Herd stands weeping, flocks all sleeping,
Nymphs back peeping fearfully.
All our pleasure known to us poor swains,
All our merry meetings on the plains,
All our evening sport from us is fled,
All our love is lost, for love is dead.
Farewell, sweet lass, thy like ne’er was
For a sweet content, the cause of all my moan.
Poor Corydon must live alone,
Other help for him I see that there is none.
18
Whenas thine eye hath chose the dame
And stalled the deer that thou shouldst strike,
Let reason rule things worthy blame
As well as fancy, partial might.
Take counsel of some wiser head,
Neither too young nor yet unwed,
And when thou com‘st thy tale to tell,
Smooth not thy tongue with filed talk
Lest she some subtle practice smell:
A cripple soon can find a halt.
But plainly say thou lov’st her well,
And set her person forth to sale,
And to her will frame all thy ways.
Spare not to spend, and chiefly there
Where thy desert may merit praise
By ringing in thy lady’s ear.
The strongest castle, tower, and town,
The golden bullet beats it down.
Serve always with assured trust,
And in thy suit be humble-true;
Unless thy lady prove unjust,
Press never thou to choose anew.
When time shall serve, be thou not slack
To proffer, though she put thee back.
What though her frowning brows be bent,
Her cloudy looks will calm ere night,
And then too late she will repent
That thus dissembled her delight,
And twice desire, ere it be day,
That which with scorn she put away.
What though she strive to try her strength,
And ban, and brawl, and say thee nay,
Her feeble force will yield at length
When craft hath taught her thus to say:
‘Had women been so strong as men,
In faith you had not had it then.’
The wiles and guiles that women work,
Dissembled with an outward show,
The tricks and toys that in them lurk
The cock that treads them shall not know.
Have you not heard it said full oft
A woman’s nay doth stand for nought?
Think women still to strive with men,
To sin and never for to saint.
There is no heaven; be holy then
When time with age shall them attaint.
Were kisses all the joys in bed,
One woman would another wed.
But soft, enough—too much, I fear,
Lest that my mistress hear my song
She will not stick to round me on th’ear
To teach my tongue to be so long.
Yet will she blush (here be it said)
To hear her secrets so bewrayed.
The Phoenix and Turtle
Let the bird of loudest lay
On the sole Arabian tree
Herald sad and trumpet be,
To whose sound chaste wings obey.
But thou shrieking harbinger,
Foul precurrer of the fiend,
Augur of the fever’s end—
To this troupe come thou not near.
From this session interdict
Every fowl of tyrant wing
Save the eagle, feathered king.
Keep the obsequy so strict.
Let the priest in surplice white
That defunctive music can,
Be the death-divining swan,
Lest the requiem lack his right.
And thou treble-dated crow,
That thy sable gender mak‘st
With the breath thou giv’st and tak’st,
’Mongst our mourners shalt thou go.
Here the anthem doth commence:
Love and constancy is dead,
Phoenix and the turtle fled
In a mutual flame from hence.
So they loved as love in twain
Had the essence but in one,
Two distincts, division none.
Number there in love was slain.
Hearts remote yet not asunder,
Distance and no space was seen
’Twixt this turtle and his queen.
But in them it were a wonder.
So between them love did shine
That the turtle saw his right
Flaming in the Phoenix’ sight.
Either was the other’s mine.
Property was thus appalled
That the self was not the same.
Single nature’s double name
Neither two nor one was called.
Reason, in itself confounded,
Saw division grow together
To themselves, yet either neither,
Simple were so well compounded