon the hours and times of your desire?I have no precious time at all to spendNor services to do, till you require:Nor dare I chide the world-without-end-hourWhilst I, my sovereign, watch the clock for you,Nor think the bitterness of absence sourWhen you have bid your servant once adieu:Nor dare I question with my jealous thoughtWhere you may be, or your affairs suppose,But like a sad slave, stay and think of noughtSave, where you are how happy you make those;—So true a fool is love, that in your willThough you do anything, he thinks no ill.
Whenin disgrace with fortune and men’s eyesI 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 possessed,Desiring this man’s heart, and that man’s scope,With what I most enjoy contented least;Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,Haply I think on Thee—and then my state,Like to the lark at break of day arisingFrom sullen earth sings hymns at heaven’s gate;For thy sweet love remembered such wealth bringsThat then I scorn to change my state with kings.
Theythat have power to hurt, and will do none,That do not do the thing they most do show,Who, moving others, are themselves as stone,Unmoved, cold, and to temptation slow,—They rightly do inherit heaven’s graces,And husband nature’s riches from expense;They are the lords and owners of their faces,Others, but stewards of their excellence.The summer’s flower is to the summer sweet,Though to itself it only live and die;But if that flower with base infection meet,The basest weed outbraves his dignity:For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds;Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.
Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing,And like enough thou know’st thy estimate:The charter of thy worth gives thee releasing;My bonds in thee are all determinate.For how do I hold thee but by thy granting?And for that riches where is my deserving?The cause of this fair gift in me is wanting,And so my patent back again is swerving.Thyself thou gav’st, thy own worth then not knowing,Or me, to whom thou gav’st it, else mistaking;So thy great gift, upon misprision growing,Comes home again, on better judgment making.Thus have I had thee as a dream doth flatter;In sleep, a king; but waking, no such matter.
Whento the sessions of sweet silent thoughtI summon up remembrance of things past,I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,And with old woes new wail my dear time’s waste;Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,For precious friends hid in death’s dateless night,And weep afresh love’s long-since-cancelled woe,And moan the expense of many a vanished sight.Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,And heavily from woe to woe tell o’erThe sad account of fore-bemoanèd moan,Which I new pay as if not paid before:But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,All losses are restored, and sorrows end.
Didnot the heavenly rhetoric of thine eye’Gainst whom the world could not hold argument,Persuade my heart to this false perjury?Vows for thee broke deserve not punishment.A woman I forswore; but I will prove,Thou being a goddess, I forswore not thee:My vow was earthly, thou a heavenly love;Thy grace being gained cures all disgrace in me.My vow was breath, and breath a vapour is;Then, thou fair sun, that on this earth doth shine,Exhale this vapour vow; in thee it is:If broken, then it is no fault of mine.If by me broke, what fool is not so wiseTo break an oath, to win a paradise?
Theforward violet thus did I chide:Sweet thief, whence didst thou steal thy sweet that smells,If not from my love’s breath? The purple prideWhich on thy soft cheek for complexion dwellsIn my love’s veins thou hast too grossly dyed.The lily I condemned for thy hand,And buds of marjoram had stol’n thy hair:The roses fearfully on thorns did stand,One blushing shame, another white despair;A third, nor red nor white, had stol’n of bothAnd to his robbery had annexed thy breath;But, for his theft, in pride of all his growthA vengeful canker eat him up to death.More flowers I noted, yet I none could seeBut sweet or colour it had stol’n from thee.
O,lestthe world should task you to reciteWhat merit lived in me, that you should loveAfter my death, dear love, forget me quite,For you in me can nothing worthy prove;Unless you would devise some virtuous lie,To do more for me than mine own desert,And hang more praise upon deceased IThan niggard truth would willingly impart:O, lest your true love may seem false in this,That you for love speak well of me untrue,My name be buried where my body is,And live no more to shame nor me nor you.For I am shamed by that which I bring forth,And so should you, to love things nothing worth.
