To watch for glances every hour
From her divine and sacred eyes :
Heigh ho, for Rosaline !
Her paps are centres of delight,
Her breasts are orbs of heavenly frame,
Where Nature moulds the dew of light
To feed perfection with the same :
Heigh ho, would she were mine !
With orient pearl, with ruby red,
With marble white, with sapphire blue
Her body every way is fed,
Yet soft in touch and sweet in view :
Heigh ho, fair Rosaline !
Nature herself her shape admires ;
The Gods are wounded in her sight;
And Love forsakes his heavenly fires
And at her eyes his brand doth light :
Heigh ho, would she were mine!
Then muse not, Nymphs, though I bemoan
The absence of fair Rosaline,
Since for a fair there's fairer none,
Nor for her virtues so divine :
Heigh ho, fair Rosaline ;
Heigh ho, my heart! would God that she were mine!
T. Lodge
COLIN
Beauty sat bathing by a spring
Where fairest shades did hide her ;
The winds blew calm, the birds did sing,
The cool streams ran beside her.
My wanton thoughts enticed mine eye
To see what was forbidden:
But better memory said, fie !
So vain desire was chidden :-
Hey nonny nonny O!
Hey nonny nonny!
Into a slumber then I fell,
When fond imagination
Seemed to see,
but could not tell
Her feature or her fashion.
But ev'n as babes in dreams do smile,
And sometimes fall a-weeping,
So I awaked, as wise this while
As when I fell a-sleeping
Hey nonny nonny O!
Hey nonny nonny !
The Shepherd Zonię
TO HIS LOVE Shall I compare thee to a summer's day! Thou art more lovely and more temperate : Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer's lease hath all too short a date : Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimm'd : And every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimm'd. But thy eternal summer shall not fade Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest; Nor shall death brag thou wanderest in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou growest. So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
W. Shakespeare
When in the chronicle of wasted time
I see descriptions of the fairest wights,
And beauty making beautiful old rhyme
In praise of ladies dead, and lovely knights ;
Then in the blazon of sweet beauty's best
Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow,
I see their antique pen would have exprest
Ev'n such a beauty as you master now.
So all their praises are but prophecies
Of this our time, all, you prefiguring ;
And for they look'd but with
divining eyes,
They had not skill enough your worth to sing :
For we, which now behold these present days,
Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise.
W. Shakespeare
On a day, alack the day!
Love, whose month is ever May,
Spied a blossom passing fair
Playing in the wanton air :
Through the velvet leaves the wind
All unseen 'gan passage find ;
That the lover, sick to death,
Wish'd himself the heaven's breath.
Air, quoth he, thy cheeks may blow ;
Air, would I might triumph so !
But, alack, my hand is sworn
Ne'er to pluck thee from thy thorn :
Vow, alack, for youth unmeet ;
Youth so apt to pluck a sweet.
Do not call it sin in me
That I am forsworn for thee :
Thou for whom e'en Jove would swear
Juno but an Ethiope were,
And deny himself for Jove,
Turning mortal for thy love.
W. Shakespeare
LIBRARI
A SUPPLICATION
Forget not yet the tried intent
Of such a truth as I have meant ;
My great travail so gladly spent,
trol Forget not yet !
Forget not yet when first began
The weary life ye know, since whan
The suit, the service none tell can;
Forget not yet !
Forget not yet the great assays,
The cruel wrong, the scornful ways,
The painful patience in delays,
Forget not yet !
Forget not! O, forget not this,
How long ago hath been, and is
The mind that never meant amiss-
Forget not yet!
Forget not then thine own approved
The which so long hath thee so loved,
Whose steadfast faith yet never moved-
Forget not this !
Sir T. Wyat
O if thou knew'st how thou thyself dost harm,
And dost prejudge thy bliss, and spoil my rest;
Then thou would'st melt the ice out of thy breast
And thy relenting heart would kindly warm.
O if thy pride did not our joys controul,
What world of loving wonders should'st thou see!
For if I saw thee once transform'd in me,
Then in thy bosom I would pour my soul ;
In delay there lies no plenty,–
Then come kiss me, Sweet-and-twenty,
Youth's a stuff will not endure.
W. Shakespeare
WINTER
When icicies hang by the wall
And Dick the shepherd blows his nail,
And Tom bears logs into the hall,
And milk comes frozen home in pail ;
When blood is nipt, and ways be foul,
Then nightly sings the staring owl
Tuwhoo !
Tuwhit! tuwhoo! A merry note !
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.
When all around the wind doth blow,
And coughing drowns the parson's saw,
And birds sit brooding in the snow,
And Marian's nose looks red andraw;
When
roasted crabs hiss in the bowl
Then nightly sings the staring owl
Tuwhoo!
Tuwhit ! tuwhoo! A merry note !
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.
W. Shakespeare
That time of year thou may'st in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou seest the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
|