For my heart, though set at nought,
Since you will it,
Spoil and kill it!
I will never change my thought:
But grieve that beauty e’er was born
Thus to answer love with scorn.
From Francis Pilkington’s First Book of Songs or Airs, 1605.
Whither so fast? see how the kindly flowers
Fear not, the ground seeks but to kiss thy feet;
Hark, hark, how Philomela sweetly sings!
Whilst water-wanton fishes as they meet
Strike crotchet time amidst these crystal springs,
And Zephyrus amongst the leaves sweet murmur rings.
Stay but awhile, Phœbe no tell-tale is;
She her Endymion, I’ll my Phœbe kiss.
See how the helitrope, herb of the sun,
Though he himself long since be gone to bed,
Is not of force thine eye’s bright beams to shun,
But with their warmth his goldy leaves unspread,
And on my knee invites thee rest thy head.
Stay but awhile, Phœbe no tell-tale is;
She her Endymion, I’ll my Phœbe kiss.
From William Byrd’s Psalms, Sonnets, and Songs, 1588.
Who likes to love, let him take heed!
The cause is this, as I have heard:
A sort of dames,
Whose beauty he did not regard
Nor secret flames,
Complained before the gods above
That gold corrupts the god of love.
The gods did storm to hear this news,
And there they swore,
That sith he did such dames abuse
He should no more
Be god of love, but that he should
Both die and forfeit all his gold.
His bow and shafts they took away
Before his eyes,
And gave these dames a longer day
For to devise
Who should them keep, and they be bound
That love for gold should not be found.