Transcriber’s Notes:
Footnotes to the Preface are collected at the end of that section, but other footnotes
appear immediately below the relevant song lyrics. All footnotes are numbered sequentially.
A hyperlinked Table of Contents has been added to this version.
There is some Greek in this text, which may require adjustment
of your browser settings to display correctly. A transliteration of
each line is included. Hover your mouse over words underlined with a
grey dotted line to see
the transliteration.
Text underlined with a red dotted line
has been amended. In particular:
In the index, “... land in Kent (Malismata)” has been corrected to “Melismata.”
In the index, “... heavenby fire” has been corrected to “heavenly fire.”
In “Thrice blessèd be the giver”, “failed” has been corrected to “failèd.”
Inconsistencies in the spelling and hyphenation of words between
different songs have been retained, but minor punctuation omissions
have been silently corrected.
CONTENTS
[Pg i]
LYRICS
FROM THE SONG-BOOKS OF THE
ELIZABETHAN AGE.
[Pg ii]
Note.—Two hundred and fifty copies of this large paper edition
printed, each of which is numbered.
[Pg iii]
LYRICS
FROM THE SONG-BOOKS OF THE
ELIZABETHAN AGE:
EDITED BY
A.H. BULLEN.
LONDON:
JOHN C. NIMMO,
14, King William Street, Strand, W.C.
1887.
[Pg iv]
CHISWICK PRESS:—C. WHITTINGHAM AND CO., TOOKS COURT,
CHANCERY LANE.
[Pg v]
PREFACE.
The present Anthology is intended to serve as a companion volume to the
Poetical Miscellanies published in England at the close of the sixteenth
and the beginning of the seventeenth centuries. A few of the lyrics here
collected are, it is true, included in “England’s Helicon,” Davison’s
“Poetical Rhapsody,” and “The Phœnix’ Nest”; and some are to be found
in the modern collections of Oliphant, Collier, Rimbault, Mr. W.J.
Linton, Canon Hannah, and Professor Arber. But many of the poems in the
present volume are, I have every reason to believe, unknown even to
those who have made a special study of Elizabethan poetry. I have gone
carefully through all the old song-books preserved in the library of the
British Museum, and I have given extracts from two books of which there
is no copy in our national library. A first attempt of this kind must
necessarily be imperfect. Were I to go over the ground again I should
enlarge the collection, and I should hope to gain tidings of some
[Pg vi]
song-books (mentioned by bibliographers) which I have hitherto been
unable to trace.
In Elizabeth’s days composers were not content to regard the words of a
song as a mere peg on which to hang the music, but sought the services
of true-born lyrists. It is not too much to say that, for delicate
perfection of form, some of the Elizabethan songs can compare with the
choicest epigrams in the Greek Anthology. At least one composer, Thomas
Campion, wrote both the words and the music of his songs; and there are
no sweeter lyrics in English poetry than are to be found in Campion’s
song-books. But it may be assumed that, as a rule, the composers are
responsible only for the music.
It was in the year of the Spanish Armada, 1588, that William Byrd
published “Psalms, Sonnets, and Songs of Sadness and Piety,” the first
Elizabethan song-book of importance. Few biographical particulars
concerning Byrd have come down. As he was senior chorister of St. Paul’s
in 1554, he is conjectured to have been born about 1538. From 1563 to
1569 he was organist of Lincoln Cathedral. He and Tallis were granted a
patent, which must have proved fairly lucrative, for the printing of
music and the vending of music-paper. In later life he appears to have
become a convert to Romanism. His last work was published in 1611, and
[Pg vii]
he died at a ripe old age on the 24th of July, 1623. The “Psalms,
Sonnets, and Songs” are dedicated to Sir Christopher Hatton. In the
dedicatory epistle he terms the collection “this first printed work of
mine in English;” in 1575 he had published with Tallis “Cantiones
Sacræ.” From the title one would gather that Byrd’s first English
collection was mainly of a sacred character, but in an epistle to the
reader he hastens to set us right on that point:—“Benign reader, here
is offered unto thy courteous acceptance music of sundry sorts, and to
content divers humours. If thou be disposed to pray, here are psalms; if
to be merry, here are sonnets.” There is, indeed, fare for all comers;
and a reader has only himself to blame if he goes away dissatisfied. In
those days, as in these, it was not uncommon for a writer to attribute
all faults, whether of omission or commission, to the luckless printer.
Byrd, on the other hand, solemnly warns us that “in the expression of
these songs either by voices or instruments, if there be any jar or
dissonance,” we are not to blame the printer, who has been at the
greatest pains to secure accuracy. Then the composer makes a modest
appeal on behalf of himself, requesting those who find any fault in the
composition “either with courtesy to let the same be concealed,” or “in
friendly sort” point out the errors, which shall be
[Pg viii]corrected in a
future impression. This is the proper manner of dealing between
gentlemen. His next publication was “Songs of Sundry Natures,” 1589,
which was dedicated to Sir Henry Carey, who seems to have been as
staunch a patron of Byrd as his son, Sir George Carey, was of Dowland.
In 1611 appeared Byrd’s last work, “Psalms, Songs, and Sonnets.” The
composer must have taken to heart the precepts set down by Sir Edward
Dyer in “My mind to me a kingdom is,” (printed in “Psalms, Sonnets, and
Songs”) for his dedicatory epistle and his address to the reader show
him to have been a man who had laid up a large store of genial wisdom,
upon which he could draw freely in the closing days of an honourable
life. His earlier works had been well received, and in addressing “all
true lovers of music” he knew that he could rely upon their cordial
sympathy. “I am much encouraged,” he writes, “to commend to you these my
last labours, for mine ultimum vale;” and then follows a piece of
friendly counsel: “Only this I desire, that you will be as careful to
hear them well expressed, as I have been both in the composing and
correcting of them. Otherwise the best song that ever was made will seem
harsh and unpleasant; for that the well expressing of them either by
voices or instruments is the life of our labours, which is seldom or
[Pg ix]
never well performed at the first singing or playing.”
No musician of the Elizabethan age was more famous than John Dowland,
whose “heavenly touch upon the lute” was commended in a well-known
sonnet (long attributed to Shakespeare) by Richard Barnfield. Dowland
was born at Westminster in 1562. At the age of twenty, or thereabouts,
he started on his travels; and, after rambling through “the chiefest
parts of France, a nation furnished with great variety of music,” he
bent his course “towards the famous province of Germany,” where he found
“both excellent masters and most honourable patrons of music.” In the
course of his travels he visited Venice, Padua, Genoa, Ferrara, and
Florence, gaining applause everywhere by his musical skill. On his
return to England he took his degree at Oxford, as Bachelor of Music, in
1588. In 1597 he published “The First Book of Songs or Airs of four
parts, with Tableture for the Lute.” Prefixed is a dedicatory epistle to
Sir George Carey (second Lord Hunsdon), in which the composer alludes
gracefully to the kindness he had received from Lady Elizabeth Carey,
the patroness of Spenser. A “Second Book of Songs or Airs” was published
in 1600, when the composer was at the Danish Court, serving as lutenist
to King Christian the Fourth. The work was dedicated
[Pg x]to the famous
Countess of Bedford, whom Ben Jonson immortalized in a noble sonnet.
From a curious address to the reader by George Eastland, the publisher,
it would appear that in spite of Dowland’s high reputation the sale of
his works was not very profitable. “If the consideration of mine own
estate,” writes Eastland, “or the true worth of money, had prevailed
with me above the desire of pleasing you and showing my love to my
friends, these second labours of Master Dowland—whose very name is a
large preface of commendation to the book—had for ever lain hid in
darkness, or at the least frozen in a cold and foreign country.” The
expenses of publication were heavy, but he consoled himself with the
thought that his high-spirited enterprise would be appreciated by a
select audience. In 1603 appeared “The Third and Last Book of Songs or
Airs;” and, in 1612, when he was acting as lutenist to Lord Walden,
Dowland issued his last work, “A Pilgrime’s Solace.” He is supposed to
have died about 1615, leaving a son, Robert Dowland, who gained some
fame as a composer. Modern critics have judged that Dowland’s music was
somewhat overrated by his contemporaries, and that he is wanting in
variety and originality. Whether these critics are right or wrong, it
would be difficult to overrate the poetry. In attempting to select
[Pg xi]
representative lyrics one is embarrassed by the wealth of material. The
rich clusters of golden verse hang so temptingly that it is difficult to
cease plucking when once we have begun.
In his charming collection of “Rare Poems” Mr. Linton quotes freely from
the song-books of Byrd and Dowland, but gives only one lyric of Dr.
Thomas Campion. As Mr. Linton is an excellent judge of poetry, I can
only suppose that he had no wide acquaintance with Campion’s writings,
when he put together his dainty Anthology. There is clear
evidence[1]
that Campion wrote not only the music but the words for his songs—that
he was at once an eminent composer and a lyric poet of the first rank.
He published a volume of Latin verse, which displays ease and fluency
(though the prosody is occasionally erratic); as a masque-writer he was
inferior only to Ben Jonson; he was the author of treatises on the arts
of music and poetry; and he practised as a physician. It would be
interesting to ascertain[Pg xii]
some facts about the life of this
highly-gifted man; but hitherto little information has been collected.
The Oxford historian, good old Anthony-à-Wood, went altogether wrong and
confused our Thomas Campion with another person of the same name who
took his degree in 1624—five years after the poet’s death. It is
probable that our Thomas Campion was the second son of Thomas Campion of
Witham, Essex, and that he was distantly related to Edmund Campion the
famous Jesuit. His first work was his “Epigrammatum Libri duo,”
published in 1595, and republished in 1619. The first edition is
exceedingly rare; there is no copy in the British Museum. Francis Meres,
in his very valuable (and very tedious) “Wit’s Treasury,” 1598, mentions
Campion among the “English men, being Latin poets,” who had “attained
good report and honorable advancement in the Latin empire.” In 1601
Campion and Philip Rosseter published jointly “A Book of Airs.” The
music was partly written by Campion and partly by Rosseter; but the
whole of the poetry may be safely assigned to Campion. From a dedicatory
epistle, by Rosseter, to Sir Thomas Monson, we learn that Campion’s
songs, “made at his vacant hours and privately imparted to his friends,”
had been passed from hand to hand and had suffered from the carelessness of
[Pg xiii]
successive transcribers. Some impudent persons, we are told, had
“unrespectively challenged” (i.e. claimed) the credit both of the
music and the poetry. The address To the Reader, which follows the
dedicatory epistle, is unsigned, but appears to have been written by
Campion. “What epigrams are in poetry,” it begins, “the same are airs in
music: then in their chief perfection when they are short and well
seasoned. But to clog a light song with a long preludium is to corrupt
the nature of it. Many rests in music were invented either for necessity
of the fugue, or granted as an harmonical licence in songs of many
parts; but in airs I find no use they have, unless it be to make a
vulgar and trivial modulation seem to the ignorant strange, and to the
judicial tedious.” It is among the curiosities of literature that this
true poet, who had so exquisite a sense of form, and whose lyrics are
frequently triumphs of metrical skill, should have published a work
(entitled “Observations in the Art of English Poesy”) to prove that the
use of rhyme ought to be discontinued, and that English metres should be
fashioned after classical models. “Poesy,” he writes, “in all kind of
speaking is the chief beginner and maintainer of eloquence, not only
helping the ear with the acquaintance of sweet numbers, but also raising
the mind to a more high and lofty
[Pg xiv]
conceit. For this end have I studied
to induce a true form of versifying into our language; for the vulgar
and artificial custom of rhyming hath, I know, deterr’d many excellent
wits from the exercise of English poesy.” The work was published in
1602, the year after he had issued the first collection of his charming
lyrics. It was in answer to Campion that Samuel Daniel wrote his
“Defence of Rhyme” (1603), one of the ablest critical treatises in the
English language. Daniel was puzzled, as well he might be, that an
attack on rhyme should have been made by one “whose commendable rhymes,
albeit now himself an enemy to rhyme, have given heretofore to the world
the best notice of his worth.” It is pleasant to find Daniel testifying
to the fact that Campion was “a man of fair parts and good reputation.”
Ben Jonson, as we are informed by Drummond of Hawthornden, wrote “a
Discourse of Poesy both against Campion and Daniel;” but the discourse
was never published. In his “Observations” Campion gives us a few
specimen-poems written in the unrhymed metres that he proposed to
introduce. The following verses are the least objectionable that I can
find:—
“Just beguiler,
Kindest love yet only chastest,
Royal in thy smooth denials,
[Pg xv]
Frowning or demurely smiling,
Still my pure delight.
Let me view thee
With thoughts and with eyes affected,
And if then the flames do murmur,
Quench them with thy virtue, charm them
With thy stormy brows.
Heaven so cheerful
Laughs not ever; hoary winter
Knows his season, even the freshest
Summer morns from angry thunder
Yet not still secure.”
There is artful ease and the touch of a poet’s hand in those verses; but
the Muses shield us from such innovations! Campion’s second collection,
“Two Books of Airs”, is undated; but, from an allusion to the death of
Prince Henry, we may conclude that it was published about the year 1613.
The first book consists of “Divine and Moral Songs” and the second of
“light conceits of lovers.” In dealing with sacred themes, particularly
when they venture on paraphrases of the Psalms, our poets seldom do
themselves justice; but I claim for Campion that he is neither stiff nor
awkward. Henry Vaughan is the one English poet whose devotional fervour
found the highest lyrical expression; and Campion’s impassioned poem
“Awake, awake, thou heavy sprite!” (p. 6) is not unworthy of the great
Silurist. Among[Pg xvi]
the sacred verses are some lines (“Jack and Joan they
think no ill,” p. 61) in praise of a contented countryman and his good
wife. A sweeter example of an old pastoral lyric could nowhere be found,
not even in the pages of Nicholas Breton. The “Third and Fourth Books of
Airs” are also undated, but they were probably published in 1613. In
this collection, where all is good, my favourite is “Now winter nights
enlarge” (p. 90). Others may prefer the melodious serenade, worthy even
of Shelley, “Shall I come, sweet love, to thee” (p. 100). But there is
one poem of Campion (printed in the collection of 1601) which, for
strange richness of romantic beauty, could hardly be matched outside the
sonnets of Shakespeare:—
“When thou must home to shades of underground,
And there arrived, a new admirèd guest,
The beauteous spirits do engirt thee round,
White Iope, blithe Helen, and the rest,
To hear the stories of thy finish’d love
From that smooth tongue whose music hell can move:
Then wilt thou speak of banqueting delights,
Of masques and revels which sweet youth did make,
Of tourneys and great challenges of knights,
And all these triumphs for thy beauty sake:
When thou hast told these honours done to thee,
Then tell, O tell, how thou didst murder me!”
The mention of “White Iope” was suggested by a passage of Propertius:—
[Pg xvii]
“Sunt apud infernos tot millia formosarum;
Pulchra sit, in superis, si licet, una locis.
Vobiscum[2]
est Iope, vobiscum candida Tyro,” &c.
Campion was steeped in classical feeling: his rendering of Catullus’
“Vivamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus” (p. 80) is, so far as it goes,
delightful. It is time that Campion should again take his rightful place
among the lyric poets of England. In his own day his fame stood high.
Camden did not hesitate to couple his name with the names of Spenser and
Sidney; but modern critics have persistently neglected him. The present
anthology contains a large number of his best poems; and I venture to
hope that my attempt to recall attention to the claims of this true poet
will not be fruitless.
There is much excellent verse hidden away in the Song-books of Robert
Jones, a famous performer on the lute. Between 1601 and 1611 Jones
issued six musical works. Two of these—“The First Set of Madrigals,”
1607, and “The Muses’ Garden for Delight,” 1611,—I have unfortunately
not been able to see, as I have not yet succeeded in discovering their
present resting-place. Of “Ultimum Vale, or the Third Book of Airs”
[1608], only one copy is known. It formerly belonged to Rimbault, and is now
[Pg xviii]
preserved in the library of the Royal College of Music. The other
publications of Jones are of the highest rarity. By turns the songs are
grave and gay. On one page is the warning to Love—
“Little boy, pretty knave, hence, I beseech you!
For if you hit me, knave, in faith I’ll breech you.” (p. 72.)
On another we read “Love winged my hopes and taught me how to fly,” (p.
73); but the vain hopes, seeking to woo the sun’s fair light, were
scorched with fire and drown’d in woe,
“And none but Love their woeful hap did rue,
For Love did know that their desires were true;
Though Fate frownèd.
And now drownèd
They in sorrow dwell,
It was the purest light of heaven for whose fair love they fell.”
The last line is superb.
I have drawn freely from the madrigals of Weelkes, Morley, Farmer,
Wilbye and others. Thomas Ford’s “Music of Sundry Kinds,” 1607, has
yielded some very choice verse; and Francis Pilkington’s collections
have not been consulted in vain. From John Attye’s “First Book of Airs,”
1622, I have selected one song, (p. 94), only one,—warm and tender and
delicious. Some pleasant verses have been drawn from the rare song-books
of William Corkine; and Thomas Vautor’s “Songs
[Pg xix] of Divers Airs and
Natures,” 1619, have supplied some quaint snatches, notably the address
to the owl, (p. 116) “Sweet Suffolk owl, so trimly dight.” I have
purposely refrained from giving many humorous ditties. Had I been
otherwise minded there was plenty of material to my hand in the
rollicking rounds and catches of Ravenscroft’s admirable collections.
As I have no technical knowledge of the subject, it would be impertinent
for me to attempt to estimate the merits of the music contained in these
old song-books; but I venture with all confidence to commend the poetry
to the reader’s attention. There is one poem which I have deliberately
kept back. It occurs in “The First Part of Airs, French, Polish, and
others together, some in tableture and some in prick-song,” 1605. The
composer was a certain Captain Tobias Hume, but who the author of the
poem was I know not. Here is the first stanza:—
“Fain would I change that note
To which fond love hath charm’d me,
Long long to sing by rote,
Fancying that that harm’d me:
Yet when this thought doth come,
‘Love is the perfect sum
Of all delight,’
I have no other choice
Either for pen or voice
To sing or write.”
[Pg xx]
The other stanza shall occupy the place of honour in the front of my
Anthology; for among all the Elizabethan song-books I have found no
lines of more faultless beauty, of happier cadence or sweeter
simplicity, no lines that more justly deserve to be treasured in the
memory while memory lasts.
[Pg xxi]
IN LAVDEM AMORIS.
O LOVE, THEY WRONG THEE MVCH
THAT SAY THY SWEET IS BITTER,
WHEN THY RICH FRVIT IS SVCH
AS NOTHING CAN BE SWEETER.
FAIR HOVSE OF JOY AND BLISS,
WHERE TRVEST PLEASVRE IS,
I DO ADORE THEE;
I KNOW THEE WHAT THOV ART,
I SERVE THEE WITH MY HEART,
AND FALL BEFORE THEE.
Captain Hume’s First Part of Airs, 1605.
