And for her voice a Philomel,
Her lips may all lips scorn;
No sun more clear than is her eye,
In brightest summer morn.
A mind wherein all virtues rest
And take delight to be,
And where all virtues graft themselves
In that most fruitful tree:
A tree that India doth not yield,
Nor ever yet was seen,
Where buds of virtue always spring,
And all the year grow green.
That country’s blest wherein she grows,
And happy is that rock
From whence she springs: but happiest he
That grafts in such a stock.
From Henry Lichfild’s First Set of Madrigals, 1613.
I always loved to call my lady Rose,
A Wooing Song of a Yeoman of Kent’s Son.
I have house and land in Kent,
Ich am my vather’s eldest zonne,
My mother eke doth love me well,
For ich can bravely clout my shoone,
And ich full well can ring a bell.
Chorus. For he can bravely clout his shoone,
And he full well can ring a bell.