Come come, little babe, come, silly soul, father’s shame,

Thy mother’s grief, Born as I doubt to all our dole,

And to thyself unhappy chief:

Sing lullaby and lap it warm, (more…)

It would thou wert not fair, or I were wise;

I would thou hadst no face, or I no eyes;

I would thou wert not wise, or I not fond;

Or thou not free, or I not so in bond. (more…)

Shall we go dance the hay, the hay?

Never pipe could ever play

Better shepherd’s roundelay. (more…)

Say that I should say I love ye,

Would you say ’tis but a saying?

But if love in prayers move ye, (more…)

Let the bird of loudest lay,
On the sole Arabian tree,

Herald sad and trumpet be,

To whose sound chaste wings obey.

But thou shrieking harbinger,

Foul precurrer of the fiend, (more…)

Kneel then with me, fall worm-like on the ground,

And from th’infectious dunghill of this round,

From men’s brass wits and golden foolery,

Weep, weep your souls, into felicity.

Come to this house of mourning, serve the Night, (more…)

In a loose robe of tinsel forth she came,

Nothing but it betwixt her nakedness

And envious light. The downward-burning flame

Of her rich hair did threaten new access

Of venturous Phaeton to scorch the fields; (more…)

Muses that sing Love’s sensual empery,

And lovers kindling your enraged fires

At Cupid’s bonfires burning in the eye, (more…)

Love at the lips was touch

As sweet as I could bear;

And once that seemed too much;

I lived on air

That crossed me from sweet things,

The flow of—was it musk

From hidden grapevine springs Downhill at dusk? (more…)

“Fred, where is north?”

“North? North is there, my love.

The brook runs west.”

“West-running Brook then call it.”

(West-running Brook men call it to this day.)

“What does it think it’s doing running west

When all the other country brooks flow east

To reach the ocean?

It must be the brook

Can trust itself to go by contraries (more…)