[Pg xxii]
[Pg xxiii]
INDEX OF FIRST LINES
|
|
PAGE
|
|---|
|
A
|
1 |
| A shepherd in a shade his plaining made (John Dowland) |
1 |
| A sparrow-hawk proud did hold in wicked jail (Weelkes) |
2 |
| A woman’s looks (Jones) |
3 |
| About the maypole new, with glee and merriment (Morley) |
4 |
| Adieu! sweet Amaryllis (Wilbye) |
5 |
| April is in my mistress’ face (Morley) |
5 |
| Arise, my thoughts, and mount you with the sun (Jones) |
5 |
| Awake, awake! thou heavy sprite (Campion) |
6 |
| Awake, sweet Love! ’tis time to rise (Youll) |
7 |
| Ay me, can every rumour (Wilbye) |
7 |
| Ay me, my mistress scorns my love (Bateson) |
8 |
| | |
| Behold a wonder here (John Dowland) |
8 |
| Brown is my Love, but graceful (Musica Transalpina) |
9 |
| By a fountain where I lay (John Dowland) |
9 |
| By the moon we sport and play (Ravenscroft) |
11 |
| | |
| Canst thou love and lie alone (Melismata) |
11 |
| Change thy mind since she doth change (Robert Dowland) |
12 |
| Cold Winter’s ice is fled and gone (Weelkes) |
13 |
| Come away! come, sweet Love! (John Dowland) |
14 |
| Come, O come, my life’s delight (Campion) |
15 |
| Come, Phyllis, come into these bowers (Ford) |
16 |
| Come, shepherd swains, that wont to hear me sing (Wilbye) |
16 |
| Come, you pretty false-eyed wanton (Campion) |
17 |
| Could my heart more tongues employ (Campion) |
18 |
| Crownèd with flowers I saw fair Amaryllis (Byrd) |
19 |
| | |
| [Pg xxiv]
Dare you haunt our hallow’d green (Ravenscroft) |
19 |
| Dear, if I with guilt would gild a true intent (Campion) |
20 |
| Dear, if you change I’ll never choose again (John Dowland) |
20 |
| Do you not know how Love lost first his seeing (Morley) |
21 |
| Draw on, sweet Night, best friend unto those cares (Wilbye) |
21 |
| | |
| Each day of thine, sweet month of May (Youll) |
22 |
| Every dame affects good fame, whate’er her doings be (Campion) |
22 |
| | |
| Fair Phyllis I saw sitting all alone (Farmer) |
24 |
| Farewell, false Love, the oracle of lies (Byrd) |
24 |
| Farewell, my joy! (Weelkes) |
25 |
| Fine knacks for ladies, cheap, choice, brave and new (John Dowland) |
26 |
| Fire that must flame is with apt fuel fed (Campion) |
27 |
| Flora gave me fairest flowers (Wilbye) |
27 |
| Follow your saint, follow with accents sweet (Campion and Rosseter) |
28 |
| Fond wanton youths make Love a God (Jones) |
28 |
| From Citheron the warlike boy is fled (Byrd) |
30 |
| From Fame’s desire, from Love’s delight retired (John Dowland) |
31 |
| | |
| Give Beauty all her right (Campion) |
32 |
| Go, crystal tears! like to the morning showers (John Dowland) |
33 |
| Go, turn away those cruel eyes (Egerton MS. 2013) |
33 |
| Good men, show! if you can tell (Campion) |
34 |
| | |
| Ha! ha! ha! this world doth pass (Weelkes) |
36 |
| Happy he (Jones) |
36 |
| Happy, O! happy he, who not affecting (Wilbye) |
37 |
| Have I found her? O rich finding (Pilkington) |
38 |
| Heigh ho! chill go to plough no more (Mundy) |
38 |
| How many things as yet (Maynard) |
39 |
| How shall I then describe my Love (Ford) |
39 |
| | |
| [Pg xxv]
I always loved to call my lady Rose (Lichfild) |
40 |
| I have house and land in Kent
(Melismata) |
41 |
| I joy not in no earthly bliss (Byrd) |
43 |
| I live and yet methinks I do not breathe (Wilbye) |
44 |
| I marriage would forswear (Maynard) |
44 |
| I only am the man (Maynard) |
45 |
| I saw my Lady weep (John Dowland) |
46 |
| I sung sometime my thoughts and fancy’s pleasure (Wilbye) |
46 |
| I weigh not Fortune’s frown nor smile (Gibbons) |
47 |
| I will no more come to thee (Morley) |
48 |
| If fathers knew but how to leave (Jones) |
48 |
| If I urge my kind desires (Campion and Rosseter) |
49 |
| If my complaints could passions move (John Dowland) |
50 |
| If thou long’st so much to learn, sweet boy, what ’tis to love (Campion) |
51 |
| If women could be fair and never fond (Byrd) |
52 |
| In crystal towers and turrets richly set (Byrd) |
53 |
| In darkness let me dwell, the ground shall sorrow be (Coprario) |
53 |
| In midst of woods or pleasant grove (Mundy) |
54 |
| In pride of May (Weelkes) |
55 |
| In Sherwood lived stout Robin Hood (Jones) |
56 |
| In the merry month of May (Este) |
57 |
| Inconstant Laura makes me death to crave (Greaves) |
58 |
| Injurious hours, whilst any joy doth bless me (Lichfild) |
59 |
| Is Love a boy,—what means he then to strike (Byrd) |
59 |
| It was the frog in the well (Melismata) |
60 |
| | |
| Jack and Joan they think no ill (Campion) |
61 |
| | |
| Kind are her answers (Campion) |
62 |
| Kind in unkindness, when will you relent (Campion and Rosseter) |
63 |
| | |
| Lady, the birds right fairly (Weelkes) |
64 |
| Lady, the melting crystal of your eye (Greaves) |
64 |
| Lady, when I behold the roses sprouting (Wilbye) |
65 |
| Let not Chloris think, because (Danyel) |
66 |
| Let not the sluggish sleep (Byrd) |
67 |
| [Pg xxvi]
Let us in a lovers’ round (Mason and Earsden) |
67 |
| Like two proud armies marching in the field (Weelkes) |
68 |
| Lo! country sport that seldom fades (Weelkes) |
68 |
| Lo! when back mine eye (Campion) |
68 |
| Long have I lived in Court (Maynard) |
69 |
| Love is a bable (Jones) |
70 |
| Love not me for comely grace (Wilbye) |
71 |
| Love’s god is a boy (Jones) |
72 |
| Love winged my hopes and taught me how to fly (Jones) |
73 |
| | |
| “Maids are simple,” some men say (Campion) |
74 |
| Maids to bed and cover coal (Melismata) |
74 |
| More than most fair, full of all
heavenly fire (Peerson) |
75 |
| Mother, I will have a husband (Vautor) |
75 |
| My hope a counsel with my heart (Este) |
76 |
| My love bound me with a kiss (Jones) |
77 |
| My love is neither young nor old (Jones) |
78 |
| My mind to me a kingdom is (Byrd) |
78 |
| My prime of youth is but a frost of cares (Mundy) |
80 |
| My sweetest Lesbia, let us live and love (Campion) |
80 |
| My Thoughts are winged with Hopes, my Hopes with Love (John Dowland) |
81 |
| | |
| Never love unless you can (Campion) |
82 |
| Now each creature joys the other (Farmer) |
83 |
| Now every tree renews his summer’s green (Weelkes) |
83 |
| Now God be with old Simeon (Pammelia) |
83 |
| Now have I learn’d with much ado at last (Jones) |
84 |
| Now I see thy looks were feignèd (Ford) |
85 |
| Now is my Chloris fresh as May (Weelkes) |
86 |
| Now is the month of maying (Morley) |
87 |
| Now let her change! and spare not (Campion) |
87 |
| Now let us make a merry greeting (Weelkes) |
88 |
| Now what is love, I pray thee tell (Jones) |
89 |
| Now winter nights enlarge (Campion) |
90 |
| | |
| O say, dear life, when shall these twin-born berries (Ward) |
91 |
| O stay, sweet love; see here the place of sporting (Farmer) |
91 |
| O sweet, alas, what say you (Morley) |
92 |
| [Pg xxvii]
O sweet delight, O more than human bliss (Campion) |
92 |
| Oft have I mused the cause to find (Jones) |
93 |
| On a time the amorous Silvy (Attye) |
94 |
| Once did I love and yet I live (Jones) |
95 |
| Once I thought to die for love (Youll) |
95 |
| Our country swains in the morris dance (Weelkes) |
96 |
| | |
| Pierce did love fair Petronel (Farnaby) |
96 |
| Pour forth, mine eyes, the fountains of your tears (Pilkington) |
97 |
| | |
| Robin is a lovely lad (Mason and Earsden) |
97 |
| Round-a, round-a, keep your ring (Ravenscroft) |
98 |
| | |
| See, see, mine own sweet jewel (Morley) |
98 |
| Shall a frown or angry eye (Corkine) |
99 |
| Shall I abide this jesting (Alison) |
99 |
| Shall I come, sweet Love, to thee (Campion) |
100 |
| Shall I look to ease my grief (Jones) |
100 |
| She whose matchless beauty staineth (Jones) |
101 |
| Shoot, false Love! I care not (Morley) |
103 |
| Silly boy! ’tis full moon yet, thy night as day shines clearly (Campion) |
104 |
| Simkin said that Sis was fair (Farnaby) |
105 |
| Since first I saw your face I resolved to honour and renown ye (Ford) |
105 |
| Sing we and chant it (Morley) |
106 |
| Sister, awake! close not your eyes (Bateson) |
107 |
| Sleep, angry beauty, sleep and fear not me (Campion) |
108 |
| So light is love, in matchless beauty shining (Wilbye) |
108 |
| Some can flatter, some can feign (Corkine) |
109 |
| Sweet, come again (Campion and Rosseter) |
110 |
| Sweet Cupid, ripen her desire (Corkine) |
111 |
| Sweet heart, arise! why do you sleep (Weelkes) |
112 |
| Sweet Kate (Jones) |
112 |
| Sweet Love, if thou wilt gain a monarch’s glory (Wilbye) |
113 |
| Sweet Love, I will no more abuse thee (Weelkes) |
114 |
| Sweet Love, my only treasure (Jones) |
114 |
| Sweet, stay awhile; why will you rise (John Dowland) |
115 |
| [Pg xxviii]
Sweet Suffolk owl so trimly dight (Vautor) |
116 |
| Take here my heart, I give it thee for ever (Weelkes) |
116 |
| Take time while time doth last (Farmer) |
117 |
| The fly she sat in shamble-row (Deuteromelia) |
117 |
| The Gods have heard my vows (Weelkes) |
119 |
| The lark, linnet and nightingale to sing some say are best (Pammelia) |
120 |
| The love of change hath changed the world throughout (Carlton) |
120 |
| The lowest trees have tops, the ant her gall (John Dowland) |
121 |
| The man of life upright (Campion and Rosseter) |
121 |
| The greedy hawk with sudden sight of lure (Byrd) |
122 |
| The match that’s made for just and true respects (Byrd) |
123 |
| The Nightingale so pleasant and so gay (Byrd) |
124 |
| The Nightingale so soon as April bringeth (Bateson) |
124 |
| The peaceful western wind (Campion) |
125 |
| There is a garden in her face (Campion) |
126 |
| There is a lady sweet and kind (Ford) |
127 |
| There were three Ravens sat on a tree (Melismata) |
128 |
| Think’st thou, Kate, to put me down (Jones) |
129 |
| Think’st thou to seduce me then with words that have no meaning (Campion) |
130 |
| Thou art but young, thou say’st (Wilbye) |
131 |
| Thou art not fair, for all thy red and white (Campion and Rosseter) |
131 |
| Thou pretty bird, how do I see (Danyel) |
132 |
| Though Amaryllis dance in green (Byrd) |
132 |
| Though my carriage be but careless (Weelkes) |
133 |
| Though your strangeness frets my heart (Jones) |
134 |
| Thrice blessèd be the giver (Farnaby) |
135 |
| Thrice toss these oaken ashes in the air (Campion) |
136 |
| Thus I resolve and Time hath taught me so (Campion) |
136 |
| Thus saith my Chloris bright (Wilbye) |
137 |
| Thus saith my Galatea (Morley) |
137 |
| To his sweet lute Apollo sang the motions of the spheres (Campion) |
138 |
| To plead my faith, where faith hath no reward (Robert Dowland) |
139 |
| [Pg xxix]
To shorten winter’s sadness (Weelkes) |
139 |
| Toss not my soul, O Love, ’twixt hope and fear (John Dowland) |
140 |
| Turn all thy thoughts to eyes (Campion) |
141 |
| | |
| Unto the temple of thy beauty (Ford) |
141 |
| Upon a hill the bonny boy (Weelkes) |
142 |
| Upon a summer’s day Love went to swim (Byrd) |
143 |
| | |
| Vain men! whose follies make a god of love (Campion) |
143 |
| | |
| Wake, sleepy Thyrsis, wake (Pilkington) |
144 |
| We be soldiers three (Deuteromelia) |
145 |
| We be three poor mariners (Deuteromelia) |
146 |
| We must not part as others do (Egerton MS. 2013) |
146 |
| We shepherds sing, we pipe, we play (Weelkes) |
147 |
| Wedded to will is witless (Byrd) |
147 |
| Weep no more, thou sorry boy (Tomkins) |
148 |
| Weep you no more, sad fountains (John Dowland) |
149 |
| Welcome, sweet pleasure (Weelkes) |
149 |
| Were I a king I might command content (Mundy) |
151 |
| Were my heart as some men’s are, thy errors would not move me (Campion) |
151 |
| What hap had I to marry a shrow (Pammelia) |
152 |
| What is our life? a play of passion (Gibbons) |
152 |
| What needeth all this travail and turmoiling (Wilbye) |
153 |
| What pleasure have great Princes (Byrd) |
153 |
| What poor astronomers are they (John Dowland) |
155 |
| What then is love, sings Corydon (Ford) |
156 |
| When Flora fair the pleasant tidings bringeth (Carlton) |
157 |
| When I was otherwise than now I am (Byrd) |
157 |
| When thou must home to shades of underground (Campion and Rosseter) |
158 |
| When younglings first on Cupid fix their sight (Byrd) |
159 |
| Where most my thoughts, there least mine eye is striking (Wilbye) |
159 |
| Where shall a sorrow great enough be sought (Peerson) |
160 |
| Whether men do laugh or weep (Campion and Rosseter) |
161 |
| While that the sun with his beams hot (Byrd) |
162 |
| [Pg xxx]
Whilst youthful sports are lasting (Weelkes) |
163 |
| White as lilies was her face (John Dowland) |
164 |
| Whither so fast? see how the kindly flowers (Pilkington) |
166 |
| Who likes to love, let him take heed (Byrd) |
167 |
| Who made thee, Hob, forsake the plough (Byrd) |
168 |
| Who prostrate lies at women’s feet (Bateson) |
168 |
| Who would have thought that face of thine (Farmer) |
169 |
| Why are you Ladies staying (Weelkes) |
169 |
| Wilt thou, Unkind! thus ’reave me (John Dowland) |
170 |
| Wise men patience never want (Campion) |
171 |
| Woeful heart with grief oppressèd (John Dowland) |
172 |
| | |
| Ye bubbling springs that gentle music makes (Greaves) |
172 |
| You blessèd bowers whose green leaves now are spreading (Farmer) |
173 |
| You that wont to my pipe’s sound (Morley) |
173 |
| Your shining eyes and golden hair (Bateson) |
174 |
[Pg xxxi]
LYRICS FROM ELIZABETHAN SONG-BOOKS.
Let well-tuned words amaze
With harmony divine.
Campion.
[Pg xxxii]
[Pg 1]
From Farmer’s First Set of English Madrigals, 1599.
A little pretty bonny lass was walking
In midst of May before the sun gan rise;
I took her by the hand and fell to talking
Of this and that as best I could devise:
I swore I would—yet still she said I should not;
Do what I would, and yet for all I could not.
From John Dowland’s Second Book of Songs or Airs, 1600.
A shepherd in a shade his plaining made
Of love and lover’s wrong
Unto the fairest lass that trod on grass,
And thus began his song:
“Since Love and Fortune will, I honour still
Your fair and lovely eye:
[Pg 2]
What conquest will it be, sweet Nymph, for thee
If I for sorrow die?
Restore, restore my heart again
Which love by thy sweet looks hath slain,
Lest that, enforced by your disdain,
I sing ‘Fie on love! it is a foolish thing.’
“My heart where have you laid? O cruel maid,
To kill when you might save!
Why have ye cast it forth as nothing worth,
Without a tomb or grave?
O let it be entombed and lie
In your sweet mind and memory,
Lest I resound on every warbling string
‘Fie, fie on love! that is a foolish thing.’
Restore, restore my heart again
Which love by thy sweet looks hath slain,
Lest that, enforced by your disdain,
I sing ‘Fie on love! it is a foolish thing.’”
From Thomas Weelkes’ Madrigals of Six Parts, 1600.
A Sparrow-Hawk proud did hold in wicked jail
Music’s sweet chorister, the nightingale,
To whom with sighs she said: “O set me free!
And in my song I’ll praise no bird but thee.”
The hawk replied, “I will not lose my diet
To let a thousand such enjoy their quiet.”
[Pg 3]
From Robert Jones’ First Book of Airs, 1601.
A woman’s looks
Are barbèd hooks,
That catch by art
The strongest heart
When yet they spend no breath;
But let them speak,
And sighing break
Forth into tears,
Their words are spears
That wound our souls to death.
The rarest wit
Is made forget,
And like a child
Is oft beguiled
With love’s sweet-seeming bait;
Love with his rod
So like a God
Commands the mind;
We cannot find,
Fair shows hide foul deceit.
Time, that all things
In order brings,
Hath taught me how
To be more slow
In giving faith to speech,
[Pg 4]
Since women’s words
No truth affords,
And when they kiss
They think by this
Us men to over-reach.
From Thomas Morley’s First Book of Ballets to Five Voices, 1595.
About the maypole new, with glee and merriment,
While as the bagpipe tooted it,
Thyrsis and Chloris fine together footed it:
And to the joyous instrument
Still they went to and fro, and finely flaunted it,
And then both met again and thus they chaunted it.
Fa la!
The shepherds and the nymphs them round enclosèd had,
Wond’ring with what facility,
About they turn’d them in such strange agility;
And still when they unloosèd had,
With words full of delight they gently kissed them,
And thus sweetly to sing they never missed them.
Fa la!
[Pg 5]
From John Wilbye’s First Set of English Madrigals, 1598.
Adieu, sweet Amaryllis!
For since to part your will is,
O heavy, heavy tiding!
Here is for me no biding.
Yet once again, ere that I part with you,
Adieu, sweet Amaryllis; sweet, adieu!
From Thomas Morley’s First Book of Madrigals, 1594.
April is in my mistress’ face,
And July in her eyes hath place;
Within her bosom is September,
But in her heart a cold December.
From Robert Jones’ Second Book of Songs and Airs, 1601.
Arise, my thoughts, and mount you with the sun,
Call all the winds to make you speedy wings,
And to my fairest Maya see you run
And weep your last while wantonly she sings;
Then if you cannot move her heart to pity,
Let Oh, alas, ay me be all your ditty.
[Pg 6]
Arise, my thoughts, no more, if you return
Denied of grace which only you desire,
But let the sun your wings to ashes burn
And melt your passions in his quenchless fire;
Yet, if you move fair Maya’s heart to pity,
Let smiles and love and kisses be your ditty.
Arise, my thoughts, beyond the highest star
And gently rest you in fair Maya’s eye,
For that is fairer than the brightest are;
But, if she frown to see you climb so high,
Couch in her lap, and with a moving ditty,
Of smiles and love and kisses, beg for pity.
From Thomas Campion’s Two Books of Airs (circ. 1613).
Awake, awake! thou heavy sprite
That sleep’st the deadly sleep of sin!
Rise now and walk the ways of light,
’Tis not too late yet to begin.
Seek heaven early, seek it late;
True Faith finds still an open gate.
Get up, get up, thou leaden man!
Thy track, to endless joy or pain,
Yields but the model of a span:
Yet burns out thy life’s lamp in vain!
One minute bounds thy bane or bliss;
Then watch and labour while time is.
[Pg 7]
From Henry Youll’s Canzonets to three voices, 1608.
Awake, sweet Love! ’tis time to rise:
Phœbus is risen in the east,
Spreading his beams on those fair eyes
Which are enclosed with Nature’s rest.
Awake, awake from heavy sleep
Which all thy thoughts in silence keep!
From John Wilbye’s First Set of English Madrigals, 1598.
Ay me, can every rumour
Thus start my lady’s humour?
Name ye some galante to her,
Why straight forsooth I woo her.
Then burst[s] she forth in passion
“You men love but for fashion;”
Yet sure I am that no man
Ever so lovèd woman.
Then alas, Love, be wary,
For women be contrary.
[Pg 8]
From Thomas Bateson’s First Set of English Madrigals, 1604.
Ay me, my mistress scorns my love;
I fear she will most cruel prove.
I weep, I sigh, I grieve, I groan;
Yet she regardeth not my moan.
Then, Love, adieu! it fits not me
To weep for her that laughs at thee.
From John Dowland’s Third and Last Book of Songs or Airs, 1603.
Behold a wonder here!
Love hath receiv’d his sight!
Which many hundred year
Hath not beheld the light.
Such beams infusèd be
By Cynthia in his eyes,
As first have made him see
And then have made him wise.
Love now no more will weep
For them that laugh the while!
Nor wake for them that sleep,
Nor sigh for them that smile!
[Pg 9]
So powerful is the Beauty
That Love doth now behold,
As Love is turned to Duty
That’s neither blind nor bold.
Thus Beauty shows her might
To be of double kind;
In giving Love his sight
And striking Folly blind.
From the Second Book of Musica Transalpina, 1597.
Brown is my Love, but graceful:
And each renownèd whiteness
Match’d with thy lovely brown loseth its brightness.
Fair is my Love, but scornful:
Yet have I seen despisèd
Dainty white lilies, and sad flowers well prizèd.
From John Dowland’s Third and Last Book of Songs or Airs, 1603.
By a fountain where I lay,
(All blessèd be that blessèd day!)
By the glimm’ring of the sun,
(O never be her shining done!)
[Pg 10]
When I might see alone
My true Love, fairest one!
Love’s dear light!
Love’s clear sight!
No world’s eyes can clearer see!
A fairer sight, none can be!
Fair with garlands all addrest,
(Was never Nymph more fairly blest!)
Blessèd in the highest degree,
(So may she ever blessèd be!)
Came to this fountain near,
With such a smiling cheer!
Such a face,
Such a grace!
Happy, happy eyes, that see
Such a heavenly sight as She!
Then I forthwith took my pipe,
Which I all fair and clean did wipe,
And upon a heavenly ground,
All in the grace of beauty found,
Play’d this roundelay:
“Welcome, fair Queen of May!
Sing, sweet air!
Welcome, Fair!
Welcome be the Shepherds’ Queen,
The glory of all our green!”
[Pg 11]
From Thomas Ravenscroft’s Brief Discourse, &c., 1614.
The Urchins’ Dance.
By the moon we sport and play,
With the night begins our day:
As we frisk the dew doth fall;
Trip it, little urchins all!
Lightly as the little bee,
Two by two, and three by three;
And about, about go we.
The Elves’ Dance.
Round about in a fair ring-a,
Thus we dance and thus we sing-a;
Trip and go, to and fro,
Over this green-a;
All about, in and out,
Over this green-a.
From Melismata, 1611.
The Courtier’s Good Morrow to his Mistress.
Canst thou love and lie alone?
Love is so disgracèd,
Pleasure is best
Wherein is rest
In a heart embracèd.
Rise, rise, rise!
[Pg 12]
Daylight do not burn out;
Bells do ring and birds do sing,
Only I that mourn out.
Morning-star doth now appear,
Wind is hushed and sky is clear;
Come, come away, come, come away!
Canst thou love and burn out day?
Rise, rise, rise!
Daylight do not burn out;
Bells do ring [and] birds do sing,
Only I that mourn out.
From Robert Dowland’s Musical Banquet, 1610. (Lines by the Earl of
Essex.)
Change thy mind since she doth change,
Let not fancy still abuse thee,
Thy untruth cannot seem strange
When her falsehood doth excuse thee:
Love is dead and thou art free,
She doth live but dead to thee.
Whilst she loved thee best a while,
See how she hath still delayed thee:
Using shows for to beguile,
Those vain hopes that have deceived thee:
Now thou seest, although too late,
Love loves truth which women hate.
[Pg 13]
Love no more since she is gone,
She is gone and loves another:
Being once deceived by one,
Leave her love but love none other.
She was false, bid her adieu,
She was best but yet untrue.
Love, farewell, more dear to me
Than my life, which thou preservest.
Life, all joys are gone from thee;
Others have what thou deservest.
Oh my death doth spring from hence,
I must die for her offence.
Die, but yet before thou die,
Make her know what she hath gotten,
She in whom my hopes did lie
Now is changed, I quite forgotten.
She is changed, but changèd base,
Baser in so vild a place.
From Thomas Weelkes’ Madrigals of Five and Six Parts, 1600.
Cold Winter’s ice is fled and gone,
And Summer brags on every tree,
The red-breast peeps amidst the throng
Of wood-born birds that wanton be:
Each one forgets what they have been,
And so doth Phyllis, Summer’s queen.
[Pg 14]
From John Dowland’s First Book of Songs or Airs, 1597.
Come away! come, sweet Love!
The golden morning breaks;
All the earth, all the air,
Of love and pleasure speaks!
Teach thine arms then to embrace,
And sweet rosy lips to kiss,
And mix our souls in mutual bliss.
Eyes were made for beauty’s grace
Viewing, ruing, love’s long pain;
Procured by beauty’s rude disdain.
Come away![3] come, sweet Love!
The golden morning wastes
While the sun from his sphere
His fiery arrows casts:
Making all the shadows fly,
Playing, staying in the grove
To entertain the stealth of love.
Thither, sweet Love, let us hie,
Flying, dying in desire,
Wing’d with sweet hopes and heavenly fire.
Come away! come, sweet Love!
Do not in vain adorn
[Pg 15]
Beauty’s grace, that should rise
Like to our naked morn!
Lilies on the river’s side,
And fair Cyprian flowers new-blown,
Desire no beauties but their own:
Ornament is nurse of pride.
Pleasure measure[s] love’s delight:
Haste then, sweet love, our wishèd flight!
From Thomas Campion’s Third Book of Airs (circ. 1613).
Come, O come, my life’s delight!
Let me not in languor pine!
Love loves no delay; thy sight
The more enjoyed, the more divine!
O come, and take from me
The pain of being deprived of thee!
Thou all sweetness dost enclose,
Like a little world of bliss;
Beauty guards thy looks, the rose
In them pure and eternal is:
Come, then, and make thy flight
As swift to me as heavenly light!
[Pg 16]
From Thomas Ford’s Music of Sundry Kinds, 1607.
Come, Phyllis, come into these bowers:
Here shelter is from sharpest showers,
Cool gales of wind breathe in these shades,
Danger none this place invades;
Here sit and note the chirping birds
Pleading my love in silent words.
Come, Phyllis, come, bright heaven’s eye
Cannot upon thy beauty pry;
Glad Echo in distinguished voice
Naming thee will here rejoice;
Then come and hear her merry lays
Crowning thy name with lasting praise.
From John Wilbye’s Second Set of Madrigals, 1609.
Come, shepherd swains, that wont to hear me sing,
Now sigh and groan!
Dead is my Love, my Hope, my Joy, my Spring;
Dead, dead, and gone!
O, She that was your Summer’s Queen,
Your days’ delight,
[Pg 17]
Is gone and will no more be seen;
O, cruel spite!
Break all your pipes that wont to sound
With pleasant cheer,
And cast yourselves upon the ground
To wail my Dear!
Come, shepherd swains, come, nymphs, and all a-row
To help me cry:
Dead is my Love, and, seeing She is so,
Lo, now I die!
From Two Books of Airs, by Thomas Campion (circ. 1613).
Come, you pretty false-eyed wanton,
Leave your crafty smiling!
Think you to escape me now
With slipp’ry words beguiling?
No; you mocked me th’ other day;
When you got loose, you fled away;
But, since I have caught you now,
I’ll clip your wings for flying:
Smoth’ring kisses fast I’ll heap
And keep you so from crying.
Sooner may you count the stars
And number hail down-pouring,
Tell the osiers of the Thames,
Or Goodwin sands devouring,
[Pg 18]
Than the thick-showered kisses here
Which now thy tired lips must bear.
Such a harvest never was
So rich and full of pleasure,
But ’tis spent as soon as reaped,
So trustless is lore’s treasure.
From Thomas Campion’s Third Book of Airs (circ. 1613).
Could my heart more tongues employ
Than it harbours thoughts of grief,
It is now so far from joy
That it scarce could ask relief:
Truest hearts by deeds unkind
To despair are most inclined.
Happy minds that can redeem
Their engagements how they please,
That no joys or hopes esteem
Half so precious as their ease:
Wisdom should prepare men so,
As if they did all foreknow.
Yet no art or caution can
Grown affections easily change;
Use is such a lord of man
That he brooks worst what is strange:
Better never to be blest
Than to lose all at the best.
[Pg 19]
From William Byrd’s Psalms, Songs, and Sonnets, 1611.
Crownèd with flowers I saw fair Amaryllis
By Thyrsis sit, hard by a fount of crystal,
And with her hand more white than snow or lilies,
On sand she wrote My faith shall be immortal:
And suddenly a storm of wind and weather
Blew all her faith and sand away together.
From Thomas Ravenscroft’s Brief Discourse, 1614.
The Fairies’ Dance.
Dare you haunt our hallow’d green?
None but fairies here are seen.
Down and sleep,
Wake and weep,
Pinch him black, and pinch him blue,
That seeks to steal a lover true!
When you come to hear us sing,
Or to tread our fairy ring,
Pinch him black, and pinch him blue!
O thus our nails shall handle you!
[Pg 20]
From Thomas Campion’s Fourth Book of Airs (circ. 1613).
Dear, if I with guile would gild a true intent,
Heaping flatt’ries that in heart were never meant,
Easily could I then obtain
What now in vain I force;
Falsehood much doth gain,
Truth yet holds the better course.
Love forbid that through dissembling I should thrive,
Or, in praising you, myself of truth deprive!
Let not your high thoughts debase
A simple truth in me;
Great is Beauty’s grace,
Truth is yet as fair as she.
Praise is but the wind of pride if it exceeds,
Wealth prized in itself no outward value needs:
Fair you are, and passing fair;
You know it, and ’tis true;
Yet let none despair
But to find as fair as you.
From John Dowland’s First Book of Songs or Airs, 1597.
Dear, if you change, I’ll never choose again;
Sweet, if you shrink, I’ll never think of love;
Fair, if you fail, I’ll judge all beauty vain;
Wise, if too weak, more wits I’ll never prove.
[Pg 21]
Dear, sweet, fair, wise! change, shrink, nor be not weak;
And, on my faith, my faith shall never break.
Earth with her flowers shall sooner heaven adorn;
Heaven her bright stars through earth’s dim globe shall move;
Fire heat shall lose, and frosts of flames be born;
Air, made to shine, as black as hell shall prove:
Earth, heaven, fire, air, the world transformed shall view,
Ere I prove false to faith or strange to you.
From Thomas Morley’s Canzonets, 1593.
Do you not know how Love lost first his seeing?
Because with me once gazing
On those fair eyes where all powers have their being,
She with her beauty blazing,
Which death might have revivèd,
Him of his sight and me of heart deprivèd.
From John Wilbye’s Second Set of Madrigals, 1609.
Draw on, sweet Night, best friend unto those cares
That do arise from painful melancholy;
[Pg 22]
My life so ill through want of comfort fares,
That unto thee I consecrate it wholly.
Sweet Night, draw on; my griefs, when they be told
To shades and darkness, find some ease from paining;
And while thou all in silence dost enfold,
I then shall have best time for my complaining.
From Henry Youll’s Canzonets to three Voices, 1608.
Each day of thine, sweet month of May,
Love makes a solemn holyday:
I will perform like duty,
Since thou resemblest every way
Astræa, Queen of Beauty.
From Thomas Campion’s Fourth Book of Airs (circ. 1613).
Every dame affects good fame, whate’er her doings be,
But true praise is Virtue’s bays, which none may wear but she.
Borrowed guise fits not the wise, a simple look is best;
Native grace becomes a face though ne’er so rudely drest.
[Pg 23]
Now such new-found toys are sold these women to disguise,
That before the year grows old the newest fashion dies.
Dames of yore contended more in goodness to exceed,
Than in pride to be envied for that which least they need.
Little lawn then serve[d] the Pawn, if Pawn at all there were;
Homespun thread and household bread then held out all the year.
But th’ attires of women now wear out both house and land;
That the wives in silk may flow, at ebb the good men stand.
Once again, Astræa! then from heaven to earth descend,
And vouchsafe in their behalf these errors to amend.
Aid from heaven must make all even, things are so out of frame;
For let man strive all he can, he needs must please his dame.
Happy man, content that gives and what he gives enjoys!
Happy dame, content that lives and breaks no sleep for toys!
[Pg 24]
From Farmer’s First Set of English Madrigals, 1599.
Fair Phyllis I saw sitting all alone,
Feeding her flock near to the mountain-side;
The shepherds knew not whither she was gone,
But after her lover Amyntas hied.
Up and down he wandered, whilst she was missing;
When he found her, oh then they fell a-kissing!
From William Byrd’s Psalms, Sonnets, and Songs, 1588.
Farewell, false Love, the oracle of lies,
A mortal foe and enemy to rest,
An envious boy from whom all cares arise,
A bastard vile, a beast with rage possest;
A way of error, a temple full of treason,
In all effects contrary unto reason.
