Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age Part 30

Dict._) gives "Flotten-milk. Same as Flet-mitte" and "flet-mitte" is a north-country term for skimmed milk.

"Since first I saw."--This exquisite song is also found in "The Golden Garland of Princely Delights," 1620.

_Page_ 114. "Sweet Love, my only treasure."--Printed in Davison's "Poetical Rhapsody," 1602, where it is subscribed with the mysterious initials "A. W."

_Page_ 115. "Sweet, stay awhile."--I suspect that this stanza does not really belong to Donne's "Break of day;" it is not found in MS. copies of Donne's poems, nor in any edition prior to that of 1669. Probably Donne's verses were written as a companion-piece to the present poem.

_Page_ 120. "Yet merrily sings little Robin."--The loveliest of all verses in praise of Robin Redbreast are in Chapman's "Tears of Peace,"

1609:--

"Whose face _the bird_ hid _that loves humans best, That hath the bugle eyes and rosy breast, And is the yellow autumn's nightingale_."

_Page_ 120. "The love of change."--This is the first stanza of a poem which is printed entire (in six stanzas) in Davison's "Poetical Rhapsody," 1602.

_Page_ 121. "The lowest trees have tops."--Printed in Davison's "Poetical Rhapsody" with the signature "Incerto."

_Page_ 121. "The man of life upright."--In some old MS. copies this poem is ascribed to Francis Bacon: see Hannah's "Poems of Raleigh and Wotton," p. 119. Canon Hannah makes no mention of Campion's claim.

Campion distinctly tells us that he wrote both the verses and the music of his songs: and I have no doubt that he was the author of the present lyric, which has more merit than any of Bacon's poems. In an epigram printed in his "Observations in the Art of English Poetry," 1602, there is a striking image that reappears in the present poem:--

"A wise man wary lives yet most secure, Sorrows move not him greatly, nor delights, Fortune and death he scorning only makes _Th' earth his sober inn_, but still heaven his home."

(SIG. C2).

Henceforward let n.o.body claim "The man of life upright" for Bacon.

_Page_ 124. "The Nightingale so pleasant and so gay."--"According to Peacham," says Oliphant ("_Musa Madrigalesca_," p. 45), "there was a virtuous contention between W. Byrd and Ferrabosco who of the two should best set these words; in which according to his (Peacham's) opinion, Ferrabosco succeeded so well that 'it could not be bettered for sweetness of ayre and depth of judgment.'"

_Page_ 124. "The Nightingale so soon as April bringeth."--From the first stanza of a poem printed in the third edition of Sidney's "Arcadia,"

1598.

_Page_ 126. "There is a garden in her face."--This poem is also set to music in Alison's "Hour's Recreation," 1606, and Robert Jones' "Ultimum Vale" (1608). Herrick's dainty verses "Cherry-Ripe" are well-known:--

"Cherry-ripe, ripe, ripe! I cry: Full and fair ones, come and buy.

If so be you ask me where They do grow, I answer,--There, Where my Julia's lips do smile, There's the land or cherry-isle, Whose plantations fully show All the year where cherries grow."

_Page_ 127. "There is a lady sweet and kind."--Printed also in "The Golden Garland of Princely Delights," 1620.

_Page_ 128. "There were three Ravens."--The north-country version of this n.o.ble dirge contains some verses of appalling intensity:--

"His horse is to the huntin gane His hounds to bring the wild deer hame; His lady's ta'en another mate, So we may mak our dinner sweet.

"O we'll sit on his bonny breast-bane, And we'll pyke out his bonny gray een; Wi' ae lock o' his gowden hair, We'll theek our nest when it blaws bare.

"_Mony a ane for him makes mane, But none sall ken where he is gane: Ower his banes when they are bare, The wind sall blaw for evermair_."

_Page_ 130. "Think'st thou to seduce me," &c.--In William Corkine's "Airs," 1610, this song is found with considerable variations. Corkine gives only three stanzas. The first stanza agrees closely with Campion's text; the second and third stanzas run thus:--

"Learn to speak first, then to woo, to wooing much pertaineth; He that hath not art to hide, soon falters when he feigneth, And, as one that wants his wits, he smiles when he complaineth.

