The first two stanzas of this song are printed in the 1653 edition of
the Poems of Francis Beaumont, with the title _A Raritie_. It is
set to music in Eg. MS. 2013, f. 58. Mr. Chambers points out that
Habington's poem, _Against them who lay Unchastity to the Sex of
Women_ (_Castara_, ed. Elton, p. 231), evidently refers to this poem:
They meet but with unwholesome springs
And summers which infectious are:
They hear but when the meremaid sings,
And only see the falling starre:
Who ever dare
Affirme no woman chaste and faire.
Goe cure your feavers; and you'le say
The Dog-dayes scorch not all the yeare:
In copper mines no longer stay,
But travel to the west, and there
The right ones see,
And grant all gold's not alchimie.
A poem modelled on Donne's appears in Harleian MS. 6057, and in _The
Treasury of Music. By Mr. Lawes and others._ (1669)
Goe catch a star that's falling from the sky,
Cause an immortal creature for to die;
Stop with thy hand the current of the seas,
Post ore the earth to the Antipodes;
Cause times return and call back yesterday,
Cloake January with the month of May;
Weigh out an ounce of flame, blow back the winde:
And then find faith within a womans minde.