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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 | The Works of Thomas Campion |  |
120
1. TO THE MOST SACRED King James.
O Griefe, how divers are thy shapes wherein men languish!
The face sometime with teares thou fil'st,
Sometime the hart thou kill'st
With unseene anguish.
Sometime thou smil'st to view how Fate
Playes with our humane state:
So farre from surety here
Are all our earthly joyes,
That what our strong hope buildes, when least wee feare,
A stronger power destroyes.
The face sometime with teares thou fil'st,
Sometime the hart thou kill'st
With unseene anguish.
Sometime thou smil'st to view how Fate
Playes with our humane state:
So farre from surety here
Are all our earthly joyes,
That what our strong hope buildes, when least wee feare,
A stronger power destroyes.
O Fate, why shouldst thou take from KINGS their joy and treasure?
Their Image if men should deface,
'Twere death, which thou dost race
Even at thy pleasure.
Wisedome of holy Kings yet knowes
Both what it hath, and owes.
Heav'ns hostage, which you bredd
And nurst with such choyce care,
Is ravisht now, great KING, and from us ledd
When wee were least aware.
Their Image if men should deface,
'Twere death, which thou dost race
Even at thy pleasure.
Wisedome of holy Kings yet knowes
Both what it hath, and owes.
Heav'ns hostage, which you bredd
And nurst with such choyce care,
Is ravisht now, great KING, and from us ledd
When wee were least aware.
| The Works of Thomas Campion | |