Yet what is love, I pray thee say?
It is a pretty shady way
As well found out by night as day,
It is a thing will soon decay;
Then take the vantage whilst you may:
And this is love, as I hear say.
Now what is love, I pray thee show?
A thing that creeps, it cannot go,
A prize that passeth to and fro,
A thing for one, a thing for mo,
And he that proves shall find it so:
And this is love, as I well know.
[11] Saint’s-bell; the little bell that called to prayers.
From Thomas Campion’s Third Book of Airs (circ. 1613).
Now winter nights enlarge
This time doth well dispense
With lovers’ long discourse;
Much, speech hath some defence
Though beauty no remorse.
All do not all things well;
Some measures comely tread,
Some knotted riddles tell,
Some poems smoothly read.
The summer hath his joys
And winter his delights;
Though love and all his pleasures are but toys,
They shorten tedious nights.
From John Ward’s First Set of English Madrigals, 1613.
O say, dear life, when shall these twin-born berries,
From John Farmer’s First Set of English Madrigals, 1599.
O stay, sweet love; see here the place of sporting;
I thought, my love, that I should overtake you;
Sweet heart, sit down under this shadowed tree,
And I will promise never to forsake you,
So you will grant to me a lover’s fee.
Whereat she smiled and kindly to me said—
I never meant to live and die a maid.