[From As You Like It] BLOW, blow, thou winter wind, As man's ingratitude; Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the green holly. Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly. Then, heigh-ho, the holly! Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky, 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. In delay there lies no plenty; SONG [From Cymbeline] HARK, hark! the lark at heaven's gate sings, And Phoebus gins arise His steeds to water at those springs And winking Mary-buds begin 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; This thought is as a death, which cannot choose But weep to have that which it fears to lose. 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 Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise. 116 LET me not to the marriage of true minds That looks on tempests and is never shaken; 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. 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 Thy frown last night did bid me go, Or else desir'st that maids should tell Me, than to make me languish still! 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 |