Gateway to the Classics: Oxford Book of English Verse, Part 1 by Arthur Quiller-Couch

Oxford Book of English Verse, Part 1

by Arthur Quiller-Couch

Table of Contents

Of a Rose, a Lovely Rose

Spring Song of the Birds

Robin and Makyne

The Bludy Serk

To a Lady

In Honour of the City of London

On the Nativity of Christ

Lament for the Makers

May in the Green-Wood

Carol

Quia Amore Langueo

The Nut-Brown Maid

As Ye Came from the Holy Land

The Lover in Winter Plaineth for the Spring

Balow

The Old Cloak

To Mistress Margery Wentworth

To Mistress Margaret Hussey

Vixi Puellis Nuper Idoneus

To His Lute

Description of Spring

Complaint of the Absence of Her Lover

The Means to Attain Happy Life

A True Love

A Bequest of His Heart

The Night Is Near Gone

Jolly Good Ale and Old

When Flora Had O'erfret the Firth

Lusty May

My Heart Is High Above

A Praise of His Lady

To Her Sea-Faring Lover

The Faithless Shepherdess

Crabbed Age and Youth

How Can the Heart Forget Her?

Since First I Saw Your Face

There Is a Lady Sweet and Kind

Love Not Me For Comely Grace

Splendidis Longum Valedico Nugis

On the Death of Sir Philip Sidney

Love Is a Sickness

Ulysses and the Siren

Beauty, Time, and Love

To the Virginian Voyage

The Passionate Shepherd to His Love

Her Reply

To His Lute

My lute, awake! perform the last
Labour that thou and I shall waste,
And end that I have now begun;

For when this song is said and past,

My lute, be still, for I have done.

As to be heard where ear is none,
As lead to grave in marble stone,
My song may pierce her heart as soon:

Should we then sing, or sigh, or moan?

No, no, my lute! for I have done.

The rocks do not so cruelly
Repulse the waves continually,
As she my suit and affectión;

So that I am past remedy:

Whereby my lute and I have done.

Proud of the spoil that thou hast got
Of simple hearts thorough Love's shot,
By whom, unkind, thou hast them won;

Think not he hath his bow forgot,

Although my lute and I have done.

Vengeance shall fall on thy disdain,
That makest but game of earnest pain:
Trow not alone under the sun

Unquit to cause thy lover's plain,

Although my lute and I have done.

May chance thee lie wither'd and old
The winter nights that are so cold,
Plaining in vain unto the moon:

Thy wishes then dare not be told:

Care then who list! for I have done.

And then may chance thee to repent
The time that thou has lost and spent
To cause thy lover's sigh and swoon:

Then shalt thou know beauty but lent,

And wish and want as I have done.

Now cease, my lute! this is the last
Labour that thou and I shall waste,
And ended is that we begun:

Now is this song both sung and past—

My lute, be still, for I have done.

— Sir Thomas Wyatt
1503-1542

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