If to singing thou'lt apply thee,
I can warble notes to thee:
Or if to[60] sighing, I'll sigh by thee;
To thy passions I'll agree,
For I'm to all thy humours free.
Dost thou joy I should come near thee
With a heart both firm and true?
Or dost thou fly my sight and jeer me?
Unto lovers that's not new;
For I can stay or bid adieu.
From William Corkine's Second Book of Airs, 1612.
AWAY, away! call back what you have said
When you did vow to live and die a maid:
O if you knew what chance to them befell
That dance about with bobtail apes in hell,
Yourself your virgin girdle would divide
And put aside the maiden veil that hides
The chiefest gem of nature; and would lie
Prostrate to every peasant that goes by,
Rather than undergo such shame: no tongue can tell
What injury is done to maids in hell.
From The Windsor Drollery, 1672.
UNDER[61] the willow-shades they were
Free from the eye-sight of the sun,
For no intruding beam could there
Peep through to spy what things were done:
Thus sheltered they unseen did lie,
Surfeiting on each other's eye;
Defended by the willow shades alone,
The sun's heat they defied and cool'd their own.
Whilst they did embrace unspied,
The conscious willow seem'd to smile,
That them[62] with privacy supplied,
Holding the door, as 'twere, the while;
And when their dalliances were o'er,
The willows, to oblige them more,
Bowing, did seem to say, as they withdrew,
"We can supply you with a cradle too."
From The Treasury of Music, 1669.