Now, you courtly dames and knights,
That study only strange delights;
Though you scorn the homespun gray
And revel in your rich array;
Though your tongues dissemble deep,
And can your heads from danger keep;
Yet, for all your pomp and train,
Securer lives the silly swain.
[9] Nosegays.
From Thomas Campion’s Third Book of Airs (circ. 1613).
Kind are her answers,
Lost is our freedom
When we submit to women so:
Why do we need ’em
When, in their best, they work our woe?
There is no wisdom
Can alter ends by Fate prefixt.
O, why is the good of man with evil mixt?
Never were days yet callèd two
But one night went betwixt.
From Campion and Rosseter’s Book of Airs, 1601.
Kind in unkindness, when will you relent
In her fair hand my hopes and comforts rest:
O might my fortunes with that hand be blest!
No envious breaths then my deserts could shake,
For they are good whom such true love doth make.
O let not beauty so forget her birth
That it should fruitless home return to earth!
Love is the fruit of beauty, then love one!
Not your sweet self, for such self-love is none.
Love one that only lives in loving you;
Whose wronged deserts would you with pity view,
This strange distaste which your affection sways
Would relish love, and you find better days.