THE GIRL DESCRIBES HER FAWN

With sweetest milk and sugar first
I it at my own fingers nursed;
And as it grew, so every day

It wax'd more white and sweet than they —
It had so sweet a breath! and oft

I blush'd to see its foot more soft

I have a garden of my own,
But so with roses overgrown
And lilies, that you would it guess
To be a little wilderness:

And all the spring-time of the year
It only loved to be there.
Among the beds of lilies I

Have sought it oft, where it should lie;
Yet could not, till itself would rise,
Find it, although before mine eyes:

For in the flaxen lilies' shade
It like a bank of lilies laid.
Upon the roses it would feed,
Until its lips e'en seem'd to bleed :
And then to me 'twould boldly trip,
And print those roses on my lip.
But all its chief delight was still
On roses thus itself to fill,
And its pure virgin limbs to fold
In whitest sheets of lilies cold:

Had it lived long, it would have been
Lilies without -roses within.

Andrew Marvell

FAIRY SONGS

I

Where the bee sucks, there suck I:
In a cowslip's bell I lie;

There I couch, when owls do cry:

On the bat's back I do fly

After summer merrily.

Merrily, merrily, shall I live now,

Under the blossom that hangs on the bough!

2

Come unto these yellow sands,

And then take hands:
Courtsied when you have, and kiss'd

The wild waves whist,

Foot it featly here and there;

And, sweet Sprites, the burthen bear.
Hark, hark!

Bow-wow.

The watch-dogs bark:

Bow-wow.

Hark, hark! I hear

The strain of strutting chanticleer
Cry, Cock-a-diddle-dow!

William Shakespeare

John Milton, Died 1674

Robert Bulwer Lytton, Born 1831

November the Eighth

A BRIDAL SONG

Roses, their sharp spines being gone,
Not royal in their smells alone,
But in their hue;
Maiden-pinks, of odour faint;
Daisies smell-less, yet most quaint,
And sweet thyme true;

Primrose, first-born child of Ver,
Merry spring-time's harbinger,
With her bells dim;

Oxlips in their cradles growing,
Marigolds on death-beds blowing,
Lark-heels trim;

All, dear Nature's children sweet,
Lie 'fore bride and bridegroom's feet,
Blessing their sense!

Not an angel of the air,
Bird melodious, or bird fair,

Be absent hence!

The crow, the slanderous cuckoo, nor
The boding raven, nor chough hoar,
Nor chattering pie,

May on our bride-house perch or sing,
Or with them any discord bring,

But from it fly.

Beaumont and Fletcher

COME, THOU MONARCH OF THE VINE

Come, thou monarch of the vine,
Plumpy Bacchus with pink eyne!
In thy vats our cares be drowned,
With thy grapes our hairs be crowned:
Cup us till the world go round,
Cup us till the world go round!

William Shakespeare

PERFECT BEAUTY

It was a beauty that I saw

So pure, so perfect, as the frame
Of all the universe was lame,
To that one figure, could I draw,
Or give least line of it a law!

A skein of silk without a knot,
A fair march made without a halt,
A curious form without a fault,

A printed book without a blot,
All beauty, and without a spot!

Ben Jonson

Oliver Goldsmith, Born 1728
Friedrich von Schiller, Born 1759

November the Tenth

MEMORY

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste;

Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,
For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,
And weep afresh love's long-since-cancell'd woe,
And moan the expense of many a vanish'd sight.

Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er
The sad account of fore-bemoanèd moan,
Which I new pay as if not paid before:

But if the while I think on thee, dear Friend, All losses are restored, and sorrows end.

William Shakespeare

SLEEP

Come, Sleep: O Sleep! the certain knot of peace,
The baiting-place of wit, the balm of woe,
The poor man's wealth, the prisoner's release,
Th' indifferent judge between the high and low;

With shield of proof shield me from out the prease
Of those fierce darts Despair at me doth throw;
O make in me those civil wars to cease;

I will good tribute pay, if thou do so.

Take thou of me smooth pillows, sweetest bed,
A chamber deaf of noise and blind of light,
A rosy garland and a weary head:

And if these things, as being thine in right,

Move not thy heavy grace, thou shalt in me,
Livelier than elsewhere, Stella's image see.

Sir Philip Sidney