1
Ho! who comes here along with bagpiping and drumming?
O tis the morris dance I see, a coming.
Come ladies out, come quickly!
And see about how trim they dance and trickly.
Hey! there again! how the bells they shake it!
He ho! now for our town! and take it!
Soft awhile, piper, not away so fast! They melt them.
Be hanged, knave! see'st thou not the dancers sweet them?
Stand out awhile! you come too far, I say, in.
There give the hobby-horse more room to play in!
2
Cease, sorrow, now, for you have done the deed.
Lo, Care hath now consumed my carcase quite.
No hope is left, nor help can stand instead,
For doleful Death doth cut off pleasure quite.
Yet whilst I hear the knolling of the bell,
Before I die, I'll sing my faint farewell.
3
Mother, I will have a husband,
And I will have him out of hand.
Mother, I will sure have one,
In spite of her that will have none.
John-a-Dun should have had me long ere this,
He said I had good lips to kiss.
Mother, I will sure have one,
In spite of her that will have none.
For I have heard 'tis trim when folks do love,
By good Sir John I swear I'll prove.
My other I will sure have one,
In spite of her that will have none.
To the town therefore will I gad,
To get me a husband good or bad.
Mother I will have a husband,
And I will have him out of hand.
Mother, I will sure have one,
In spite of her that will have none.
4
In going to my naked bed as one that would have slept,
I heard a wife sing to her child, that long before had wept:
She sighed sore and sang full sweet to bring the babe to rest,
That would not cease, but cried still, in sucking at her breast.
She was full weary of her watch, and grieved with her child,
She rocked it and rated it, till that on her it smiled:
Then did she say, now have I found, this proverb true to prove,
The falling out of faithful friends, renewing is of love.
5
To shorten Winter's sadness,
See where the nymphs with gladness
Disguised all are coming
Right wantonly are mumming.
Though masks encloud their beauty,
Yet give the eye her duty.
When heaven is dark it shineth,
And unto love inclineth.
6
O Care, thou wilt despatch me,
If music do not match thee.
So deadly thou dost sting me,
Mirth only help can bring me.
Hence Care, thou art too cruel,
Come, music, sick man's jewel.
His force had well nigh slain me,
But thou must now sustain me.
7
Of all the birds that I do know,
Philip my sparrow hath no peer;
For sit she high, or sit she low,
Be she far off, or be she near,
There is no bird so fair, so fine,
Nor yet so fresh as this of mine;
For when she once hath felt a fit,
Philip will cry still: yet, yet, yet, yet . . .
She never wanders far abroad,
But is at home when I do call.
With lips, with teeth, with tongue and all.
If I command she lays on load,
She chants, she chirps, she makes such cheer
That I believe she hath no peer;
For when she once hath felt the fit,
Philip will cry still: yet, yet, yet, yet . . .
And to tell truth he were to blame,
Having so fine a bird as she,
To make him all this goodly game
Without suspect or jealousy;
He were a churl and knew no good
Would see her faint for lack of food;
For when she once hath felt the fit,
Philip will cry still: yet, yet, yet, yet . . .
8
All creatures now are merry, merry-minded.
The shepherds' daughters playing,
The nymphs are fa-la-laing,
Yon bugle was well-winded.
At Oriana's presence each thing smileth,
The flowers themselves discover;
Birds over her do hover; Music the time beguileth.
See where she comes with flowery garlands crowned,
Queen of all queens renowned.
Then sang the shepherds and nymphs of Diana:
Long live fair Oriana!
9
Sweet nymph, come to thy lover.
Lo here, alone, our loves we may discover,
Where the sweet nightingale with wanton glows,
Hark! her love too discloses.
10
Weep, o mine eyes and cease not,
alas, these your spring tides methinks increase not.
O when begin you to swell so high
that I may drown me in you?
11
The Ape, the Monkey and Baboon did meet,
And breaking of their fast in Friday Street,
Two of them swore together solemnly
In their three natures was a sympathy.
Nay, quoth Baboon, I do deny that strain,
I have more knavery in me than you twain.
Why, quoth the Ape, I have a horse at will
In Paris garden for to ride on still,
And there show tricks.
Tush, quoth the Monkey,
For better tricks in great men's houses lie.
Tush, quoth Baboon, when men do know I come,
For sport, from city, country, they will run.
12
Oft have I vowed how dearly I did love thee,
And oft observed thee with all willing duty.
Sighs have I sent, still hoping to remove thee,
Millions of tears I tendered to thy beauty.
Yet thou, of sighs and silly tears regardless,
Suff'rest my feeble heart to pine with anguish,
Willst all my barren hopes return rewardless,
My bitter days do waste and I do languish.
13
Strike it up, Tabor, and pipe us a favour!
Thou shah be well paid for thy labour.
I mean to spend my shoesole
To dance about the Maypole!
I will be blithe and brisk,
Leap and skip, hop and trip,
Turn about in the rout,
Until weary joints can scarce frisk!
Lusty Dick Hopkin,
Lay on with thy napkin,
The stitching cost me but a dodkin.
The morris were half undone,
Were't not for Martin of Compton.
O well said, jigging Al'ce!
