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LULLABY

From PATIENT GRISSEL

THOMAS DEKKER

OLDEN slumbers kiss your eyes, Smiles awake you when you rise. Sleep, pretty wantons, do not cry, And I will sing a lullaby : Rock them, rock them, lullaby.

Care is heavy, therefore sleep you;
You are care, and care must keep you.
Sleep, pretty wantons, do not cry,
And I will sing a lullaby :

Rock them, rock them, lullaby.

SONG MORNING

From THE RAPE OF LUCRECE

THOMAS HEYWOOD

ACK 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 all I'll borrow.

Wake from thy nest, robin redbreast,
Sing, birds, in every furrow;
And from each bill let music shrill
Give my fair love good-morrow.
Blackbird and thrush in every bush,
Stare, linnet, and cock-sparrow,
You pretty elves, amongst yourselves,
Sing my fair love good-morrow.
To give my love good-morrow,
Sing, birds, in every furrow.

PRAISE OF CERES

From SILVER AGE

THOMAS HEYWOOD

'ITH fair Ceres, Queen of Grain,

WH

The reaped fields we roam,

Each country peasant, nymph and swain, Sing their harvest home,

Whilst the Queen of Plenty hallows

Growing fields as well as fallows.

Echo, double all our lays,

Make the champians sound
To the Queen of Harvest's praise,
That sows and reaps our ground:
Ceres, Queen of Plenty, hallows
Growing fields as well as fallows.

THE HUNTED SQUIRREL

From BRITANNIA'S PASTORALS

WILLIAM BROWNE

HEN as a nimble squirrel from the wood,
Ranging the hedges for his filbert-food,
Sits pertly on a bough his brown nuts cracking,
And from the shell the sweet white kernel taking,
Till with their crooks and bags a sort of boys,
To share with him, come with so great a noise
That he is forced to leave a nut nigh broke,
And for his life leap to a neighbour oak,

Thence to a beech, thence to a row of ashes;
Whilst through the quagmires and. red water plashes
The boys run dabbling through thick and thin,
One tears his hose, another breaks his shin,

This torn and tatter'd, hath with much ado

Got by the briers; and that hath lost his shoe;
This drops his band; that headlong falls for haste;
Another cries behind for being last;

With sticks and stones, and many a sounding hollow,
The little fool with no small sport they follow,
Whilst he from tree to tree, from spray to spray,
Gets to the wood, and hides him in his dray.

THE DESCRIPTION OF WALLA

From BRITANNIA'S PASTORALS

A

WILLIAM BROWNE

GREEN silk frock her comely shoulders clad, And took delight that such a seat it had, Which at her middle gathered up in pleats A love-knot girdle willing bondage threats.

Down to her waist her mantle loose did fall,
Which Zephyr, as afraid, still played withal;
About the edges curious to behold

A deep fringe hung of rich and twisted gold.

Upon her leg a pair of buskins white
Studded with orient pearl and chrysolite,

And, like her mantle, stitch'd with gold and green, (Fairer yet never wore the forest's queen).

A silver quiver at her back she wore,

With darts and arrows for the stag and boar;

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