Go tell the Court it glows And shines like rotten wood; Go tell the Church it shows Men's good, and doth no good; If Church and Court reply, Then give them both the lie. Tell potentates they live Acting by others' actions, Not loved unless they give, If potentates reply, Give potentates the lie. Tell men of high condition That rule affairs of state, Their purpose is ambition, Tell them that brave it most They beg for more by spending, Who in their greatest cost Seek nothing but commending: Tell zeal it lacks devotion; Tell age it daily wasteth; Tell wit how much it wrangles Straight give them both the lie. Tell physic of her boldness; Tell skill it is pretension; Tell charity of coldness; Tell fortune of her blindness; Tell justice of delay; And if they dare reply, Then give them all the lie. Tell arts they have no soundness, Tell schools they want profoundness, If arts and schools reply, Give arts and schools the lie. Tell faith it's fled the city; So when thou hast, as I Commanded thee, done blabbing, Although to give the lie Deserves no less then stabbing, No stab the soul can kill. WINIFREDA. About the authorship of this beautiful address to conjugal love, there is also much uncertainty. Bishop Percy calls it a "Translation from the Antient British," probably to veil the real writer. We find it included among Gilbert Cooper's poems, a diamond amongst pebbles; he never could have written it. It has been claimed for Steevens, who did the world good service as one of the earliest restorers of Shakespeare's text; but who is almost as famous for his bitter and cynical temper, as for his acuteness as a verbal critic. Could this charming love-song, true in its tenderness as the gushing notes of a bird to his sitting mate, have been poured forth by a man whom the whole world agreed in hating? After all, we have no need to meddle with this vexed question. Let us be content to accept thankfully one of the very few purely English ballads which contradict the reproach of our Scottish and Irish neighbours, when they tell us that our love-songs are of the head, not of the heart. This poem, at least, may vie with those of Gerald Griffin in the high and rare merit of conveying the noblest sentiments in the simplest language. Away! let nought to love displeasing, What though no grant of royal donors We'll shine in more substantial honours, Our name, while virtue thus we tender, What though from fortune's lavish bounty And be content without excess. Still shall each kind returning season For we will live a life of reason, And that's the only life to live. Through youth to age in love excelling, How should I love the pretty creatures, And when with envy, time transported, Surely this is the sort of poetry that ought to be popular to be sung in our concert-rooms, and set to such airs as should be played on barrel-organs through our streets, suggesting the words and the sentiments as soon as the first notes of the melody make themselves heard under the window. |