So I might but live to be,
Where I might but sit to see
Once a day, or all day long,
The sweet subject of my song;
In Aglaia's only eyes
All my worldly Paradise.

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
And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue
Do paint the meadows with delight,
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!

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,
That she might admired be.

Is she kind, as she is fair?

For beauty lives with kindness.
Love doth to her eyes repair,

To help him of his blindness,
And, being help'd, inhabits there.

Then to Sylvia let us sing,
That Sylvia is excelling;
She excels each mortal thing

Upon the dull earth dwelling:
To her let us garlands bring.

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,
Come hither, come hither, come hither:
Here shall he see

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:
Grace and remembrance be to you both,
And welcome to our shearing!

Polixenes.

Shepherdess,

A fair one are you-well you fit our ages
With flowers of winter.

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
The art itself is nature.

Pol. Then make your garden rich in gillyvors, And do not call them bastards.

I'll not put

Per.
The dibble in earth to set one slip of them;

No more than were I painted I would wish

This youth should say 't were well, and only therefore
Desire to breed by me. Here's flowers for you;
Hot lavender, mints, savory, marjoram;

The marigold, that goes to bed wi' the sun
And with him rises weeping: these are flowers
Of middle summer, and I think they are given
To men of middle age. You're very welcome.

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
Become your time of day; and yours, and yours,
That wear upon your virgin branches yet
Your maidenheads growing: O Proserpina,
For the flowers now, that frighted thou let'st fall
From Dis's waggon! daffodils,

That come before the swallow dares, and take
The winds of March with beauty; violets dim,

But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes
Or Cytherea's breath; pale primroses,