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,
Then live with me and be my love.
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.
THE NYMPH'S REPLY TO THE SHEPHERD.
If that the world and love were young,
And truth in every shepherd's tongue;
These pretty pleasures might me move
To live with thee and be thy love.
Time drives the flocks from field to fold,
When rivers rage, and rocks grow cold;
And Philomel becometh dumb,
And all complain of cares to come.
The flowers do fade, and wanton fields
To wayward winter reckoning yield :
A honey tongue, a heart of gall,
Is fancy's spring, but sorrow's fall.
Thy gowns, thy shoes, thy bed of roses,
Thy cap, thy girdle, and thy posies;
Some break, some wither, some forgotten,
In folly ripe, in reason rotten.
Thy belt of straw, and ivy buds;
Thy coral clasps, and amber studs ;
All these in me no means can move
To come to thee, and be thy love.
But could youth last, and love still breed ;
Had joys no date, and age no need ;
Then these delights my mind might move
To live with thee, and be thy love.
ANOTHER OF THE SAME NATURE.
Come live with me, and be my dear,
And we will revel all the year
In plains and groves, on hills and dales,
Where fragrant air breathes sweetest gales,
There shall you have the beauteous pine,
The cedar, and the spreading vine,
And all the woods to be a skreen,
Lest Phoebus kiss my summer's queen.
The feast of your disport shall be,
Over some river, in a tree;
Where silver sands and pebbles sing
Eternal ditties to the spring,
Where you shall see the nymphs at play,
And how the satyrs spend the day;
The fishes gliding on the sands,
Offering their bellies to your hands;
The birds, with heavenly-tuned throats,
Possess woods' echoes with sweet notes;
Which to your senses will impart
A music to inflame the heart.
Upon the bare and leafless oak,
The ring-doves' wooings will provoke
A colder blood than you possess,
To play with me, and do not less.
In bowers of laurel trimly dight,
We will outwear the silent night,
While Flora busy is to spread
Her richest treasure on our bed.
The glow-worms shall on you attend,
And all their sparkling lights shall spend ;
All to adorn and beautify
Your lodging with most majesty :
Then in my arms will I inclose
Lilies' fair mixture with the rose ;
Whose nice perfections in love's play,
Shall tune me to the highest key.
Thus as we pass the welcome night
In sportful pleasures and delight,
The nimble fairies on the grounds
Shall dance and sing melodious sounds.
If these may serve for to entice,
Your presence to love's paradise ;
Then come with me, and be my dear,
And we will straight begin the year.
Take, O! take those lips away,
That so sweetly were forsworn ;
And those eyes, the break of day,
Lights which do mislead the morn.
But my kisses bring again,
Seals of love, tho' seal'd in vain.
Hide, O! hide those hills of snow,
Which thy frozen bosom bears,
On whose tops the pinks that grow,
Are of those that April wears,
But my poor heart first set free,
Bound in those icy chains by thee.
THE PHOENIX AND THE TURTLE.
Let the bird of lowest lay,
On the sole Arabian tree,
Herald sad, and trumpet be,
To whose sound chaste wings obey:
But thou shrieking harbinger,
Foul procurer of the fiend,
Augur of the fever's end,
To this troop come thou not near,
From this cession interdict
Every fowl of tyrant wing,
Save the eagle, feather'd king.
Keep the obsequy so strict;
Let the priest in surplice white,
That defunctive music ken,
Be the death-divining swan,
Lest the requiem lack his right.
And thou, treble-dated crow,
That thy sable gender mak'st,
With the breath thou giv'st and tak'st,
'Mongst our mourners shalt thou go.
Here the anthem doth commence :
Love and constancy is dead,
Phoenix and the turtle fled
In a mutual flame from hence ;
So they lov'd, as love in twain
Had the essence but in one ;
Two distincts but in none,
Number there in love was slain :
Hearts remote, yet not asunder,
Distance and no space was seen,
'Twixt the turtle and his queen,
But in them it were a wonder.
So between them love did shine,
That the turtle saw his right
Flaming in the Phœnix' sight,
Either was the other mine.
Property was thus appalled,
That the self was not the same,
Single natures, double name,
Neither two nor one was called.
Reason itself confounded,
Saw division grow together,
To themselves yet either neither,
Simple were so well compounded,
That it cried how true a twain
Seemeth this concordant one,
Love hath reason, reason none,
If what parts can so remain.
Whereupon it made this threne
To the phoenix and the dove,
Co-supremes and stars of love,
As chorus to their tragic scene.
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