A poison’d serpent cover’d all with flowers,
Mother of sighs and murderer of repose;
A sea of sorrows from whence are drawn such showers
As moisture lend to every grief that grows;
A school of guile, a net of deep deceit,
A gilded hook that holds a poison’d bait.
[Pg 25]
A fortress foiled which Reason did defend,
A Siren song, a fever of the mind,
A maze wherein affection finds no end,
A raging cloud that runs before the wind;
A substance like the shadow of the sun,
A goal of grief for which the wisest run.
A quenchless fire, a nurse of trembling fear,
A path that leads to peril and mishap,
A true retreat of sorrow and despair,
An idle boy that sleeps in Pleasure’s lap;
A deep distrust of that which certain seems,
A hope of that which Reason doubtful deems.
From Thomas Weelkes’ Ballets and Madrigals, 1598.
Farewell, my joy!
Adieu, my love and pleasure!
To sport and toy
We have no longer leisure.
Fa la la!
Farewell, adieu
Until our next consorting!
Sweet love, be true!
And thus we end our sporting.
Fa la la!
[Pg 26]
From John Dowland’s Second Book of Songs or Airs, 1600.
Fine knacks for ladies, cheap, choice, brave and new,
Good pennyworths,—but money cannot move:
I keep a fair but for the Fair to view,—
A beggar may be liberal of love.
Though all my wares be trash, the heart is true,
The heart is true.
Great gifts are guiles and look for gifts again,
My trifles come as treasures from my mind;
It is a precious jewel to be plain;
Sometimes in shell the orient’st pearls we find:
Of others take a sheaf, of me a grain!
Of me a grain!
Within this pack pins, points, laces, and gloves,
And divers toys fitting a country fair,
But my heart, wherein duty serves and loves,
Turtles and twins, court’s brood, a heavenly pair—
Happy the heart that thinks of no removes!
Of no removes!
[Pg 27]
From Thomas Campion’s Third Book of Airs (circ. 1613).
Fire that must flame is with apt fuel fed,
Flowers that will thrive in sunny soil are bred:
How can a heart feel heat that no hope finds?
Or can he love on whom no comfort shines?
Fair, I confess there’s pleasure in your sight;
Sweet, you have power, I grant, of all delight;
But what is all to me if I have none?
Churl that you are t’enjoy such wealth alone!
Prayers move the heavens but find no grace with you,
Yet in your looks a heavenly form I view;
Then will I pray again, hoping to find,
As well as in your looks, heaven in your mind.
Saint of my heart, queen of my life and love,
O let my vows thy loving spirit move!
Let me no longer mourn through thy disdain,
But with one touch of grace cure all my pain!
From John Wilbye’s First Set of English Madrigals, 1598.
Flora gave me fairest flowers,
None so fair in Flora’s treasure;
These I placed on Phyllis’ bowers,
She was pleased, and she my pleasure:
Smiling meadows seem to say,
“Come, ye wantons, here to play.”
[Pg 28]
From Campion and Rosseter’s Book of Airs, 1601.
Follow your saint, follow with accents sweet!
Haste you, sad notes, fall at her flying feet!
There, wrapped in cloud of sorrow, pity move,
And tell the ravisher of my soul I perish for her love:
But, if she scorns my never-ceasing pain,
Then burst with sighing in her sight and ne’er return again.
All that I sang still to her praise did tend,
Still she was first, still she my songs did end;
Yet she my love and music both doth fly,
The music that her echo is and beauty’s sympathy:
Then let my notes pursue her scornful flight!
It shall suffice that they were breathed and died for her delight.
From Robert Jones’ First Book of Airs, 1601.
οὐκ ἔστι γήμας ὅστις οὐ χειμάζεται,
λέγουσι πάντες· καὶ γαμοῦσιν εἰδότες.
Anthol. Græc.
Fond wanton youths make love a God
Which after proveth Age’s rod;
Their youth, their time, their wit, their art
They spend in seeking of their smart;
And, which of follies is the chief,
They woo their woe, they wed their grief.
[Pg 29]
All find it so who wedded are,
Love’s sweets, they find, enfold sour care;
His pleasures pleasing’st in the eye,
Which tasted once with loathing die:
They find of follies ’tis the chief,
Their woe to woo, to wed their grief.
If for their own content they choose
Forthwith their kindred’s love they lose;
And if their kindred they content,
For ever after they repent;
O ’tis of all our follies chief,
Our woe to woo, to wed our grief.
In bed, what strifes are bred by day,
Our puling wives do open lay;
None friends, none foes we must esteem
But whom they so vouchsafe to deem:
O ’tis of all our follies chief,
Our woe to woo, to wed our grief.
Their smiles we want if aught they want,
And either we their wills must grant
Or die they will, or are with child;
Their longings must not be beguiled:
O ’tis of all our follies chief,
Our woe to woo, to wed our grief.
Foul wives are jealous, fair wives false,
Marriage to either binds us thrall;
Wherefore being bound we must obey
And forcèd be perforce to say,—
Of all our bliss it is the chief,
Our woe to woo, to wed our grief.
[Pg 30]
From William Byrd’s Songs of Sundry Natures, 1589.
From Citheron the warlike boy is fled
And smiling sits upon a Virgin’s lap,—
Thereby to train poor misers to the trap,
Whom Beauty draws with fancy to be fed:
And when Desire with eager looks is led,
Then from her eyes
The arrow flies,
Feather’d with flame, arm’d with a golden head.
Her careless thoughts are freèd of that flame
Wherewith her thralls are scorchèd to the heart:
If Love would so, would God the enchanting dart
Might once return and burn from whence it came!
Not to deface of Beauty’s work the frame,
But by rebound
It might be found
What secret smart I suffer by the same.
If Love be just, then just is my desire;
And if unjust, why is he call’d a God?
O God, O God, O Just! reserve thy rod
To chasten those that from thy laws retire!
But choose aright (good Love! I thee require)
The golden head,
Not that of lead!
Her heart is frost and must dissolve by fire.
[Pg 31]
From John Dowland’s Second Book of Songs and Airs, 1600.
To Master Hugh Holland.
From Fame’s desire, from Love’s delight retired,
In these sad groves an hermit’s life I lead:
And those false pleasures, which I once admired,
With sad remembrance of my fall, I dread.
To birds, to trees, to earth, impart I this;
For she less secret, and as senseless is.
O sweet woods! the delight of solitariness!
O how much do I love your solitariness!
Experience which repentance only brings,
Doth bid me, now, my heart from Love estrange!
Love is disdained when it doth look at Kings;
And Love low placèd base and apt to change.
There Power doth take from him his liberty,
Her[e] Want of Worth makes him in cradle die.
O sweet woods! the delight of solitariness!
O how much do I love your solitariness!
You men that give false worship unto Love,
And seek that which you never shall obtain;
The endless work of Sisyphus you prove,
Whose end is this, to know you strive in vain.
Hope and Desire, which now your idols be,
You needs must lose, and feel Despair with me.
O sweet woods! the delight of solitariness!
O how much do I love your solitariness!
[Pg 32]
You woods, in you the fairest Nymphs have walked:
Nymphs at whose sights all hearts did yield to love.
You woods, in whom dear lovers oft have talked,
How do you now a place of mourning prove?
Wanstead! my Mistress saith this is the doom.
Thou art love’s child-bed, nursery, and tomb.
O sweet woods! the delight of solitariness!
O how much do I love your solitariness!
From Thomas Campion’s Two Books of Airs (circ. 1613).
Give Beauty all her right!
She’s not to one form tied;
Each shape yields fair delight
Where her perfections bide:
Helen, I grant, might pleasing be,
And Ros’mond was as sweet as she.
Some the quick eye commends,
Some swelling[4] lips and red;
Pale looks have many friends,
Through sacred sweetness bred:
Meadows have flowers that pleasures move,
Though roses are the flowers of love.
Free beauty is not bound
To one unmovèd clime;
[Pg 33]
She visits every ground
And favours every time.
Let the old loves with mine compare,
My sovereign is as sweet and fair.
From John Dowland’s First Book of Songs or Airs, 1597.
Go crystal tears! like to the morning showers,
And sweetly weep into thy lady’s breast!
And as the dews revive the drooping flowers,
So let your drops of pity be addrest!
To quicken up the thoughts of my desert,
Which sleeps too sound whilst I from her depart.
Haste hapless sighs! and let your burning breath
Dissolve the ice of her indurate heart!
Whose frozen rigour, like forgetful Death,
Feels never any touch of my desert.
Yet sighs and tears to her I sacrifice
Both from a spotless heart and patient eyes.
From Egerton MS., 2013. The Verses were set to Music by Dr. John
Wilson.
Go, turn away those cruel eyes,
For they have quite undone me;
[Pg 34]
They used not so to tyrannize
When first those glances won me.
But ’tis the custom of you men,—
False men thus to deceive us!
To love but till we love again,
And then again to leave us.
Go, let alone my heart and me,
Which thou hast thus affrighted!
I did not think I could by thee
Have been so ill requited.
But now I find ’tis I must prove
That men have no compassion;
When we are won, you never love
Poor women, but for fashion,
Do recompense my love with hate,
And kill my heart! I’m sure
Thou’lt one day say, when ’tis too late,
Thou never hadst a truer.
From Thomas Campion’s Second Book of Airs (circ. 1613).
Good men show! if you can tell,
Where doth Human Pity dwell?
Far and near her I would seek,
So vexed with sorrow is my breast.
[Pg 35]
“She,” they say, “to all, is meek;
And only makes th’ unhappy blest.”
Oh! if such a saint there be,
Some hope yet remains for me:
Prayer or sacrifice may gain
From her implorèd grace, relief;
To release me of my pain,
Or at the least to ease my grief.
Young am I, and far from guile,
The more is my woe the while:
Falsehood, with a smooth disguise,
My simple meaning hath abused:
Casting mists before mine eyes,
By which my senses are confused.
Fair he is, who vowed to me,
That he only mine would be;
But alas, his mind is caught
With every gaudy bait he sees:
And, too late, my flame is taught
That too much kindness makes men freeze.
From me, all my friends are gone,
While I pine for him alone;
And not one will rue my case,
But rather my distress deride:
That I think, there is no place,
Where Pity ever yet did bide.
[Pg 36]
From Thomas Weelkes’ Airs or Fantastic Spirits, 1608.
Ha ha! ha ha! this world doth pass
Most merrily, I’ll be sworn;
For many an honest Indian ass
Goes for an Unicorn.
Farra, diddle dino;
This is idle fino.
Ty hye! ty hye! O sweet delight!
He tickles this age that can
Call Tullia’s ape a marmosyte
And Leda’s goose a swan.
Farra diddle dino;
This is idle fino.
So so! so so! fine English days!
When false play’s no reproach:
For he that doth the coachman praise,
May safely use the coach.
Farra diddle dino;
This is idle fino.
From Robert Jones’s Ultimum Vale or Third Book of Airs (1608).
Happy he
Who, to sweet home retired,
[Pg 37]
Shuns glory so admired,
And to himself lives free,
Whilst he who strives with pride to climb the skies
Falls down with foul disgrace before he rise.
Let who will
The active life commend
And all his travels bend
Earth with his fame to fill:
Such fame, so forced, at last dies with his death,
Which life maintain’d by others’ idle breath.
My delights,
To dearest home confined,
Shall there make good my mind
Not aw’d with fortune’s spites:
High trees heaven blasts, winds shake and honors[5] fell,
When lowly plants long time in safety dwell.
All I can,
My worldly strife shall be
They one day say of me
‘He died a good old man’:
On his sad soul a heavy burden lies
Who, known to all, unknown to himself dies.
From John Wilbye’s Second Set of Madrigals, 1609.
Happy, O! happy he, who not affecting
The endless toils attending worldly cares,
[Pg 38]
With mind reposed, all discontents rejecting,
In silent peace his way to heaven prepares,
Deeming this life a scene, the world a stage
Whereon man acts his weary pilgrimage.
From Francis Pilkington’s First Set Of Madrigals, 1613.
Have I found her? O rich finding!
Goddess-like for to behold,
Her fair tresses seemly binding
In a chain of pearl and gold.
Chain me, chain me, O most fair,
Chain me to thee with that hair!
From John Mundy’s Songs and Psalms, 1594.
Heigh ho! chill go to plough no more!
Sit down and take thy rest;
Of golden groats I have full store
To flaunt it with the best.
But I love and I love, and who thinks you?
The finest lass that e’er you knew,
Which makes me sing when I should cry
Heigh ho! for love I die.
[Pg 39]
From John Maynard’s Twelve Wonders of the World, 1611.
The Bachelor.
How many things as yet
Are dear alike to me!
The field, the horse, the dog,
Love, arms, or liberty.
I have no wife as yet
That I may call mine own;
I have no children yet
That by my name are known.
Yet, if I married were,
I would not wish to thrive
If that I could not tame
The veriest shrew alive.
From Thomas Ford’s Music of Sundry Kinds, 1607.
How shall I then describe my Love?
When all men’s skilful art
Is far inferior to her worth,
To praise the unworthiest part.
[Pg 40]
She’s chaste in looks, mild in her speech,
In actions all discreet,
Of nature loving, pleasing most,
In virtue all complete.
And for her voice a Philomel,
Her lips may all lips scorn;
No sun more clear than is her eye,
In brightest summer morn.
A mind wherein all virtues rest
And take delight to be,
And where all virtues graft themselves
In that most fruitful tree:
A tree that India doth not yield,
Nor ever yet was seen,
Where buds of virtue always spring,
And all the year grow green.
That country’s blest wherein she grows,
And happy is that rock
From whence she springs: but happiest he
That grafts in such a stock.
From Henry Lichfild’s First Set of Madrigals, 1613.
I always loved to call my lady Rose,
For in her cheeks roses do sweetly glose,
[Pg 41]
And from her lips she such sweet odours threw
As roses do ’gainst Phœbus’ morning-view:
But when I thought to pull’t, hope was bereft me,—
My rose was gone and naught but prickles left me.
From Melismata, 1611.
A Wooing Song of a Yeoman of Kent’s Son.
I have house and land in Kent,
And if you’ll love me, love me now;
Twopence-halfpenny is my rent,
I cannot come every day to woo.
Chorus. Twopence-halfpenny is his rent,
And he cannot come every day to woo.
Ich am my vather’s eldest zonne,
My mother eke doth love me well,
For ich can bravely clout my shoone,
And ich full well can ring a bell.
Chorus. For he can bravely clout his shoone,
And he full well can ring a bell.
My vather he gave me a hog,
My mouther she gave me a zow;
I have a God-vather dwels thereby,
And he on me bestowed a plow.
Chorus. He has a God-vather dwells thereby,
And he on him bestowed a plough.
[Pg 42]
One time I gave thee a paper of pins,
Another time a tawdry-lace;
And if thou wilt not grant me love,
In truth ich die bevore thy face.
Chorus. And if thou wilt not grant his love,
In truth he’ll die bevore thy vace.
Ich have been twice our Whitson-lord,
Ich have had ladies many vair,
And eke thou hast my heart in hold
And in my mind zeems passing rare.
Chorus. And eke thou hast his heart in hold
And in his mind seems passing rare.
Ich will put on my best white slops
And ich will wear my yellow hose,
And on my head a good grey hat,
And in’t ich stick a lovely rose.
Chorus. And on his head a good grey hat,
And in’t he’ll stick a lovely rose.
Wherefore cease off, make no delay,
And if you’ll love me, love me now;
Or else ich zeek zome oderwhere,
For I cannot come every day to woo.
Chorus. Or else he’ll zeek zome oderwhere,
For he cannot come every day to woo.
[Pg 43]
From William Byrd’s Psalms, Sonnets, and Songs of Sadness and Piety,
1588.
I joy not in no earthly bliss,
I force not Crœsus’ wealth a straw;
For care I know not what it is
I fear not Fortune’s fatal law:
My mind is such as may not move
For beauty bright nor force of love.
I wish but what I have at will,
I wander not to seek for more;
I like the plain, I climb no hill;
In greatest storms I sit on shore
And laugh at them that toil in vain
To get what must be lost again.
I kiss not where I wish to kill;
I feign not love where most I hate;
I break no sleep to win my will;
I wait not at the mighty’s gate;
I scorn no poor, nor fear no rich;
I feel no want, nor have too much.
The court and cart I like nor loath;
Extremes are counted worst of all;
The golden mean between them both
Doth surest sit and fears no fall.
This is my choice: for why? I find
No wealth is like the quiet mind.
[Pg 44]
From John Wilbye’s Second Set of Madrigals, 1609.
I live, and yet methinks I do not breathe;
I thirst and drink, I drink and thirst again;
I sleep and yet do dream I am awake;
I hope for that I have; I have and want:
I sing and sigh; I love and hate at once.
O, tell me, restless soul, what uncouth jar
Doth cause in store such want, in peace such war?
Risposta.
There is a jewel which no Indian mines
Can buy, no chymic art can counterfeit;
It makes men rich in greatest poverty;
Makes water wine, turns wooden cups to gold,
The homely whistle to sweet music’s strain:
Seldom it come, to few from heaven sent,
That much in little, all in nought,—Content.
From John Maynard’s Twelve Wonders of the World, 1611.
The Maid.
I marriage would forswear,
But that I hear men tell
That she that dies a maid
Must lead an ape in hell.
[Pg 45]
Therefore, if fortune come,
I will not mock and play
Nor drive the bargain on
Till it be driven away.
Titles and lands I like,
Yet rather fancy can
A man that wanteth gold
Than gold that wants a man.
From John Maynard’s Twelve Wonders of the World, 1611.
The Married Man.
I only am the man
Among all married men
That do not wish the priest,
To be unlinked again.
And though my shoe did wring
I would not make my moan,
Nor think my neighbours’ chance
More happy than mine own.
Yet court I not my wife,
But yield observance due,
Being neither fond nor cross,
Nor jealous nor untrue.
[Pg 46]
From John Dowland’s Second Book of Songs or Airs, 1600.
I saw my Lady weep,
And sorrow proud to be advancèd so
In those fair eyes where all perfections keep.
Her face was full of woe,
But such a woe (believe me) as wins more hearts
Than 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 move
As made my heart at once both grieve and love.
O fairer than aught else
The 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.
From John Wilbye’s First Set of English Madrigals, 1598.
I sung sometime my thoughts and fancy’s pleasure,
Where I did list, or time served best and leisure;
While Daphne did invite me
To supper once, and drank to me to spite me.
[Pg 47]
I smiled, but yet did doubt her,
And drank where she had drunk before, to flout her;
But, O! while I did eye her,
Mine eyes drank love, my lips drank burning fire.
From Orlando Gibbons’ First Set of Madrigals, 1612.
I weigh not Fortune’s frown nor smile,
I joy not much in earthly joys,
I seek not state, I reak [sic] not style,
I am not fond of Fancy’s toys.
I rest so pleased with what I have
I wish no more, no more I crave.
I tremble not at noise of war,
I quake not at the thunder’s crack,
I shrink not at a blazing star,
I sound not at the news of wreck,
I fear no loss, I hope no gain,
I envy none, I none disdain.
I see Ambition never pleased,
I see some Tantals starve in store,
I see gold’s dropsy seldom eased,
I see each Midas gape for more:
I neither want nor yet abound,
Enough’s a feast, content is crowned.
I feign not friendship where I hate,
I fawn not on the great for grace,
[Pg 48]
I prize, I praise a mean estate
Ne yet too lofty, nor too base,
This is all my choice, my cheer—
A mind content and conscience clear.
From Thomas Morley’s Madrigals to Four Voices, 1600.
I will no more come to thee
That flout’st me when I woo thee;
Still ty hy thou criest
And all my lovely rings and pins denyest.
O say, alas, what moves thee
To grieve him so that loves thee?
Leave, alas, then, ah leave tormenting
And give my burning some relenting.
From Robert Jones’ First Book of Songs and Airs, 1601.
If fathers knew but how to leave
Their children wit as they do wealth,
And could constrain them to receive
That physic which brings perfect health,
The world would not admiring stand
A woman’s face and woman’s hand.
[Pg 49]
Women confess they must obey,
We men will needs be servants still;
We kiss their hands, and what they say
We must commend, be’t ne’er so ill:
Thus we, like fools, admiring stand
Her pretty foot and pretty hand.
We blame their pride, which we increase
By making mountains of a mouse;
We praise because we know we please;
Poor women are too credulous
To think that we admiring stand
Or foot, or face, or foolish hand.
From Campion and Rosseter’s Book of Airs, 1601.
If I urge my kind desires,
She, unkind, doth them reject,
Women’s hearts are painted fires,
To deceive them that affect.
I alone love’s fires include:
She alone doth them delude.
She hath often vowed her love:
But alas no fruit I find.
That her fires are false I prove
Yet, in her, no fault I find.
I was thus unhappy born,
And ordained to be her scorn.
[Pg 50]
Yet if human care or pain,
May the heavenly order change;
She will hate her own disdain,
And repent she was so strange:
For a truer heart than I,
Never lived, nor loved to die.
From John Dowland’s First Book of Songs and Airs, 1597.
If my complaints could passions move,
Or make Love see wherein I suffer wrong;
My passions were enough to prove
That my despairs had governed me too long.
O Love, I live and die in thee!
Thy wounds do freshly bleed in me.
Thy grief in my deep sighs still speaks,
Yet thou dost hope when I despair;
My heart for thy unkindness breaks;
Thou say’st thou can’st my harms repair,
And when I hope thou mak’st me hope in vain;
Yet for redress thou let’st me still complain.
Can Love be rich, and yet I want?
Is Love my judge, and yet am I condemned?
Thou plenty hast, yet me dost scant;
Thou made a god, and yet thy power contemned!
That I do live, it is thy power;
That I desire it is thy worth.
[Pg 51]
If love doth make men’s lives too sour,
Let me not love, nor live henceforth!
Die shall my hopes, but not my faith,
That you, that of my fall may hearers be,
May hear Despair, which truly saith
“I was more true to Love, than Love to me.”
From Thomas Campion’s Third Book of Airs (circ. 1613).
If thou long’st so much to learn, sweet boy, what ’tis to love,
Do but fix thy thoughts on me and thou shalt quickly prove:
Little suit at first shall win
Way to thy abashed desire,
But then will I hedge thee in,
Salamander-like, with fire.
With thee dance I will, and sing, and thy fond dalliance bear;
We the grovy hills will climb and play the wantons there;
Other whiles we’ll gather flowers,
Lying dallying on the grass;
And thus our delightful hours,
Full of waking dreams, shall pass.
When thy joys were thus at height, my love should turn from thee,
Old acquaintance then should grow as strange, as strange might be:
[Pg 52]
Twenty rivals thou shouldst find,
Breaking all their hearts for me,
While to all I’ll prove more kind
And more forward than to thee.
Thus thy silly youth, enraged, would soon my love defy,
But, alas, poor soul, too late! clipt wings can never fly.
Those sweet hours which we had past,
Called to thy mind, thy heart would burn;
And couldst thou fly ne’er so fast,
They would make thee straight return.
From William Byrd’s Psalms, Sonnets and Songs, 1588.
If women could be fair and never fond,
Or that their beauty might continue still,
I would not marvel though they made men bond
By service long to purchase their goodwill:
But when I see how frail these creatures are,
I laugh that men forget themselves so far.
To mark what choice they make and how they change,
How, leaving best, the worst they choose out still;
And how, like haggards wild, about they range,
And scorning reason follow after will![6]
Who would not shake such buzzards from the fist
And let them fly (fair fools!) which way they list?
[Pg 53]
Yet for our sport we fawn and flatter both,
To pass the time when nothing else can please:
And train them on to yield by subtle oath
The sweet content that gives such humour ease:
And then we say, when we their follies try,
“To play with fools, O, what a fool was I!”
From William Byrd’s Psalms, Songs, and Sonnets, 1611.
In crystal towers and turrets richly set
With glitt’ring gems that shine against the sun,
In regal rooms of jasper and of jet,
Content of mind not always likes to won;[7]
But oftentimes it pleaseth her to stay
In simple cotes enclosed with walls of clay.
From John Coprario’s Funeral Tears, etc., 1606.
In darkness let me dwell, the ground shall sorrow be,
The roof despair to bar all cheerful light from me,
The walls of marble black that moistened still shall weep,
My music hellish jarring sounds to banish friendly sleep:
Thus wedded to my woes, and bedded in my tomb
O let me dying live till death doth come.
[Pg 54]
My dainties grief shall be, and tears my poisoned wine,
My sighs the air through which my panting heart shall pine,
My robes my mind shall suit exceeding blackest night,
My study shall be tragic thoughts sad fancy to delight,
Pale ghosts and frightful shades shall my acquaintance be:
O thus, my hapless joy, I haste to thee.
From John Mundy’s Songs and Psalms, 1594.
In midst of woods or pleasant grove,
Where all sweet birds do sing,
Methought I heard so rare a sound
Which made the heavens to ring.
The charm was good, the noise full sweet,
Each bird did play his part;
And I admired to hear the same,
Joy sprang into my heart.
The black bird made the sweetest sound,
Whose tunes did far excel;
Full pleasantly, and most profound
Was all things placed well.
Thy pretty tunes, mine own sweet bird,
Done with so good a grace,
Extolls thy name, prefers the same
Abroad in every place.
[Pg 55]
Thy music grave, bedeckèd well
With sundry points of skill,
Bewrays thy knowledge excellent
Ingrafted in thy will.
My tongue shall speak, my pen shall write
In praise of thee to tell;
The sweetest bird that ever was,
In friendly sort farewell.
From Thomas Weelkes’ Ballets and Madrigals, 1598.
In pride of May
The fields are gay,
The birds do sweetly sing. Fa la la!
So Nature would
That all things should
With joy begin the spring. Fa la la!
Then, Lady dear,
Do you appear
In beauty like the spring: Fa la la!
I dare well say
The birds that day
More cheerfully will sing. Fa la la!
[Pg 56]
From Robert Jones’s Musical Dream, 1609.
Φεύγειν δὴ τὸν Ἔρωτα κενὸς πόνος.—Archias.
In Sherwood lived stout Robin Hood,
An archer great, none greater,
His bow and shafts were sure and good,
Yet Cupid’s were much better;
Robin could shoot at many a hart and miss,
Cupid at first could hit a heart of his.
