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The Works of Thomas Campion

Complete Songs, Masques, and Treatises with a Selection of the Latin Verse: Edited with an introduction and notes by Walter R. Davis

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SONGS APPENDED TO SIDNEY'S ASTROPHEL AND STELLA
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3

SONGS APPENDED TO SIDNEY'S ASTROPHEL AND STELLA


5

CANTO PRIMO.

Harke, all you Ladies that doo sleepe:
The Fairie Queene Proserpina
Bids you awake, and pitie them that weepe:
You may doo in the darke
What the day doth forbid:
Feare not the doggs that barke,
Night will have all hid.
But if you let your Lovers mone,
The Fairie Queene Proserpina
Will send abroad hir Fairies everie one,
That shall pinch blacke and blew
Your white hands and faire armes,
That did not kindly rewe
Your Paramours harmes.
In myrtle arbours on the downes,
The Fairie Queene Proserpina,
This night by Moone shine leading merrie rounds,
Holds a watch with sweete Love;
Downe the dale, up the hill,
No plaints nor grieves may move
Their holy vigill.
All you that will hold watch with Love,
The Fairie Queene Proserpina
Will make you fairer than Dianas Dove;

6

Roses red, Lillies white,
And the cleere damaske hue,
Shall on your cheekes alight:
Love will adorne you.
All you that love, or lov'd before,
The Fairie Queene Proserpina
Bids you increase that loving humour more:
They that have not yet fed
On delight amorous,
She vowes that they shall lead
Apes in Avernus.

7

CANTO SECUNDO.

What faire pompe have I spide of glittering Ladies;
With locks sparckled abroad, and rosie Coronet
On their yvorie browes, trackt to the daintie thies
With roabs like Amazons, blew as Violet,
With gold Aglets adornd, some in a changeable
Pale, with spangs wavering, taught to be moveable.
Then those Knights that a farre off with dolorous viewing
Cast their eyes hetherward: loe, in an agonie,
All unbrac'd, crie aloud, their heavie state ruing:
Moyst cheekes with blubbering, painted as Ebonie
Blacke; their feltred haire torne with wrathfull hand:
And whiles astonied, starke in a maze they stand.
But hearke, what merry sound! what sodaine harmonie!
Looke, looke neere the grove where the Ladies doe tread
With their knights the measures waide by the melodie!
Wantons, whose travesing make men enamoured!
Now they faine an honor, now by the slender wast
He must lift hir aloft, and seale a kisse in hast.
Streight downe under a shadow for wearines they lie
With pleasant daliance, hand knit with arme in arme;
Now close, now set aloof, they gaze with an equall eie,
Changing kisses alike; streight with a false alarme,
Mocking kisses alike, powt with a lovely lip.
Thus drownd with jollities, their merry daies doe slip.

8

But stay! now I discerne they goe on a Pilgrimage
Toward Loves holy land, faire Paphos or Cyprus.
Such devotion is meete for a blithesome age;
With sweet youth it agrees well to be amorous.
Let olde angrie fathers lurke in an Hermitage:
Come, weele associate this jollie Pilgrimage!

9

CANTO TERTIO.

My Love bound me with a kisse
That I should no longer staie;
When I felt so sweete a blisse,
I had lesse power to passe away:
Alas, that women do not knowe,
Kisses make men loath to goe.

CANTO QUARTO.

Love whets the dullest wittes, his plagues be such;
But makes the wise, by pleasing, doat as much.
So wit is purchast by this dire disease:
Oh let me doat, so Love be bent to please.

10

CANTO QUINTO.

A daie, a night, an houre of sweete content
Is worth a world consum'd in fretfull care.
Unequall Gods, in your Arbitrement
To sort us daies whose sorrowes endles are!
And yet what were it? as a fading flower:
To swim in blisse a daie, a night, an hower.
What plague is greater than the griefe of minde?
The griefe of minde that eates in everie vaine,
In everie vaine that leaves such clods behind,
Such clods behind as breed such bitter paine,
So bitter paine that none shall ever finde
What plague is greater than the griefe of minde.
Doth sorrowe fret thy soule? o direfull spirit!
Doth pleasure feede thy heart? o blessed man!
Hast thou bin happie once? o heavie plight!
Are thy mishaps forepast? o happie than!
Or hast thou blisse in eld? o blisse too late!
But hast thou blisse in youth? o sweete estate!
Finis.
CONTENT.