"If with wit we be deceived our faults may be excused, Seeming good with flattery graced is but of few refused, But of all accursed are they that are by fools abused."

_Page_ 131. "Thou art not fair for all thy red and white."--These lines are printed in Dr. Grosart's edition of Donne's poems, vol. ii. p. 259.

They are ascribed to Donne in an early MS.; but I see no reason for depriving Campion of them. (The first stanza is also set to music in Thomas Vautor's "Airs," 1619.)

_Page_ 132. "Though Amaryllis dance in green."--Also printed in "England's Helicon," 1600.

_Page_ 148. "We must not part as others do."--These lines are very much in Donne's manner. The MS. from which they are taken (Egerton MS. 2013) contains some undoubted poems of Donne.

_Page_ 151. "Were I a king."--Canon Hannah prints these verses (in his "Poems of Raleigh and Wotton," p. 147) from a MS. copy, in which they are a.s.signed to Edward Earl of Oxford. Appended in the MS. are the following answers:--

"ANSWERED THUS BY SIR P. S.

Wert thou a king, yet not command content, Sith empire none thy mind could yet suffice; Wert thou obscure, still cares would thee torment; But wert thou dead all care and sorrow dies.

An easy choice, of these three which to crave: No kingdom, nor a cottage, but a grave.

"ANOTHER OF ANOTHER MIND.

A king? oh, boon for my aspiring mind, A cottage makes a country swad rejoice: And as for death, I like him in his kind But G.o.d forbid that he should be my choice!

A kingdom or a cottage or a grave,-- Nor last, nor next, but first and best I crave; The rest I can, whenas I list, enjoy, Till then salute me thus--_Vive le roy_!

"ANOTHER OF ANOTHER MIND.

The greatest kings do least command content; The greatest cares do still attend a crown; A grave all happy fortunes doth prevent Making the n.o.ble equal with the clown: A quiet country life to lead I crave; A cottage then; no kingdom nor a grave."

_Page_ 152. "What is our life?"--A MS. copy of these verses is subscribed "S^r W. R.", _i.e._, Sir Walter Raleigh. See Hannah's "Poems of Raleigh and Wotton," p. 27.

Compare the sombre verses, signed "Ignoto," in "Reliquiae Wottonianae":--

"Man's life's a tragedy; his mother's womb, From which he enters, is the tiring-room; This s.p.a.cious earth the theatre, and the stage That country which he lives in: pa.s.sions, rage, Folly and vice are actors; the first cry The prologue to the ensuing tragedy; The former act consisteth of dumb shows; The second, he to more perfection grows; I' the third he is a man and doth begin To nurture vice and act the deeds of sin; I' the fourth declines; i' the fifth diseases clog And trouble him; then death's his epilogue."

_Page_ 153. "What needeth all this travail and turmoiling?"--Suggested by Spenser's fifteenth sonnet:--

"Ye tradefull Merchants that with weary toyle Do seeke most pretious things to make your gain, And both the Indias of their treasure spoile, What needeth you to seeke so farre in vaine?

For loe! my Love doth in her selfe containe All this worlds riches that may farre be found.

If Saphyres, loe! her eies be Saphyres plaine; If Rubies, loe! hir lips be Rubies sound; If Pearles, hir teeth be pearles, both pure and round; If Yvorie, her forehead yvory weene; If Gold, her locks are finest gold on ground; If Silver, her faire hands are silver sheene: But that which fairest is but few behold, Her mind, adornd with vertues manifold."

_Page_ 154, l. 1. "And fortune's fate not fearing."--Oliphant boldly reads, for the sake of the rhyme, "And _fickle fortune scorning_."--in "England's Helicon" the text is the same as in the song-book.

_Page_ 158, l. 5. "And when she saw that I was in her danger."--_Within one's danger_ = to be in a person's power or control.

L. 16. "White _Iope_."--Campion must have had in his mind a pa.s.sage of Propertius (ii. 28);--

"Sunt apud infernos tot millia formosarum: Pulchra sit in superis, si licet, una locis.

Vobisc.u.m est _Iope_, vobisc.u.m candida Tyro, Vobisc.u.m Europe, nec proba Pasiphae."

See Hertzberg's note on that pa.s.sage.

_Page_ 162. "While that the sun."--Also printed in "England's Helicon,"

1600.