And makes his pillow of my knee
The livelong night.
Strike I my lute, he tunes the string;
He music plays if so I sing;
He lends me every lovely thing,
Yet cruel he my heart doth sting:
Whist, wanton, will ye?
Else I with roses every day
Will whip you hence,
And bind you, when you long to play,
For your offence;
I'll shut my eyes to keep you in;
I'll make you fast it, for your sin;
I'll count your power not worth a pin:
Alas! what hereby shall I win,
If he gainsay me?
What if I beat the wanton boy
With many a rod?
He will repay me with annoy,
Because a god.
Then sit thou safely on my knee,
And let thy bower my bosom be;
Lurk in mine eyes; I like of thee.
O Cupid! so thou pity me,
Spare not, but play thee.
GEORGE PEELE [1558?-1597?]
ENONE. Fair and fair, and twice so fair,
As fair as any may be;
The fairest shepherd on our green,
A love for any lady.
Fair and fair, and twice so fair,
As fair as any may be;
Thy love is fair for thee alone,
And for no other lady.
My love is fair, my love is gay,
As fresh as bin the flowers in May:
And of my love my roundelay,
My merry, merry roundelay,
Concludes with Cupid's curse—
"They that do change old love for new, Pray gods they change for worse!"
AMBO. Fair and fair, etc.
[From THE ARRAIGNMENT OF PARIS.]
GEORGE CHAPMAN [1559?-1634]
MAN is so sovereign and divine a state,
That not, contracted and elaborate,
The world he bears about with him alone;
But even the Maker makes his breast His throne.
ROBERT GREENE [1560?-1592]
WEEP not, my wanton, smile upon my knee,
When thou art old there's grief enough for thee.
Mother's wag, pretty boy,
Father's sorrow, father's joy;
When thy father first did see
Such a boy by him and me,
He was glad, I was woe,
Fortune changèd made him so
When he left his pretty boy,
Last his sorrow, first his joy.
Weep not, my wanton, smile upon my knee,
When thou art old there's grief enough for thee.
Streaming tears that never stint,
Like pearl drops from a flint,
Fell by course from his eyes,
That one another's place supplies;
Thus he grieved in every part,
Tears of blood fell from his heart,
When he left his pretty boy,
Father's sorrow, father's joy.
Weep not, my wanton, smile upon my knee,
When thou art old there's grief enough for thee.
The wanton smiled, father wept,
Mother cried, baby leapt;
More he crow'd, more we cried,
Nature could not sorrow hide:
He must go, he must kiss
Child and mother, baby bless,
For he left his pretty boy,
Father's sorrow, father's joy.
Weep not, my wanton, smile upon my knee,
When thou art old there's grief enough for thee.
ROBERT SOUTHWELL [1561?-1595]
As I in hoary winter's night stood shivering in the snow,
Surprised I was with sudden heat which made my heart to glow;
And lifting up a fearful eye to view what fire was near,
A pretty babe all burning bright did in the air appear,
Who, scorched with exceeding heat, such floods of tears did shed
As though His floods should quench His flames with what His
tears were fed;
"Alas!" quoth He, "but newly born, in fiery heats of fry,
Yet none approach to warm their hearts or feel my fire but I!
My faultless breast the furnace is, the fuel wounding thorns;
Love is the fire and sighs the smoke, the ashes shame and scorns;
The fuel Justice layeth on, and Mercy blows the coals;
The metal in this furnace wrought are men's defilèd souls;
For which, as now on fire I am, to work them to the good,
So will I melt into a bath, to wash them in my blood."
With this He vanish'd out of sight, and swiftly shrunk away,
And straight I called unto mind that it was Christmas-day.
SAMUEL DANIEL [1562-1619]
CARE-CHARMER Sleep, son of the sable Night,
Brother to Death, in silent darkness born:
Relieve my anguish, and restore the light;
With dark-forgetting of my care, return!
And let the day be time enough to mourn
The shipwreck of my ill-adventured youth:
Let waking eyes suffice to wail their scorn,
Without the torment of the night's untruth.
Cease, dreams, the images of day-desires,
To model forth the passions of the morrow;
Never let rising sun approve you liars,
To add more grief to aggravate my sorrow.
Still let me sleep, embracing clouds in vain;
And never wake to feel the day's disdain.
MICHAEL DRAYTON [1563–1631]
SINCE there's no help, come let us kiss and part.
Nay, I have done, you get no more of me!
And I am glad, yea, glad with all my heart,
That thus so cleanly I myself can free.
Shake hands for ever! Cancel all our vows!
And when we meet at any time again,
Be it not seen in either of our brows
That we one jot of former love retain.
Now at the last gasp of Love's latest breath,
When, his pulse failing, Passion speechless lies,
When Faith is kneeling by his bed of death,
And Innocence is closing up his eyes-
Now, if thou would'st, when all have given him over,
From death to life thou might'st him yet recover!
[From the sonnet-sequence IDEA.]
FAIR stood the wind for France,
When we our sails advance,
Nor now to prove our chance,
Longer will tarry;
But putting to the main,
At Caux, the mouth of Seine,
With all his martial train,
Landed King Harry.
And taking many a fort,
Furnished in warlike sort,
Marcheth tow'rds Agincourt
In happy hour;
Skirmishing day by day,
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