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I'll lay my

breast upon a silver stream,

And swim unto Elysium's lilly fields ;
There in ambrosian trees I'll write a theme
Of all the woeful sighs my sorrow yields.
A heavy, sad, and swan-like song, sing I,
To ease my heart a while before I die.

Farewell, fair woods, where sing the nightingales,
Farewell, fair fields, where feed the light-foot does,
Farewell, you groves, you hills and flowery dales,
But fare thou ill, the cause of all my woes :
A heavy, sad, and swan-like song, sing I,
To ease my heart a while before I die.

Ring out my ruth, you hollow caves of stone,
Both birds and beasts with all things on the ground:
You senseless trees, be assistant to my moan,
That up to heaven my sorrows may resound.
A heavy, sad, and swan-like song, sing I,
To ease my heart a while before I die.

Let all the towns of Thrace ring out my knell,
And write in leaves of brass what I have said,
That after ages may remember well,
How Rossalind both liv'd, and died a maid:
A heavy, sad, and swan-like song, sing I,
while before I die.

To ease my heart

LI.

PITHIAS'S LAMENT FOR THE LOSS OF DAMON.

[From the very rare old Drama of Damon and Pithias.]

AWAKE ye woeful wights

That long have wept in woe,

Resign to me your plaints and tears,

My hapless hap to show :

My woe no tongue can tell,"
Ne pen can well descry:
O what a death is this to hear,
Damon my friend must die.

The loss of worldly wealth
Man's wisdom may restore,
And physick hath provided too
A salve for every sore:

But my

true friend once lost,

No art can well supply:

Then what a death is this to hear!

Damon my friend must die.

[graphic]

My mouth refuse the food,
That should my limbs sustain,
Let sorrow sink into my breast,

And ransack every vein :
You furies all at once,

On me your torments try:
Why should I live since that I hear,
Damon my friend shall die.

Gripe me, you greedy griefs, And present pangs of deaths, You sisters three with cruel hands, With speed now stop my breath; Shrine me in clay alive,

Some good man stop mine eye : Oh death come now, seeing I hear Damon my friend must die.

LII.

OLD TITHON.

[From the old Comedy of Wily Beguiled.]

OLD Tithon must forsake his dear,

The lark doth chant her chearful lay; Aurora smiles with merry cheer, To welcome in a happy day.

The beasts do' skip,

The sweet birds sing;
The wood nymphs dance,
The echoes ring.

The hollow caves with joy resound,
And pleasures ev'ry where abound:
The graces linking hand in hand,
In love have knit a glorious band.

[graphic]

LIII.

THREE-MAN'S SONG.

[From "The Shomaker's Holyday." 1600.]

O THE month of May, the merry month of May,
So frolick, so gay, and so green, so green, so green,
O and then did I unto my true love say,

Sweet Peg, thou shalt be my summer's queen.

Now the nightingale, the pretty nightingale,
The sweetest singer in all the forest's quire,
Intreats thee, sweet Peggy, to hear thy true love's tale,
Lo yonder she sitteth, her breast against a brier,

But O, I spy the cuckow, the cucków, the cuckow,
See where she sitteth, come away my joy:
Come away, I prithee, I do not like the cuckow
Should sing where my Peggy and I kiss and toy.

O the month of May, the merry month of May,
So frolick, so gay, and so green, so green,
O and then did I unto my true love say,
Sweet Peg, thou shalt be my summer's

queen.

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