Though Shakspere’s plays were marked with the coarseness of speech common in his time, and therefore not, as some have thought, chargeable to him in particular, his songs, on the contrary, are of singular daintiness. They are too well known to be quoted here, but they breathe the very spirit of music, being evidently intended to be sung and popularly known. The chorus, or rather refrain, of one, beginning, “Blow, blow, thou winter wind,” runs thus:
“Heigh ho! sing heigh ho! unto the green holly;
Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly.
Then heigh ho! the holly!
This life is most jolly!”
The “Serenade to Sylvia” is lovely, chaste and delicate in speech as it is playful in form; and the fairy song “Over hill, over dale,” is like the song of a chorus of animated flowers. The description of the cowslips is very poetic:
“The cowslips tall her pensioners be,
In their gold coats spots you see—
Those be rubies, fairy favors;
In those freckles live their savors.