For him who thus in pious lay
Invites you to the Muses' bowers,
O, gentle birds, his care repay,
When spring revives your tuneful powers.
Then when ye breathe those notes along
That melt your mates to soft desire,
O, lend to him awhile your song,
O, lend those notes that love inspire.
So may his happy numbers move
The tender fair to whom he sings, So Love's soft pleasures may he prove, Like you, beside the silver springs.
THE Maypole is up;
Now give me the cup,
I'll drink to the garlands around it;
But first unto those
Whose hands did compose
The glory of flowers that crown'd it.
A health to my girls,
Whose husbands may earls
Or lords be, granting my wishes;
And when that ye wed
To the bridal bed,
Then multiply all like to fishes.
SWEET country life! to such unknown,
Whose lives are others', not their own;
But, serving courts and cities, be
Less happy, less enjoying thee.
Thou never plough'st the ocean's foam,
To seek and bring rough pepper home;
Nor to the Eastern Ind dost rove,
To bring from thence the scorched clove;
Nor, with the loss of thy loved rest,
Bring'st home the ingot from the West:
No, thy ambition's masterpiece
Flies no thought higher than a fleece,
Or how to pay thy hinds, and clear
All scores, and so to end the year;
But walk'st about thine own dear bounds,
Not envying others' larger grounds;
For well thou know'st 'tis not the' extent
Of land makes life, but sweet content.
When now the cock, the ploughman's horn,
Calls forth the lily-wristed morn,
Then to thy corn-fields thou dost go,
Which though well soil'd, yet thou dost know, That the best compost for the lands
Is the wise master's feet and hands:
There at the plough thou find'st thy team,
With a hind whistling there to them;
And cheer'st them up by singing, how
The kingdom's portion is the plough:
This done; then to the' enamel'd meads
Thou go'st; and as thy foot there treads,
Thou seest a present godlike power
Imprinted in each herb and flower;
And smell'st the breath of great-eyed kine,
Sweet as the blossoms of the vine:
Here thou behold'st thy large sleek neat
Unto the dewlaps up in meat;
And, as thou look'st, the wanton steer,
The heifer, cow, and ox draw near,
To make a pleasing pasture there :
These seen,
thou go'st to view thy flocks
Of sheep safe from the wolf and fox;
And find'st their bellies there as full
Of short sweet grass as backs with wool;
And leavest them, as they feed and fill,
A shepherd piping on a hill.
For sport, for pageantry, and plays, Thou hast thy eves and holidays,
On which the young men and maids meet
To exercise their dancing feet,
Tripping the comely country round,
With daffodils and daisies crown'd.
Thy wakes, thy quintels* here thou hast,
Thy maypoles too with garlands graced,
Thy morris dance, thy Whitsun ale,
Thy shearing feasts which never fail,
Thy harvest home, thy wassail bowl
That's toss'd up after fox i' the' hole,
Thy mummeries, thy twelfth-tide kings
And queens, thy Christmas revellings,
Thy nut-brown mirth, thy russet wit,
And no man pays too dear for it:
To these thou hast thy times to go
And trace the hare i' the' treacherous snow,
Thy witty wiles to try and get
The lark into the trammel net;
Thou hast thy cockrood + and thy glade
To take the precious pheasant made,
Thy lime-twigs, snares, and pitfalls then
To catch the pilfering birds, not men.
O happy life! if that their good
The husbandmen but understood;
Who all the day themselves do please,
And younglings, with such sports as these;
And, lying down, have none to' affright
Sweet sleep, that makes more short the night.
ALL thoughts, all passions, all delights,
Whatever stirs this mortal frame,
Are all but ministers of Love,
And feed his sacred flame.
Oft in my waking dreams do I
Live o'er again that happy hour,
When midway on the mount I lay
Beside the ruin'd tower.
The moonshine, stealing o'er the scene,
Had blended with the lights of eve;
And she was there, my hope, my joy,
My own dear Genevieve!
This word, which Herrick writes cockrood,' means, according to Phillips and Bailey a sort of net contrived chiefly for the catching of woodcocks.' But I should rather interpret it a beat or haunt, where nets and springes are laid for that purpose.
She lean'd against the armed man,
The statue of the armed knight;
She stood and listen'd to my lay,
Amid the lingering light.
Few sorrows hath she of her own,
My hope! my joy! my Genevieve!
She loves me best whene'er I sing
The song that makes her grieve.
I play'd a soft and doleful air,
I sang an old and moving story-
An old rude song, that suited well
That ruin wild and hoary.
She listen'd with a flitting blush,
With downcast eyes and modest grace;
For well she knew I could not choose
But gaze upon her face.
I told her of the knight that wore
Upon his shield a burning brand;
And that for ten long years he woo'd
The Lady of the Land.
I told her how he pined; and ah!
The deep, the low, the pleading tone,
With which I sang another's love,
Interpreted my own.
She listen'd with a flitting blush,
With downcast eyes, and modest grace;
And she forgave me that I gazed
Too fondly on her face!
But when I told the cruel scorn
That crazed that bold and lovely knight, And that he cross'd the mountain woods, Nor rested day nor night;
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