How many things as yet
Are dear alike to me!
The field, the horse, the dog,
Love, arms, or liberty.
I have no wife as yet
That I may call mine own;
I have no children yet
That by my name are known.
Yet, if I married were,
I would not wish to thrive
If that I could not tame
The veriest shrew alive.
From THOMAS FORD's _Music of Sundry Kinds_, 1607.
How shall I then describe my Love?
When all men's skilful art
Is far inferior to her worth,
To praise the unworthiest part.
She's chaste in looks, mild in her speech,
In actions all discreet,
Of nature loving, pleasing most,
In virtue all complete.
And for her voice a Philomel,
Her lips may all lips scorn;
No sun more clear than is her eye,
In brightest summer morn.
A mind wherein all virtues rest
And take delight to be,
And where all virtues graft themselves
In that most fruitful tree:
A tree that India doth not yield,
Nor ever yet was seen,
Where buds of virtue always spring,
And all the year grow green.
That country's blest wherein she grows,
And happy is that rock
From whence she springs: but happiest he
That grafts in such a stock.
From HENRY LICHFILD's _First Set of Madrigals_, 1613.
I always loved to call my lady Rose,
For in her cheeks roses do sweetly glose,
And from her lips she such sweet odours threw
As roses do 'gainst Ph[oe]bus' morning-view:
But when I thought to pull't, hope was bereft me,--
My rose was gone and naught but prickles left me.
From _Melismata_, 1611.