Hey, jolly Robin Hood, ho jolly Robin Hood,
Love finds out me
As well as thee,
To follow me to the green-wood.
A noble thief was Robin Hood,
Wise was he could deceive him;
Yet Marian in his bravest mood
Could of his heart bereave him:
No greater thief lies hidden under skies,
Than beauty closely lodged in women’s eyes.
Hey, jolly Robin, &c.
An outlaw was this Robin Hood,
His life free and unruly,
Yet to fair Marian bound he stood
And love’s debt paid her duly:
[Pg 57]
Whom curb of strictest law could not hold in,
Love[8] to obedience with a wink could win.
Hey, jolly Robin, &c.
Now wend we home, stout Robin Hood,
Leave we the woods behind us,
Love-passions must not be withstood,
Love everywhere will find us.
I lived in field and town, and so did he;
I got me to the woods, Love followed me.
Hey, jolly Robin, &c.
From Michael Este’s Madrigals of three, four and five parts, 1604. (By
Nicholas Breton. Originally published in 1591.)
In the merry month of May,
On a morn by break of day,
Forth I walk’d by the wood-side,
Whereas May was in her pride:
There I spyèd all alone
Phillida and Corydon.
Much ado there was, God wot!
He would love and she would not.
She said, never man was true;
He said, none was false to you.
[Pg 58]
He said, he had loved her long;
She said, Love should have no wrong.
Corydon would kiss her then;
She said, maids must kiss no men
Till they did for good and all;
Then she made the shepherd call
All the heavens to witness truth
Never lov’d a truer youth.
Thus with many a pretty oath,
Yea and nay, and faith and troth,
Such as seely shepherds use
When they will not love abuse,
Love, which had been long deluded,
Was with kisses sweet concluded;
And Phillida with garlands gay
Was made the Lady of the May.
From Thomas Greaves’ Songs of Sundry Kinds, 1604.
Inconstant Laura makes me death to crave,
For wanting her I must embrace my grave;
A little grave will ease my malady
And set me free from love’s fell tyranny.
Intomb me then and show her where I lie,
And say I died through her inconstancy.
[Pg 59]
From Henry Lichfild’s First Set of Madrigals, 1613.
Injurious hours, whilst any joy doth bless me,
With speedy wings you fly and so release me;
But if some sorrow do oppress my heart,
You creep as if you never meant to part.
From William Byrd’s Songs of Sundry Natures, 1589.
Is Love a boy,—what means he then to strike?
Or is he blind,—why will he be a guide?
Is he a man,—why doth he hurt his like?
Is he a God,—why doth he men deride?
No one of these, but one compact of all:
A wilful boy, a man still dealing blows,
Of purpose blind to lead men to their thrall,
A god that rules unruly—God, he knows.
Boy, pity me that am a child again;
Blind, be no more my guide to make me stray;
Man, use thy might to force away my pain;
God, do me good and lead me to my way;
And if thou beest a power to me unknown,
Power of my life, let here thy grace be shown.
[Pg 60]
From Melismata, 1611.
The Marriage of the Frog and the Mouse.
It was the frog in the well,
Humbledum, humbledum,
And the merry mouse in the mill,
Tweedle, tweedle, twino.
The frog would a wooing ride
Sword and buckler by his side.
When he upon his high horse set,
His boots they shone as black as jet.
When he came to the merry mill-pin,—
“Lady Mouse, been you within?”
Then came out the dusty mouse:
“I am Lady of this house:
Hast thou any mind of me?”
“I have e’en great mind of thee?”
“Who shall this marriage make?”
“Our Lord which is the rat,”
“What shall we have to our supper?”
“Three beans in a pound of butter?”
[Pg 61]
When supper they were at,
The frog, the mouse, and e’en the rat;
Then came in Gib our cat,
And catched the mouse e’en by the back.
Then did they separate,
And the frog leaped on the floor so flat.
Then came in Dick our drake,
And drew the frog e’en to the lake.
The rat run up the wall,
Humbledum, humbledum;
A goodly company, the Devil go with all!
Tweedle tweedle twino.
From Thomas Campion’s Two Books of Airs (circ. 1613).
Jack and Joan, they think no ill,
But loving live, and merry still;
Do their week-days’ work, and pray
Devoutly on the holy day:
Skip and trip it on the green,
And help to choose the Summer Queen;
Lash out at a country feast
Their silver penny with the best.
Well can they judge of nappy ale,
And tell at large a winter tale;
[Pg 62]
Climb up to the apple loft,
And turn the crabs till they be soft.
Tib is all the father’s joy,
And little Tom the mother’s boy.
All their pleasure is Content;
And Care, to pay their yearly rent.
Joan can call by name her cows
And deck her windows with green boughs;
She can wreaths and tutties[9] make,
And trim with plums a bridal cake.
Jack knows what brings gain or loss;
And his long flail can stoutly toss:
Makes the hedge which others break,
And ever thinks what he doth speak.
Now, you courtly dames and knights,
That study only strange delights;
Though you scorn the homespun gray
And revel in your rich array;
Though your tongues dissemble deep,
And can your heads from danger keep;
Yet, for all your pomp and train,
Securer lives the silly swain.
From Thomas Campion’s Third Book of Airs (circ. 1613).
Kind are her answers,
But her performance keeps no day;
Breaks time, as dancers,
From their own music when they stray.
[Pg 63]
All her free favours and smooth words
Wing my hopes in vain.
O, did ever voice so sweet but only feign?
Can true love yield such delay,
Converting joy to pain?
Lost is our freedom
When we submit to women so:
Why do we need ’em
When, in their best, they work our woe?
There is no wisdom
Can alter ends by Fate prefixt.
O, why is the good of man with evil mixt?
Never were days yet callèd two
But one night went betwixt.
From Campion and Rosseter’s Book of Airs, 1601.
Kind in unkindness, when will you relent
And cease with faint love true love to torment?
Still entertained, excluded still I stand;
Her glove still hold, but cannot touch the hand.
In her fair hand my hopes and comforts rest:
O might my fortunes with that hand be blest!
No envious breaths then my deserts could shake,
For they are good whom such true love doth make.
O let not beauty so forget her birth
That it should fruitless home return to earth!
[Pg 64]
Love is the fruit of beauty, then love one!
Not your sweet self, for such self-love is none.
Love one that only lives in loving you;
Whose wronged deserts would you with pity view,
This strange distaste which your affection sways
Would relish love, and you find better days.
Thus till my happy sight your beauty views,
Whose sweet remembrance still my hope renews,
Let these poor lines solicit love for me,
And place my joys where my desires would be.
From Thomas Weelkes’ Madrigals of Five and Six Parts, 1600.
Lady, the birds right fairly
Are singing ever early;
The lark, the thrush, the nightingale,
The make-sport cuckoo and the quail.
These sing of Love! then why sleep ye?
To love your sleep it may not be.
From Thomas Greaves’ Songs of Sundry Kinds, 1604.
Lady, the melting crystal of your eye
Like frozen drops upon your cheeks did lie;
[Pg 65]
Mine eye was dancing on them with delight,
And saw love’s flames within them burning bright,
Which did mine eye entice
To play with burning ice;
But O, my heart thus sporting with desire,
My careless eye did set my heart on fire.
O that a drop from such a sweet fount flying
Should flame like fire and leave my heart a-dying!
I burn, my tears can never drench it
Till in your eyes I bathe my heart and quench it:
But there, alas, love with his fire lies sleeping,
And all conspire to burn my heart with weeping.
From John Wilbye’s Madrigals, 1598.
Lady, when I behold the roses sprouting,
Which clad in damask mantles deck the arbours,
And then behold your lips where sweet love harbours,
My eyes present me with a double doubting:
For viewing both alike, hardly my mind supposes
Whether the roses be your lips or your lips [be] the roses.
[Pg 66]
From J. Danyel’s Songs for the Lute, Viol and Voice, 1606.
Let not Chloris think, because
She hath unvassel’d me,
That her beauty can give laws
To others that are free:
I was made to be the prey
And booty of her eyes!
In my bosom, she may say.
Her greatest kingdom lies.
Though others may her brow adore,
Yet more must I that therein see far more
Than any other’s eyes have power to see;
She is to me
More than to any others she can be.
I can discern more secret notes
That in the margin of her cheeks Love quotes
Than any else besides have art to read;
No looks proceed
From those fair eyes but to me wonder breed.
O then why
Should she fly
From him to whom her sight
Doth add so much above her might?
Why should not she
Still joy to reign in me?
[Pg 67]
From William Byrd’s Psalms, Songs and Sonnets, 1611.
Let not the sluggish sleep
Close up thy waking eye,
Until with judgment deep
Thy daily deeds thou try:
He that one sin in conscience keeps
When he to quiet goes,
More vent’rous is than he that sleeps
With twenty mortal foes.
From George Mason’s and John Earsden’s Airs that were sung and played
at Brougham Castle in Westmoreland in the King’s Entertainment given by
the Earl of Cumberland, 1618.
Let us in a lovers’ round
Circle all this hallowed ground;
Softly, softly trip and go,
The light-foot Fairies jet it so.
Forward then, and back again,
Here and there and everywhere,
Winding to and fro,
Skipping high and louting low;
And, like lovers, hand in hand,
March around and make a stand.
[Pg 68]
From Thomas Weelkes’ Madrigals of Six Parts, 1600.
Like two proud armies marching in the field,—
Joining a thund’ring fight, each scorns to yield,—
So in my heart your beauty and my reason:
One claims the crown, the other says ’tis treason.
But oh! your beauty shineth as the sun;
And dazzled reason yields as quite undone.
From Thomas Weelkes’ Madrigals to Three, Four, Five and Six Voices,
1597.
Lo! country sport that seldom fades;
A garland of the spring,
A prize for dancing, country maids
With merry pipes we bring.
Then all at once for our town cries!
Pipe on, for we will have the prize.
From Thomas Campion’s Two Books of Airs (circ. 1613).
Lo, when back mine eye
Pilgrim-like I cast,
What fearful ways I spie
Which, blinded, I securely passed!
[Pg 69]
But now heaven hath drawn
From my brows that night;
As when the day doth dawn,
So clears my long-imprisoned sight.
Straight the Caves of Hell
Dressed with flowers I see,
Wherein False Pleasures dwell,
That, winning most, most deadly be.
Throngs of maskèd fiends,
Winged like angels, fly;
Even in the gates of friends,
In fair disguise black dangers lie.
Straight to heaven I raised
My restorèd sight,
And with loud voice I praised
The Lord of ever-during light.
And since I had strayed
From His ways so wide,
His grace I humbly prayed
Henceforth to be my guard and guide.
From John Maynard’s Twelve Wonders of the World, 1611.
The Courtier.
Long have I lived in Court,
Yet learned not all this while
To sell poor suiters smoke,
Nor where I hate to smile;
[Pg 70]
Superiors to adore,
Inferiors to despise,
To flie from such as fall,
To follow such as rise:
To cloak a poor desire
Under a rich array,
Nor to aspire by Vice,
Though ’twere the quicker way.
From Robert Jones’ Second Book of Songs and Airs, 1601.
Love is a bable,
No man is able
To say ’tis this or ’tis that;
So full of passions
Of sundry fashions,
’Tis like I cannot tell what.
Love’s fair in the cradle,
Foul in the fable,
’Tis either too cold or too hot;
An arrant liar,
Fed by desire,
It is and yet it is not.
Love is a fellow
Clad oft in yellow,[10]
[Pg 71]
The canker-worm of the mind,
A privy mischief,
And such a sly thief
No man knows which way to find.
Love is a wonder
That’s here and yonder,
As common to one as to moe;
A monstrous cheater,
Every man’s debtor;
Hang him and so let him go.
From John Wilbye’s Second Set of Madrigals, 1609.
Love not me for comely grace,
For my pleasing eye or face,
Nor for any outward part:
No, nor for a constant heart!
For these may fail or turn to ill:
So thou and I shall sever.
Keep therefore a true woman’s eye,
And love me still, but know not why!
So hast thou the same reason still
To doat upon me ever.
[Pg 72]
From Robert Jones’ Second Book of Songs and Airs, 1601.
Love’s god is a boy,
None but cowherds regard him,
His dart is a toy,
Great opinion hath marred him:
The fear of the wag
Hath made him so brag;
Chide him, he’ll flie thee
And not come nigh thee.
Little boy, pretty knave, shoot not at random,
For if you hit me, slave, I’ll tell your grandam.
Fond love is a child
And his compass is narrow,
Young fools are beguiled
With the fame of his arrow;
He dareth not strike
If his stroke do mislike:
Cupid, do you hear me?
Come not too near me.
Little boy, pretty knave, hence I beseech you,
For if you hit me, knave, in faith I’ll breech you.
Th’ ape loves to meddle
When he finds a man idle,
Else is he a-flirting
Where his mark is a-courting;
When women grow true
Come teach me to sue,
[Pg 73]
Then I’ll come to thee
Pray thee and woo thee.
Little boy, pretty knave, make me not stagger,
For if you hit me, knave, I’ll call thee, beggar.
From Robert Jones’ Second Book of Songs and Airs, 1601.
Love winged my hopes and taught me how to fly
Far from base earth, but not to mount too high;
For true pleasure
Lives in measure,
Which if men forsake,
Blinded they into folly run and grief for pleasure take.
But my vain hopes, proud of their new-taught flight,
Enamoured sought to woo the sun’s fair light,
Whose rich brightness
Moved their lightness
To aspire so high
That all scorched and consumed with fire now drown’d in woe they lie.
And none but Love their woeful hap did rue,
For Love did know that their desires were true;
Though Fate frownèd,
And now drownèd
They in sorrow dwell,
It was the purest light of heaven for whose fair love they fell.
[Pg 74]
From Thomas Campion’s Third Book of Airs (circ. 1613).
“Maids are simple,” some men say,
“They forsooth will trust no men.”
But should they men’s wills obey,
Maids were very simple then.
Truth a rare flower now is grown,
Few men wear it in their hearts;
Lovers are more easily known
By their follies than deserts.
Safer may we credit give
To a faithless wandering Jew,
Than a young man’s vows believe
When he swears his love is true.
Love they make a poor blind child,
But let none trust such as he;
Rather than to be beguiled,
Ever let me simple be.
From Melismata, 1611.
The Bellman’s Song.
Maids to bed and cover coal;
Let the mouse out of her hole;
[Pg 75]
Crickets in the chimney sing
Whilst the little bell doth ring;
If fast asleep, who can tell
When the clapper hits the bell?
From Martin Peerson’s Mottects or Grave Chamber-Music, 1630.
More than most fair, full of all heavenly fire,
Kindled above to shew the Maker’s glory;
Beauty’s first-born, in whom all powers conspire
To write the Graces’ life and Muses’ story;
If in my heart all nymphs else be defacèd,
Honour the shrine where you alone are placèd.
Thou window of the sky, and pride of spirits,
True character of honour in perfection,
Thou heavenly creature, judge of earthly merits,
And glorious prison of men’s pure affection:
If in my heart all nymphs else be defacèd
Honour the shrine where you alone are placèd.
From Thomas Vautor’s Songs of divers Airs and Natures, 1619.
Mother, I will have a husband,
And I will have him out of hand!
Mother, I will sure have one
In spite of her that will have none.
[Pg 76]
John-a-Dun should have had me long ere this:
He said I had good lips to kiss.
Mother, I will sure have one
In spite of her that will have none.
For I have heard ’tis trim when folks do love;
By good Sir John I swear now I will prove.
For, Mother, I will sure have one
In spite of her that will have none.
To the town, therefore, will I gad
To get me a husband, good or bad.
Mother, I will sure have one
In spite of her that will have none.
From Michael Este’s Madrigals of Three, Four and Five Parts, 1604.
My hope a counsel with my heart
Hath long desired to be,
And marvels much so dear a friend
Is not retain’d by me.
She doth condemn my haste
In passing the estate
Of my whole life into their hands
Who nought repays but hate:
[Pg 77]
And not sufficed with this, she says,
I did release the right
Of my enjoyèd liberties
Unto your beauteous sight.
From Robert Jones’ Second Book of Songs and Airs, 1601.
My love bound me with a kiss
That I should no longer stay;
When I felt so sweet a bliss
I had less power to part away:
Alas, that women doth not know
Kisses make men loath to go.
Yes, she knows it but too well,
For I heard when Venus’ dove
In her ear did softly tell
That kisses were the seals of love:
O muse not then though it be so,
Kisses make men loath to go.
Wherefore did she thus inflame
My desires heat my blood,
Instantly to quench the same
And starve whom she had given food?
I the common sense can show,
Kisses make men loath to go.
[Pg 78]
Had she bid me go at first
It would ne’er have grieved my heart,
Hope delayed had been the worst;
But ah to kiss and then to part!
How deep it struck, speak, gods, you know
Kisses make men loath to go.
From Robert Jones’ Second Book of Songs and Airs, 1601.
My Love is neither young nor old,
Not fiery-hot nor frozen-cold,
But fresh and fair as springing briar
Blooming the fruit of love’s desire;
Not snowy-white nor rosy-red,
But fair enough for shepherd’s bed;
And such a love was never seen
On hill or dale or country-green.
From William Byrd’s Psalms, Sonnets, and Songs, 1588.
My mind to me a kingdom is:
Such perfect joy therein I find
That it excels all other bliss
That God or nature hath assigned.
Though much I want, that most would have,
Yet still my mind forbids to crave.
[Pg 79]
No princely port, nor wealthy store,
No force to win a victory,
No wily wit to salve a sore,
No shape to win a loving eye;
To none of these I yield as thrall!
For why? my mind despise them all.
I see that plenty surfeits oft,
And hasty climbers soonest fall;
I see that such as are aloft,
Mishap doth threaten most of all.
These get with toil, and keep with fear:
Such cares my mind can never bear.
I press to bear no haughty sway,
I wish no more than may suffice,
I do no more, than well I may;
Look, what I want, my mind supplies.
Lo, thus I triumph like a king,
My mind content with any thing.
I laugh not at another’s loss,
Nor grudge not at another’s gain.
No worldly waves my mind can toss,
I brook that is another’s bane;
I fear no foe, nor fawn on friend,
I loathe not life nor dread mine end.
My wealth is health and perfect ease;
And conscience clear my chief defence;
I never seek by bribes to please,
Nor by desert to give offence,
Thus do I live, thus will I die:
Would all did so as well as I!
[Pg 80]
From John Mundy’s Songs and Psalms, 1594.
My prime of youth is but a frost of cares!
My feast of joy is but a dish of pain!
My crop of corn is but a field of tares!
And all my good is but vain hope of gain!
My life is fled, and yet I saw no sun!
And now I live, and now my life is done!
The Spring is past, and yet it hath not sprung!
The fruit is dead, and yet the leaves be green!
My youth is gone, and yet I am but young!
I saw the World and yet I was not seen!
My thread is cut, and yet it is not spun!
And now I live, and now my life is done.
From Campion and Rosseter’s Book of Airs, 1601.
Vivamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus.
My sweetest Lesbia, let us live and love,
And though the sager sort our deeds reprove
Let us not weigh them. Heaven’s great lamps do dive
Into their west, and straight again revive;
But, soon as once is set our little light,
Then must we sleep one ever-during night.
[Pg 81]
If all would lead their lives in love like me,
Then bloody swords and armour should not be;
No drum nor trumpet peaceful sleeps should move,
Unless alarm came from the Camp of Love:
But fools do live and waste their little light,
And seek with pain their ever-during night.
When timely death my life and fortunes ends,
Let not my hearse be vext with mourning friends;
But let all lovers, rich in triumph, come
And with sweet pastimes grace my happy tomb:
And, Lesbia, close up thou my little light
And crown with love my ever-during night.
From John Dowland’s First Book of Songs or Airs, 1597.
My Thoughts are winged with Hopes, my Hopes with Love:
Mount Love unto the moon in clearest night,
And say, as she doth in the heavens move,
In earth so wanes and waxeth my delight:
And whisper this, but softly, in her ears,
“Hope oft doth hang the head and Trust shed tears.”
And you, my Thoughts, that some mistrust do carry,
If for mistrust my mistress do you blame,
Say, though you alter, yet you do not vary,
As she doth change and yet remain the same;
Distrust doth enter hearts, but not infect,
And Love is sweetest seasoned with Suspect.
[Pg 82]
If she for this with clouds do mask her eyes
And make the heavens dark with her disdain,
With windy sighs disperse them in the skies
Or with thy tears dissolve them into rain.
Thoughts, Hopes, and Love, return to me no more
Till Cynthia shine as she hath done before.
From Thomas Campion’s Third Book of Airs (circ. 1613).
Never love unless you can
Bear with all the faults of man:
Men sometimes will jealous be
Though but little cause they see;
And hang the head as discontent,
And speak what straight they will repent.
Men that but one saint adore
Make a show of love to more;
Beauty must be scorned in none,
Though but truly served in one:
For what is courtship but disguise?
True hearts may have dissembling eyes.
Men, when their affairs require,
Must awhile themselves retire;
Sometimes hunt, and sometimes hawk,
And not ever sit and talk:
If these and such-like you can bear,
Then like, and love, and never fear!
[Pg 83]
From John Farmer’s First Set of English Madrigals, 1599. (Verses by
Samuel Daniel.)
Now each creature joys the other,
Passing happy days and hours:
One bird reports unto another
By the fall of silver showers;
Whilst the Earth, our common Mother,
Hath her bosom decked with flowers.
From Thomas Weelkes’ Madrigals, 1597.
Now every tree renews his summer’s green,
Why is your heart in winter’s garments clad?
Your beauty says my love is summer’s queen,
But your cold love like winter makes me sad:
Then either spring with buds of love again
Or else congeal my thoughts with your disdain.
From Pammelia, 1609.
Now God be with old Simeon,
For he made cans for many-a-one,
And a good old man was he;
[Pg 84]
And Jinkin was his journeyman,
And he could tipple of every can,
And thus he said to me:
“To whom drink you?”
“Sir knave, to you.”
Then hey-ho, jolly Jinkin!
I spie a knave in drinking.
From Robert Jones’ Ultimum Vale or Third Book of Airs (1608).
Now have I learn’d with much ado at last
By true disdain to kill desire;
This was the mark at which I shot so fast,
Unto this height I did aspire:
Proud Love, now do thy worst and spare not,
For thee and all thy shafts I care not.
What hast thou left wherewith to move my mind,
What life to quicken dead desire?
I count thy words and oaths as light as wind,
I feel no heat in all thy fire:
Go, change thy bow and get a stronger,
Go, break thy shafts and buy thee longer.
In vain thou bait’st thy hook with beauty’s blaze,
In vain thy wanton eyes allure;
These are but toys for them that love to gaze,
I know what harm thy looks procure:
Some strange conceit must be devised,
Or thou and all thy skill despised.
[Pg 85]
From Thomas Ford’s Music of Sundry Kinds, 1607.
Now I see thy looks were feignèd
Quickly lost, and quickly gainèd;
Soft thy skin, like wool of wethers,
Heart inconstant, light as feathers,
Tongue untrusty, subtle sighted,
Wanton will with change delighted.
Siren, pleasant foe to reason,
Cupid plague thee for thy treason!
Of thine eye I made my mirror,
From thy beauty came my error,
All thy words I counted witty,
All thy sighs I deemèd pity,
Thy false tears, that me aggrievèd
First of all my trust deceivèd.
Siren, pleasant foe to reason,
Cupid plague thee for thy treason!
Feigned acceptance when I askèd,
Lovely words with cunning maskèd,
Holy vows, but heart unholy;
Wretched man, my trust was folly;
Lily white, and pretty winking,
Solemn vows but sorry thinking.
Siren, pleasant foe to reason,
Cupid plague thee for thy treason!
Now I see, O seemly cruel,
Others warm them at my fuel,
[Pg 86]
Wit shall guide me in this durance
Since in love is no assurance:
Change thy pasture, take thy pleasure,
Beauty is a fading treasure.
Siren, pleasant foe to reason,
Cupid, plague thee for thy treason!
Prime youth lasts not, age will follow
And make white those tresses yellow;
Wrinkled face, for looks delightful,
Shall acquaint the dame despiteful.
And when time shall date thy glory,
Then too late thou wilt be sorry.
Siren, pleasant foe to reason,
Cupid plague thee for thy treason!
From Thomas Weelkes’ Ballets and Madrigals, 1598.
Now is my Chloris fresh as May,
Clad all in green and flowers gay.
Fa la la!
O might I think August were near
That harvest joy might soon appear.
Fa la la!
But she keeps May throughout the year,
And August never comes the near.
Fa la la!
Yet will I hope, though she be May,
August will come another day.
Fa la la!
[Pg 87]
From Thomas Morley’s First Book of Ballets, 1595.
Now is the month of maying,
When merry lads are playing
Each with his bonny lass
Upon the greeny grass.
Fa la la!
The spring clad all in gladness
Doth laugh at winter’s sadness,
And to the bagpipe’s sound
The nymphs tread out their ground.
Fa la la!
Fie then, why sit we musing,
Youth’s sweet delight refusing?
Say, dainty nymphs, and speak,
Shall we play barley-break.
Fa la la!
From Thomas Campion’s Third Book of Airs (circ. 1613).
Now let her change! and spare not!
Since she proves strange, I care not!
Feigned love charmed so my delight,
That still I doted on her sight.
But she is gone! new joys embracing,
And my distress disgracing.
[Pg 88]
When did I err in blindness?
Or vex her with unkindness?
If my cares served her alone,
Why is she thus untimely gone?
True love abides to th’ hour of dying:
False love is ever flying.
False! then farewell for ever!
Once false proves faithful never!
He that boasts now of thy love,
Shall soon, my present fortunes prove
Were he as fair as bright Adonis:
Faith is not had where none is!
From Thomas Weelkes’ Madrigals of Five and Six Parts, 1600
Now let us make a merry greeting
And thank God Cupid for our meeting:
My heart is full of joy and pleasure
Since thou art here, mine only treasure.
Now will we dance and sport and play
And sing a merry roundelay.
[Pg 89]
From Robert Jones’s Second Book of Airs, 1601. (Attributed to Sir
Walter Raleigh.)
Now what is love, I pray thee tell?
It is that fountain and that well
Where pleasures and repentance dwell;
It is perhaps that sancing-bell[11]
That tolls all in to heaven or hell:
And this is love, as I hear tell.
Now what is love, I pray thee say?
