How fair an entrance breaks the way to love!
How rich the golden hope, and gay delight!
What heart cannot a modest beauty move?
Who seeing clear day once will dream of night?
She seemed a saint, that brake her faith with me;
But proved a woman, as all other be.
So bitter is their sweet that True Content
Unhappy men in them may never find:
Ah! but without them, none. Both must consent,
Else uncouth are the joys of either kind.
Let us then praise their good, forget their ill!
Men must be men, and women women still.
From Francis Pilkington’s Second Set of Madrigals, 1624.
Wake, sleepy Thyrsis, wake
We be soldiers three,
Here, good fellow, I drink to thee,
Pardona moy je vous an pree,
To all good fellows wherever they be,
With never a penny of money.
And he that will not pledge me this,
Pardona moy je vous an pree,
Pays for the shot whatever it is,
With never a penny of money.
Charge it again, boy, charge it again,
Pardona moy je vous an pree,
As long as there is any ink in thy pen,
With never a penny of money.