SONG TO APOLLO.

ING to Apollo, god of day,

SING

Whose golden beams with morning play,

And make her eyes so brightly shine,
Aurora's face is called divine;

Sing to Phoebus and that throne
Of diamonds which he sits upon.
Io, pæans let us sing

To Physic's and to Poesy's king!

Crown all his altars with bright fire,
Laurels bind about his lyre,
A Daphnean coronet for his head,
The Muses dance about his bed;
When on his ravishing lute he plays,
Strew his temple round with bays.
Io, pæans let us sing

To the glittering Delian king!

Omnes.

I.

From JOHN LYLY'S Mother
Bombie, 1594.

IO, BACCHUS !

O, Bacchus! To thy table

1%

Thou call'st every drunken rabble;
We already are stiff drinkers,

Then seal us for thy jolly skinkers.1
Wine, O wine,

O juice divine,

How dost thou the nowle 2 refine!

2. Plump thou mak'st men's ruby faces,

And from girls canst fetch embraces. 3. By thee our noses swell

With sparkling carbuncle. 4. O the dear blood of grapes Turns us to antic shapes,

Now to show tricks like apes,

I. Now lion-like to roar, 2. Now goatishly to whore, 3. Now hoggishly i' th' mire, 4. Now flinging hats i' th' fire. Omnes. Io, Bacchus ! at thy table,

Make us of thy reeling rabble.

1 Drawers, tapsters.

2 Head, wits.

O

LOVE'S COLLEGE.

CUPID! monarch over kings,

Wherefore hast thou feet and wings?

It is to show how swift thou art,

When thou woundest a tender heart!

Thy wings being clipped, and feet held still,
Thy bow so many could not kill.

It is all one in Venus' wanton school,
Who highest sits, the wise man or the fool.
Fools in love's college

Have far more knowledge

To read a woman over,

Than a neat prating lover :

Nay, 'tis confessed

That fools please women best.

From The Maid's

phosis,1 1600.

THE URCHINS' DANCE.

Y the moon we sport and play,

BY

With the night begins our day:

As we frisk2 the dew doth fall :

Trip it, little urchins all !

Lightly as the little bee,

Two by two, and three by three :

And about go we, and about go we!

Metamor

1 An anonymous play ascribed (without evidence) to Lyly. 2 This is the reading in Ravenscroft's Brief Discourse, &c.The play reads "As we daunce."

From GEORGE PEELE'S The
Arraignment of Paris, 1584.

FAIR AND FAIR, AND TWICE SO FAIR.

Enone.

FAIR

AIR and fair, and twice so fair,
As fair as any may be ;

The fairest shepherd on our green,
A love for any lady.

Paris. Fair and fair, and twice so fair,
As fair as any may be ;

En.

Thy love is fair for thee alone,

And for no other lady.

My love is fair, my love is gay,

As fresh as bin the flowers in May,
And of my love my roundelay,

My merry, merry, merry roundelay,
Concludes with Cupid's curse,——

They that do change old love for new,
Pray gods they change for worse!

Ambo simul. They that do change, &c.

En.

Par.

My love can pipe, my love can sing,
My love can many a pretty thing,

And of his lovely praises ring

My merry, merry roundelays,

Amen to Cupid's curse,
They that do change, &c.

They that do change, &c.

Ambo. Fair and fair, &c.

C

THE SAD SHEPHERD'S PASSION OF LOVE.

GENTLE Love, ungentle for thy deed,

Thou mak'st my heart

A bloody mark

With piercing shot to bleed.

Shoot soft, sweet Love, for fear thou shoot amiss, For fear too keen

Thy arrows been,

And hit the heart where my beloved is.
Too fair that fortune were, nor never I
Shall be so blest,

Among the rest,

That Love shall seize on her by sympathy. Then since with Love my prayers bear no boot, This doth remain

To cease my pain,

I take the wound, and die at Venus' foot.