Pretty Jill, stand you still!
Dapper Jack means to smack.
How nowe? fie, fie! you dance false.
14
Hope of my heart,
O wherefore do the words,
Which your sweet tongue affords,
No hope impart?
But cruel beyond measure, to my eternal pain still thunder forth disdain
On him whose life depends upon your pleasure.
15
Sweet honey-sucking bees, why do you still
Surfeit on roses, pins and violets,
As if the choicest nectar lay in them
Wherewith you store your curious cabinets?
Ah, make your flight to Melisuavia's lips;
There may you revel in ambrosias cheer,
Where smiling roses and sweet lilies sit,
Keeping their Spring-tide graces all the year.
Yet, sweet, take heed, all sweets are hard to get,
Sting not her soft lips, O beware of that;
For if one flaming dart come from her eye,
Was never dart so sharp, oh, then you die!
16
Defiled is my name full sore,
Through cruel spite and false report,
That I may say for evermore,
Farewell, my joy; adieu, comfort.
Full wrongfully you judge of me,
Unto my fame a mortal wound;
Say what you list, it will not
You seek for that cannot be found.
17
On the plains, airy trains
Were a-treading measures;
Satyrs played; fairies stayed,
At the stops set leisures.
Nymphs begin to come in,
Quickly, thick and threefold;
Now they dance, now they prance,
Present there to behold.
18
When griping griefs the heart would wound,
And doleful dumps the mind oppress,
Then Music with her silver sound
Is wont with speed to give redress:
Of troubled mind for every sore
Sweet Music hath a salve therefore.
In joy it makes our mirth abound,
In grief it cheers our heavy sprites,
The careful head relief hath found
By Music's pleasant sweet delights:
Our senses, what should I say more,
Are subject unto Music's lore.
The gods by Music hath their praise,
The soul therein doth joy,
For as the Roman poets say,
In seas whom phates would destroy,
A dolphin saved from death most sharp,
Arion playing on a harp.
A heav'nly gift that turns the mind
Like as the stern cloth rule the ship,
Music, whom the gods assigned
To comfort men, whom cares would nip,
Since thou both man and beast cloth move,
What wise man then will thee reprove?
19
All at once well met, fair ladies,
Sing we now: our love repaid is.
Sweet hearts, do not forsake
Till night to sleep betake us.
Cytherea shall requite you
With delight, lest sorrow fright you.
Then help, ye dainty ladies,
To sing: our love repaid is.
20
Like as the doleful dove delights alone to be,
And cloth refuse the bloomed branch, choosing the leafless tree,
Where one, wailing his chance, with bitter tears be spent,
Doth with his bill his tender breast oft pierce and all to rent.
Whose grievous groanings though, whose rips of pining pain,
Whose ghastly looks, whose bloody streams outflowing from each vein,
Whose falling from the tree, whose panting on the ground,
Examples be of mine estate, though there appears no wound.
21
The bitter sweet that strains my yielded heart,
The careless count that cloth the same embrace,
The doubtful hope, to reap my due desert,
The pensive path, that guides my restless race:
Are at such war, within my wounded breast,
As cloth bereave my joy, and eke my rest.
My greedy will, which seeks the golden gain,
My luckless lot cloth always take in worth
My matched mind, that dreads my suits in vain,
My piteous plaint cloth help for to set forth,
So that betwixt two waves of raging seas
I drive my days, in trouble and disease.
My woeful eyes do take their chief delight,
To feed their fill, upon their pleasant maze:
My hidden harms, that grow in me by night,
With pining pains do drive me from thy gaze:
And to my hap, I reap none other hire,
But burn myself, and I do blow the fire.
22
Flora gave me fairest flowers,
None so fair in Flora's treasure.
These I placed on Phyllis' Bowers,
She was pleased, and she my pleasure.
Smiling meadows seem to say
Come, ye wantons, here to play.
23
O happy dames that may embrace
The wits of your delight,
Help to bewail the woeful case,
And eke the heavy plight
Of me that wonted to rejoice
The fortune of my pleasant choice:
Good ladies, help to fill my mourning voice.
Alas, how oft in dreams I see
Those eyes that were my food,
Which sometime so delighted me
That yet they do me good.
Wherewith I wake with his return,
Whose absent flame did make me burn;
But when I find the lack, Lord how I mourn.
24
Young Cupid hath proclaimed a bloody war,
And vows revenge on all the maiden crew.
O yield, fair Cloris, lest in that foul jar
'Thine after-penance makes thy folly rue.
And yet I fear her wondrous beauty's such,
A thousand Cupids dare not Cloris touch.
25
My friends, the things that do attain
The happy life be these I find:
The riches left, not got with pain,
The fruitful ground, the quiet mind.
The night, discharged of all care,
Where wine the wit may not oppress:
The mean diet, no dainty fare,
True wisdom join d with simpleness.
26
Thule, the period of Cosmography,
Doth vaunt of Hecla, whose sulphurious fire
Doth melt the frozen clime and thaw the sky;
Trinacrian Aetna's flames ascend not higher.
These things seem wondrous, yet more wondrous I,
Whose heart with fear doth freeze, with love doth fry.