Volume Ii Part 53 (1/2)

MATIN-SONG From ”The Rape of Lucrece”

Pack, clouds, away, and welcome, day, With night we banish sorrow.

Sweet air, blow soft; mount, lark, aloft To give my Love good-morrow!

Wings from the wind to please her mind Notes from the lark I'll borrow: Bird, prune thy wing, nightingale, sing, To give my Love good-morrow; To give my Love good-morrow Notes from them both I'll borrow.

Wake from thy nest, Robin-red-breast, Sing, birds, in every furrow; And from each hill, let music shrill Give my fair Love good-morrow!

Blackbird and thrush in every bush, Stare, linnet, and c.o.c.k-sparrow, You pretty elves, amongst yourselves Sing my fair Love good-morrow; To give my Love good-morrow Sing, birds, in every furrow!

Thomas Heywood [?--1650?]

THE ROSE

Sweet, serene, sky-like flower, Haste to adorn her bower; From thy long-cloudy bed, Shoot forth thy damask head.

New-startled blush of Flora, The grief of pale Aurora (Who will contest no more), Haste, haste to strew her floor!

Vermilion ball that's given From lip to lip in Heaven; Love's couch's coverled, Haste, haste to make her bed.

Dear offspring of pleased Venus And jolly, plump Silenus, Haste, haste to deck the hair Of the only sweetly fair!

See! rosy is her bower, Her floor is all this flower Her bed a rosy nest By a bed of roses pressed.

But early as she dresses, Why fly you her bright tresses?

Ah! I have found, I fear,-- Because her cheeks are near.

Richard Lovelace [1618-1658]

SONG

See, see, she wakes! Sabina wakes!

And now the sun begins to rise; Less glorious is the morn that breaks From his bright beams, than her fair eyes.

With light united, day they give; But different fates ere night fulfil; How many by his warmth will live!

How many will her coldness kill!

William Congreve [1670-1729]

MARY MORISON

O Mary, at thy window be, It is the wished, the trysted hour!