Three Centuries of English Poetry: Being Selections from Chaucer to Herrick

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Rosaline Orme Masson
Macmillan and Company, 1876 - 391 pages

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Page 331 - Come away, come away, death, And in sad cypress let me be laid ; Fly away, fly away, breath ; I am slain by a fair cruel maid. My shroud of white, stuck all with yew, O, prepare it ! My part of death, no one so true Did share it.
Page 387 - Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, Old time is still a-flying, And this same flower that smiles to-day, Tomorrow will be dying.
Page 329 - When shepherds pipe on oaten straws, And merry larks are ploughmen's clocks, When turtles tread, and rooks, and daws, And maidens bleach their summer smocks, The cuckoo then, on every tree, Mocks married men, for thus sings he, Cuckoo ; Cuckoo, cuckoo...
Page 327 - Then hate me when thou wilt; if ever, now; Now, while the world is bent my deeds to cross, Join with the spite of fortune...
Page 324 - Time's glory is to calm contending kings, To unmask falsehood, and bring truth to light, To stamp the seal of time in aged things, To wake the morn, and sentinel the night, To wrong the wronger till he render right ; To ruinate proud buildings with thy hours, And smear with dust their glittering golden towers : 1 To fill with worm-holes stately monuments, To feed oblivion with decay of things, To blot old books, and alter their contents, To pluck the quills from ancient ravens...
Page 272 - Go, soul, the body's guest, Upon a thankless errand ! Fear not to touch the best, The truth shall be thy warrant Go, since I needs must die, And give the world the lie.
Page 330 - Tu-whit, tu-who ! a merry note, While greasy Joan doth keel the pot. When all aloud the wind doth blow, And coughing drowns the parson's saw, And birds sit brooding in the snow, And Marian's nose looks red and raw, When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl, Then nightly sings the staring owl, Tu-whit, tu-who...
Page 331 - Although thy breath be rude. Heigh-ho ! sing, heigh-ho ! unto the green holly : Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly : Then, heigh-ho, the holly ! This life is most jolly. Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky, That dost not bite so nigh As benefits forgot : Though thou the waters warp, Thy sting is not so sharp As friend remember'd not.
Page 326 - Tired with all these for restful death I cry, As to behold desert a beggar born, And needy nothing trimmed in jollity, And purest faith unhappily forsworn, And gilded honour shamefully misplaced, And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted, And right perfection wrongfully disgraced, And strength by limping sway disabled And art made tongue-tied by authority, And folly (doctor-like) controlling skill, And simple truth miscalled simplicity, And captive good attending captain ill.
Page 329 - When shepherds pipe on oaten straws And merry larks are ploughmen's clocks, When turtles tread, and rooks, and daws, And maidens bleach their summer smocks The cuckoo then, on every tree, Mocks married men; for thus sings he, Cuckoo; Cuckoo, cuckoo: O word of fear, Unpleasing to a married ear!

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