THOMAS DEKKER.

(1575?-1640?)

LXIV. O, SWEET CONTENT!

From Patient Grissell (1603), by Dekker, Chettle, and Haughton. Mr. Bullen thinks that the songs are clearly Dekker's.

ART thou poor, yet hast thou golden slumbers?

O, sweet content!

Art thou rich, yet is thy mind perplexed?

O, punishment !

Dost thou laugh to see how fools are vexed
To add to golden numbers golden numbers?
O, sweet content! O, sweet, &c.

Work apace, apace, apace, apace;
Honest labour bears a lovely face;

Then hey noney, noney, hey noney, noney!

Canst drink the waters of the crisped spring?
O, sweet content!

Swim'st thou in wealth, yet sink'st in thine own tears?
O, punishment!

Then he that patiently want's burden bears,
No burden bears, but is a king, a king!

O, sweet content, &c.

Work

apace, apace, &c.

LXV. COUNTRY GLEE.

From The Sun's Darling (1656), by Ford and Dekker.

HAYMAKERS, rakers, reapers, and mowers,

Wait on your Summer Queen:

Dress up with musk-rose her eglantine bowers,
Daffodils strew the green;

Sing, dance, and play,
'Tis holiday;

The sun does bravely shine

On our ears of corn.
Rich as a pearl

Comes every girl,

This is mine, this is mine, this is mine;

Let us die, ere away they be borne.

Bow to the sun, to our queen, and that fair one
Come to behold our sports:

Each bonny lass here is counted a rare one,
As those in a prince's courts.
These and we

With country glee,

Will teach the woods to resound,

And the hills with echoes hollow:
Skipping lambs

Their bleating dams,

'Mongst kids shall trip it round; For joy thus our wenches we follow.

Wind, jolly huntsmen, your neat bugles shrilly,
Hounds make a lusty cry;

Spring up, you falconers, the partridges freely,
Then let your brave hawks fly.
Horses amain,

Over ridge, over plain,

The dogs have the stag in chase:
'Tis a sport to content a king.

So ho ho! through the skies
How the proud bird flies,

And sousing1 kills with a grace!
Now the deer falls; hark, how they ring!

1 sousing, swooping.

THOMAS HEYWOOD.

(1572?-1641?.)

LXVI. PHILLIS.

From The Fair Maid of the Exchange (1607). It was, however, first printed in Breton's Bower of Delights (1591).

YE little birds that sit and sing

Amidst the shady valleys,

And see how Phillis sweetly walks
Within her garden-alleys;

Go, pretty birds, about her bower;
Sing, pretty birds, she may not lower;
Ah, me! methinks I see her frown!
Ye pretty wantons, warble.

Go, tell her through your chirping bills,
As you by me are bidden,

To her is only known my love,

Which from the world is hidden.

Go, pretty birds, and tell her so;

See that your notes strain not too low,
For still, methinks, I see her frown;
Ye pretty wantons, warble.

Go, tune your voices' harmony,
And sing, I am her lover;

Strain loud and sweet, that every note
With sweet content may move her:
And she that hath the sweetest voice,
Tell her I will not change my choice;
Yet still, methinks, I see her frown!
Ye pretty wantons, warble.

Oh, fly! make haste! see, see, she falls
Into a pretty slumber.

Sing round about her rosy bed,
That waking, she may wonder.
Say to her, 't is her lover true
That sendeth love to you, to you;
And when you hear her kind reply,
Return with pleasant warblings.

MICHAEL DRAYTON.

(1563-1631.)

LXVII. CASSAMEN AND DOWSABEL.

The

A tale told by the Shepherd Motto in the eighth Eclogue. Eclogues first appeared in Idea, the Shepherd's Garland (1593), and again, in a somewhat altered form, in Poems Lyric and Pastoral (1605?), and in the folio volume of 1619.

Most of Drayton's pastoral poetry was written under the assumed name of Rowland, in honour of a lady whom he calls Idea, and who was really Anne Goodyere, daughter of Sir Henry Goodyere of Polesworth, in Arden, and afterwards wife to Sir Henry Rainsford of Clifford Chambers, in Gloucestershire. There is unfortunately no complete modern edition of Drayton; some of his poems are to be found in Collier's Roxburghe Club volume (1856), others in Mr. A. H. Bullen's Selections (1883), others again in an edition begun by the Rev. R. Hooper. The Spenser Society propose to publish reprints of the original editions.

FAR in the country of Arden,

There wonn'd a knight, hight Cassamen,

As bold as Isenbras:1

Fell was he and eager bent,

In battle and in tournament,
As was the good sir Topas.2

1 Isenbras.

There is a metrical mediæval romance of Sir Isumbras. Sir Topas. The Rime of Sir Thopas, a burlesque on the romance of chivalry,

one of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.

He had, as antique stories tell,
A daughter clepèd Dowsabel,

A maiden fair and free:

And for she was her father's heir,
Full well she was yconn'd the leir1
Of mickle courtesy.

The silk well couth she twist and twine,
And make the fine march-pine 2,

And with the needle work:
And she couth help the priest to say
His matins on a holyday,

And sing a psalm in kirk.

She wore a frock of frolic green,
Might well become a maiden queen,

Which seemly was to see:

A hood to that so neat and fine,
In colour like the columbine,
Ywrought full featously.

Her features all as fresh above,
As is the grass that grows by Dove,
And lythe as lass of Kent:

Her skin as soft as Lemster wool,

As white as snow on Peakish Hull,

Or swan that swims in Trent.

This maiden in a morn betime,

Went forth when May was in the prime,
To get sweet setywall 3,

The honey-suckle, the charlock,
The lily, and the lady smock,

To deck her summer hall.

1 she was yconn'd the leir; she knew the learning.

2 march-pine, sweet biscuit.

3 setywall, valerian.

M