Letme not to the marriage of true mindsAdmit impediments. Love is not loveWhich alters when it alteration finds,Or bends with the remover to remove:O, no! it is an ever-fixed markThat looks on tempests and is never shaken;It is the star to every wandering bark,Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeksWithin his bending sickle’s compass come;Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,But bears it out even to the edge of doom.If this be error and upon me proved,I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
Howoft, when thou, my music, music play’st,Upon that blessed wood whose motion soundsWith thy sweet fingers, when thou gently sway’stThe wiry concord that mine ear confounds,Do I envy those jacks that nimble leapTo kiss the tender inward of thy hand,Whilst my poor lips, which should that harvest reap,At the wood’s boldness by thee blushing stand!To be so tickled, they would change their stateAnd situation with those dancing chips,O’er whom thy fingers walk with gentle gait,Making dead wood more blest than living lips.Since saucy jacks so happy are in this,Give them thy fingers, me thy lips to kiss.
Fullmany a glorious morning have I seenFlatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye,Kissing with golden face the meadows green,Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy;Anon permit the basest clouds to rideWith ugly rack on his celestial face,And from the forlorn world his visage hide,Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace:Even so my sun one early morn did shineWith all-triumphant splendour on my brow,But out, alack! he was but one hour mine;The region cloud hath masked him from me now.Yet him for this my love no whit disdaineth:Suns of the world may stain when heaven’s sun staineth.
Theexpense of spirit in a waste of shameIs lust in action; and till action, lustIs perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame,Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust,Enjoyed no sooner but despised straight,Past reason hunted, and no sooner hadPast reason hated, as a swallow’d baitOn purpose laid to make the taker mad;Mad in pursuit and in possession so;Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme;A bliss in proof, and proved, a very woe;Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream.All this the world well knows; yet none knows wellTo shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.
Tellme where is Fancy bred,Or in the heart, or in the head?How begot, how nourished?Reply, reply.
It is engendered in the eyes;With gazing fed; and Fancy diesIn the cradle where it lies:Let us all ring Fancy’s knell;I’ll begin it,—Ding, dong, bell.Ding, dong, bell.
Underthe greenwood treeWho loves to lie with me,And tune his merry noteUnto the sweet bird’s throat—Come hither, come hither, come hither!Here shall he seeNo enemyBut winter and rough weather.
Who doth ambition shunAnd loves to live i’ the sun,Seeking the food he eatsAnd pleased with what he gets—Come hither, come hither, come hither!Here shall he seeNo enemyBut winter and rough weather.
Comeunto these yellow sands,And then take hands:Courtsied when you have, and kissed,The wild waves whist,Foot it featly here and there;And sweet Sprites the burthen bear.Hark, hark!Bow-bow.The watch-dogs bark:Bow-wow.Hark, hark! I hearThe strain of strutting chanticleerCry, Cock-a-diddle-dow!
Comeaway, come away, Death,And in sad cypres let me be laid;Fly away, fly away, breath;I am slain by a fair cruel maid.My shroud of white, stuck all with yew,O prepare it!My part of death, no one so trueDid share it.
Not a flower, not a flower sweetOn my black coffin let there be strown;Not a friend, not a friend greetMy poor corpse, where my bones shall be thrown;A thousand, thousand sighs to save,Lay me, O whereSad true lover ne’er may find my graveTo weep there.
Fullfathom five thy father lies;Of his bones are coral made;Those are pearls that were his eyes:Nothing of him that doth fade,But doth suffer a sea-changeInto something rich and strange.Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:Hark! now I hear them,—Ding, dong, bell.
Fearno more the heat o’ the sunNor the furious winter’s rages;Thou thy worldly task hast done,Home art gone and ta’en thy wages:Golden lads and girls all must,As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.
Fear no more the frown o’ the great,Thou art past the tyrant’s stroke;Care no more to clothe and eat;To thee the reed is as the oak:The sceptre, learning, physic, mustAll follow this, and come to dust.
Fear no more the lightning-flashNor the all-dreaded thunder-stone;Fear not slander, censure rash;Thou hast finished joy and moan:All lovers young, all lovers mustConsign to thee, and come to dust.
Take, O take those lips awayThat so sweetly were forsworn,And those eyes, the break of day,Lights that do mislead the morn:But my kisses bring again,Bring again—Seals of love, but sealed in vain,Sealed in vain!
Hide, O hide those hills of snow,Which thy frozen bosom bears,On whose tops the pinks that growAre of those that April wears.But first set my poor heart freeBound in those icy chains by thee.
How should I your true love knowFrom another one?By his cockle hat and staffAnd his sandal shoon.
He is dead and gone, lady,He is dead and gone;And at his head a green grass turfAnd at his heels a stone.
White his shroud as mountain snow,Larded with sweet showers,Which bewept to the grave did go,With true love showers.