Tudor and Stuart Love Songs — Edward Vere, Earl of Oxford
THE SHEPHERD'S COMMENDATION OF HIS NYMPH.
What shepherd can express The favour of her face To whom, in this distress, I do appeal for grace?
A thousand Cupids fly About her gentle eye;
From which each throws a dart, That kindleth soft sweet fire Within my sighing heart, Possessed by desire: No sweeter life I try Than in her love to die!
The lily in the field, That glories in his white, For pureness now must yield And render up his right;
Heaven pictured in her face Doth promise joy and grace.
Fair Cynthia's silver light, That beats on running streams, Compares not with her white, Whose hairs are all sunbeams: So bright my Nymph doth shine As day unto my eyne!
With this, there is a red, Exceeds the damask-rose, Which in her cheeks is spread, Where every favour grows;
In sky there is no star, But she surmounts it far.
When Phoebus from the bed Of Thetis doth arise, The morning, blushing red, In fair carnation-wise, He shows in my Nymph's face, As Queen of every grace.
This pleasant lily-white, This taint of roseate red, This Cynthia's silver light, This sweet fair Dea spread, These sunbeams in mine eye, These beauties, make me die!
Edward Vere, Earl of Oxford.
A RENUNCIATION.
If women could be fair, and yet not fond, Or that their love were firm, not fickle still, I would not marvel that they make men bond By service long to purchase their good will;
But when I see how frail those creatures are, I muse that men forget themselves so far.
To mark the choice they make, and how they change, How oft from Phoebus they do flee to Pan;
Unsettled still, like haggards wild they range, These gentle birds that fly from man to man;
Who would not scorn and shake them from the fist, And let them fly, fair fools, which way they list?
Yet for disport we fawn and flatter both, To pass the time when nothing else can please, And train them to our lure with subtle oath, Till, weary of their wiles, ourselves we ease;
And then we say when we their fancy try, To play with fools, O what a fool was I!
Edward Vere, Earl of Oxford.
