Song

It may be, said I, who can tell,

These things shall be my less despair?

And so I made a Villanelle!

I took her whiteness virginal

And from her cheeks two roses rare:

I took her dainty eyes as well.

I said: "It may be possible

Her image from my heart to tear!"

And so I made a Villanelle!

I stole her laugh, most musical:

I wrought it in with artful care;

I took her dainty eyes as well;

And so I made a Villanelle.

SONG

559

Ernest Dowson [1867-1900]

LOVE, by that loosened hair

Well now I know

Where the lost Lilith went

So long ago.

Love, by those starry eyes

I understand

How the sea maidens lure

Mortals from land.

Love, by that welling laugh

Joy claims his own

Sea-born and wind-wayward

Child of the sun.

Bliss Carmen [1861

SONG

O, LIKE a queen's her happy tread,
And like a queen's her golden head!
But O, at last, when all is said,

Her woman's heart for me!

We wandered where the river gleamed

'Neath oaks that mused and pines that dreamed,

A wild thing of the woods she seemed,

So proud, and pure, and free!

All heaven drew nigh to hear her sing,
When from her lips her soul took wing;
The oaks forgot their pondering,

The pines their reverie.

And O, her happy, queenly tread,
And O, her queenly golden head!
But O, her heart, when all is said,
Her woman's heart for me!

William Watson (1858

PLAINTS AND PROTESTATIONS

"FORGET NOT YET"

THE LOVER BESEECHETH HIS MISTRESS NOT TO FORGET HIS
STEADFAST FAITH AND TRUE INTENT

FORGET not yet the tried intent
Of such a truth as I have meant;
My great travail so gladly spent,
Forget not yet!

Forget not yet when first began
The weary life ye know, since when
The suit, the service, none tell can;
Forget not yet!

Forget not yet the great assays,
The cruel wrong, the scornful ways,
The painful patience in delays,
Forget not yet!

Forget not! O, forget not this!—

How long ago hath been, and is,

The mind that never meant amiss

Forget not yet!

Forget not then thine own approved,
The which so long hath thee so loved,
Whose steadfast faith yet never moved:
Forget not this!

Thomas Wyatt [1503?-1542]

FAWNIA

From "Pandosto

Ан! were she pitiful as she is fair,

Or but as mild as she is seeming so,

Then were my hopes greater than my despair,
Then all the world were heaven, nothing woe.

Ah! were her heart relenting as her hand,
That seems to melt even with the mildest touch,
Then knew I where to seat me in a land
Under wide heavens, but yet there is not such.
So as she shows she seems the budding rose,
Yet sweeter far than is an earthly flower;
Sovereign of beauty, like the spray she grows;
Compassed she is with thorns and cankered flower.
Yet were she willing to be plucked and worn,
She would be gathered, though she grew on thorn.

Ah! when she sings, all music else be still,
For none must be compared to her note;
Ne'er breathed such glee from Philomela's bill,
Nor from the morning-singer's swelling throat.
Ah! when she riseth from her blissful bed
She comforts all the world as doth the sun,
And at her sight the night's foul vapor's fled;
When she is set the gladsome day is done.

O glorious sun, imagine me the west,
Shine in my arms, and set thou in my breast!
Robert Greene [1560?-1592]

THE PASSIONATE SHEPHERD TO HIS LOVE

COME live with me and be my Love,
And we will all the pleasures prove
That hills and valleys, dales and fields,
Or woods or steepy mountain yields.

And we will sit upon the rocks,
And see the shepherds feed their flocks
By shallow rivers, to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.

And I will make thee beds of roses
And a thousand fragrant posies;
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle

Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle.

The Nymph's Reply

A gown made of the finest wool

Which from our pretty lambs we pull;
Fair-lined slippers for the cold,
With buckles of the purest gold.

A belt of straw and ivy-buds
With coral clasps and amber studs:
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Come live with me and be my Love.

The shepherd swains shall dance and sing
For thy delight each May morning:

If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me and be my Love.

563

Christopher Marlowe [1564-1593]

THE NYMPH'S REPLY TO THE PASSIONATE SHEPHERD

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.

But Time drives flocks from field to feld;
When rivers rage and rocks grow cold;
And Philomel becometh dumb;
The rest complains of cares to come.

The flowers do fade, and wanton fields
To wayward Winter reckoning yields:
A honey tongue, a heart of gall,
Is fancy's spring, but sorrow's fall.

Thy gowns, thy shoes, thy beds of roses,
Thy cap, thy kirtle, and thy posies,
Soon break, soon wither, -soon forgotten,
In folly ripe, in reason rotten.