Have you seen but a bright lily grow
Before rude hands have touch'd it
Have you mark'd but the fall o' the snow,
Before the soil hath smutch'd it ?-
Have you felt the wool of the beaver,
Or swan's down ever?
Or have smelt o' the bud o' the briar?
Or the nard in the fire?
Or have tasted the bag o' the bee?
O so white! O so soft! O so sweet is she!
RIEVE not, deare love, although we often parte,
But know that nature gently doth us
Thereby to train us up, with tender art,
To brook the day when we must part for ever; For nature, doubting we should be surprised
By that sad day, whose dread doth chiefly fear us, Doth keep us daily school'd and exercised,
Lest that the fright thereof should overbear us.
"Ayres and Dialogues:" Henry Lawes.
THE SHEPHERD TO HIS FAIR ONE.
IVE, live with me, and thou shalt see
The pleasures I'll prepare for thee,-
The soft sweet moss shall be thy bed,
With crawling woodbine overspread;
By which the silver-shedding streams
Shall gently melt thee into dreams.
Thy clothing next shall be a gown,
Made of the fleece's purest down.
The tongues of kids shall be thy meat,
Their milk thy drink, and thou shalt eat
The paste of filberts for thy bread,
With cream of cowslips buttered;
Thy feasting tables shall be hills,
With daisies spread and daffodils.
Where thou shalt sit, and redbreast by,
For meat shall give thee melody.
I'll give thee chains and carkanets
Of primroses and violets.
These, nay, and more, thine own shall be,
If thou wilt love, and live with me.
FAIR FRIEND, 'TIS TRUE YOUR
BEAUTIES MOVE.
AIR friend, 'tis true your beauties move
My heart to a respect,
Too little to be paid with love,
Too great for your neglect.
I neither love, nor yet am free:
For though the flame I find
Be not intense in its degree,
'Tis of the purest kind.
It little wants of love but pain;
Your beauty takes my sense;
And lest you should that prize disdain,
THOUGHT feels its influence.
'Tis not a passion's first access,
Ready to multiply;
But like love's calmest state it is,
Possess'd with victory.
It is like love to truth reduced,
All the false values gone,
Which were created and induced
By fancies of mine own.
'Tis either fancy or 'tis fate
To love you more than I;
I love you at your beauty's rate,
Less were an injury.
HALL I, wasting in despair,
Die because a woman's fair?
Or make pale my cheeks with care
'Cause another's rosy are?
Be she fairer than the day,
Or the flowery meads in May,
If she be not so to me,
What care I how fair she be?
Shall my foolish heart be pined
'Cause I see a woman kind?
Or a well-disposèd nature
Joinèd with a lovely feature?
Be she meeker, kinder than
The turtle-dove or pelican,
If she be not so to me,
What care I how kind she be?
Shall a woman's virtue move
Me to perish for her love?
Or, her well-deservings known,
Make me quite forget mine own?
Be she with that goodness blest
Which may merit name of best,
If she be not such to me,
What care I how good she be?
'Cause her fortune seems too high,
Shall I play the fool and die?
Those that bear a noble mind,
Where they want of riches find,
Think what with them they would do
That without them dare to woo ;
And unless that mind I see,
What care I how great she be?
Great or good, or kind or fair,
I will ne'er the more despair:
If she love me, this believe,
I will die ere she shall grieve:
If she slight me when I woo,
I can scorn and let her go :
If she be not fit for me,
What care I for whom she be?
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