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