So I might but live to be, WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. (1564-1616.) LI. SPRING. From Love's Labour's Lost (1589?), Act v. Scene 2. WHEN daisies pied and violets blue And lady-smocks all silver-white Mocks married men; for thus sings he, "Cuckoo; Cuckoo, cuckoo": O word of fear, When shepherds pipe on oaten straws And merry larks are ploughmen's clocks, When turtles tread, and rooks, and daws, And maidens bleach their summer smocks, The cuckoo then, on every tree, Mocks married men; for thus sings he, "Cuckoo; Cuckoo, cuckoo",-O word of fear, Unpleasing to a married ear! LII. WHO IS SYLVIA? From The Two Gentlemen of Verona (1591?), Act iv. Scene 2. WHO is Sylvia? what is she, WHO That all our swains commend her? Holy, fair, and wise is she; The heaven such grace did lend her, Is she kind, as she is fair? For beauty lives with kindness. To help him of his blindness, Then to Sylvia let us sing, Upon the dull earth dwelling: LIII. UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. From As You Like It (1599?), Act ii. Scene 5. The play is founded on Lodge's pastoral romance of Rosalynde, or Euphues' Golden Legacy (1590). UNDER the greenwood tree Who loves to lie with me, And turn his merry note Unto the sweet bird's throat, Come hither, come hither, come hither: Here shall he 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, No enemy But winter and rough weather. LIV. IT WAS A LOVER AND HIS LASS. From As You Like It, Act v. Scene 3. T was a lover and his lass, IT 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, ding: Sweet lovers love the spring. Between the acres of the rye, With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino, These pretty country folks would lie, In the spring time, the only pretty ring time, When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding: Sweet lovers love the spring. This carol they began that hour, With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino, How that a life was but a flower In the spring time, the only pretty ring time, When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding: Sweet lovers love the spring. And therefore take the present time, With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino; For love is crowned with the prime In the spring time, the only pretty ring time, When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding: Sweet lovers love the spring. LV. A SHEEP-SHEARING. From The Winter's Tale (1610?), Act iv. Scene 4. The play is founded on Greene's pastoral romance of Pandosto, or Dorastus and Fawnia (1588). PERDITA to POLIXENES. SIR, welcome: It is my father's will I should take on me The hostess-ship o' the day. [To Camillo.] You're wel come, sir. Give me those flowers there, Dorcas. Reverend sirs, For you there's rosemary and rue; these keep Seeming and savour all the winter long: Polixenes. Shepherdess, A fair one are you-well you fit our ages Per. Sir, the year growing ancient, Not yet on summer's death, nor on the birth Of trembling winter, the fairest flowers o' the season Are our carnations and streak'd gillyvors, Which some call nature's bastards: of that kind Our rustic garden's barren; and I care not There is an art which in their piedness shares With great creating nature. Pol. Say there be; Yet nature is made better by no mean, But nature makes that mean: so, o'er that art Which you say adds to nature, is an art That nature makes. You see, sweet maid, we marry A gentler scion to the wildest stock, And make conceive a bark of baser kind By bud of nobler race: this is an art Which does mend nature, change it rather, but Pol. Then make your garden rich in gillyvors, And do not call them bastards. I'll not put Per. No more than were I painted I would wish This youth should say 't were well, and only therefore The marigold, that goes to bed wi' the sun Camillo. I should leave grazing, were I of your flock, And only live by gazing. Per. Out, alas! You'ld be so lean, that blasts of January Would blow you through and through. Now, my fair'st friend, I would I had some flowers o' the spring that might That come before the swallow dares, and take But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes |