1
Now is the month of maying,
When merry lads are playing
Each with his bonny lass,
Upon the greeny grass.
The Spring clad all in gladness,
Doth laugh at Winter's sadness,
And to the bagpipe's sound
The nymphs tread out their ground.
Fie then! why sit we musing,
Youth's sweet delight refusing?
Say, dainty nymphs, and speak,
Shall we play barley-break?
2
In dew of roses steeping Her lovely cheeks,
Lycoris thus sat weeping:
Ah, Dorus false, that hast my heart bereft me,
And now unkind, hast left me.
Hear me, alas! Cannot my beauty move thee?
Pity me then, because I love thee.
Thou scorn'st the more I pray thee.
And this thou dost to slay me.
Ah, then kill me and vaunt thee,
Yet my ghost still shall haunt thee.
3
Shoot, false Love, I care not.
Spend thy shafts and spare not.
I fear not, I, thy might;
And less I weigh thy spite.
If thou canst, now soot and harm me.
So lightly I esteem thee,
As now a child I deem thee.
Long thy bow did fear me,
While thy pomp did blear me.
But now I do perceive
Thy art is to deceive;
And every simple lover
All thy falsehood can discover.
Then weep, Love, and be sorry,
For thou hast lost thy glory.
4
Miraculous love's wounding!
Even those darts, my sweet Phyllis,
So fiercely shot against my heart rebounding,
Are turned to roses, violets and lilies,
With odour sweet abounding.
5
Hark! alleluia cheerly
With angels now he singeth,
That here loved music early,
Whose echo heaven ringeth,
Where thousand cherubs hover
About the Eternal Mover.
6
Arise, get up, my dear, make haste, begone thee!
Lo where the bride, fair Daphne, tarries on thee!
Hark! yon merry maidens squealing:
And see how the maids jerk it!
With Kate and Will, Tom and Jill,
Now a trip, then a skip,
Finely set a loft, there again as oft.
Hey ho, fine brave holiday!
All for fair Daphne's wedding day.
7
Leave this tormenting and strange anguish,
Or kill my heart oppressed.
Alas, it kill not! For thus I will not, now contented,
Then tormented, live in love and languish.
8
I go before, my darling.
Follow thou to the bower in the close alley.
There we will together
Sweetly kiss each other,
And like two wantons dally.
9
Say, gentle nymphs that tread these mountains,
Whilst sweetly you sit playing,
Saw you my Daphne straying,
Along your crystal fountains?
If so you chance to meet her,
Kiss her and kindly greet her.
Then these sweet garlands take her,
And say from me, I never will forsake her.
10
Good morrow, fair ladies of the May!
Where is Cloris, my sweet cruel?
O see where she comes a Queen,
Arraying all in gaudy green
O how gaily goes my sweet
Was ever such a jewel Since May delights
So was my Cloris
Brought home and made May Queen.
11
April is in my mistress' face,
And July in her eyes hath place,
Within her bosom is September,
But in her heart a cold December.
12
Though Philomela lost her love,
Fresh notes she warbleth, yet again.
He is a fool that lovers
And leaves to sing to live in pain.
13
Hard by a crystal fountain
Oriana the bright lay down a sleeping .
The birds they finely chirped, the winds were stilled,
Sweetly with these accenting the air was filled.
This is that fair whose head a crown
Which Heaven for her reserveth.
Leave, shepherds, your lambs keeping
Upon the barren mountain,
And, nymphs, attend on her and leave your bowers,
For she the shepherds' life maintains and yours.
Then sang the shepherds and nymphs of Diana:
Long live fair Oriana.
14
Whither away, so fast, so fast
Alone from your true love approved?
What haste, I say, what haste, what haste,
Tell me my darling dear beloved?
Then we will try, who best runs, thou or I.
See then, I come! dispatch thee!
Hate hence! or else I catch thee.
No, think not thus away to 'scape without me.
But run! You need not doubt me.
What! faint you? Of your sweet feet forsaken?
O well I see you mean to mock me.
Run, I say, or else I catch you.
What? do you halt? O do you so?
Alack the while! what! are you down?
Pretty maid, well overtaken!
15
I follow, lo, the footing still of my lovely cruel,
Proud of herself that she is beauty's jewel.
And fast away she flieth,
Love's sweet delight deriding,
In woods and groves sweet Nature's treasure hiding.
