Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

SISTER, AWAKE

From Thomas Bateson's "First Set of English Madrigals," 1604

Sister, awake! close not your eyes,

The Day her light discloses,

And the bright Morning doth arise
Out of her bed of roses.

See, the clear Sun, the world's bright eye,

In at our window peeping;

Lo! how he blusheth to espy

Us idle wenches sleeping.

Therefore, awake! make haste, I say,

And let us, without staying,

All in our gowns of green so gay,
Into the park a-maying!

Anon

FEATHERS

There falls with every wedding chime
A feather from the wing of Time.
You pick it up, and say "How fair
To look upon its colours are!"
Another drops day after day
Unheeded; not one word you say.
When bright and dusky are blown past,
Upon the hearse there nods the last.

Walter Savage Landor

PHILLIDA AND CORYDON

In the merrie moneth of Maye,
In a morne by break of daye,
With a troupe of damsells playing,
Forth I yode forsooth a-maying;

Where anon by a wood side,
Whenas Maye was in his pride,
I espièd all alone

Phillida and Corydon.

Much adoe there was, God wot;
He wold love, and she wold not.
She sayd never man was trewe;
He sayes none was false to you.

He sayde hee had lovde her longe;
She sayes love should have no wronge.
Corydon wold kisse her then;

She sayes maids must kisse no men,

Tyll they doe for good and all,
When she made the shepperde call
All the heavens to wytnes truthe,
Never loved a truer youthe.

Then with many a prettie othe,
Yea and naye, and faithe and trothe
Such as seelie shepperdes use

When they will not love abuse.

Love, that had bene long deluded,
Was with kisses sweete concluded;
And Phillida with garlands gaye
Was made the ladye of the Maye.

Nicholas Breton

GIVE ME MORE LOVE OR MORE DISDAIN

Give me more love or more disdain;

The torrid or the frozen zone
Brings equal ease unto my pain;
The temperate affords me none;
Either extreme, of love or hate,
Is sweeter than a calm estate.

Give me a storm; if it be love,
Like Danaë in a golden shower,
I swim in pleasure; if it prove

Disdain, that torrent will devour
My vulture hopes; and he's possessed
Of heaven that's but from hell released;
Then crown my joys, or cure my pain;
Give me more love or more disdain.

Thomas Carew

THE ROSARY

The hours I spent with thee, dear heart,
Are as a string of pearls to me;
I count them over, every one apart,
My rosary.

Each hour a pearl, each pearl a prayer,
To still a heart in absence wrung;
I tell each bead unto the end and there
A cross is hung.

Oh memories that bless

and burn!

Oh barren gain and bitter loss!

I kiss each bead, and strive at last to learn

To kiss the cross,

Sweetheart,

To kiss the cross.

Robert Cameron Rogers

UNDER THE LINDENS

Under the lindens lately sat
A couple, and no more, in chat;
I wondered what they would be at
Under the lindens.

I saw four eyes and four lips meet,
I heard the words, How sweet! how sweet!
Had then the Faeries given a treat
Under the lindens?

I pondered long and could not tell
What dainty pleased them both so well:
Bees! bees! was it your hydromel

Under the lindens?

Walter Savage Landor

TO A FAIR MAIDEN

Fair maiden! when I look at thee
I wish I could be young and free;
But both at once, ah! who could be?

Walter Savage Landor

Browning

EPILOGUE

TO ASOLANDO

At the midnight in the silence of the sleep-time

When you set your fancies free,

Will they pass to where- by death, fools think, imprison'd

Low he lies who once so loved you, whom you loved so,

Pity me?

Oh to love so, be so loved, yet so mistaken!

What had I on earth to do

With the slothful, with the mawkish, the unmanly?
Like the aimless, helpless, hopeless, did I drivel

Being - who?

One who never turn'd his back but march'd breast forward, Never doubted clouds would break,

Never dream'd, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph,

Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better,

Sleep to wake.

No, at noonday in the bustle of man's work-time
Greet the unseen with a cheer!

Bid him forward, breast and back as either should be, "Strive and thrive!" cry "Speed, - fight on, fare ever There as here!"

Robert Browning

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »