Music, thou queen of heaven, care-charming spell,

My story tells, by Love they wereTurn’d to these springs which we see here:The pretty whimpering that they make,When of the banks their leave they take,Tells ye but this, they are the same,In nothing changed but in their name.

Though they be few in number, I’m content;If otherwise, I stand indifferent,Nor makes it matter, Nestor’s years to tell,If man lives long, and if he live not well.A multitude of days still heaped onSeldom brings order, but confusion.Might I make choice, long life should be with-stood;Nor would I care how short it were, if good;Which…

Thou pretty Baby, born here,With sup’rabundant scorn here;Who for thy princely port here,Hadst for thy placeOf birth, a baseOut-stable for thy court here.Instead of neat enclosuresOf interwoven osiers;Instead of fragrant posiesOf daffadils and roses,Thy cradle, kingly stranger,As gospel tells,Was nothing else,But, here, a homely manger.But we with silks, not cruels,With sundry precious jewels,And lily-work will…

Next, to be rich by no by-ways;Lastly, with friends t’ enjoy our days.

Duly, morn and evening, come,And with flowers dress my tomb.–Having promised, pay your debtsMaids, and here strew violets.

And dropping here and there;Not that I think that any dartCan make your’s bleed a tear,Or pierce it any where;Yet do it to this end,–that IMay byThis secret see,Though you can makeThat heart to bleed, your’s ne’er will acheFor me,

Pray be silent and not stirTh’ easy earth that covers her.

Age calls me hence, and my gray hairs bid come,And haste away to mine eternal home;‘Twill not be long, Perilla, after this,That I must give thee the supremest kiss:–Dead when I am, first cast in salt, and bringPart of the cream from that religious spring,With which, Perilla, wash my hands and feet;That done, then wind…

Tarts and custards, creams and cakes,Are the junkets still at wakes;Unto which the tribes resort,Where the business is the sport:Morris-dancers thou shalt see,Marian, too, in pageantry;And a mimic to deviseMany grinning properties.Players there will be, and thoseBase in action as in clothes;Yet with strutting they will pleaseThe incurious villages.Near the dying of the dayThere will…

But only craveOf you that I may haveA sacred laurel springing from my grave:Which being seenBlest with perpetual green,May grow to beNot so much call’d a tree,As the eternal monument of me.

Who as soon fell fast asleep,As her little eyes did peep.–Give her strewings, but not stirThe earth, that lightly covers her.

After that, in the mouldLong for to lie here.But before that day comes,Still I be bousing;For I know, in the tombsThere’s no carousing.