The Book of Elizabethan Verse

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William Stanley Braithwaite
Chatto & Windus, 1908 - English poetry - 823 pages

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Page 424 - GOING TO THE WARS Tell me not, Sweet, I am unkind That from the nunnery Of thy chaste breast and quiet mind, To war and arms I fly. True, a new mistress now I chase, The first foe in the field; And with a stronger faith embrace A sword, a horse, a shield. Yet this inconstancy is such As you too shall adore; I could not love thee, dear, so much, Loved I not honour more.
Page 442 - Philomel, with melody Sing in our sweet lullaby ; Lulla, lulla, lullaby, lulla, lulla, lullaby : Never harm, Nor spell nor charm, Come our lovely lady nigh ; So, good night, with lullaby.
Page 561 - Tu-whit, tu-who ! a merry note, While greasy Joan doth keel the pot. When all aloud the wind doth blow, And coughing drowns the parson's saw, And birds sit brooding in the snow, And Marian's nose looks red and raw, When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl, Then nightly sings the staring owl, Tu-whit, tu-who ! a merry note, While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.
Page 552 - When to the sessions of sweet silent thought I summon up remembrance of things past, I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought, And with old woes new wail my dear time's •waste...
Page 201 - Go, lovely rose, Tell her that wastes her time and me, That now she knows, When I resemble her to thee, How sweet and fair she seems to be. Tell her that's young And shuns to have her graces spied, That hadst thou sprung In deserts where no men abide, Thou must have uncommended died.
Page 59 - It was a lover and his lass, With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino, That o'er the green corn-field did pass In the spring time, the only pretty ring time, When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding : Sweet lovers love the spring.
Page 313 - How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea Whose action is no stronger than a flower? O, how shall summer's honey breath hold out Against the wreckful siege of battering days, When rocks impregnable are not so stout, Nor gates of steel so strong, but Time decays...
Page 403 - Orpheus with his lute made trees. And the mountain-tops that freeze, Bow themselves, when he did sing : To his music, plants and flowers Ever sprung ; as sun and showers There had made a lasting spring.
Page 538 - SWEET day, so cool, so calm, so bright, The bridal of the earth and sky! The dew shall weep thy fall to-night; For thou must die. Sweet rose, whose hue, angry and brave, Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye, Thy root is ever in its grave, And thou must die. Sweet spring, full of sweet days and roses, A box where sweets compacted lie, My music shows ye have your closes, And all must die. Only a sweet and virtuous soul, Like seasoned timber, never gives; But though the whole world turn to coal, Then chiefly...
Page 45 - IF all the world and love were young, And truth in every shepherd's tongue, These pretty pleasures might me move To live with thee and be thy love.

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