XI. THE PASSIONATE SHEPHERD TO HIS LOVE.
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The attribution of this poem is questionable.
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This beautiful sonnet is quoted in the Merry Wives of
Windsor, A. 3. sc. 1. and is ascribed (together with
the Reply) to Shakespeare himself by all the modern
editors of his smaller poems. In Lintot's
Collection of
them, 12mo. (no date) is a copy of this sonnet containing
only four stanzas (the 4th and 6th being wanting), accompanied
with the first stanza of the Answer. This edition
has some appearance of exactness, and is affirmed to
be reprinted from an ancient copy, containing “
The passionate
pilgrime, and
Sonnets to sundry
notes of Musicke, by Mr.
William Shakespeare.
Lond. printed for
W. Jaggard. 1599.”
—If this may be relied on, then was this sonnet, &c.
published, as Shakespeare's, in his Life-time.
And yet there is good reason to believe that (not Shakespeare,
but) Christopher Marlow, wrote the song,
and Sir Walter Raleigh the “Nymph's reply:” For
so we are positively assured by Isaac Walton, a writer of
some credit, who has inserted them both in his Compleat
Angler
, under the character of “that smooth song,
which was made by Kit. Marlow, now at least fifty
years ago; and . . . an Answer to it, which was made
by Sir Walter Raleigh in his younger days. . . . Old-fashioned
poetry, but choicely good.”—It also passed for
Marlow's in the opinion of his contemporaries; for the editor
of the “Muses Library” has reprinted a poem from England's
Helicon, 1600, subscribed Ignoto, and thus
intitled, “In Imitation of C. Marlow,” beginning thus,
“Come live with me, and be my dear,
“And we will revel all the year,
“In plains and groves, &c.”
Upon the whole I am inclined to attribute them to Marlow,
and Raleigh; not-withstanding the authority of Shakespeare's
Book of Sonnets. For it is well known that as he
took no care of his own compositions, so was he utterly regardless
what spurious things were fathered upon him. Sir
John Oldcastle, Pericles, and the
London prodigal,
were printed with his name at full length in the
title-pages, while he was living, which yet were afterwards
rejected by his first editors
Heminge and
Condell,
who were his intimate friends
, and therefore no doubt had
good authority for setting them aside.
The following sonnet appears to have been (as it deserved)
a great favourite with our earlier poets: for besides
the imitation above-mentioned, another is to be found
among Donne's poems, intitled “The Bait,” beginning thus,
“Come live with me, and be my love,
“And we will some new pleasures prove
“Of golden sands, &c.
As for Chr. Marlow, who was in high repute for his
Dramatic writings, he lost his life by a stab received in a brothel, before the year 1593.
See A. Wood, I. 138.
Come live with me, and be my love,
And we wil all the pleasures prove
That hils and vallies, dale and field,
And all the craggy mountains yield.
There will we sit upon the rocks,
And see the shepherds feed their flocks,
By shallow rivers, to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.
There will I make thee beds of roses
With a thousand fragrant posies,
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
Imbrodered all with leaves of mirtle;
A gown made of the finest wool,
Which from our pretty lambs we pull;
Slippers lin'd choicely for the cold,
With buckles of the purest gold;
A belt of straw, and ivie buds,
With coral clasps, and amber studs:
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Then live with me, and be my love.
The shepherd swains shall dance and sing
For thy delight each May mornìng:
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me, and be my love.
The Nymph's Reply.
If that the World and Love were young,
And truth in every shepherd's toung,
These pretty pleasures might me move
To live with thee, and be thy love.
But time drives flocks from field to fold,
When rivers rage, and rocks grow cold,
And Philomel becometh dumb,
And all complain of cares to come.
The flowers do fade, and wanton fields
To wayward winter reckoning yield:
A honey tongue, a heart of gall,
Is fancies spring, but sorrows fall.
Thy gowns, thy shoes, thy beds of roses,
Thy cap, thy kirtle, and thy posies,
Soon break, soon wither, soon forgotten,
In folly ripe, in reason rotten.
Thy belt of straw, and ivie buds,
Thy coral clasps, and amber studs;
All these in me no means can move
To come to thee, and be thy love.
But could youth last, and love still breed,
Had joyes no date, nor age no need;
Then those delights my mind might move
To live with thee, and be thy love.
