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

Ulysses and the Siren

Siren:        Come, worthy Greek! Ulysses, come,
Possess these shores with me:
The winds and seas are troublesome,
And here we may be free.

Here may we sit and view their toil
That travail in the deep,
And joy the day in mirth the while,
And spend the night in sleep.

Ulysses:     Fair Nymph, if fame or honour were
To be attain'd with ease,
Then would I come and rest me there,
And leave such toils as these.

But here it dwells, and here must I
With danger seek it forth:
To spend the time luxuriously
Becomes not men of worth.

Siren:        Ulysses, O be not deceived
With that unreal name;
This honour is a thing conceived,
And rests on others' fame:

Begotten only to molest
Our peace, and to beguile
The best thing of our life—our rest,
And give us up to toil.

Ulysses:     Delicious Nymph, suppose there were
No honour nor report,
Yet manliness would scorn to wear
The time in idle sport:

For toil doth give a better touch
To make us feel our joy,
And ease finds tediousness as much
As labour yields annoy.

Siren:        Then pleasure likewise seems the shore
Whereto tends all your toil,
Which you forgo to make it more,
And perish oft the while.

Who may disport them diversely
Find never tedious day,
And ease may have variety
As well as action may.

Ulysses:     But natures of the noblest frame
These toils and dangers please;
And they take comfort in the same
As much as you in ease;

And with the thought of actions past
Are recreated still:
When Pleasure leaves a touch at last
To show that it was ill.

Siren:        That doth Opinion only cause
That's out of Custom bred,
Which makes us many other laws
Than ever Nature did.

No widows wail for our delights,
Our sports are without blood;
The world we see by warlike wights
Receives more hurt than good.

Ulysses:     But yet the state of things require
These motions of unrest:
And these great Spirits of high desire
Seem born to turn them best:

To purge the mischiefs that increase
And all good order mar:
For oft we see a wicked peace
To be well changed for war.

Siren:        Well, well, Ulysses, then I see
I shall not have thee here:
And therefore I will come to thee,
And take my fortune there.

I must be won, that cannot win,

Yet lost were I not won;

For beauty hath created been

T' undo, or be undone.

— Samuel Daniel
1562-1619

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