Love's Laws

Away with these self-loving lads
Whom Cupid's arrow never glads;
Away, poor souls, that sigh and weep
In love of those that lie asleep;
For Cupid is a meadow-god,
And forceth none to kiss the rod.

Sweet Cupid's shafts, like Destiny,
Do causeless good or ill decree;
Desert is born out of his bow,
Reward upon his wing doth go:

What fools are they that have not known
That Love likes no laws but his own.

My songs they be of Cynthia's praise,
I wear her rings on holy-days,
In every tree I write her name,
And every day I read the same.
Where honour Cupid's rival is,
There miracles are seen of his.

If Cynthia crave her ring of me,
I blot her name out of the tree;

If doubt do darken things held dear,
Then well fare nothing once a year;
For many run, but one must win:
Fools only hedge the cuckoo in.

The worth that worthiness should move
Is love, that is the bow of Love;
And love as well the foster can
As can the mighty nobleman.

Sweet saint, 'tis true, you worthy be,
Yet without love nought worth to me.

Spring

John Lyly

What bird so sings, yet so does wail?
O! 'tis the ravished nightingale.
“Jug, jug, jug, jug, tereu!" she cries,
And still her woes at midnight rise.
Brave prick-song! who is 't now we hear?
None but the lark so shrill and clear;
Now at heaven's gates she claps

wings,

The morn not waking till she sings.
Hark, hark, with what a pretty throat
Poor robin redbreast tunes his note!
Hark how the jolly cuckoos sing,

་་

'Cuckoo", to welcome in the spring! "Cuckoo", to welcome in the spring!

her

Campaspe

Cupid and my Campaspe played
At cards for kisses, Cupid paid:

He stakes his quiver, bow, and arrows,
His mother's doves, and team of sparrows;
Loses them too; then down he throws
The coral of his lip, the rose

Growing on's cheek (but none knows how);

With these, the crystal of his brow,
And then the dimple of his chin:
All these did my Campaspe win.
At last he set her both his eyes;
She won, and Cupid blind did rise.
O Love! has she done this for thee?
What shall, alas! become of me?

Nicholas Breton

Phyllida
and Corydon

In the merry month of May,
In a morn by break of day,
Forth I walked by the woodside
Whenas May was in his pride:
There I spied all alone
Phyllida and Corydon.

Much ado there was, God wot!
He would love and she would not.
She said, never man was true;
He said, none was false to you.

He said, he had loved her long;
She said, Love should have no wrong.
Corydon would kiss her then;
She said, maids must kiss no men
Till they did for good and all;
Then she made the shepherd call
All the heavens to witness truth
Never loved a truer youth.