It is a work on holyday,
It is December matched with May,
When lusty bloods in fresh array
Hear ten months after of their play:
And this is love, as I hear say.
Now what is love, I pray thee feign?
It is a sunshine mixed with rain,
It is a gentle pleasing pain,
A flower that dies and springs again,
It is a No that would full fain:
And this is love as I hear sain.
Yet what is love, I pray thee say?
It is a pretty shady way
As well found out by night as day,
It is a thing will soon decay;
Then take the vantage whilst you may:
And this is love, as I hear say.
[Pg 90]
Now what is love, I pray thee show?
A thing that creeps, it cannot go,
A prize that passeth to and fro,
A thing for one, a thing for mo,
And he that proves shall find it so:
And this is love, as I well know.
From Thomas Campion’s Third Book of Airs (circ. 1613).
Now winter nights enlarge
The number of their hours,
And clouds their storms discharge
Upon the airy towers.
Let now the chimneys blaze,
And cups o’erflow with wine;
Let well-tuned words amaze
With harmony divine.
Now yellow waxen lights
Shall wait on honey love,
While youthful revels, masques, and courtly sights
Sleep’s leaden spells remove.
This time doth well dispense
With lovers’ long discourse;
Much, speech hath some defence
Though beauty no remorse.
All do not all things well;
Some measures comely tread,
[Pg 91]
Some knotted riddles tell,
Some poems smoothly read.
The summer hath his joys
And winter his delights;
Though love and all his pleasures are but toys,
They shorten tedious nights.
From John Ward’s First Set of English Madrigals, 1613.
O say, dear life, when shall these twin-born berries,
So lovely-ripe, by my rude lips be tasted?
Shall I not pluck (sweet, say not nay) those cherries?
O let them not with summer’s heat be blasted.
Nature, thou know’st, bestow’d them free on thee;
Then be thou kind—bestow them free on me.
From John Farmer’s First Set of English Madrigals, 1599.
O stay, sweet love; see here the place of sporting;
These gentle flowers smile sweetly to invite us,
And chirping birds are hitherwards resorting,
Warbling sweet notes only to delight us:
Then stay, dear Love, for though thou run from me,
Run ne’er so fast, yet I will follow thee.
[Pg 92]
I thought, my love, that I should overtake you;
Sweet heart, sit down under this shadowed tree,
And I will promise never to forsake you,
So you will grant to me a lover’s fee.
Whereat she smiled and kindly to me said—
I never meant to live and die a maid.
From Thomas Morley’s Madrigals, 1594.
O sweet, alas, what say you?
Ay me, that face discloses
The scarlet blush of sweet vermilion roses.
And yet, alas, I know not
If such a crimson staining
Be for love or disdaining;
But if of love it grow not,
Be it disdain conceivèd
To see us of love’s fruits so long bereavèd.
From Thomas Campion’s Third Book of Airs (circ. 1613).
O sweet delight, O more than human bliss
With her to live that ever loving is!
To hear her speak whose words are so well placed
That she by them, as they by her are graced!
Those looks to view that feast the viewer’s eye,
How blest is he that may so live and die!
[Pg 93]
Such love as this the Golden Times did know,
When all did reap and none took care to sow;
Such love as this an endless summer makes,
And all distaste from frail affection takes.
So loved, so blest in my beloved am I:
Which till their eyes ache let iron men envy!
From Robert Jones’ Ultimum Vale or Third Book of Airs (1608).
Oft have I mused the cause to find
Why Love in lady’s eyes should dwell;
I thought, because himself was blind,
He look’d that they should guide him well:
And sure his hope but seldom fails,
For Love by ladies’ eyes prevails.
But time at last hath taught me wit,
Although I bought my wit full dear;
For by her eyes my heart is hit,
Deep is the wound though none appear:
Their glancing beams as darts he throws,
And sure he hath no shafts but those.
I mused to see their eyes so bright,
And little thought they had been fire;
I gazed upon them with delight,
But that delight hath bred desire:
What better place can Love desire
Than that where grow both shafts and fire?
[Pg 94]
From John Attye’s First Book of Airs, 1622.
On a time the amorous Silvy
Said to her shepherd, ‘Sweet, how do you?
Kiss me this once, and then God be wi’ you,
My sweetest dear!
Kiss me this once and then God be wi’ you,
For now the morning draweth near.’
With that, her fairest bosom showing,
Opening her lips, rich perfumes blowing,
She said, ‘Now kiss me and be going,
My sweetest dear!
Kiss me this once and then be going,
For now the morning draweth near.’
With that the shepherd waked from sleeping,
And, spying where the day was peeping,
He said, ‘Now take my soul in keeping,
My sweetest dear!
Kiss me, and take my soul in keeping,
Since I must go, now day is near.’
[Pg 95]
From Robert Jones’ First Book of Songs and Airs, 1601.
Once did I love and yet I live,
Though love and truth be now forgotten;
Then did I joy, now do I grieve
That holy vows must now be broken.
Hers be the blame that caused it so,
Mine be the grief though it be mickle;[12]
She shall have shame, I cause to know
What ’tis to love a dame so fickle.
Love her that list, I am content
For that chameleon-like she changeth,
Yielding such mists as may prevent
My sight to view her when she rangeth.
Let him not vaunt that gains my loss,
For when that he and time hath proved her,
She may him bring to Weeping-Cross:
I say no more, because I loved her.
From Henry Youll’s Canzonets to Three Voices, 1608.
Once I thought to die for love,
Till I found that women prove
[Pg 96]
Traitors in their smiling:
They say men unconstant be,
But they themselves Jove change, we see,
And all is but beguiling.
From Thomas Weelkes’ Madrigals, 1597
Our country-swains in the morris dance
Thus woo and win their brides,
Will for our town the hobby horse
At pleasure frolic rides:
I woo with tears and ne’er the near,
I die in grief and live in fear.
From Giles Farnaby’s Canzonets, 1598.
Pierce did love fair Petronel
Because she sang and dancèd well
And gallantly could prank it;
He pulled her and he haul’d her
And oftentimes he call’d her
Primrose pearls prick’d in a blanket.
[Pg 97]
From Francis Pilkington’s First Set of Madrigals and Pastorals, 1613.
Pour forth, mine eyes, the fountains of your tears;
Break, heart, and die, for now no hope appears;
Hope, upon which before my thoughts were fed,
Hath left me quite forlorn and from me fled.
Yet, see, she smiles! O see, some hope appears!
Hold, heart, and live; mine eyes, cease off your tears.
From Airs sung and played at Brougham Castle, 1618, by George Mason
and John Earsden.
Robin is a lovely lad,
No lass a smoother ever had;
Tommy hath a look as bright
As is the rosy morning light;
Tib is dark and brown of hue,
But like her colour firm and true;
Jenny hath a lip to kiss
Wherein a spring of nectar is;
Simkin well his mirth can place
And words to win a woman’s grace;
Sib is all in all to me,
There is no Queen of Love but she.
[Pg 98]
From Thomas Ravenscroft’s Brief Discourse, 1614.
The Satyrs’ Dance.
Round-a, round-a, keep your ring:
To the glorious sun we sing,—
Ho, ho!
He that wears the flaming rays,
And th’ imperial crown of bays,
Him with shouts and songs we praise—
Ho, ho!
That in his bounty he’d vouchsafe to grace
The humble sylvans and their shaggy race.
From Thomas Morley’s Canzonets, 1593.
See, see, mine own sweet jewel,
What I have for my darling:
A robin-redbreast and a starling.
These I give both in hope to move thee;
Yet thou say’st I do not love thee.
[Pg 99]
From William Corkine’s Airs, 1610.
Shall a frown or angry eye,
Shall a word unfitly placèd,
Shall a shadow make me flie
As if I were with tigers chasèd?
Love must not be so disgracèd.
Shall I woo her in despight?
Shall I turn her from her flying?
Shall I tempt her with delight?
Shall I laugh at her denying?
No: beware of lovers’ crying.
Shall I then with patient mind
Still attend her wayward pleasure?
Time will make her prove more kind,
Let her coyness then take leisure:
She is worthy such a treasure.
From Richard Alison’s An Hours Recreation in Music, 1606.
Shall I abide this jesting?
I weep, and she’s a-feasting!
O cruel fancy, that so doth blind me
To love one that doth not mind me!
Can I abide this prancing?
I weep, and she’s a-dancing!
O cruel fancy, so to betray me!
Thou goest about to slay me.
[Pg 100]
From Thomas Campion’s Third Book of Airs (circ. 1613).
Shall I come, sweet Love, to thee
When the evening beams are set?
Shall I not excluded be,
Will you find no feignèd let?
Let me not, for pity, more
Tell the long hours at your door.
Who can tell what thief or foe,
In the covert of the night,
For his prey will work my woe,
Or through wicked foul despite?
So may I die unredrest
Ere my long love be possest.
But to let such dangers pass,
Which a lover’s thoughts disdain,
’Tis enough in such a place
To attend love’s joys in vain:
Do not mock me in thy bed,
While these cold nights freeze me dead.
From Robert Jones’ Ultimum Vale or Third Book of Airs (1608).
Shall I look to ease my grief?
No, my sight is lost with eying:
Shall I speak and beg relief?
No, my voice is hoarse with crying:
What remains but only dying?
[Pg 101]
Love and I of late did part,
But the boy, my peace envying,
Like a Parthian threw his dart
Backward, and did wound me flying:
What remains but only dying?
She whom then I lookèd on,
My remembrance beautifying,
Stays with me though I am gone,
Gone and at her mercy lying:
What remains but only dying?
Shall I try her thoughts and write?
No I have no means of trying:
If I should, yet at first sight
She would answer with denying:
What remains but only dying?
Thus my vital breath doth waste,
And, my blood with sorrow drying,
Sighs and tears make life to last
For a while, their place supplying:
What remains but only dying?
From Robert Jones’ First Book of Airs, 1601.
She whose matchless beauty staineth
What best judgment fair’st maintaineth,
She, O she, my love disdaineth.
[Pg 102]
Can a creature, so excelling,
Harbour scorn in beauty’s dwelling,
All kind pity thence expelling?
Pity beauty much commendeth
And th’ embracer oft befriendeth
When all eye-contentment endeth.
Time proves beauty transitory;
Scorn, the stain of beauty’s glory,
In time makes the scorner sorry.
None adores the sun declining;
Love all love falls to resigning
When the sun of love leaves shining.
So, when flower of beauty fails thee,
And age, stealing on, assails thee,
Then mark what this scorn avails thee.
Then those hearts, which now complaining
Feel the wounds of thy disdaining,
Shall contemn thy beauty waning.
Yea, thine own heart, now dear-prizèd,
Shall with spite and grief surprisèd
Burst to find itself despisèd.
When like harms have them requited
Who in others’ harms delighted,
Pleasingly the wrong’d are righted.
Such revenge my wrongs attending,
Hope still lives on time depending,
By thy plagues thy torrents ending.
[Pg 103]
From Thomas Morley’s First Book of Ballets to Five Voices, 1595.
Shoot, false Love! I care not;
Spend thy shafts and spare not!
Fa la la!
I fear not, I, thy might,
And less I weigh thy spite;
All naked I unarm me,—
If thou canst, now shoot and harm me!
So lightly I esteem thee
As now a child I dream thee.
Fa la la la!
Long thy bow did fear[13] me,
While thy pomp did blear me;
Fa la la!
But now I do perceive
Thy art is to deceive;
And every simple lover
All thy falsehood can discover.
Then weep, Love! and be sorry,
For thou hast lost thy glory.
Fa la la la!
[Pg 104]
From Thomas Campion’s Third Book of Airs, (circ. 1613).
Silly boy! ’tis full moon yet, thy night as day shines clearly;
Had thy youth but wit to fear, thou couldst not love so dearly.
Shortly wilt thou mourn when all thy pleasures be bereavèd,
Little knows he how to love that never was deceivèd.
This is thy first maiden-flame that triumphs yet unstainèd,
All is artless now you speak, not one word is feignèd;
All is heaven that you behold, and all your thoughts are blessèd,
But no spring can want his fall, each Troilus hath his Cressid.
Thy well-ordered locks ere long shall rudely hang neglected,
And thy lively pleasant cheer read grief on earth dejected;
Much then wilt thou blame thy Saint, that made thy heart so holy
And with sighs confess, in love that too much faith is folly.
[Pg 105]
Yet be just and constant still, Love may beget a wonder,
Not unlike a summer’s frost or winter’s fatal thunder:
He that holds his sweetheart true unto his day of dying,
Lives, of all that ever breathed, most worthy the envying.
From Giles Farnaby’s Canzonets, 1598.
Simkin said that Sis was fair,
And that he meant to love her;
He set her on his ambling mare,—
All this he did to prove her.
When they came home Sis floted cream
And poured it through a strainer,
But sware that Simkin should have none
Because he did disdain her.
From Thomas Ford’s Music Of Sundry Kinds, 1607.
Since first I saw your face I resolved to honour and renown ye,
If now I be disdained I wish my heart had never known ye.
What? I that loved and you that liked shall we begin to wrangle?
No, no no, my heart is fast, and cannot disentangle.
[Pg 106]
If I admire or praise you too much, that fault you may forgive me
Or if my hands had strayed but a touch, then justly might you leave me.
I asked you leave, you bade me love; is’t now a time to chide me?
No no no, I’ll love you still what fortune e’er betide me.
The sun whose beams most glorious are, rejecteth no beholder,
And your sweet beauty past compare made my poor eyes the bolder,
Where beauty moves, and wit delights and signs of kindness bind me
There, O there! where’er I go I’ll leave my heart behind me.
From Thomas Morley’s First Book of Ballets, 1595.
Sing we and chant it
While love doth grant it.
Fa la la!
Not long youth lasteth,
And old age hasteth.
Fa la la!
Now is best leisure
To take our pleasure.
Fa la la!
[Pg 107]
All things invite us
Now to delight us.
Fa la la!
Hence care be packing,
No mirth be lacking.
Fa la la!
Let spare no treasure
To live in pleasure.
Fa la la!
From Thomas Bateson’s First Set of English Madrigals, 1604.
Sister, awake! close not your eyes!
The day her light discloses,
And the bright morning doth arise
Out of her bed of roses.
See, the clear sun, the world’s bright eye,
In at our window peeping:
Lo! how he blusheth to espy
Us idle wenches sleeping.
Therefore, awake! make haste, I say,
And let us, without staying,
All in our gowns of green so gay
Into the park a-maying.
[Pg 108]
From Thomas Campion’s Third Book of Airs (circ. 1613).
Sleep, angry beauty, sleep and fear not me!
For who a sleeping lion dares provoke?
It shall suffice me here to sit and see
Those lips shut up that never kindly spoke:
What sight can more content a lover’s mind
Than beauty seeming harmless, if not kind?
My words have charmed her, for secure she sleeps,
Though guilty much of wrong done to my love;
And in her slumber, see! she close-eyed weeps:
Dreams often more than waking passions move.
Plead, Sleep, my cause, and make her soft like thee:
That she in peace may wake and pity me.
From John Wilbye’s Second Set of Madrigals, 1609.
So light is love, in matchless beauty shining,
When he revisits Cypris’ hallowed bowers,
Two feeble doves, harness’d in silken twining,
Can draw his chariot midst the Paphian flowers,
Lightness in love! how ill it fitteth!
So heavy on my heart he sitteth.
[Pg 109]
From William Corkine’s Airs, 1610.
Some can flatter, some can feign,
Simple truth shall plead for me;
Let not beauty truth disdain,
Truth is even as fair as she.
But since pairs must equal prove,
Let my strength her youth oppose,
Love her beauty, faith her love;
On even terms so may we close.
Cork or lead in equal weight
Both one just proportion yield,
So may breadth be peis’d[14] with height,
Steepest mount with plainest field.
Virtues have not all one kind,
Yet all virtues merit be,
Divers virtues are combined;
Differing so, deserts agree.
Let then love and beauty meet,
Making one divine concent
Constant as the sounds and sweet,
That enchant the firmament.
[Pg 110]
From Campion and Rosseter’s Book of Airs, 1601.
Sweet, come again!
Your happy sight, so much desired
Since you from hence are now retired,
I seek in vain:
Still I must mourn,
And pine in longing pain,
Till you, my life’s delight, again
Vouchsafe your wish’d return.
If true desire,
Or faithful vow of endless love,
Thy heart inflamed may kindly move
With equal fire;
O then my joys,
So long distraught, shall rest,
Reposèd soft in thy chaste breast,
Exempt from all annoys.
You had the power
My wand’ring thoughts first to restrain,
You first did hear my love speak plain;
A child before,
Now it is grown
Confirmed, do you it[15] keep!
And let ’t safe in your bosom sleep,
There ever made your own!
[Pg 111]
And till we meet,
Teach absence inward art to find,
Both to disturb and please the mind!
Such thoughts are sweet:
And such remain
In hearts whose flames are true;
Then such will I retain, till you
To me return again.
From William Corkine’s Airs, 1610.
Sweet Cupid, ripen her desire,
Thy joyful harvest may begin;
If age approach a little nigher,
’Twill be too late to get it in.
Cold Winter storms lay standing Corn,
Which once too ripe will never rise,
And lovers wish themselves unborn,
When all their joys lie in their eyes.
Then, sweet, let us embrace and kiss:
Shall beauty shale[16] upon the ground?
If age bereave us of this bliss,
Then will no more such sport be found.
[Pg 112]
From Thomas Weelkes’ Ballets and Madrigals, 1598.
Sweet heart, arise! why do you sleep
When lovers wanton sports do keep?
The sun doth shine, the birds do sing,
And May delight and joy doth bring:
Then join we hands and dance till night,
’Tis pity love should want his right.
From Robert Jones’ Musical Dream, 1609.
Sweet Kate
Of late
Ran away and left me plaining.
Abide!
(I cried)
Or I die with thy disdaining.
Te hee, quoth she;
Make no fool of me;
Men, I know, have oaths at pleasure,
But, their hopes attainèd,
They bewray they feignèd,
And their oaths are kept at leisure.
Unkind,
I find
Thy delight is in tormenting:
[Pg 113]
Abide!
(I cried)
Or I die with thy consenting.
Te hee, quoth she,
Make no fool of me;
Men, I know, have oaths at pleasure,
But, their hopes attainèd,
They bewray they feignèd,
And their oaths are kept at leisure.
Her words,
Like swords,
Cut my sorry heart in sunder,
Her flouts
With doubts
Kept my heart-affections under.
Te hee, quoth she,
What a fool is he
Stands in awe of once denying!
Cause I had enough
To become more rough,
So I did—O happy trying!
From John Wilbye’s Madrigals, 1598.
Sweet Love, if thou wilt gain a monarch’s glory,
Subdue her heart who makes me glad and sorry;
Out of thy golden quiver,
Take thou thy strongest arrow
[Pg 114]
That will through bone and marrow,
And me and thee of grief and fear deliver:
But come behind, for, if she look upon thee,
Alas! poor Love, then thou art woe-begone thee.
From Thomas Weelkes’ Ballets and Madrigals, 1598.
Sweet Love, I will no more abuse thee,
Nor with my voice accuse thee;
But tune my notes unto thy praise
And tell the world Love ne’er decays.
Sweet Love doth concord ever cherish:
What wanteth concord soon must perish.
From Robert Jones’ Ultimum Vale, or Third Book of Airs (1608).
Sweet Love, my only treasure,
For service long unfeignèd
Wherein I nought have gainèd,
Vouchsafe this little pleasure,
To tell me in what part
My Lady keeps her heart.
[Pg 115]
If in her hair so slender,
Like golden nets entwinèd
Which fire and art have finèd,
Her thrall my heart I render
For ever to abide
With locks so dainty tied.
If in her eyes she bind it,
Wherein that fire was framèd
By which it is inflamèd,
I dare not look to find it:
I only wish it sight
To see that pleasant light.
But if her breast have deignèd
With kindness to receive it,
I am content to leave it
Though death thereby were gainèd:
Then, Lady, take your own
That lives by you alone.
From John Dowland’s Pilgrim’s Solace, 1612. (The first stanza is found
in a poem of Donne.)
Sweet, stay awhile; why will you rise?
The light you see comes from your eyes;
The day breaks not, it is my heart,
To think that you and I must part.
O stay! or else my joys must die
And perish in their infancy.
[Pg 116]
Dear, let me die in this fair breast,
Far sweeter than the phœnix nest.
Love raise Desire by his sweet charms
Within this circle of thine arms!
And let thy blissful kisses cherish
Mine infant joys that else must perish.
From Thomas Vautor’s Songs of divers Airs and Natures, 1619.
Tuwhoo, tuwhit, tuwhit, tuwhoo-o-o.
Sweet Suffolk owl, so trimly dight
With feathers like a lady bright,
Thou sing’st alone, sitting by night,
Te whit, te whoo!
Thy note, that forth so freely rolls,
With shrill command the mouse controls,
And sings a dirge for dying souls,
Te whit, te whoo!
From Thomas Weelkes’ Madrigals of Five and Six Parts, 1600.
Take here my heart, I give it thee for ever!
No better pledge can love to love deliver.
Fear not, my dear, it will not fly away,
[Pg 117]
For hope and love command my heart to stay.
But if thou doubt, desire will make it range:
Love but my heart, my heart will never change.
From Farmer’s First Set of English Madrigals, 1599.
Take time while time doth last,
Mark how fair fadeth fast;
Beware if envy reign,
Take heed of proud disdain;
Hold fast now in thy youth,
Regard thy vowèd truth,
Lest, when thou waxeth old,
Friends fail and love grow cold.
From Deuteromelia, 1609.
The Fly she sat in shamble-row
And shambled with her heels I trow;
And then came in Sir Cranion
With legs so long and many a one;
And said “Jove speed, dame Fly, dame Fly”:
“Marry, you be welcome, Sir,” quoth she:
[Pg 118]
“The master Humble Bee hath sent me to thee
To wit and if you will his true love be.”
But she said “Nay, that may not be,
For I must have the Butterfly,
For and a greater lord there may not be.”
But at the last consent did she.
And there was bid to this wedding
All Flies in the field and Worms creeping.
The Snail she came crawling all over the plain,
With all her jolly trinkets in her train.
Ten Bees there came, all clad in gold,
And all the rest did them behold;
But the Thornbud refused this sight to see,
And to a cow-plat away flies she.
But where now shall this wedding be?—
For and hey-nonny-no in an old ivy-tree.
And where now shall we bake our bread?—
For and hey-nonny-no in an old horse-head.
And where now shall we brew our ale?—
But even within one walnut-shale.
And also where shall we our dinner make?—
But even upon a galled horse-back:
[Pg 119]
For there we shall have good company
With humbling and bumbling and much melody.
When ended was this wedding-day,
The Bee he took his Fly away,
And laid her down upon the marsh
Between one marigold and the long grass.
And there they begot good master gnat
And made him the heir of all,—that’s flat.
From Thomas Weelkes’ Airs or Fantastic Spirits, 1608.
Audivere, Lyce.—Horace.
The gods have heard my vows,
Fond Lyce, whose fair brows
Wont scorn with such disdain
My love, my tears, my pain.
Fa la!
But now those spring-tide roses
Are turn’d to winter-posies,
To rue and thyme and sage,
Fitting thy shrivell’d age.
Fa la!
Now, youths, with hot desire
See, see, that flameless fire,
[Pg 120]
Which erst your hearts so burned,
Quick into ashes turned.
Fa la!
From Pammelia, 1609
The household-bird with the red stomacher.—Donne.
The lark, linnet and nightingale to sing some say are best;
Yet merrily sings little Robin, pretty Robin with the red breast.
From Richard Carlton’s Madrigals, 1601.
The love of change hath changed the world throughout,
And what is counted good but that is strange?
New things wax old, old new, all turns about,
And all things change except the love of change.
Yet find I not that love of change in me,
But as I am so will I always be.
[Pg 121]
From John Dowland’s Third and last Book of Songs and Airs, 1603.
The lowest trees have tops, the ant her gall,
The fly her spleen, the little spark his heat;
And slender hairs cast shadows, though but small,
And bees have stings, although they be not great;
Seas have their source, and so have shallow springs;
And love is love, in beggars and in kings!
Where waters smoothest run, deep are the fords;
The dial stirs, yet none perceives it move;
The firmest faith is in the fewest words;
The turtles cannot sing, and yet they love;
True hearts have eyes and ears, no tongues to speak;
They hear, and see, and sigh, and then they break!
From Campion and Rosseter’s Book of Airs, 1601.
The man of life upright,
Whose guiltless heart is free
From all dishonest deeds,
Or thought of vanity;
The man whose silent days
In harmless joys are spent,
[Pg 122]
Whom hopes cannot delude
Nor sorrow discontent:
That man needs neither towers
Nor armour for defence,
Nor secret vaults to fly
From thunder’s violence:
He only can behold
With unaffrighted eyes
The horrors of the deep
And terrors of the skies.
Thus scorning all the cares
That fate or fortune brings,
He makes the heaven his book,
His wisdom heavenly things;
Good thoughts his only friends,
His wealth a well-spent age,
The earth his sober inn
And quiet pilgrimage.
From William Byrd’s Songs of Sundry Natures, 1589.
The greedy hawk with sudden sight of lure
Doth stoop in hope to have her wishèd prey;
So many men do stoop to sights unsure,
And courteous speech doth keep them at the bay:
Let them beware lest friendly looks be like
The lure whereat the soaring hawk did strike.
[Pg 123]
From William Byrd’s Psalms, Sonnets and Songs, 1588.
The match that’s made for just and true respects,
With evenness both of years and parentage,
Of force must bring forth many good effects.
Pari jugo dulcis tractus.
For where chaste love and liking sets the plant,
And concord waters with a firm good-will,
Of no good thing there can be any want.
Pari jugo dulcis tractus.
Sound is the knot that Chastity hath tied,
Sweet is the music Unity doth make,
Sure is the store that Plenty doth provide.
Pari jugo dulcis tractus.
Where Chasteness fails there Concord will decay,
Where Concord fleets there Plenty will decease,
Where Plenty wants there Love will wear away.
Pari jugo dulcis tractus.
I, Chastity, restrain all strange desires;
I, Concord, keep the course of sound consent;
I, Plenty, spare and spend as cause requires.
Pari jugo dulcis tractus.
Make much of us, all ye that married be;
Speak well of us, all ye that mind to be;
The time may come to want and wish all three.
