Heart is bleeding,

All help needing,

O cruel speeding,

Fraughted with gall.

My shepherd's pipe can sound no deal:
My wether's bell rings doleful knell;
My curtal dog, that wont to have play'd,
Plays not at all, but seems afraid;

My sighs so deep

Procure to weep,

In howling wise, to see my doleful plight. How sighs resound

Through heartless ground,

25

30

35

Like a thousand vanquish❜d men in bloody fight!

Clear wells spring not,

Sweet birds sing not,

Green plants bring not

Forth their dye;

Herds stand weeping,

Flocks all sleeping,

Nymphs back peeping

Fearfully:

All our pleasure known to us poor swains,

All our merry meetings on the plains,

All our evening sport from us is fled,
All our love is lost, for Love is dead.
Farewell, sweet lass,

31-32. "My sighs

sighes

I. G.

40

45

Procure to"; edd. 1599, 1612, "With procures to"; the reading of the text is Malone's.

43. "back peeping"; edd. 1599, 1612, “blacke peeping.”—I. G.

Thy like ne'er was

For a sweet content, the cause of all my moan:

Poor Corydon

Must live alone;

Other help for him I see that there is none.

XIX

When as thine eye hath chose the dame,
And stall'd the deer that thou shouldst strike,
Let reason rule things worthy blame,

As well as fancy, partial wight:

Take counsel of some wiser head,
Neither too young nor yet unwed.

And when thou comest thy tale to tell,
Smooth not thy tongue with filed talk,
Lest she some subtle practice smell,-
A cripple soon can find a halt;-

But plainly say thou lovest her well,
And set thy person forth to sell.

What though her frowning brows be bent,
Her cloudy looks will calm ere night:
And then too late she will repent

That thus dissembled her delight;

And twice desire, ere it be day,

That which with scorn she put away.

50

5

10

15

4. "fancy, partial wight"; Capell MS. and Malone conj. withdrawn; edd. 1599, 1612, "fancy (party all might)"; ed. 1640, "fancy (partly all might)"; Malone (from MS. copy), “fancy, partial like”; Collier (from MS. copy), "partial fancy like"; Steevens conj. “fancy, partial tike"; Furnivall conj. "fancy's partial might.”—I. G.

What though she strive to try her strength,
And ban and brawl, and say thee nay,
Her feeble force will yield at length,
When craft hath taught her thus to say;
'Hath women been so strong as men,
In faith, you had not had it then.'

'And to her will frame all thy ways;
Spare not to spend, and chiefly there
Where thy desert may merit praise,
By ringing in thy lady's ear:

20

25

The strongest castle, tower and town,
The golden bullet beats it down.

30

Serve always with assured trust,

And in thy suit be humble true;
Unless thy lady prove unjust,
Press never thou to choose anew:

When time shall serve, be thou not slack
To proffer, though she put thee back.

The wiles and guiles that women work,
Dissembled with an outward show,
The tricks and toys that in them lurk,
The cock that treads them shall not know.
Have you not heard it said full oft,

A woman's nay doth stand for nought?

Think women still to strive with men,
To sin and never for to saint:

35

40

45

There is no heaven, by holy then,

When time with age shall them attaint.
Were kisses all the joys in bed,
One woman would another wed.

But, soft! enough-too much, I fear—
Lest that my mistress hear my song:
She will not stick to round me on th' ear,
To teach my tongue to be so long:

Yet will she blush, here be it said,

To hear her secrets so bewray'd.

[XX]

Live with me, and be my love,

And we will all the pleasures prove

That hills and valleys, dales and fields,

And all the craggy mountains yields.

50

45. "There is no heaven, by holy then"; the line has been variously emended; Malone reads from an old MS.:—

Here is no heaven; they holy then
Begin, when, etc.

No satisfactory emendation has been proposed, and perhaps the original reading may be allowed to stand without the comma after "heaven":-"there is no heaven by holy then"; i. e., "by that holy time"; others suggest, "be holy then," or "by the holy then,” etc.— I. G.

XX. This poem and the "Answer," both of which are here very incomplete, especially the latter, are well known as the workmanship of Christopher Marlowe and Sir Walter Raleigh. They appeared in England's Helicon, the one as Marlowe's, the other under the name of Ignoto, which was the signature sometime used by Raleigh. See, also, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Act iii. sc. 1. Both songs are given in full at the end of that play.-H. N. H. 1. "Live with me, and be my love"; in England's Helicon and XXXIX-7 97

There will we sit upon the rocks,
And see the shepherds feed their flocks,
By shallow rivers, by whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.

There will I make thee a bed of roses,
With a thousand fragrant posies,
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
Embroider'd all with leaves of myrtle.

A belt of straw and ivy buds,
With coral clasps and amber studs;
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Then live with me and be

my love.

LOVE'S ANSWER.

If that the world and love were young,
And truth in every shepherd's tongue,
These pretty pleasures might me move
To live with thee and be thy love.

5

10

15

20

other early versions the line runs, "Come live with me," etc., and in this way it is usually quoted. Two verses found in England's Helicon are omitted in the present version, but included in the 1640 ed., where "Love's Answer" is also in six quatrains; the additional matter was evidently also derived from England's Helicon. After 1. 12 the following lines are inserted:

“A gown made of the finest wool,

Which from our pretty Lambs we pull.
Fair lined slippers for the cold,
With buckles of the purest gold."

The last stanza runs thus:

"The shepherds' swains shall dance and sing,
For thy delight each May morning;
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me and be my love.”—I. G.