POET'S WALK

Book the First

I

A MORNING SONG

(Cymbeline.)

HARK, hark! the lark at Heaven's gate sings, And Phoebus 'gins arise,

His steeds to water at those springs

On chaliced flowers that lies;
And winking Mary-buds begin
To ope their golden eyes:

With every thing that pretty is,
My lady sweet, arise:
Arise, arise.

William Shakespeare.

2

A GREETING

PACK, clouds, away, and welcome, day,
With night we banish sorrow;
Sweet air, blow soft, mount, larks, aloft
To give my Love good-morrow!
Wings from the wind to please her mind,
Notes from the lark I'll borrow;

Bird, prune thy wing, nightingale, sing,
To give my Love good-morrow!

To give my Love good-morrow,
Notes from them both I'll borrow.

B

Wake from thy nest, Robin Redbreast,
Sing, birds, in every furrow;
And from each hill let music shrill
Give my fair Love good-morrow!
Blackbird and thrush in every bush,
Stare, linnet, and cock-sparrow,
You pretty elves, amongst yourselves
Sing my fair Love good-morrow!
To give my Love good-morrow
Sing, birds, in every furrow!

Thomas Heywood.

3

THE CONSOLATIONS OF POETRY

(The Shepherd's Hunting.)

SHE doth tell me where to borrow
Comfort in the midst of sorrow;
Makes the desolatest place
To her presence be a grace;
And the blackest discontents
Be her fairest ornaments.
In my former days of bliss
Her divine skill taught me this,
That from everything I saw
I could some invention draw,
And raise pleasure to her height
Through the meanest object's sight.
By the murmur of a spring,
Or the least bough's rusteling,
By a daisy, whose leaves spread
Shut when Titan goes to bed,
Or a shady bush or tree,
She could more infuse in me,
Than all Nature's beauties can
In some other wiser man.