Pari jugo dulcis tractus.
[Pg 124]
From William Byrd’s Songs of Sundry Natures, 1589.
The Nightingale so pleasant and so gay
In greenwood groves delights to make his dwelling,
In fields to fly, chanting his roundelay,
At liberty, against the cage rebelling;
But my poor heart with sorrows over swelling,
Through bondage vile, binding my freedom short,
No pleasure takes in these his sports excelling,
Nor in his song receiveth no comfort.
From Thomas Bateson’s First Set of English Madrigals, 1604. (By Sir
Philip Sidney.)
The Nightingale, so soon as April bringeth
Unto her rested sense a perfect waking,
White late-bare earth proud of her clothing springeth,
Sings out her woes, a thorn her songbook making;
And mournfully bewailing,
Her throat in tunes expresseth:
While grief her heart oppresseth,
For Tereus’ force o’er her chaste will prevailing.
[Pg 125]
From Thomas Campion’s Second Book of Airs (circ. 1613).
The peaceful western wind
The winter storms hath tamed,
And Nature in each kind
The kind heat hath inflamed:
The forward buds so sweetly breathe
Out of their earthly bowers,
That heaven, which views their pomp beneath,
Would fain be decked with flowers.
See how the morning smiles
On her bright eastern hill,
And with soft steps beguiles
Them that lie slumbering still!
The music-loving birds are come
From cliffs and rocks unknown,
To see the trees and briars bloom
That late were overthrown.[17]
What Saturn did destroy,
Love’s Queen revives again;
And now her naked boy
Doth in the fields remain,
Where he such pleasing change doth view
In every living thing,
As if the world were born anew
To gratify the spring.
[Pg 126]
If all things life present,
Why die my comforts then?
Why suffers my content?
Am I the worst of men?
O, Beauty, be not thou accused
Too justly in this case!
Unkindly if true love be used,
’Twill yield thee little grace.
From Thomas Campion’s Fourth Book of Airs (circ. 1613).
There is a garden in her face
Where roses and white lilies grow;
A heavenly paradise is that place
Wherein all pleasant fruits doth flow.
There cherries grow which none may buy,
Till “Cherry ripe” themselves do cry.
Those cherries fairly do enclose
Of orient pearl a double row,
Which when her lovely laughter shows,
They look like rose-buds filled with snow;
Yet them nor peer nor prince can buy,
Till “Cherry ripe” themselves do cry.
Her eyes like angels watch them still,
Her brows like bended bows do stand,
Threatening with piercing frowns to kill
All that attempt with eye or hand
Those sacred cherries to come nigh
Till “Cherry ripe” themselves do cry.
[Pg 127]
From Thomas Ford’s Music of Sundry Kinds, 1607.
There is a Lady sweet and kind,
Was never face so pleased my mind;
I did but see her passing by,
And yet I love her till I die.
Her gesture, motion and her smiles
Her wit, her voice my heart beguiles,
Beguiles my heart, I know not why,
And yet I love her till I die.
Her free behaviour, winning looks
Will make a Lawyer burn his books;
I touched her not, alas! not I,
And yet I love her till I die.
Had I her fast betwixt mine arms,
Judge you that think such sports were harms;
Were’t any harm? no, no, fie, fie,
For I will love her till I die.
Should I remain confinèd there
So long as Phœbus in his sphere,
I to request, she to deny,
Yet would I love her till I die.
Cupid is wingèd and doth range,
Her country so my love doth change:
But change she earth, or change she sky,
Yet will I love her till I die.
[Pg 128]
From Melismata, 1611.
There were three Ravens sat on a tree,—
Down-a-down, hey down, hey down!
There were three Ravens sat on a tree,—
With a down!
There were three Ravens sat on a tree,—
They were as black as they might be:
With a down, derry derry derry down down!
The one of them said to his make[18]—
Where shall we our breakfast take?
Down in yonder greenè field
There lies a knight slain under his shield.
His hounds they lie down at his feet:
So well they their master keep.
His hawks they fly so eagerly,
There’s no fowl dare him come nigh.
Down there comes a fallow doe,
Great with young as she might go.
She lift up his bloody head,
And kist his wounds that were so red.
She gat him upon her back
And carried him to earthen lake.
[Pg 129]
She buried him before the prime;
She was dead ere even-time.
God send every gentleman
Such hounds, such hawks, and such a leman!
With a down, derry.
From Robert Jones’ Ultimum Vale or Third Book of Airs (1608).
Think’st thou, Kate, to put me down
With a ‘No’ or with a frown?
Since Love holds my heart in bands
I must do as Love commands.
Love commands the hands to dare
When the tongue of speech is spare,
Chiefest lesson in Love’s school,—
Put it in adventure, fool!
Fools are they that fainting flinch
For a squeak, a scratch, a pinch:
Women’s words have double sense:
‘Stand away!’—a simple fence.
If thy mistress swear she’ll cry,
Fear her not, she’ll swear and lie:
Such sweet oaths no sorrow bring
Till the prick of conscience sting.
[Pg 130]
From Thomas Campion’s Fourth Book of Airs (circ. 1613).
Think’st thou to seduce me then with words that have no meaning?
Parrots so can learn to prate, our speech by pieces gleaning:
Nurses teach their children so about the time of weaning.
Learn to speak first, then to woo, to wooing much pertaineth:
He that courts us, wanting art, soon falters when he feigneth,
Looks asquint on his discourse and smiles when he complaineth.
Skilful anglers hide their hooks, fit baits for every season;
But with crooked pins fish thou, as babes do that want reason:
Gudgeons only can be caught with such poor tricks of treason.
Ruth forgive me (if I erred) from human heart’s compassion,
When I laughed sometimes too much to see thy foolish fashion:
But, alas, who less could do that found so good occasion!
[Pg 131]
From John Wilbye’s Madrigals, 1598.
Thou art but young, thou say’st,
And love’s delight thou weigh’st not:
O, take time while thou may’st,
Lest when thou would’st thou may’st not.
If love shall then assail thee,
A double anguish will torment thee;
And thou wilt wish (but wishes all will fail thee,)
“O me! that I were young again!” and so repent thee.
From Campion and Rosseter’s Book of Airs, 1601. (Ascribed to Dr.
Donne.)
Thou art not fair, for all thy red and white,
For all those rosy ornaments in thee;
Thou art not sweet, tho’ made of mere delight,
Nor fair, nor sweet—unless thou pity me.
I will not soothe thy fancies, thou shalt prove
That beauty is no beauty without love.
Yet love not me, nor seek not to allure
My thoughts with beauty were it more divine;
Thy smiles and kisses I cannot endure,
I’ll not be wrapped up in those arms of thine:
Now show it, if thou be a woman right,—
Embrace and kiss and love me in despite.
[Pg 132]
From John Danyel’s Songs for the Lute, Viol, and Voice, 1606.
Thou pretty Bird, how do I see
Thy silly state and mine agree!
For thou a prisoner art;
So is my heart.
Thou sing’st to her, and so do I address
My Music to her ear that’s merciless;
But herein doth the difference lie,—
That thou art grac’d, so am not I;
Thou singing liv’st, and I must singing die.
From William Byrd’s Psalms, Sonnets, and Songs of Sadness and Piety,
1588.
Though Amaryllis dance in green
Like Fairy Queen,
And sing full clear;
Corinna can, with smiling cheer.
Yet since their eyes make heart so sore,
Hey ho! chil love no more.
My sheep are lost for want of food
And I so wood[19]
That all the day
I sit and watch a herd-maid gay;
[Pg 133]
Who laughs to see me sigh so sore,
Hey ho! chil love no more.
Her loving looks, her beauty bright,
Is such delight!
That all in vain
I love to like, and lose my gain
For her, that thanks me not therefore.
Hey ho! chil love no more.
Ah wanton eyes! my friendly foes
And cause of woes;
Your sweet desire
Breeds flames of ice, and freeze in fire!
Ye scorn to see me weep so sore!
Hey ho! chil love no more.
Love ye who list, I force him not:
Since God is wot,
The more I wail,
The less my sighs and tears prevail.
What shall I do? but say therefore,
Hey ho! chil love no more.
From Thomas Weelkes’ Airs or Fantastic Spirits, 1608.
Though my carriage be but careless,
Though my looks be of the sternest,
Yet my passions are compareless;
When I love, I love in earnest.
[Pg 134]
No; my wits are not so wild,
But a gentle soul may yoke me;
Nor my heart so hard compiled,
But it melts, if love provoke me.
From Robert Jones’ Musical Dream, 1609. (This song is also printed in
Thomas Campion’s Two Books of Airs, circ. 1613.)
Though your strangeness frets my heart,
Yet must I not complain;
You persuade me ’tis but art
Which secret love must feign;
If another you affect,
’Tis but a toy, t’ avoid suspect.
Is this fair excusing?
O no, all is abusing.
When your wish’d sight I desire,
Suspicion you pretend,
Causeless you yourself retire
Whilst I in vain attend,
Thus a lover, as you say,
Still made more eager by delay.
Is this fair excusing?
O no, all is abusing.
When another holds your hand
You’ll swear I hold your heart;
Whilst my rival close doth stand
And I sit far apart,
[Pg 135]
I am nearer yet than they,
Hid in your bosom, as you say.
Is this fair excusing?
O no, all is abusing.
Would a rival then I were
Or[20] else a secret friend,
So much lesser should I fear
And not so much attend.
They enjoy you, every one,
Yet must I seem your friend alone.
Is this fair excusing?
O no, all is abusing.
From Giles Farnaby’s Canzonets, 1598.
Thrice blessèd be the giver
That gave sweet love that golden quiver,
And live he long among the gods anointed
That made the arrow-heads sharp-pointed:
If either of them both had quailèd,
She of my love and I of hers had
failèd.
[Pg 136]
From Thomas Campion’s Third Book of Airs (circ. 1613).
Thrice toss these oaken ashes in the air,
Thrice sit thou mute in the enchanted chair,
Then thrice-three times tie up this true love’s knot,
And murmur soft “She will or she will not.”
Go, burn these poisonous weeds in yon blue fire,
These screech-owl’s feathers and this prickling briar,
This cypress gathered at a dead man’s grave,
That all my fears and cares an end may have.
Then come, you Fairies! dance with me a round!
Melt her hard heart with your melodious sound!
—In vain are all the charms I can devise:
She hath an art to break them with her eyes.
From Thomas Campion’s Third Book of Airs (circ. 1613).
Thus I resolve and Time hath taught me so:
Since she is fair and ever kind to me,
Though she be wild and wanton-like in show,
Those little stains in youth I will not see.
That she be constant, heaven I oft implore;
If prayers prevail not, I can do no more.
[Pg 137]
Palm-tree the more you press, the more it grows;
Leave it alone, it will not much exceed:
Free beauty, if you strive to yoke, you lose,
And for affection strange distaste you breed.
What nature hath not taught no art can frame;
Wild-born be wild still, though by force you tame.
From John Wilbye’s Madrigals, 1598.
Thus saith my Chloris bright
When we of love sit down and talk together:—
“Beware of Love, dear; Love is a walking sprite,
And Love is this and that
And, O, I know not what,
And comes and goes again I wot not whether.”[21]
No, no, these are but bugs to breed amazing,
For in her eyes I saw his torch-light blazing.
From Thomas Morley’s First Book of Ballets to Five Voices, 1595.
Thus saith my Galatea:
Love long hath been deluded,
When shall it be concluded?
The young nymphs all are wedded:
Ah, then why do I tarry?
Oh, let me die or marry.
[Pg 138]
From Thomas Campion’s Fourth Book of Airs (circ. 1613).
To his sweet lute Apollo sang the motions of the spheres,
The wondrous orders of the stars whose course divides the years,
And all the mysteries above;
But none of this could Midas move:
Which purchased him his ass’s ears.
Then Pan with his rude pipe began the country wealth t’ advance,
To boast of cattle, flocks of sheep, and goats on hills that dance,
With much more of this churlish kind,
That quite transported Midas’ mind,
And held him wrapt in trance.
This wrong the God of Music scorned from such a sottish judge,
And bent his angry bow at Pan, which made the piper trudge:
Then Midas’ head he so did trim
That every age yet talks of him
And Phœbus’ right revengèd grudge.
[Pg 139]
From Robert Dowland’s Musical Banquet, 1610. (The lines are assigned
to Robert Deveureux, Earl of Essex.)
To plead my faith, where faith hath no reward,
To move remorse where favour is not borne,
To heap complaints where she doth not regard,
Were fruitless, bootless, vain, and yield but scorn.
I lovèd her whom all the world admired,
I was refused of her that can love none,
And my vain hopes which far too high aspired
Is dead and buried and for ever gone.
Forget my name since you have scorned my love,
And woman-like do not too late lament:
Since for your sake I do all mischief prove,
I none accuse nor nothing do repent:
I was as fond as ever she was fair,
Yet loved I not more than I now despair.
From Thomas Weelkes’ Ballets and Madrigals, 1598.
To shorten winter’s sadness
See where the nymphs with gladness
Fa la la!
[Pg 140]
Disguisèd all are coming,
Right wantonly a-mumming.
Fa la la!
Though masks encloud their beauty,
Yet give the eye her duty.
Fa la la!
When Heaven is dark it shineth
And unto love inclineth.
Fa la la!
From John Dowland’s Second Book of Songs and Airs, 1600.
Toss not my soul, O Love, ’twixt hope and fear!
Show me some ground where I may firmly stand,
Or surely fall! I care not which appear,
So one will close me in a certain band.
When once of ill the uttermost is known;
The strength of sorrow quite is overthrown!
Take me, Assurance, to thy blissful hold!
Or thou Despair, unto thy darkest cell!
Each hath full rest: the one, in joys enroll’d;
Th’ other, in that he fears no more, is well.
When once the uttermost of ill is known,
The strength of sorrow quite is overthrown.
[Pg 141]
From Thomas Campion’s Fourth Book of Airs (circ. 1613).
Turn all thy thoughts to eyes,
Turn all thy hairs to ears,
Change all thy friends to spies
And all thy joys to fears;
True love will yet be free
In spite of jealousy.
Turn darkness into day,
Conjectures into truth,
Believe what th’ envious say,
Let age interpret youth:
True love will yet be free
In spite of jealousy.
Wrest every word and look,
Rack every hidden thought;
Or fish with golden hook,
True love cannot be caught:
For that will still be free
In spite of jealousy.
From Thomas Ford’s Music of Sundry Kinds, 1607.
Unto the temple of thy beauty,
And to the tomb where pity lies,
I, pilgrim-clad with zeal and duty,
Do offer up my heart, mine eyes.
[Pg 142]
My heart, lo! in the quenchless fire,
On love’s burning altar lies,
Conducted thither by desire
To be beauty’s sacrifice.
But pity on thy sable hearse,
Mine eyes the tears of sorrow shed;
What though tears cannot fate reverse,
Yet are they duties to the dead.
O, Mistress, in thy sanctuary
Why wouldst thou suffer cold disdain
To use his frozen cruelty,
And gentle pity to be slain?
Pity that to thy beauty fled,
And with thy beauty should have lived,
Ah, in thy heart lies burièd,
And nevermore may be revived;
Yet this last favour, dear, extend,
To accept these vows, these tears I shed,
Duties which I thy pilgrim send,
To beauty living, pity dead.
From Thomas Weelkes’ Airs or Fantastic Spirits, 1608.
Upon a hill the bonny boy
Sweet Thyrsis sweetly played,
And called his lambs their master’s joy,
And more he would have said;
But love that gives the lover wings
Withdrew his mind from other things.
[Pg 143]
His pipe and he could not agree,
For Milla was his note;
The silly pipe could never get
This lovely name by rote:
With that they both fell in a sound,[22]
He fell a-sleep, his pipe to ground.
From William Byrd’s Songs of Sundry Natures, 1589.
Upon a summer’s day Love went to swim,
And cast himself into a sea of tears;
The clouds called in their light, and heaven waxed dim,
And sighs did raise a tempest, causing fears;
The naked boy could not so wield his arms,
But that the waves were masters of his might,
And threatened him to work far greater harms
If he devisèd not to scape by flight:
Then for a boat his quiver stood instead,
His bow unbent did serve him for a mast,
Whereby to sail his cloth of veil he spread,
His shafts for oars on either board he cast:
From shipwreck safe this wag got thus to shore,
And sware to bathe in lovers’ tears no more.
From Thomas Campion’s Second Book of Airs (circ. 1613).
Vain men! whose follies make a god of love;
Whose blindness, beauty doth immortal deem,
Praise not what you desire, but what you prove;
Count those things good that are, not those that seem.
[Pg 144]
I cannot call her true, that’s false to me;
Nor make of women, more than women be.
How fair an entrance breaks the way to love!
How rich the golden hope, and gay delight!
What heart cannot a modest beauty move?
Who seeing clear day once will dream of night?
She seemed a saint, that brake her faith with me;
But proved a woman, as all other be.
So bitter is their sweet that True Content
Unhappy men in them may never find:
Ah! but without them, none. Both must consent,
Else uncouth are the joys of either kind.
Let us then praise their good, forget their ill!
Men must be men, and women women still.
From Francis Pilkington’s Second Set of Madrigals, 1624.
Wake, sleepy Thyrsis, wake
For Love and Venus’ sake!
Come, let us mount the hills
Which Zephyrus with cool breath fills;
Or let us tread new alleys,
In yonder shady valleys.
Rise, rise, rise, rise!
Lighten thy heavy eyes:
[Pg 145]
See how the streams do glide
And the green meads divide:
But stream nor fire shall part
This and this joinèd heart.
From Deuteromelia, 1609.
We be soldiers three,
Pardona moy je vous an pree,
Lately come forth of the Low Country
With never a penny of money.
Fa la la la lantido dilly.
Here, good fellow, I drink to thee,
Pardona moy je vous an pree,
To all good fellows wherever they be,
With never a penny of money.
And he that will not pledge me this,
Pardona moy je vous an pree,
Pays for the shot whatever it is,
With never a penny of money.
Charge it again, boy, charge it again,
Pardona moy je vous an pree,
As long as there is any ink in thy pen,
With never a penny of money.
[Pg 146]
From Deuteromelia, 1609.
We be three poor mariners,
Newly come from the seas;
We spend our lives in jeopardy
While others live at ease.
Shall we go dance the round, the round,
Shall we go dance the round?
And he that is a bully boy
Come pledge me on this ground!
We care not for those martial men
That do our states disdain;
But we care for the merchant men
Who do our states maintain:
To them we dance this round, around,
To them we dance this round;
And he that is a bully boy
Come pledge me on this ground!
From Egerton MS., 2013.
We must not part as others do,
With sighs and tears, as we were two:
Though with these outward forms we part,
We keep each other in our heart.
What search hath found a being, where
I am not, if that thou be there?
[Pg 147]
True love hath wings, and can as soon
Survey the world as sun and moon,
And everywhere our triumphs keep
O’er absence which makes others weep:
By which alone a power is given
To live on earth, as they in heaven.
From Thomas Weelkes’ Ballets and Madrigals to Five Voices, 1598.
We shepherds sing, we pipe, we play,
With pretty sport we pass the day:
Fa la!
We care for no gold,
But with our fold
We dance
And prance
As pleasure would.
Fa la!
From William Byrd’s Psalms, Songs, and Sonnets, 1611.
Wedded to will is witless,
And seldom he is skilful
That bears the name of wise and yet is wilful.
To govern he is fitless
[Pg 148]
That deals not by election,
But by his fond affection.
O that it might be treason
For men to rule by will and not by reason.
From Thomas Tomkins’ Songs of Three, Four, Five, and Six Parts, 1622.
Weep no more, thou sorry boy;
Love’s pleased and anger’d with a toy.
Love a thousand passion brings,
Laughs and weeps, and sighs and sings.
If she smiles, he dancing goes,
And thinks not on his future woes:
If she chide with angry eye,
Sits down, and sighs “Ah me, I die!”
Yet again, as soon revived,
Joys as much as late he grieved.
Change there is of joy and sadness,
Sorrow much, but more of gladness.
Then weep no more, thou sorry boy,
Turn thy tears to weeping joy.
Sigh no more “Ah me! I die!”
But dance, and sing, and ti-hy cry.
[Pg 149]
From John Rowland’s Third and Last Book of Songs or Airs, 1603.
Weep you no more, sad fountains;
What need you flow so fast?
Look how the snowy mountains
Heaven’s sun doth gently waste!
But my sun’s heavenly eyes,
View not your weeping,
That now lies sleeping
Softly, now softly lies
Sleeping.
Sleep is a reconciling,
A rest that peace begets;
Doth not the sun rise smiling
When fair at ev’n he sets?
Rest you then, rest, sad eyes!
Melt not in weeping,
While she lies sleeping,
Softly, now softly lies
Sleeping.
From Thomas Weelkes’ Ballets and Madrigals to Five Voices, 1598.
Welcome, sweet pleasure,
My wealth and treasure;
[Pg 150]
To haste our playing
There’s no delaying,
No no!
This mirth delights me
When sorrow frights me.
Then sing we all
Fa la la la la!
Sorrow, content thee,
Mirth must prevent thee:
Though much thou grievest
Thou none relievest.
No no!
Joy, come delight me,
Though sorrow spite me.
Then sing we all
Fa la la la la!
Grief is disdainful,
Sottish and painful:
Then wait on pleasure,
And lose no leisure.
No no!
Heart’s ease it lendeth
And comfort sendeth.
Then sing we all
Fa la la la la!
[Pg 151]
From John Mundy’s Songs and Psalms, 1594.
Were I a king, I might command content;
Were I obscure, unknown should be my cares:
And were I dead, no thoughts should me torment,
Nor words, nor wrongs, nor loves, nor hopes, nor fears.
A doubtful choice, of three things one to crave;
A kingdom, or a cottage, or a grave.
From Thomas Campion’s Third Book Of Airs (circ. 1613).
Were my heart as some men’s are, thy errors would not move me,
But thy faults I curious find and speak because I love thee;
Patience is a thing divine, and far, I grant, above me.
Foes sometimes befriend us more, our blacker deeds objecting,
Than th’ obsequious bosom-guest with false respect affecting;
Friendship is the Glass of Truth, our hidden stains detecting.
[Pg 152]
While I use of eyes enjoy and inward light of reason,
Thy observer will I be and censor, but in season;
Hidden mischief to conceal in state and love is treason.
From Pammelia, 1609.
What hap had I to marry a shrow!
For she hath given me many a blow,
And how to please her alack I do not know.
From morn to even her tongue ne’er lies,
Sometimes she brawls, sometimes she cries,
Yet I can scarce keep her talents[23] from mine eyes.
If I go abroad and late come in,—
“Sir knave,” saith she, “Where have you been?”
And do I well or ill she claps me on the skin.
From Orlando Gibbons’ First Set Of Madrigals, 1612. (Ascribed to Sir
Walter Raleigh.)
What is our life? a play of passion:
Our mirth? the music of division.
Our mothers’ wombs the tyring-houses be
Where we are drest for this short comedy:
Heaven the judicious sharp spectator is
That sits and marks whoe’er doth act amiss:
[Pg 153]
Our graves, that hide us from the searching sun,
Are like drawn curtains when the play is done:
Thus march we playing to our latest rest,
Only we die in earnest,—that’s no jest.
From John Wilbye’s Madrigals, 1598.
What needeth all this travail and turmoiling,
Short’ning the life’s sweet pleasure
To seek this far-fetched treasure
In those hot climates under Phœbus broiling?
O fools, can you not see a traffic nearer
In my sweet lady’s face, where Nature showeth
Whatever treasure eye sees or heart knoweth?
Rubies and diamonds dainty
And orient pearls such plenty,
Coral and ambergreece sweeter and dearer
Than which the South Seas or Moluccas lend us,
Or either Indies, East or West, do send us!
From William Byrd’s Psalms, Sonnets, and Songs, 1588.
What pleasure have great princes
More dainty to their choice
Than herdsmen wild, who careless
In quiet life rejoice,
[Pg 154]
And fortune’s fate not fearing
Sing sweet in summer morning?
Their dealings plain and rightful,
Are void of all deceit;
They never know how spiteful,
It is to kneel and wait
On favourite presumptuous
Whose pride is vain and sumptuous.
All day their flocks each tendeth;
At night, they take their rest;
More quiet than who sendeth
His ship into the East,
Where gold and pearl are plenty;
But getting, very dainty.
For lawyers and their pleading,
They ’steem it not a straw;
They think that honest meaning
Is of itself a law:
Whence conscience judgeth plainly,
They spend no money vainly.
O happy who thus liveth!
Not caring much for gold;
With clothing which sufficeth
To keep him from the cold.
Though poor and plain his diet
Yet merry it is, and quiet.
[Pg 155]
From John Dowland’s Third and Last Book of Songs or Airs, 1603.
What poor astronomers are they,
Take women’s eyes for stars!
And set their thoughts in battle ’ray,
To fight such idle wars;
When in the end they shall approve
’Tis but a jest drawn out of Love.
And Love itself is but a jest
Devised by idle heads,
To catch young Fancies in the nest,
And lay them in fool’s beds;
That being hatched in beauty’s eyes
They may be fledged ere they be wise.
But yet it is a sport to see,
How Wit will run on wheels!
While Wit cannot persuaded be,
With that which Reason feels,
That women’s eyes and stars are odd
And Love is but a feignèd god!
But such as will run mad with Will,
I cannot clear their sight
But leave them to their study still,
To look where is no light!
Till time too late, we make them try,
They study false Astronomy!
[Pg 156]
From Thomas Ford’s Music of Sundry Kinds, 1607.
What then is love, sings Corydon,
Since Phyllida is grown so coy?
A flattering glass to gaze upon,
A busy jest, a serious toy,
A flower still budding, never blown,
A scanty dearth in fullest store
Yielding least fruit where most is sown.
My daily note shall be therefore—
Heigh ho, chil love no more.
’Tis like a morning dewy rose
Spread fairly to the sun’s arise,
But when his beams he doth disclose
That which then flourish’d quickly dies;
It is a seld-fed dying hope,
A promised bliss, a salveless sore,
An aimless mark, and erring scope.
My daily note shall be therefore,—
Heigh ho, chil love no more.
’Tis like a lamp shining to all,
Whilst in itself it doth decay;
It seems to free whom it doth thrall,
And lead our pathless thoughts astray.
