The wenches with their wassail bowls
About the streets are singing;
The boys are come to catch the owls;
The wild mare in is bringing;
Our kitchen-boy hath broke his box;
And to the dealing of the ox
Our honest neighbours come by flocks,
And here they will be merry!
Now kings and queens poor sheep-cots have,
And mate with everybody;
The honest now may play the knave,
And wise men play the noddy.
Some youths will now a-mumming go,
Some others play at Rowland-bo,
And twenty other game, boys, mo,
Because they will be merry!
Then wherefore, in these merry days,
Should we, I pray, be duller?
No, let us sing some roundelays
To make our mirth the fuller:
And, while we thus inspirèd sing,
Let all the streets with echoes ring;
Woods, and hills, and everything,
Bear witness we are merry!
ASK ME NO MORE
THOMAS CAREW
Ask me no more where Jove bestows,
When June is past, the fading rose;
For in your beauties orient deep
These flowers, as in their causes, sleep.
Ask me no more, whither do stray
The golden atoms of the day;
For, in pure love, heaven did prepare
Those powders to enrich your hair.
Ask me no more, whither doth haste
The nightingale, when May is past;
For in your sweet dividing throat
She winters, and keeps warm her note.
Ask me no more, where those stars light,
That downwards fall in dead of night;
For in your eyes they sit, and there
Fixed become, as in their sphere.