A Book of English Literature, Selected and Ed

When to her lute Corinna sings,
Her voice revives the leaden strings,
And doth in highest notes appear
As any challenged echo clear;

1 neatly.

But Oye nights, ordained for barren

rest, How are my days deprived of life in you When heavy sleep my soul hath dispossest, By feignèd death life sweetly to re

new! Part of my life in that, you life deny: So every day we live, a day we die.

Her eyes like angels watch them still;

Her brows like bended bows do stand, Threatening with piercing frowns to kill 15 All that attempt, with eye or hand,

Those sacred cherries to come nigh
Till “Cherry-ripe” themselves do cry.

1 rippling

Which,” in his height of pride,
King Henry to deride,
His ransom to provide

To the King sending; 1 raise.

? the French general.

Well it thine age became, O noble Erpingham,

3 the command to send a ransom. 5 advance guard.

6 main host.

4 resolution. ? so that.

Which didst the signal aim

To our hid forces;
When, from a meadow by,
Like a storm suddenly,

70 The English archery

Stuck the French horses, With Spanish yew so strong, Arrows a cloth-yard long, That like to serpents stung, 75

Piercing the weather; None from his fellow starts, But, playing manly parts, And like true English hearts, Stuck close together.

80 When down their bows they threw, And forth their bilbows drew, And on the French they flew,

Not one was tardy:
Arms were from shoulders sent, 85
Scalps to the teeth were rent,
Down the French peasants went:

Our men were hardy.
This while our noble King,
His broad sword brandishing,
Down the French host did ding,

As to o'erwhelm it;
And many a deep wound lent,
His arms with blood besprent,
And many a cruel dent

95 Bruised his helmet.

Lay thy bow of pearl apart

And thy crystal-shining quiver; Give unto the flying hart Space to breathe, how short soever: Thou that mak'st a day of night, Goddess excellently bright.

SONG TO CELIA

Upon Saint Crispin's day

Fought was this noble fray; 1 strike.

a besprinkled.

THE TRIUMPH OF CHARIS

Or blind affection, which doth ne'er ad

vance

1ο

excuses

See the chariot at hand here of Love, The truth, but gropes, and urgeth all by Wherein my lady rideth!

chance; Each that draws is a swan or a dove, Or crafty malice might pretend this praise, And well the car Love guideth.

And think to ruin, where it seemed to As she goes, all hearts do duty

raise. Unto her beauty;

These are, as some infamous bawd or And enamored, do wish, so they might

whore But enjoy such a sight, Should praise a matron. What could hurt That they still were to run by her side,

her more? Through swords, through seas, whither she But thou art proof against them, and, inwould ride.

deed,

Above the ill fortune of them, or the need. Do but look on her eyes, they do light I therefore will begin. Soul of the age,

All that Love's world compriseth! The applause, delight, the wonder of our Do but look on her hair, it is bright

stage, As Love's star when it riseth!

My Shakespeare, rise! I will not lodge thee Do but mark, her forehead's smoother

by Than words that soothe her; Chaucer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie 20 And from her arched brows such a grace A little further, to make thee a room:

Sheds itself through the face, Thou art a monument without a tomb, As alone there triumphs to the life

And art alive still while thy book doth All the gain, all the good, of the elements' live, strife.

And we have wits to read and praise to

give. Have you seen but a bright lily grow, That I not mix thee so my brain

Before rude hands have touched it? I mean with great, but disproportioned Have you marked but the fall o' the snow Muses;

26 Before the soil hath smutched it?

For if I thought my judgment were of Have you felt the wool o' the beaver?

years, Or swan's down ever? I should commit? thee surely with thy Or have smelt o' the bud o' the briar?

peers, Or the nard' i' the fire? And tell how far thou didst our Lyly outOr have tasted the bag of the bee?

shine, O so white, O so soft, O so sweet is she!

30 Or sporting Kyd, or Marlowe's mighty line.

And though thou hadst small Latin and TO THE MEMORY OF MY BELOVED, less Greek, MASTER WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE From thence to honor thee, I would not

seek To draw no envy, Shakespeare, on thy For names, but call forth thundering name,

Æschylus, Am I thus ample to thy book and fame; Euripides, and Sophocles to us, While I confess thy writings to be such Pacuvius, Accius, him of Cordova dead, 35 As neither man nor muse can praise too To life again, to hear thy buskin tread, much.

And shake a stage; or when thy socks were 'Tis true, and all men's suffrage. But on, these ways

Leave thee alone for the comparison Were not the paths I meant unto thy praise; Of all that insolent 'Greece or haughty For silliest ignorance on these may light,

Rome Which, when it sounds at best, but echoes Sent forth, or since did from their ashes right;

40 spikenard.

come.

2
compare.

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