Love,

if I dare so name

My esteem for thee.

Surely flowers can bear no blame,

My bonny Mary Lee.

Here's the violet's modest blue,

That 'neath hawthorns hides from view,

My gentle Mary Lee,
Would show whose heart is true,

While it thinks of thee.
While they choose each lowly spot,
The sun disdains them not;
I'm as lowly too, indeed,

My charming Mary Lee;

So I've brought the flowers to plead,
And win a smile from thee.
Here's a wild rose just in bud;
Spring's beauty in its hood,

My bonny Mary Lee!
"T is the first in all the wood
I could find for thee.
Though a blush is scarcely seen,
Yet it hides its worth within,
Like my love; for I've no power,
My angel Mary Lee,

To speak unless the flower

Can make excuse for me.

LOVE IS A SICKNESS.

LOVE is a sickness full of woes,

All remedies refusing;

A plant that most with cutting grows,
Most barren with best using.
Why so?

More we enjoy it, more it dies;
If not enjoyed, it sighing cries
Heigh-ho!

Love is a torment of the mind,
A tempest everlasting ;
And Jove hath made it of a kind,
Not well, nor full, nor fasting.
Why so?

More we enjoy it, more it dies;
If not enjoyed, it sighing cries
Heigh-ho!

For cares cause kings full oft their sleep to spill,
Where weary shepherds lie and snort their fill:
Ah then, ah then,

If country loves such sweet desires gain,
What lady would not love a shepherd swain?

Thus with his wife he spends the year as blithe
As doth the king at every tide or syth,
And blither too;

For kings have wars and broils to take in hand,
When shepherds laugh, and love upon the land:
Ah then, ah then,

If country loves such sweet desires gain,
What lady would not love a shepherd swain?

Forty times over let Michaelmas pass;
Grizzling hair the brain doth clear;
Then you know a boy is an ass,
Then you know the worth of a lass,

Once you have come to forty year.

Pledge me round; I bid ye declare,

All good fellows whose beards are gray,
Did not the fairest of the fair
Common grow and wearisome ere

Ever a month was past away?

The reddest lips that ever have kissed,

The brightest eyes that ever have shone,
May pray and whisper and we not list,
Or look away and never be missed, -
Ere yet ever a month is gone.
Gillian's dead! God rest her bier,
How I loved her twenty years syne!
Marian's married; but I sit here,
Alone and merry at forty year,

Dipping my nose in the Gascon wine.

WILLIAM MAKEPEACH THACKERAY.

JOHN DRYDEN.

MY TRUE-LOVE HATH MY HEART.

My true-love hath my heart, and I have his, By just exchange one to the other given : I hold his dear, and mine he cannot miss, There never was a better bargain driven : My true-love hath my heart, and I have his.

His heart in me keeps him and me in one; My heart in him his thoughts and senses guides:

He loves my heart, for once it was his own;
I cherish his because in me it bides:
My true-love hath my heart, and I have his.

SIR PHILIP SIDNEY.

I SAW TWO CLOUDS AT MORNING.

I SAW two clouds at morning,
Tinged by the rising sun,

And in the dawn they floated on,
And mingled into one;

Martha soon did it resign

To the beauteous Catharine.

Beauteous Catharine gave place (Though loath and angry she to part With the possession of my heart)

To Eliza's conquering face.

Eliza till this hour might reign,
Had she not evil counsels ta'en;
Fundamental laws she broke,
And still new favorites she chose,
Till up in arms my passions rose,
And cast away her yoke.

Mary then, and gentle Anne,
Both to reign at once began;

Alternately they swayed;

And sometimes Mary was the fair,
And sometimes Anne the crown did wear,
And sometimes both I obeyed.

Another Mary then arose,
And did rigorous laws impose;

A mighty tyrant she!
Long, alas! should I have been
Under that iron-sceptred queen,

Had not Rebecca set me free.
When fair Rebecca set me free,
'T was then a golden time with me:
But soon those pleasures fled;
For the gracious princess died
In her youth and beauty's pride,

And Judith reignéd in her stead.

One month, three days, and half an hour, Judith held the sovereign power:

Wondrous beautiful her face!
But so weak and small her wit,
That she to govern was unfit,

And so Susanna took her place.
But when Isabella came,
Armed with a resistless flame,

And the artillery of her eye,
Whilst she proudly marched about,
Greater conquests to find out,

She beat out Susan, by the by. But in her place I then obeyed Black-eyed Bess, her viceroy-maid, To whom ensued a vacancy: Thousand worse passions then possessed The interregnum of my breast;

Bless me from such an anarchy !

Gentle Henrietta then,
And a third Mary next began ;

Then Joan, and Jane, and Andria;
And then a pretty Thomasine,
And then another Catharine,

And then a long et cætera.