It is the spring of wintered hearts
Parched by the summer’s heat before
Faint hope to kindly warmth converts.
My daily note shall be therefore—
Heigh ho, chil love no more.
[Pg 157]
From Richard Carlton’s Madrigals, 1601.
When Flora fair the pleasant tidings bringeth
Of summer sweet with herbs and flowers adornèd,
The nightingale upon the hawthorn singeth
And Boreas’ blasts the birds and beasts have scornèd;
When fresh Aurora with her colours painted,
Mingled with spears of gold, the sun appearing,
Delights the hearts that are with love acquainted,
And maying maids have then their time of cheering;
All creatures then with summer are delighted,
The beasts, the birds, the fish with scale of silver;
Then stately dames by lovers are invited
To walk in meads or row upon the river.
I all alone am from these joys exilèd,
No summer grows where love yet never smilèd.
From William Byrd’s Songs of Sundry Natures, 1589.
When I was otherwise than now I am,
I lovèd more but skillèd not so much
Fair words and smiles could have contented then,
My simple age and ignorance was such:
But at the length experience made me wonder
That hearts and tongues did lodge so far asunder.
[Pg 158]
As watermen which on the Thames do row,
Look to the east but west keeps on the way;
My sovereign sweet her count’nance settled so,
To feed my hope while she her snares might lay:
And when she saw that I was in her danger,
Good God, how soon she provèd then a ranger!
I could not choose but laugh, although too late,
To see great craft decypher’d in a toy;
I love her still, but such conditions hate
Which so profanes my paradise of joy.
Love whets the wits, whose pain is but a pleasure;
A toy, by fits to play withal at leisure.
From Campion and Rosseter’s Book of Airs, 1601.
When thou must home to shades of underground,
And there arrived, a new admirèd guest,
The beauteous spirits do engirt thee round,
White Iope, blithe Helen, and the rest,
To hear the stories of thy finished love
From that smooth tongue whose music hell can move;
Then wilt thou speak of banqueting delights,
Of masques and revels which sweet youth did make,
Of tourneys and great challenges of Knights,
And all these triumphs for thy beauty sake:
When thou hast told these honours done to thee,
Then tell, O tell, how thou didst murder me.
[Pg 159]
From William Byrd’s Songs of Sundry Natures, 1589.
δεινὸς Ἔρως, δεινός· τί δὲ τὸ πλέον, ἢν πάλιν εἴπω,
καὶ πάλιν, οἰμώζων πολλάκι, δεινὸς Ἔρως;
Meleag.
When younglings first on Cupid fix their sight,
And see him naked, blindfold, and a boy,
Though bow and shafts and firebrand be his might,
Yet ween they he can work them none annoy;
And therefore with his purple wings they play,
For glorious seemeth love though light as feather,
And when they have done they ween to scape away,
For blind men, say they, shoot they know not whither.
But when by proof they find that he did see,
And that his wound did rather dim their sight,
They wonder more how such a lad as he
Should be of such surpassing power and might.
But ants have galls, so hath the bee his sting:
Then shield me, heavens, from such a subtle thing!
From John Wilbye’s Second Set of Madrigals, 1609.
Where most my thoughts, there least mine eye is striking;
Where least I come there most my heart abideth;
Where most I love I never show my liking;
From what my mind doth hold my body slideth;
[Pg 160]
I show least care where most my care dependeth;
A coy regard where most my soul attendeth.
Despiteful thus unto myself I languish,
And in disdain myself from joy I banish.
These secret thoughts enwrap me so in anguish
That life, I hope, will soon from body vanish,
And to some rest will quickly be conveyèd
That on no joy, while so I lived, hath stayèd.
From Martin Pearson’s Mottects or Grave Chamber-Music, 1630.
A Mourning-Song for the Death of Sir Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke.
Where shall a sorrow great enough be sought
For this sad ruin which the Fates have wrought,
Unless the Fates themselves should weep and wish
Their curbless power had been controlled in this?
For thy loss, worthiest Lord, no mourning eye
Has flood enough; no muse nor elegy
Enough expression to thy worth can lend;
No, though thy Sidney had survived his friend.
Dead, noble Brooke shall be to us a name
Of grief and honour still, whose deathless fame
Such Virtue purchased as makes us to be
Unjust to Nature in lamenting thee;
Wailing an old man’s fate as if in pride
And heat of Youth he had untimely died.
[Pg 161]
From Campion and Rosseter’s Book of Airs, 1601.
σκηνὴ πᾶς ὁ βίος, καὶ παίγνιον.
Pallad.
Whether men do laugh or weep,
Whether they do wake or sleep,
Whether they die young or old,
Whether they feel heat or cold;
There is underneath the sun
Nothing in true earnest done.
All our pride is but a jest,
None are worst and none are best;
Grief and joy and hope and fear
Play their pageants everywhere:
Vain Opinion all doth sway,
And the world is but a play.
Powers above in clouds do sit,
Mocking our poor apish wit,
That so lamely with such state
Their high glory imitate.
No ill can be felt but pain,
And that happy men disdain.
[Pg 162]
From William Byrd’s Songs of Sundry Natures, 1589.
While that the sun with his beams hot
Scorchèd the fruits in vale and mountain,
Philon, the shepherd, late forgot
Sitting beside a chrystal fountain
In shadow of a green oak-tree,
Upon his pipe this song play’d he:
Adieu, Love! adieu, Love! untrue Love!
Untrue Love, untrue Love! adieu, Love!
Your mind is light, soon lost for new love.
So long as I was in your sight,
I was your heart, your soul, your treasure;
And evermore you sobb’d and sigh’d,
Burning in flames beyond all measure.
Three days endured your love for me,
And it was lost in other three.
Adieu, Love! adieu, Love! untrue Love!
Untrue Love, untrue Love! adieu, Love!
Your mind is light, soon lost for new love.
Another shepherd you did see,
To whom your heart was soon enchainèd;
Full soon your love was leapt from me,
Full soon my place he had obtainèd:
Soon came a third your love to win;
And we were out, and he was in.
Adieu, Love! adieu, Love! untrue Love!
Untrue Love, untrue Love! adieu, Love!
Your mind is light, soon lost for new Love.
[Pg 163]
Sure, you have made me passing glad
That you your mind so soon removèd,
Before that I the leisure had
To choose you for my best belovèd:
For all my love was past and done
Two days, before it was begun.
Adieu, Love! adieu, Love! untrue Love!
Untrue Love, untrue Love! adieu, Love!
Your mind is light, soon lost for new love.
From Thomas Weelkes’ Ballets and Madrigals, 1598.
Whilst youthful sports are lasting,
To feasting turn our fasting.
Fa la la!
With revels and with wassails
Make grief and care our vassals.
Fa la la!
For youth it well beseemeth
That pleasure he esteemeth.
Fa la la!
And sullen age is hated
That mirth would have abated.
Fa la la!
[Pg 164]
From John Dowland’s Second Book of Songs or Airs, 1600.
White as lilies was her face:
When she smilèd
She beguilèd,
Quitting faith with foul disgrace.
Virtue’s service thus neglected.
Heart with sorrows hath infected.
When I swore my heart her own,
She disdainèd;
I complainèd,
Yet she left me overthrown:
Careless of my bitter grieving,
Ruthless, bent to no relieving.
Vows and oaths and faith assured,
Constant ever,
Changing never,—
Yet she could not be procured
To believe my pains exceeding
From her scant respect proceeding.
O that love should have the art,
By surmises,
And disguises,
To destroy a faithful heart;
Or that wanton-looking women
Should reward their friends as foemen.
[Pg 165]
All in vain is ladies’ love—
Quickly choosèd.
Shortly loosèd;
For their pride is to remove.
Out, alas! their looks first won us,
And their pride hath straight undone us.
To thyself, the sweetest Fair!
Thou hast wounded,
And confounded
Changeless faith with foul despair;
And my service hast envièd
And my succours hast denièd.
By thine error thou hast lost
Heart unfeignèd,
Truth unstainèd.
And the swain that lovèd most,
More assured in love than many,
Move despised in love than any.
For my heart, though set at nought,
Since you will it,
Spoil and kill it!
I will never change my thought:
But grieve that beauty e’er was born
Thus to answer love with scorn.
[Pg 166]
From Francis Pilkington’s First Book of Songs or Airs, 1605.
Whither so fast? see how the kindly flowers
Perfume the air, and all to make thee stay:
The climbing wood-bine, clipping all these bowers,
Clips thee likewise for fear thou pass away;
Fortune our friend, our foe will not gainsay.
Stay but awhile, Phœbe no tell-tale is;
She her Endymion, I’ll my Phœbe kiss.
Fear not, the ground seeks but to kiss thy feet;
Hark, hark, how Philomela sweetly sings!
Whilst water-wanton fishes as they meet
Strike crotchet time amidst these crystal springs,
And Zephyrus amongst the leaves sweet murmur rings.
Stay but awhile, Phœbe no tell-tale is;
She her Endymion, I’ll my Phœbe kiss.
See how the helitrope, herb of the sun,
Though he himself long since be gone to bed,
Is not of force thine eye’s bright beams to shun,
But with their warmth his goldy leaves unspread,
And on my knee invites thee rest thy head.
Stay but awhile, Phœbe no tell-tale is;
She her Endymion, I’ll my Phœbe kiss.
[Pg 167]
From William Byrd’s Psalms, Sonnets, and Songs, 1588.
Who likes to love, let him take heed!
And wot you why?
Among the gods it is decreed
That Love shall die;
And every wight that takes his part
Shall forfeit each a mourning heart.
The cause is this, as I have heard:
A sort of dames,
Whose beauty he did not regard
Nor secret flames,
Complained before the gods above
That gold corrupts the god of love.
The gods did storm to hear this news,
And there they swore,
That sith he did such dames abuse
He should no more
Be god of love, but that he should
Both die and forfeit all his gold.
His bow and shafts they took away
Before his eyes,
And gave these dames a longer day
For to devise
Who should them keep, and they be bound
That love for gold should not be found.
[Pg 168]
These ladies striving long, at last
They did agree
To give them to a maiden chaste,
Whom I did see,
Who with the same did pierce my breast:
Her beauty’s rare, and so I rest.
From William Byrd’s Songs of Sundry Natures, 1589.
1.
Who made thee, Hob, forsake the plough
And fall in love?
2.
Sweet beauty, which hath power to bow
The gods above.
1.
What dost thou serve? 2. A shepherdess;
One such as hath no peer, I guess.
1.
What is her name who bears thy heart
Within her breast?
2.
Silvana fair, of high desert,
Whom I love best.
1.
O, Hob, I fear she looks too high.
2.
Yet love I must, or else I die.
From Thomas Bateson’s First Set of English Madrigals, 1604.
Who prostrate lies at women’s feet.
And calls them darlings dear and sweet;
[Pg 169]
Protesting love, and craving grace,
And praising oft a foolish face;
Are oftentimes deceived at last,
Then catch at nought and hold it fast.
From John Farmer’s First Set of English Madrigals, 1599.
Who would have thought that face of thine
Had been so full of doubleness,
Or that within those crystal eyn
Had been so much unstableness?
Thy face so fair, thy look so strange!
Who would have thought of such a change?
From Thomas Weelkes’ Madrigals of Five and Six Parts, 1600.
Why are you Ladies staying,
And your Lords gone a-maying?
Run apace and meet them
And with your garlands greet them.
’Twere pity they should miss you,
For they will sweetly kiss you.
[Pg 170]
From John Dowland’s First Book of Songs or Airs, 1597.
Wilt thou, Unkind! thus ’reave me
Of my heart and so leave me?
Farewell!
But yet, or ere I part, O Cruel,
Kiss me, Sweet, my Jewel!
Farewell!
Hope by disdain grows cheerless,
Fear doth love, love doth fear;
Beauty peerless,
Farewell!
If no delays can move thee,
Life shall die, death shall live
Still to love thee.
Farewell!
Yet be thou mindful ever!
Heat from fire, fire from heat,
None can sever.
Farewell!
True love cannot be changèd,
Though delight from desert
Be estrangèd.
Farewell!
[Pg 171]
From Thomas Campion’s Two Books of Airs (circ. 1613).
Wise men patience never want,
Good men pity cannot hide;
Feeble spirits only vaunt
Of revenge, the poorest pride:
He alone forgive that can
Bears the true soul of a man.
Some there are debate that seek,
Making trouble their content;
Happy if they wrong the meek,
Vex them that to peace are bent:
Such undo the common tie
Of mankind, Society.
Kindness grown is lately cold,
Conscience hath forgot her part;
Blessèd times were known of old
Long ere Law became an art:
Shame deterred, not statutes then;
Honest love was law to men.
Deeds from love, and words, that flow,
Foster like kind April showers;
In the warm sun all things grow,
Wholesome fruits and pleasant flowers:
All so thrives his gentle rays
Whereon human love displays.
[Pg 172]
From John Dowland’s Second Book of Songs or Airs, 1600.
Woeful Heart, with grief oppressèd!
Since my fortunes most distressèd
From my joys hath me removèd,
Follow those sweet eyes adorèd!
Those sweet eyes wherein are storèd
All my pleasures best belovèd.
Fly my breast—leave me forsaken—
Wherein Grief his seat hath taken,
All his arrows through me darting!
Thou mayst live by her sunshining:
I shall suffer no more pining
By thy loss than by her parting.
From Thomas Greaves’ Songs of Sundry Kinds, 1604.
Ye bubbling springs that gentle music makes
To lovers’ plaints with heart-sore throbs immixed,
When as my dear this way her pleasure takes,
Tell her with tears how firm my love is fixed;
And, Philomel, report my timerous fears,
And, echo, sound my heigh-ho’s in her ears:
But if she asks if I for love will die,
Tell her, Good faith, good faith, good faith,—not I.
[Pg 173]
From Farmer’s First Set of English Madrigals, 1599.
You blessèd bowers whose green leaves now are spreading,
Shadow the sunshine from my mistress’ face,
And you, sweet roses, only for her bedding
When weary she doth take her resting-place;
You fair white lilies and pretty flowers all,
Give your attendance at my mistress’ call.
From Thomas Morley’s First Book of Ballets, 1595.
You that wont to my pipe’s sound
Daintily to tread your ground,
Jolly shepherds and nymphs sweet,
(Lirum, lirum.)
Here met together
Under the weather,
Hand in hand uniting,
The lovely god come greet.
(Lirum, lirum)
Lo, triumphing, brave comes he,
All in pomp and majesty,
Monarch of the world and king.
(Lirum, lirum.)
[Pg 174]
Let whoso list him
Dare to resist him,
We our voices uniting,
Of his high acts will sing.
(Lirum, lirum.)
From Thomas Bateson’s First Set of English Madrigals, 1604.
Your shining eyes and golden hair,
Your lily-rosèd lips so fair;
Your various beauties which excel,
Men cannot choose but like them well:
Yet when for them they say they’ll die,
Believe them not,—they do but lie.
[Pg 175]
[Pg 176]
[Pg 177]
NOTES.
Page 3.
Thomas Weelkes was organist of Winchester College in 1600, and of
Chichester Cathedral in 1608. His first collection, “Madrigals to three,
four, five, or six voices,” was published in 1597. Here first appeared
the verses (fraudulently ascribed, in “The Passionate Pilgrim,” 1599, to
Shakespeare), “My flocks feed not.” In 1598 Weelkes published “Ballets
and Madrigals to five voices,” which was followed in 1600 by “Madrigals
of five and six parts.” Prefixed to the last-named work is the following
dedicatory epistle:—
“To the truly noble, virtuous, and honorable, my very good Lord Henry,
Lord Winsor, Baron of Bradenham.
My Lord, in the College at Winchester, where I live, I have heard
learned men say that some philosophers have mistaken the soul of man for
an harmony: let the precedent of their error be a privilege for mine. I
see not, if souls do not partly consist of music, how it should come to
pass that so noble a spirit as your’s, so perfectly tuned to so
perpetual a tenor of excellence as it is, should descend to the notice
of a quality lying single in so low a personage as myself. But in music
the base part is no disgrace to the best ears’ attendancy. I confess
my conscience is untoucht with any other arts, and I hope my confession
is unsuspected; many of us musicians think it as much praise to be
somewhat more than musicians as it is for gold to be somewhat more than
gold, and if Jack Cade were alive, yet some of us might live, unless
we should think, as the artisans in the Universities of Poland and
Germany think, that the Latin tongue comes by reflection. I hope your
Lordship will pardon this presumption of mine; the rather, because I
know before Nobility I am to deal sincerely; and this small faculty of
mine, because it is alone in me, and without the assistance of other
more confident sciences, is the more to be favoured and the rather to be
received into your honour’s protection; so shall I
[Pg 178] observe you with as
humble and as true an heart, as he whose knowledge is as large as the
world’s creation, and as earnestly pray for you to the world’s Creator.
Your Honor’s in all humble service,
Thomas Weelkes.”
In 1608 appeared Weelkes’ last work, “Airs or Fantastic Spirits for
three voices,” a collection of lively and humorous ditties. Oliphant
writes:—“For originality of ideas, and ingenuity of construction in
part writing, (I allude more especially to his ballets,) Weelkes in my
opinion leaves all other composers of his time far behind.” The verses
in Weelkes’ song-books are never heavy or laboured; they are always
bright, cheerful, and arch.
Page 3. Robert Jones was a famous performer on the lute. He had a
share in the management of the theatre in the Whitefriars (Collier’s
“Annals of the Stage,” i. 395). His works are of the highest rarity. The
delightful lyrics in Jones’ song-books have escaped the notice of all
the editors of anthologies.
Page 4. Thomas Morley, who was a pupil of William Byrd, was the author
of the first systematic treatise on music published in this country—“A
plain and easy Introduction to practical Music,” 1597, quaintly set down
in form of a dialogue. The verses in his collections are mere airy
trifles, and hardly bear to be separated from the music.
“About the maypole new,” &c., is a translation of some Italian lines,
beginning—
“Al suon d’una sampogn’ e d’una citera,
Sopra l’herbette floride
Dansava Tirsi con l’amata Cloride,” &c.
In Morley’s “Canzonets to three Voices,” 1593, we have the following
pleasant description of the preparations for a country wedding:—
“Arise, get up, my dear, make haste, begone thee:
Lo! where the bride, fair Daphne, tarries on thee.
Hark! O hark! yon merry maidens squealing
Spice-cakes, sops-in-wine are a-dealing.
Run, then run apace
And get a bride-lace
And gilt rosemary branch the while there yet is catching
And then hold fast for fear of old snatching.
[Pg 179]
Alas! my dear, why weep ye?
O fear not that, dear love, the next day keep we.
List, yon minstrels! hark how fine they firk it,
And how the maidens jerk it!
With Kate and Will,
Tom and Gill,
Now a skip,
Then a trip,
Finely fet aloft,
There again as oft;
Hey ho! blessed holiday!
All for Daphne’s wedding day!”
Page 9. John Wilbye is styled by Oliphant “the first of madrigal
writers.” He published his “First Set of English Madrigals” in 1598, and
his “Second Set” in 1609. The Second Set was dedicated to the
unfortunate Lady Arabella Stuart. The composer concludes his dedicatory
epistle with the prayer, “I beseech the Almighty to make you in all the
passages of your life truly happy, as you are in the world’s true
opinion, virtuous.” In the very year when the epistle was written the
gifted patroness of art and learning was accused before the Privy
Council and ordered to be kept in close confinement. She made her
escape, but after a few hours was captured at sea in her flight to
Dunkirk, brought back to London, and committed to the Tower, where she
died of a broken heart in 1615. It is pleasant to think that the
song-book dedicated to her honour may have cheered her in the long hours
of solitude. The collection consists chiefly of love-lyrics; but such
verses as “Happy, O happy he,” &c. (p. 37) and “Draw on, sweet Night”
(p. 21), must have been carefully cherished by the poor captive.
Page 9. “April is in my mistress’ face.”—Compare Robert Greene’s
verses in “Perimedes, the Blacksmith,” 1588:—
“Fair is my love, for April in her face,
Her lovely breasts September claims his part,
And lordly July in her eyes takes place:
But cold December dwelleth in her heart:
Blest be the months that set my thoughts on fire,
Accurs’d that month that hindereth my desire!”
[Pg 180]
Page 11. “The Urchins’ Dance” is from the anonymous play “The Maid’s
Metamorphosis,” 1600. In the same play are the following dainty
verses;—
“1 Fairy.
I do come about the copse
Leaping upon flowers’ tops;
Then I get upon a fly,
She carries me above the sky,
And trip and go!
2 Fairy.
When a dew-drop falleth down
And doth light upon my crown,
Then I shake my head and skip
And about I trip.
3 Fairy.
When I feel a girl a-sleep,
Underneath her frock I peep,
There to sport, and there I play;
Then I bite her like a flea,
And about I skip.”
Thomas Ravenscroft, compiler of the “Brief Discourse,” won his spurs at
a very early age. He took his degree of Bachelor of Music before he had
reached his fifteenth year, as we learn from some commendatory verses
prefixed to the “Brief Discourse;”—
“Non vidit tria lustra puer, quin arte probatus,
Vita laudatus, sumpsit in arte gradum.”
He was twenty-two when he published the “Brief Discourse” in 1614: but
in 1611 be had published “Melismata, musical fancies fitting the court,
city, and country humours,” and he edited two collections that appeared
in 1609—“Pammelia” and “Deuteromelia.” “Pammelia” is the earliest
English printed collection of Catches, Rounds, and Canons; both words
and music were for the most part older than the date of publication.
“Deuteromelia” was intended as a continuation of “Pammelia.”
Page 12. Robert Dowland, editor of “A Musical Banquet,” was a son of
John Dowland; he succeeded his father as one of the Court musicians in
1626, and was alive in 1641.
Page 16. Thomas Ford, when he published his “Music of sundry kinds,”
1607, was a musician in the suite of Prince Henry.
At the accession of Charles I. he was appointed one of
[Pg 181]
his musicians, and he died in 1648—the year before his royal patron
was beheaded.
Page 23. “Little lawn then serve[d] the Pawn.”—The Pawn was a
corridor, serving as a bazaar, in the Royal Exchange (Gresham’s).
Page 24. “Farewell, false Love, the oracle of lies.”—“J. C.” in
“Alcilia,” 1595, writes:—
“Love is honey mixed with gall,
A thraldom free, a freedom thrall;
A bitter sweet, a pleasant sour,
Got in a year, lost in an hour;
A peaceful war, a warlike peace,
Whose wealth brings want, whose want increase;
Full long pursuit and little gain,
Uncertain pleasure, certain pain;
Regard of neither right nor wrong,
For short delights repentance long.
Love is the sickness of the thought,
Conceit of pleasure dearly bought;
A restless passion of the mind,
A labyrinth of arrows blind:
A sugared poison, fair deceit,
A bait for fools, a furious heat;
A chilling cold, a wondrous passion,
Exceeding man’s imagination;
Which none can tell in whole or part,
But only he that feels the smart.”
Robert Greene has a somewhat similar description of Love (“What thing is
Love? it is a power divine,” &c.) in “Menaphon,” 1589.
Page 28. “Fond wanton youths.”—This piece is also printed in “The
Golden Garland of Princely Delights,” 1620, where it is headed “Of the
Inconveniences by Marriage,” and is directed to be sung to the tune of
“When Troy town.”
Page 29, l. 22. “Their longings must not be beguiled.”—The original
gives “Their laughings” (which is unintelligible).
Page 31. It was at Wanstead House, a seat of the Earl of Leicester,
that Sidney wrote his masque the “Lady of the May” in honour of Queen
Elizabeth’s visit in 1578. “Was Raleigh
[Pg 182] retired there,” writes Mr. W.
J. Linton (Rare Poems, p. 257), “during some season of her
displeasure? There is a look of him about this song, not unlike the
lines to Cynthia; and what mistress but Majesty should appoint his place
of retirement?
‘Wanstead, my Mistress saith this is the doom.’”
The two lines that close each stanza are from a song in Sidney’s
“Arcadia.”
Page 37. “Who, known to all, unknown to himself dies.” From Seneca’s
“Thyestes:”—
“qui notus nimis omnibus
Ignotus moritur sibi.”
Page 39. “How many things.”—I have given four of John Maynard’s
“Twelve Wonders of the World” (cf. pp. 44-5, 69); and, if I am not
mistaken, the reader will like to see the remaining eight. There is much
freshness and piquancy in these quaint old rhymes, which were written by
no less a poet than Sir John Davies.
“The Divine.
My calling is Divine,
And I from God am sent;
I will no chop-church be,
Nor pay my patron rent,
Nor yield to sacrilege;
But like the kind true mother,
Rather will lose all the child
Than part it with another.
Much wealth I will not seek,
Nor worldly masters serve,
So to grow rich and fat
While my poor flock doth starve.
The Soldier.
My occupation is
The noble trade of kings
The trial that decides
The highest right of things.
[Pg 183]
Though Mars my master be,
I do not Venus love,
Nor honour Bacchus oft,
Nor often swear by Jove.
Of speaking of myself
I all occasion shun,
And rather love to do,
Than boast what I have done.
The Lawyer.
The law my calling is;
My robe, my tongue, my pen
Wealth and opinion gain
And make me judge of men.
The known dishonest cause,
I never did defend
Nor spun out suits in length,
But wish’d and sought an end;
Nor counsel did bewray,
Nor of both parties take,
Nor ever took I fee
For which I never spake.
The Physician.
I study to uphold
The slippery state of man,
Who dies when we have done
The best and all we can.
From practice and from books
I draw my learned skill,
Not from the known receipt
Or ’pothecary’s bill.
The earth my faults doth hide,
The world my cures doth see,
What youth and time effects
Is oft ascribed to me.
[Pg 184]
The Merchant.
My trade doth everything
To every land supply,
Discovers unknown coasts,
Strange countries doth ally.
I never did forestall,
I never did engross,
Nor custom did withdraw
Though I return’d with loss.
I thrive by fair exchange,
By selling and by buying,
And not by Jewish use,
Reprisal, fraud, or lying.
The Country Gentleman.
Though strange outlandish spirits
Praise towns and countries scorn,
The country is my home,
I dwell where I was born.
There profit and command
With pleasure I partake,
Yet do not hawks and dogs
My sole companions make.
I rule, but not oppress;
End quarrels, not maintain;
See towns, but dwell not there
To abridge my charge or train.
The Wife.
The first of all our sex
Came from the side of man,
I thither am return’d
From whence our sex began.