Yet cease I not pursuing,
But since I thus have sought her,
Will run me out of breath till I have caught her.
16
O grief! even on the bud that fairly flowered
The sun hath lowered.
And at that breast which Love durst never venture,
Bold Death did enter.
Pity, O heavens, that have my love in keeping,
My cries and weeping.
17
When, lo, by break of morning
My love herself adorning
Doth walk the woods so dainty,
Gath'ring sweet violets and cowslips plenty,
The birds enamoured sing and praise my Flora:
Lo, here a new Aurora.
18
Besides a fountain of sweet briar and roses
Heard I two lovers talk in wanton glows.
Say dainty dear, quoth he, to whom's thy liking tied?
To whom but thee, my bonny love? the gentle nymph replied.
I die, I die, quoth he.
And I, and I, said she.
Ah give me then, quoth he, but durst not say, some token.
And with his hands the rest he would have spoken.
Nay fie, away, then cried the nymph, alas, you well do know it!
Quoth he, sweetly come kiss me then and show it.
19
Fire! fire! my heart!
O help! Ay me! I sit and cry me,
And call for help, but none comes nigh me!
O, I burn me! alas!
I burn! Ay me! will none come quench me?
Cast water on, alas, and drench me.
20
Thus saith my Cloris bright
When we of love sit down and talk together:
Beware of Love, Love is a walking sprite,
And Love is this and that,
And O I know not what,
And comes and goes again, I wot not whither.
No, no, these are but bugs to breed amazing,
For in her eyes I saw his torchlight blazing.
21
Happy, O happy he, who not affecting
The endless toils attending worldly cares,
With mind reposed, all discontents rejecting,
In silent peace his way to heaven repairs,
Deeming his life a scene, the world a stage
Whereon man acts his weary pilgrimage.
22
Ye that do live in pleasures plenty,
And dwell in Music's sweetest airs,
Whose eyes are quick, whose ears are dainty,
Not clogged with earth or worldly cares,
Come sing this song made in Amphion's praise,
Who now is dead, yet you his fame can raise.
Call him again, let him not die,
But live in Music's sweetest breath,
Place him in fairest memory,
And let him triumph over death.
O sweetly sung, his living wish attend ye,
These were his words: The mirth of heaven God send ye.
23
Ah, cannot sighs, nor tears, nor aught else move thee
To pity me, who more than life do love thee?
O cruel fates, see now away she's flying;
And fly she will, alas, and leave me dying.
Farewell, most fair, farewell, yet more disdainful,
Was never grief like mine, nor death more painful.
24
Stay, Corydon, thou swain,
Talk not so soon of dying.
What though thy heart be slain?
What though thy love be flying?
She threatens thee but dares not strike.
The nymph is light and shadow-like;
For if thou follow her, she'll fly from thee,
But if thou fly from her, she'll follow thee.
25
Draw on, sweet Night, best friend unto those cares
That do arise from painful melancholy.
My life so ill through want of comfort fares,
That unto thee I consecrate it wholly.
Sweet Night, draw on! My griefs when they be told
To shades and darkness, find some ease from paining.
And while thou all in silence dost enfold,
I then shall have best time for my complaining.
26
Lady, your words do spite me;
Yet your sweet lips so soft kiss and delight me;
Your deeds my heart surcharged with over-joying,
Your taunts my life destroying.
Since both have force to spill me,
Let kisses sweet, Sweet, kill.
Knights fight with swords and lances,
Fight you with smiles and glances.
So like swans of Leander
Singing and dying my ghost from hence shall wander.
27
As fair as morn, as fresh as May,
A pretty grace in saying nay,
Smil'st thou sweet heart? Then sing and say
Ta na na no.
But O that love-enchanting eye!
Lo here my doubtful doom I try:
Tell me, my sweet, live I or die?
She smiles. She frowns. Ay me, I die.
28
Weep, weep, mine eyes, my heart can take no rest.
Weep, weep, my heart, mine eyes shall never be blest.
Weep eyes, weep heart, and both this accent cry
A thousand deaths, Flamminia, I die.
Ah cruel Fortune! now, Leander, to die I fear not.
Death, do thy worst! I care not!
I hope when I am dead in Elysian plain
To meet, and there with joy we'll love again.