From THOMAS FORD's _Music of Sundry Kinds_, 1607.
Unto the temple of thy beauty, And to the tomb where pity lies, I, pilgrim-clad with zeal and duty, Do offer up my heart, mine eyes. My heart, lo! in the quenchless fire, On love's burning altar lies, Conducted thither by desire To be beauty's sacrifice.
But pity on thy sable hearse, Mine eyes the tears of sorrow shed; What though tears cannot fate reverse, Yet are they duties to the dead. O, Mistress, in thy sanctuary Why wouldst thou suffer cold disdain To use his frozen cruelty, And gentle pity to be slain?
Pity that to thy beauty fled, And with thy beauty should have lived, Ah, in thy heart lies burièd, And nevermore may be revived; Yet this last favour, dear, extend, To accept these vows, these tears I shed, Duties which I thy pilgrim send, To beauty living, pity dead.
From THOMAS WEELKES' _Airs or Fantastic Spirits_, 1608.
Upon a hill the bonny boy Sweet Thyrsis sweetly played, And called his lambs their master's joy, And more he would have said; But love that gives the lover wings Withdrew his mind from other things.
His pipe and he could not agree, For Milla was his note; The silly pipe could never get This lovely name by rote: With that they both fell in a sound,[22] He fell a-sleep, his pipe to ground.
From WILLIAM BYRD's _Songs of Sundry Natures_, 1589.
Upon a summer's day Love went to swim, And cast himself into a sea of tears; The clouds called in their light, and heaven waxed dim, And sighs did raise a tempest, causing fears; The naked boy could not so wield his arms, But that the waves were masters of his might, And threatened him to work far greater harms If he devisèd not to scape by flight: Then for a boat his quiver stood instead, His bow unbent did serve him for a mast, Whereby to sail his cloth of veil he spread, His shafts for oars on either board he cast: From shipwreck safe this wag got thus to shore, And sware to bathe in lovers' tears no more.
From THOMAS CAMPION's _Second Book of Airs_ (circ. 1613).
Vain men! whose follies make a god of love; Whose blindness, beauty doth immortal deem, Praise not what you desire, but what you prove; Count those things good that are, not those that seem. I cannot call her true, that's false to me; Nor make of women, more than women be.