The Golden Treasury | Page 9

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 remember'd not.?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.
W. SHAKESPEARE.
43. MADRIGAL.
My thoughts hold mortal strife;?I do detest my life,?And with lamenting cries?Peace to my soul to bring?Oft call that prince which here doth monarchise:?--But he, grim grinning King,?Who caitiffs scorns, and doth the blest surprise,?Late having deck'd with beauty's rose his tomb,?Disdains to crop a weed, and will not come.
W. DRUMMOND.
44. DIRGE OF LOVE.
Come away, come away, Death,?And in sad cypres let me be laid;?Fly away, fly away, breath;?I am slain by a fair cruel maid.?My shroud of white, stuck all with yew,
O prepare it!?My part of death no one so true
Did share it.
Not a flower, not a flower sweet,?On my black coffin let there be strown;?Not a friend, not a friend greet?My poor corpse, where my bones shall thrown:?A thousand thousand sighs to save,
Lay me, O where?Sad true lover never find my grave,
To weep there.
W. SHAKESPEARE.
45. FIDELE.
Fear no more the heat o' the sun,
Nor the furious winter's rages:?Thou thy worldly task hast done,
Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages:?Golden lads and girls all must,?As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.
Fear no more the frown o' the great,
Thou art past the tyrant's stroke;?Care no more to clothe and eat;
To thee the reed is as the oak:?The sceptre, learning, physic, must?All follow this, and come to dust.
Fear no more the lightning flash
Nor the all-dreaded thunder-stone;?Fear not slander, censure rash;
Thou hast finish'd joy and moan:?All lovers young, all lovers must?Consign to thee, and come to dust.
W. SHAKESPEARE.
46. A SEA DIRGE.
Full fathom five thy father lies:
Of his bones are coral made;?Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade,?But doth suffer a sea-change?Into something rich and strange;?Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:?Hark! now I hear them,--
Ding, dong, Bell.
W. SHAKESPEARE.
47. A LAND DIRGE.
Call for the robin-redbreast and the wren,?Since o'er shady groves they hover?And with leaves and flowers do cover?The friendless bodies of unburied men.?Call unto his funeral dole?The ant, the field-mouse, and the mole?To rear him hillocks that shall keep him warm?And (when gay tombs are robb'd) sustain no harm;?But keep the wolf far thence, that's foe to men,?For with his nails he'll dig them up again.
J. WEBSTER.
48. POST MORTEM.
If Thou survive my well-contented day?When that churl Death my bones with dust shall cover,?And shalt by fortune once more re-survey?These poor rude lines of thy deceas��d lover:
Compare them with the bettering of the time,?And though they be outstripp'd by every pen,?Reserve them for my love, not for their rhyme?Exceeded by the height of happier men.
O then vouchsafe me but this loving thought--?"Had my friend's muse grown with this growing age,?A dearer birth than this his love had brought,?To march in ranks of better equipage:
But since he died, and poets better prove,?Theirs for their style I'll read, his for his love."
W. SHAKESPEARE.
49. THE TRIUMPH OF DEATH.
No longer mourn for me when I am dead?Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell?Give warning to the world, that I am fled?From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell;
Nay, if you read this line, remember not?The hand that writ it; for I love you so,?That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot?If thinking on me then should make you woe.
O if, I say, you look upon this verse?When I perhaps compounded am with clay?Do not so much as my poor name rehearse,?But let your love even with my life decay;
Lest the wise world should look into your moan,?And mock you with me after I am gone.
W. SHAKESPEARE.
50. MADRIGAL.
Tell me where is Fancy bred,?Or in the heart or in the head??How begot, how nourish��d?
Reply, reply.?It is engender'd in the eyes,?With gazing fed; and Fancy dies?In the cradle where it lies:?Let us all ring fancy's knell;?I'll begin it,--Ding, dong, bell.
--Ding, dong, bell.
W. SHAKESPEARE.
51. CUPID AND CAMPASPE.
Cupid and my Campaspe play'd?At cards for kisses; Cupid paid:?He stakes his quiver, bow, and arrows,?His mother's doves, and team of sparrows;?Loses them too; then down he throws?The coral of his lip, the rose?Growing on's cheek (but none knows how);?With these, the crystal of his brow,?And then the dimple on his chin;?All these did my Campaspe win:?At last he set her both his eyes--?She won, and Cupid blind did rise.
O Love! has she done this to thee??What shall, alas! become of me?
J. LYLYE.
52.
Pack, clouds, away, and welcome day,?With night we banish sorrow;?Sweet air blow soft, mount larks aloft?To give my Love good-morrow!?Wings from the wind to please her mind,?Notes from the lark I'll borrow;?Bird, prune thy wing, nightingale