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[From As You Like It]

BLOW, blow, thou winter wind,
Thou art not so unkind

As man's ingratitude;
Thy tooth is not so keen,
Because thou art not seen,
Although thy breath be rude.

Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the green holly.

Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly.

Then, heigh-ho, the holly!
This life is most jolly.

Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky,
That dost not bite so nigh
As benefits forgot;
Though thou the waters warp,
Thy sting is not so sharp

As friend rememb'red not.

Heigh-ho! sing, etc.

SONG

[From Twelfth Night]

O MISTRESS mine, where are you roam ing?

O, stay and hear, your true love's coming,

That can sing both high and low. Trip no further, pretty sweeting; Journeys end in lovers meeting,

Every wise man's son doth know.

What is love? 'Tis not hereafter.
Present mirth hath present laughter;
What's to come is still unsure.

In delay there lies no plenty;
Then come kiss me, sweet and twenty,
Youth's a stuff will not endure.

SONG

[From Cymbeline]

HARK, hark! the lark at heaven's gate sings,

And Phoebus gins arise

His steeds to water at those springs
On chalic'd flowers that lies;

And winking Mary-buds begin
To ope their golden eyes;
With every thing that pretty is,
My lady sweet, arise,
Arise, arise.

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When sometime lofty towers I see downrazed

And brass eternal slave to mortal rage; When I have seen the hungry ocean gain Advantage on the kingdom of the shore, And the firm soil win of the watery main, Increasing store with loss and loss with store;

When I have seen such interchange of state,

Or state itself confounded to decay;
Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate,
That Time will come and take my love
away.

This thought is as a death, which cannot choose

But weep to have that which it fears to lose.

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Have from the forests shook three summers' pride,

Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turi'd

In process of the seasons have I seen. Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burn'd,

Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are green.

Ah! yet doth beauty, like a dial-hand, Steal from his figure and no pace perceiv'd; So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand,

Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceiv'd: For fear of which, hear this, thou age unbred;

Ere you were born was beauty's summer dead.

106

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 express'd
Even 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.

116

LET me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand'ring bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his
height be taken.

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle's compass come; Love alters not with his brief hours and

weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

ROBERT HERRICK

HESPERIDES

[Publ. 1648]

THE ARGUMENT OF HIS BOOK

I SING of brooks, of blossoms, birds and bowers,

Of April, May, of June and July-flowers; I sing of May-poles, hock-carts, wassails, wakes,

Of bridegrooms, brides, and of their bridal cakes;

I write of youth, of love, and have access
By these to sing of cleanly wantonness;
I sing of dews, of rains, and piece by piece
Of balin, of oil, of spice and ambergris;
I sing of times trans-shifting, and I write
How roses first came red and lilies white; 10
I write of groves, of twilights, and I sing
The Court of Mab, and of the Fairy King;
I write of hell; I sing (and ever shall)
Of heaven, and hope to have it after all.

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Thy frown last night did bid me go,
But whither only grief does know.
I do beseech thee ere we part,
If merciful as fair thou art,

Or else desir'st that maids should tell
Thy pity by love's chronicle,
O Dianeme, rather kill

Me, than to make me languish still!
'Tis cruelty in thee to th' height
Thus, thus to wound, not kill outright;
Yet there's a way found, if you please,
By sudden death to give me ease;
And thus devis'd, do thou but this
Bequeath to me one parting kiss,
So sup'rabundant joy shall be
The executioner of me.

THE WOUNDED CUPID CUPID, as he lay among Roses, by a bee was stung; Whereupon, in anger flying To his mother, said thus, crying: Help! oh help! your boy's a-dying. And why, my pretty lad, said she? Then, blubbering, replied he: A winged snake has bitten me, Which country people call a bee. At which she smiled; then, with her hairs And kisses drying up his tears: Alas! said she, my wag, if this Such a pernicious torment is,

Come tell me then, how great's the smart Of those thou woundest with thy dart!

TO DIANEME

SWEET, be not proud of those two eyes
Which, starlike, sparkle in their skies;
Nor be you proud that you can see
All hearts your captives, yours yet free;
Be you not proud of that rich hair
Which wantons with the love-sick air;
Whenas that ruby which you wear,
Sunk from the tip of
soft ear,
your

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