_Page_ 77. "That kisses were the _seals of love_."--Every reader will
recall
"But my kisses bring again, bring again.
_Seals of love_ but sealed in vain, sealed in vain."
(The first stanza is found among the poems of Sir Philip Sidney.)
_Page_ 80. "My prime of youth."--This song is also set to music in
Richard Alison's "Hour's Recreation," 1606, and Michael Este's
"Madrigals of three, four, and five parts," 1604. It is printed in
"Reliquiae: Wottonianae" as "By Chidick Tychborn, being young and then in
the tower, the night before his execution." Chidiock Tychbourne of
Southampton was executed with Ballard and Babington in 1586.
_Page_ 80. "My sweetest Lesbia."--The first stanza is an elegant
paraphrase from Catullus, though the last line fails to render the
rhythmical sweetness long-drawn-out of "Nox est perpetua una dormienda."
_Page_ 81. "My Thoughts are winged with Hopes."--This piece is also
found in "England's Helicon." A MS. copy, in a commonplace book found at
Hamburg, is signed "W. S." I have frequently met with these initials in
volumes of MS. poetry of the early part of the seventeenth century. The
following pretty verses in Add. MS. 21, 433, fol. 158, are subscribed
"W. S.":--
"O when will Cupid show such art
To strike two lovers with one dart?
I'm ice to him or he to me;
Two hearts alike there seldom be.
If ten thousand meet together,
Scarce one face is like another:
If scarce two faces can agree,
Two hearts alike there seldom be."
There is not the slightest ground for identifying "W. S." with
Shakespeare. Mr. Linton ("Rare Poems," p. 255) conjectures that "My
Thoughts are winged with Hopes"--which has the heading "To Cynthia" in
"England's Helicon"--may be by Raleigh.
_Page_ 83. "Now each creature."--The first stanza of "An Ode" by Samuel
Daniel, originally printed in the 1592 edition of "Delia."
"Now God be with old Simeon."--Here is another round from "Pammelia":--
"Come drink to me,
And I to thee.
And then shall we
Full well agree.
I've loved the jolly tankard,
Full seven winters and more;
I loved it so long
That I went upon the score.
Who loveth not the tankard,
He is no honest man;
And he is no right soldier,
That loveth not the can.
Tap the cannikin, troll the cannikin,
Toss the cannikin, turn the cannikin!
Hold now, good son, and fill us a fresh can,
That we may quaff it round from man to man."
Good honest verse, but ill-suited to these degenerate, tea-drinking
days.
_Page_ 85. "Now I see thy looks were feigned."--First printed in "The
Ph[oe]nix Nest," 1593, subscribed "T. L. Gent," _i.e._ Thomas Lodge, one
of the most brilliant of Elizabethan lyrists.
_Page_ 87. "Shall we play barley-break."--The fullest description of the
rustic game of barley-break is to be found in the first book of Sidney's
"Arcadia."
_Page_ 87. "Now let her change." This song is also set to Music in
Robert Jones' "Ultimum Vale" (1608).
_Page_ 89. "Now what is love" &c.--This poem originally appeared in "The
Ph[oe]nix Nest," 1593; it is also printed (in form of a dialogue) in
"England's Helicon," 1600, and Davison's "Poetical Rhapsody," 1602. It
is ascribed to Raleigh in a MS. list of Davison's. See Canon Hannah's
edition of Raleigh's poems.
_Page_ 93. "Oft have I mused."--This poem was printed in Davison's
"Poetical Rhapsody," 1602.
_Page_ 96. "Our country-swains in the morris-dance."--In Morley's
"Madrigals to Four Voices," 1594, there is a lively description of the
morris-dance:--
"Ho! who comes here with bag-piping and drumming?
O, 'tis I see the morris-dance a coming.
Come, ladies, out, O come, come quickly,
And see about how trim they dance and trickly:
Hey! there again: hark! how the bells they shake it!
Now _for our town_! once there, now for our town and take it:
Soft awhile, not away so fast, they melt them!
Piper be hang'd, knave! look, the dancers swelt them.
Out, there, stand out!--you come too far (I say) in--
There give the hobby-horse more room to play in!"
"I woo with tears and _ne'er the near_."--_Ne'er the near_ (a proverbial
expression) = Never the nigher.
_Page_ 107. "When they came home Sis _floted_ cream."--I suppose the
meaning is that Sis skimmed the cream from the milk. Halliwell (_Arch.
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 nobody 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 noble 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 assigned 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 God 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 noble 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.