I do not visit oft,
Nor many when I do,
I tell my mind to few
And that in counsel too.
[Pg 185]
I seem not sick in health,
Nor sullen but in sorrow;
I care for somewhat else
Than what to wear to-morrow.
The Widow.
My dying husband knew
How much his death would grieve me,
And therefore left me wealth
To comfort and relieve me.
Though I no more will have,
I must not love disdain;
Penelope her self
Did suitors entertain.
And yet to draw on such
As are of best esteem,
Nor younger than I am
Nor richer will I seem.”
Page 41. “I have house and land in Kent.”—This admirable song has
been frequently reprinted. Miss De Vaynes, in her very valuable “Kentish
Garland” (i., 142), observes:—“We have met with no other song in the
Kentish dialect except Jan Ploughshare’s” (printed on p. 372, vol. i.,
of the “Garland”). Rimbault in his “Little Book of Songs and Ballads”
(1851), gives the following lines from an old MS. (temp. Henry VIII.):—
“Joan, quoth John, when will this be?
Tell me when wilt thou marry me,
My corn and eke my calf and rents,
My lands and all my tenements?
Say, Joan, quoth John, what wilt thou do?
I cannot come every day to woo?”
David Herd printed a fragment of a Scotch song that was founded on the
English song:—
“I hae layen three herring a’ sa’t,
Bonny lass, gin ze’ll take me, tell me now,
And I hae brew’n three pickles o’ ma’t
And I cannae cum ilka day to woo.
[Pg 186]
To woo, to woo, to lilt and to woo,
And I cannae cum ilka day to woo.
I hae a wee ca’f that wad fain be a cow,
Bonny lassie, gin ye’ll take me, tell me now,
I hae a wee gryce that wad fain be a sow,
And I cannae cum ilka day to woo.
To woo, to woo, to lilt and to woo,
And I cannae cum ilka day to woo.”
Page 43. “I joy not in no earthly bliss.”—These stanzas are usually
printed with “My mind to me a kingdom is” (p. 78), and the whole poem
has been attributed to Sir Edward Dyer.
Page 47. “I weigh not Fortune’s frown nor smile.”—These lines (which
seem to have been modelled on “I joy not in no earthly bliss”) are by
Joshua Sylvester.
In the second stanza, “I sound not at the news of wreck,” sound is an
old form of swoon.
Page 52. “If women could be fair.”—This poem is ascribed to Edward,
Earl of Oxford, in Rawlinson, MS. 85, fol. 16.
Page 53. “In darkness let me dwell.”—These lines are also found in
Robert Dowland’s “Musical Banquet,” 1610, set to music by John Dowland.
Page 57. “In the merry month of May.”—First printed in “The Honorable
Entertainment given to the Queen’s Majesty in Progress at Elvetham in
Hampshire, by the Right Honorable the Earl of Hertford,” 1591, under the
title of “The Ploughman’s Song.”
Page 60. “It was the frog in the well.”—There are several versions of
this old ditty: the following is from Kirkpatrick Sharpe’s “Ballad
Book,” 1824:—
“There lived a puddy in a well,
And a merry mouse in a mill.
Puddy he’d a wooin ride,
Sword and pistol by his side.
Puddy came to the mouse’s wonne,
‘Mistress mouse, are you within?’
[Pg 187]
‘Yes, kind sir, I am within;
Saftly do I sit and spin.’
‘Madam, I am come to woo;
Marriage I must have of you.’
‘Marriage I will grant you nane,
Until uncle Rotten he comes hame.’
‘Uncle Rotten’s now come hame;
Fy! gar busk the bride alang.’
Lord Rotten sat at the head o’ the table,
Because he was baith stout and able.
Wha is’t that sits next the wa’,
But Lady Mouse, baith jimp and sma’?
What is’t that sits next the bride,
But the sola puddy wi’ his yellow side?
Syne came the deuk, but and the drake;
The deuk took puddy, and garred him squaik.
Then cam in the carl cat,
Wi’ a fiddle on his back.
‘Want ye ony music here?’
The puddy he swam doun the brook;
The drake he catched him in his fluke.
The cat he pu’d Lord Rotten doun;
The kittens they did claw his croun.
But Lady Mouse, baith jimp and sma’,
Crept into a hole beneath the wa’;
‘Squeak!’ quoth she, ‘I’m weel awa.’”
Doubtless Ravenscroft’s version is more ancient. A ballad entitled “A
most strange weddinge of the frogge and the mouse” was licensed for
printing in 1580.
[Pg 188]
Page 65. “Lady, when I behold.”—Gracefully Paraphrased from an
Italian original:—
“Quand’ io miro le rose,
Ch’in voi natura pose;
E quelle che v’ ha l’arte
Nel vago seno sparte;
Non so conoscer poi
Se voi le rose, o sian le rose in voi.”
Page 66. John Danyel is supposed to have been a brother of Samuel
Daniel, the poet. He took his degree of Bachelor of Music in 1604. “At
the commencement of the reign of Charles the First he was one of the
Court Musicians, and his name occurs among the ‘Musicians for the Lutes
and Voices’ in a privy seal, dated December 20th, 1625, exempting the
musicians belonging to the Court from the payment of subsidies”
(Rimbault).
Page 68. “Then all at once for our town cries.”—“I should imagine,”
says Oliphant, “that there was occasionally a sort of friendly
contention in the sports between neighbouring villages; which idea is
rather corroborated by a passage from an old play called the
‘Vow-breaker’ by Samson, 1636: ‘Let the major play the hobby-horse an’
he will; I hope our Town lads cannot want a hobby-horse.’” In an old
play. “The Country Girl,” (first printed in 1647), attributed to that
shadowy personage Antony Brewer, we have an allusion to this pleasant
form of rivalry:—
“Abraham. Sister Gillian,—I have the rarest news for you.
Gillian. For me? ’tis well. And what news have you got, sir?
Abr. Skipping news, lipping news, tripping news.
Gil. How! dancing, brother Abram, dancing?
Abr. Prancing, advancing, dancing. Nay, ’tis a match, a match upon a wager.
Gil. A match. Who be they?
Abr. Why all the wenches of our town Edmonton,
and all the mad wenches of Waltham.
Gil. A match, and leave me out! When, when is’t, brother?
Abr. Marry, e’en this morning:—they are now going to’t helter-skelter.
[A treble plays within.
Gil. And leave me out! where, brother, where?
[Pg 189]
Abr. Why there, Sister Gillian; there, at our own door almost,—on the
green there, close by the may-pole. Hark! you may hear them hither.”
(Sig. D.)
The stage-direction at the entrance of the dancers runs thus:—“Enter
six country wenches, all red petticoats, white stitch’d bodies, in their
smock-sleeves, the fiddler before them, and Gillian with her tippet up
in the midst of them dancing.”
Page 73. “It was the purest light of heaven” &c.—I am reminded of a
fine passage in Drayton’s “Barons’ Wars,” canto VI.:—
“Looking upon proud Phaeton wrapped in fire,
The gentle queen did much bewail his fall;
But Mortimer commended his desire
To lose one poor life or to govern all.
‘What though,’ quoth he, ‘he madly did aspire
And his great mind made him proud Fortune’s thrall?
Yet, in despight when she her worst had done,
He perish’d in the chariot of the sun.’”
Page 74. “The Bellman’s Song.”—In “Robin Goodfellow; his mad pranks
and merry jests,” 1628, we have another specimen of a Bellman’s Song:—
“Sometimes would he go like a bellman in the night, and with many pretty
verses delight the ears of those that waked at his bell-ringing: his
verses were these:—
Maids in your smocks,
Look well to your locks,
And your tinder-box,
Your wheels and your rocks,
Your hens and your cocks,
Your cows and your ox,
And beware of the fox.
When the bellman knocks
Put out your fire and candle-light,
So they shall not you affright.
May you dream of your delights,
In your sleeps see pleasing sights!
Good rest to all, both old and young:
The bellman now hath done his song.
Then would he go laughing Ho ho ho! as his use was.”
[Pg 190]
Page 77. “That kisses were the seals of love.”—Every reader will
recall
“But my kisses bring again, bring again.
Seals of love but sealed in vain, sealed in vain.”
(The first stanza is found among the poems of Sir Philip Sidney.)
Page 80. “My prime of youth.”—This song is also set to music in
Richard Alison’s “Hour’s Recreation,” 1606, and Michael Este’s
“Madrigals of three, four, and five parts,” 1604. It is printed in
“Reliquiæ: Wottonianæ” as “By Chidick Tychborn, being young and then in
the tower, the night before his execution.” Chidiock Tychbourne of
Southampton was executed with Ballard and Babington in 1586.
Page 80. “My sweetest Lesbia.”—The first stanza is an elegant
paraphrase from Catullus, though the last line fails to render the
rhythmical sweetness long-drawn-out of “Nox est perpetua una dormienda.”
Page 81. “My Thoughts are winged with Hopes.”—This piece is also
found in “England’s Helicon.” A MS. copy, in a commonplace book found at
Hamburg, is signed “W. S.” I have frequently met with these initials in
volumes of MS. poetry of the early part of the seventeenth century. The
following pretty verses in Add. MS. 21, 433, fol. 158, are subscribed “W.
S.”:—
“O when will Cupid show such art
To strike two lovers with one dart?
I’m ice to him or he to me;
Two hearts alike there seldom be.
If ten thousand meet together,
Scarce one face is like another:
If scarce two faces can agree,
Two hearts alike there seldom be.”
There is not the slightest ground for identifying “W. S.” with
Shakespeare. Mr. Linton (“Rare Poems,” p. 255) conjectures that “My
Thoughts are winged with Hopes”—which has the heading “To Cynthia” in
“England’s Helicon”—may be by Raleigh.
Page 83. “Now each creature.”—The first stanza of “An Ode” by Samuel
Daniel, originally printed in the 1592 edition of “Delia.”
[Pg 191]
“Now God be with old Simeon.”—Here is another round from “Pammelia”:—
“Come drink to me,
And I to thee.
And then shall we
Full well agree.
I’ve loved the jolly tankard,
Full seven winters and more;
I loved it so long
That I went upon the score.
Who loveth not the tankard,
He is no honest man;
And he is no right soldier,
That loveth not the can.
Tap the cannikin, troll the cannikin,
Toss the cannikin, turn the cannikin!
Hold now, good son, and fill us a fresh can,
That we may quaff it round from man to man.”
Good honest verse, but ill-suited to these degenerate, tea-drinking
days.
Page 85. “Now I see thy looks were feignèd.”—First printed in “The
Phœnix Nest,” 1593, subscribed “T. L. Gent,” i.e. Thomas Lodge, one
of the most brilliant of Elizabethan lyrists.
Page 87. “Shall we play barley-break.”—The fullest description of the
rustic game of barley-break is to be found in the first book of Sidney’s
“Arcadia.”
Page 87. “Now let her change.” This song is also set to Music in
Robert Jones’ “Ultimum Vale” (1608).
Page 89. “Now what is love” &c.—This poem originally appeared in “The
Phœnix Nest,” 1593; it is also printed (in form of a dialogue) in
“England’s Helicon,” 1600, and Davison’s “Poetical Rhapsody,” 1602. It
is ascribed to Raleigh in a MS. list of Davison’s. See Canon Hannah’s
edition of Raleigh’s poems.
Page 93. “Oft have I mused.”—This poem was printed in Davison’s
“Poetical Rhapsody,” 1602.
[Pg 192]
Page 96. “Our country-swains in the morris-dance.”—In Morley’s
“Madrigals to Four Voices,” 1594, there is a lively description of the
morris-dance:—
“Ho! who comes here with bag-piping and drumming?
O, ’tis I see the morris-dance a coming.
Come, ladies, out, O come, come quickly,
And see about how trim they dance and trickly:
Hey! there again: hark! how the bells they shake it!
Now for our town! once there, now for our town and take it:
Soft awhile, not away so fast, they melt them!
Piper be hang’d, knave! look, the dancers swelt them.
Out, there, stand out!—you come too far (I say) in—
There give the hobby-horse more room to play in!”
“I woo with tears and ne’er the near.”—Ne’er the near (a proverbial
expression) = Never the nigher.
Page 107. “When they came home Sis floted cream.”—I suppose the
meaning is that Sis skimmed the cream from the milk. Halliwell (Arch.
Dict.) gives “Flotten-milk. Same as Flet-mitte” and “flet-mitte” is a
north-country term for skimmed milk.
“Since first I saw.”—This exquisite song is also found in “The Golden
Garland of Princely Delights,” 1620.
Page 114. “Sweet Love, my only treasure.”—Printed in Davison’s
“Poetical Rhapsody,” 1602, where it is subscribed with the mysterious
initials “A. W.”
Page 115. “Sweet, stay awhile.”—I suspect that this stanza does not
really belong to Donne’s “Break of day;” it is not found in MS. copies
of Donne’s poems, nor in any edition prior to that of 1669. Probably
Donne’s verses were written as a companion-piece to the present poem.
Page 120. “Yet merrily sings little Robin.”—The loveliest of all
verses in praise of Robin Redbreast are in Chapman’s “Tears of Peace,”
1609:—
“Whose face the bird hid that loves humans best,
That hath the bugle eyes and rosy breast,
And is the yellow autumn’s nightingale.”
Page 120. “The love of change.”—This is the first stanza of
[Pg 193]
a poem which is printed entire (in six stanzas) in Davison’s “Poetical
Rhapsody,” 1602.
Page 121. “The lowest trees have tops.”—Printed in Davison’s
“Poetical Rhapsody” with the signature “Incerto.”
Page 121. “The man of life upright.”—In some old MS. copies this poem
is ascribed to Francis Bacon: see Hannah’s “Poems of Raleigh and
Wotton,” p. 119. Canon Hannah makes no mention of Campion’s claim.
Campion distinctly tells us that he wrote both the verses and the music
of his songs: and I have no doubt that he was the author of the present
lyric, which has more merit than any of Bacon’s poems. In an epigram
printed in his “Observations in the Art of English Poetry,” 1602, there
is a striking image that reappears in the present poem:—
“A wise man wary lives yet most secure,
Sorrows move not him greatly, nor delights,
Fortune and death he scorning only makes
Th’ earth his sober inn, but still heaven his home.”
(Sig. C2).
Henceforward let nobody claim “The man of life upright” for Bacon.
Page 124. “The Nightingale so pleasant and so gay.”—“According to
Peacham,” says Oliphant (“Musa Madrigalesca,” p. 45), “there was a
virtuous contention between W. Byrd and Ferrabosco who of the two should
best set these words; in which according to his (Peacham’s) opinion,
Ferrabosco succeeded so well that ‘it could not be bettered for
sweetness of ayre and depth of judgment.’”
Page 124. “The Nightingale so soon as April bringeth.”—From the first
stanza of a poem printed in the third edition of Sidney’s “Arcadia,”
1598.
Page 126. “There is a garden in her face.”—This poem is also set to
music in Alison’s “Hour’s Recreation,” 1606, and Robert Jones’ “Ultimum
Vale” (1608). Herrick’s dainty verses “Cherry-Ripe” are well-known:—
“Cherry-ripe, ripe, ripe! I cry:
Full and fair ones, come and buy.
If so be you ask me where
They do grow, I answer,—There,
[Pg 194]
Where my Julia’s lips do smile,
There’s the land or cherry-isle,
Whose plantations fully show
All the year where cherries grow.”
Page 127. “There is a lady sweet and kind.”—Printed also in “The
Golden Garland of Princely Delights,” 1620.
Page 128. “There were three Ravens.”—The north-country version of
this noble dirge contains some verses of appalling intensity:—
“His horse is to the huntin gane
His hounds to bring the wild deer hame;
His lady’s ta’en another mate,
So we may mak our dinner sweet.
“O we’ll sit on his bonny breast-bane,
And we’ll pyke out his bonny gray een;
Wi’ ae lock o’ his gowden hair,
We’ll theek our nest when it blaws bare.
“Mony a ane for him makes mane,
But none sall ken where he is gane:
Ower his banes when they are bare,
The wind sall blaw for evermair.”
Page 130. “Think’st thou to seduce me,” &c.—In William Corkine’s
“Airs,” 1610, this song is found with considerable variations. Corkine
gives only three stanzas. The first stanza agrees closely with Campion’s
text; the second and third stanzas run thus:—
“Learn to speak first, then to woo, to wooing much pertaineth;
He that hath not art to hide, soon falters when he feigneth,
And, as one that wants his wits, he smiles when he complaineth.
“If with wit we be deceived our faults may be excusèd,
Seeming good with flattery graced is but of few refusèd,
But of all accursed are they that are by fools abusèd.”
Page 131. “Thou art not fair for all thy red and white.”—These lines
are printed in Dr. Grosart’s edition of Donne’s
[Pg 195] poems, vol. ii. p. 259.
They are ascribed to Donne in an early MS.; but I see no reason for
depriving Campion of them. (The first stanza is also set to music in
Thomas Vautor’s “Airs,” 1619.)
Page 132. “Though Amaryllis dance in green.”—Also printed in
“England’s Helicon,” 1600.
Page 148. “We must not part as others do.”—These lines are very much
in Donne’s manner. The MS. from which they are taken (Egerton MS. 2013)
contains some undoubted poems of Donne.
Page 151. “Were I a king.”—Canon Hannah prints these verses (in his
“Poems of Raleigh and Wotton,” p. 147) from a MS. copy, in which they
are assigned to Edward Earl of Oxford. Appended in the MS. are the
following answers:—
“Answered thus by Sir P. S.
Wert thou a king, yet not command content,
Sith empire none thy mind could yet suffice;
Wert thou obscure, still cares would thee torment;
But wert thou dead all care and sorrow dies.
An easy choice, of these three which to crave:
No kingdom, nor a cottage, but a grave.
“Another of another mind.
A king? oh, boon for my aspiring mind,
A cottage makes a country swad rejoice:
And as for death, I like him in his kind
But God forbid that he should be my choice!
A kingdom or a cottage or a grave,—
Nor last, nor next, but first and best I crave;
The rest I can, whenas I list, enjoy,
Till then salute me thus—Vive le roy!
“Another of another mind.
The greatest kings do least command content;
The greatest cares do still attend a crown;
A grave all happy fortunes doth prevent
Making the noble equal with the clown:
A quiet country life to lead I crave;
A cottage then; no kingdom nor a grave.”
[Pg 196]
Page 152. “What is our life?”—A MS. copy of these verses is
subscribed “Sr W. R.”, i.e., Sir Walter Raleigh. See Hannah’s “Poems
of Raleigh and Wotton,” p. 27.
Compare the sombre verses, signed “Ignoto,” in “Reliquiæ Wottonianæ”:—
“Man’s life’s a tragedy; his mother’s womb,
From which he enters, is the tiring-room;
This spacious earth the theatre, and the stage
That country which he lives in: passions, rage,
Folly and vice are actors; the first cry
The prologue to the ensuing tragedy;
The former act consisteth of dumb shows;
The second, he to more perfection grows;
I’ the third he is a man and doth begin
To nurture vice and act the deeds of sin;
I’ the fourth declines; i’ the fifth diseases clog
And trouble him; then death’s his epilogue.”
Page 153. “What needeth all this travail and turmoiling?”—Suggested
by Spenser’s fifteenth sonnet:—
“Ye tradefull Merchants that with weary toyle
Do seeke most pretious things to make your gain,
And both the Indias of their treasure spoile,
What needeth you to seeke so farre in vaine?
For loe! my Love doth in her selfe containe
All this worlds riches that may farre be found.
If Saphyres, loe! her eies be Saphyres plaine;
If Rubies, loe! hir lips be Rubies sound;
If Pearles, hir teeth be pearles, both pure and round;
If Yvorie, her forehead yvory weene;
If Gold, her locks are finest gold on ground;
If Silver, her faire hands are silver sheene:
But that which fairest is but few behold,
Her mind, adornd with vertues manifold.”
Page 154, l. 1. “And fortune’s fate not fearing.”—Oliphant boldly
reads, for the sake of the rhyme, “And fickle fortune scorning.”—in
“England’s Helicon” the text is the same as in the song-book.
Page 158, l. 5. “And when she saw that I was in her
[Pg 197]
danger.”—Within one’s danger = to be in a person’s power or control.
L. 16. “White Iope.”—Campion must have had in his mind a passage of
Propertius (ii. 28);—
“Sunt apud infernos tot millia formosarum:
Pulchra sit in superis, si licet, una locis.
Vobiscum est Iope, vobiscum candida Tyro,
Vobiscum Europe, nec proba Pasiphae.”
See Hertzberg’s note on that passage.
Page 162. “While that the sun.”—Also printed in “England’s Helicon,”
1600.
[Pg 198]
LIST OF SONG-BOOKS.
Alison, Richard.
An Hour’s Recreation in Music,
1606. Page 99.
Attye, John.
First Book of Airs of Four Parts,
1622. 94.
Bateson, Thomas.
First Set of English Madrigals,
1604. 8, 107, 124, 168, 174.
Byrd, William.
Psalms, Sonnets, and Songs of Sadness and Piety,
1588. 24, 43, 52, 78, 123, 132, 153, 167.
Songs of Sundry Natures,
1589. 30, 59, 122, 124, 143, 157, 159, 162, 168.
Psalms, Songs, and Sonnets,
1611. 19, 53, 67, 147.
Campion, Thomas.
See Rosseter, Philip.
Two Books of Airs
[circ. 1613]. 6, 17, 32, 34, 61, 68, 125, 143, 171.
The Third and Fourth Book of Airs
[circ. 1613]. 15, 18,
20, 22, 27, 51, 62, 74, 82, 87, 90, 92, 100, 104, 108, 126, 130, 136, 138, 141, 151.
Carlton, Richard.
Madrigals to five voices,
1601. 120, 157.
Coprario, John.
Funeral Tears for the death of the Right Honourable the Earl of Devonshire,
1606. 53.
Corkine, William.
Airs to sing and play to the Lute and Bass-viol,
1610. 99, 109, 111.
The Second Book of Airs,
1612.
Danyel, John.
Songs for the Lute, Viol, and Voice,
1606. 66, 132.
Dowland, John.
The First Book of Songs or Airs of four parts,
1597. 14, 20, 33, 50, 81, 170.
The Second Book of Songs or Airs, of two, four, and five parts,
1600. 1, 26, 31, 46, 140, 164, 172.
The Third and Last Book of Songs or Airs,
1603. 8, 9, 121, 149, 155.
A Pilgrims Solace,
1612. 115.
[Pg 199]
Dowland, Robert.
A Musical Banquet furnished with variety of delicious Airs,
1610. 12, 139.
Earsden, John, and Mason, George.
The Airs that were sung and played at Brougham Castle in Westmoreland,
1618. 67, 97.
Egerton,
MS. 2013. 33, 146.
Este, Michael.
Madrigals to three four and five parts,
1604. 57, 76.
Farmer, John.
The first set of English Madrigals to four voices,
1599. 1, 24, 83, 91, 117, 169, 173.
Farnaby, Giles.
Canzonets to four voices,
1598. 96, 105, 135.
Ford, Thomas.
Music of sundry kinds,
1607. 16, 39, 85, 105, 127, 141, 156.
Gibbons, Orlando.
The first set of Madrigals and Mottets,
1612. 47, 152.
Greaves, Thomas.
Songs of sundry kinds,
1604. 58, 64, 172.
Jones, Robert.
The first took of Airs,
1601. 3, 28, 48, 95, 101.
The second book of Songs and Airs,
1601. 5, 70, 72, 73, 77, 78, 89.
Ultimum Vale, or the third book of Airs,
1608. 36, 84, 93, 100, 114, 129.
A Musical Dream, or the Fourth Book of Airs,
1609. 56, 112, 134.
Lichfild, Henry.
The first set of Madrigals to five parts,
1614. 40, 59.
Maynard, John.
The XII wonders of the world,
1611. 39, 44, 45, 69.
Morley, Thomas.
Canzonets or little short songs to three voices,
1593. 21, 98.
Madrigals to four voices,
1594; 1600. 5, 48, 92.
The first book of Ballets to five voices,
1595. 4, 87, 103, 106, 137, 173.
Mundy, John.
Songs and Psalms,
1594. 38, 54, 80, 151.
Peerson, Martin.
Mottects, or grave chamber-music,
1630. 75, 160.
Pilkington, Francis.
The first Book of Songs or Airs,
1605. 38, 166.
The First Set of Madrigals and Pastorals,
1613. 97.
[Pg 200]
The Second Set of Madrigals,
1624. 144.
Ravenscroft, Thomas.
Pammelia; Music’s Miscellany or mixed variety of Pleasant Roundelays,
1609. 83, 120, 152.
Deuteromelia; or the second part of Music’s Melody,
1609. 117, 145, 146.
Melismata; Musical Fancies fitting the court, city, and country humours,
1611. 11, 41, 60, 74, 128.
Brief Discourse of the true use of Charact’ring the Degrees, &c.,
1614. 11, 19, 98.
Rosseter, Philip, and Campion, Thomas.
A Book of Airs,
1601. 28, 49, 63, 80, 110, 121, 131, 158, 161.
Tomkins, Thomas. Songs of three, four, five, and six parts,
1622. 148.
Vautor, Thomas.
The First Set: being songs of divers Airs and Natures, of five and six parts,
1619. 75, 116.
Ward, John.
The First Set of English Madrigals to three, four, five and six parts,
1613. 91.
Weelkes, Thomas.
Madrigals to three, four, five and six voices,
1597. 88, 96.
Ballets and Madrigals to five voices,
1598. 25, 55, 83, 86, 112, 114, 139, 147, 149, 163.
Madrigals of five and six parts,
1600. 13, 64, 88, 116, 169.
Madrigals of six parts,
1600. 2, 68.
Airs or Fantastic Spirits for three voices,
1608. 36, 119, 133, 142.
Wilbye, John.
The First Set of English Madrigals to three, four, five and six voices,
1598. 5, 7, 27, 46, 65, 113, 131, 137, 153.
The Second Set of English Madrigals to three, four, five and six voices,
1609. 16, 21, 37, 44, 71, 108, 159.
Yonge, Nicholas.
Musica Transalpina: the Second Book of Madrigals to five and six voices,
1597. 9.
Youll, Henry.
Canzonets to three voices,
1608. 7, 22, 95.
CHISWICK PRESS:—C. WHITTINGHAM AND CO.
TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE.
