THE MEASURE OF BEAUTY.

From Thomas Campion's Two Books of Airs (circ. 1613).

GIVE Beauty all her right,

She's not to one form tied;

Each shape yields fair delight,
Where her perfections bide:
Helen, I grant, might pleasing be,
And Ros❜mond was as sweet as she.

Some the quick eye commends,
Some swelling lips and red;
Pale looks have many friends,

Through sacred sweetness bred:
Meadows have flowers that pleasure move,
Though roses are the flowers of love.

Free beauty is not bound

To one unmoved clime;
She visits every ground

And favours every time.

Let the old loves with mine compare,
My sovereign is as sweet and fair.

THE SHADOW.

From Campion and Rosseter's Book of Airs, 1601.

FOLLOW thy fair sun, unhappy shadow!

Though thou be black as night,

And she made all of light,

Yet follow thy fair sun, unhappy shadow!

Follow her whose light thy light depriveth;
Though here thou livest disgraced,

And she in heaven is placed,

Yet follow her whose light the world reviveth!

Follow those pure beams whose beauty burneth,
That so have scorched thee,

As thou still black must be,

Till her kind beams thy black to brightness turneth.

Follow her! while yet her glory shineth:
There comes a luckless night,
That will dim all her light;

And this the black unhappy shade divineth.

Follow still! since so thy fates ordained;

The sun must have his shade,

Till both at once do fade;

The sun still proved, the shadow still disdained.

WHEN THOU MUST HOME.

From Campion and Rosseter's Book of Airs, 1601.

WHEN thou must home to shades of underground,

And there arrived, a new admired guest The beauteous spirits do engirt thee round, White Iope, blithe Helen, and the rest,

To hear the stories of thy finished love

From that smooth tongue whose music hell can move;

Then wilt thou speak of banqueting delights,

Of masques and revels which sweet youth did make,
Of tourneys and great challenges of knights,
And all these triumphs for thy beauty's sake:
When thou hast told these honours done to thee,

Then tell, O tell, how thou didst murder me.

DAY AND NIGHT.

From Campion's Two Books of Airs, 1613.

COME, cheerful day, part of my life to me.
For while thou view'st me with thy fading light,
Part of my life doth still depart with thee,
And I still onward haste to my last night.
Time's fatal wings do ever forward fly:
So every day we live a day we die.

But, O ye nights, ordained for barren rest,
How are my days deprived of life in you,
When heavy sleep my soul hath dispossest,
By feigned death life sweetly to renew!
Part of my life in that, you life deny:
So every day we live a day we die.

THE MAN OF LIFE UPRIGHT.

From Campion and Rosseter's Book of Airs, 1601.

HE man of life upright,

THE

Whose guiltless heart is free

From all dishonest deeds,
Or thought of vanity;

The man whose silent days
In harmless joys are spent,
Whom hopes cannot delude
Nor sorrow discontent:

That man needs neither towers

Nor armour for defence,

Nor secret vaults to fly

From thunder's violence:

He only can behold

With unaffrighted eyes

The horrors of the deep

And terrors of the skies.

Thus scorning all the cares
That fate or fortune brings,
He makes the heaven his book,
His wisdom heavenly things;

Good thoughts his only friends,
His wealth a well-spent age,
The earth his sober inn

And quiet pilgrimage.

A HYMN IN PRAISE OF NEPTUNE.

From Gesta Graiorum: Gray's Inn Masque, 1594.

F Neptune's empire let us sing,

OF

At whose command the waves obey;

To whom the rivers tribute pay,
Down the high mountains sliding:
To whom the scaly nation yields
Homage for the crystal fields
Wherein they dwell:

And every sea-god pays a gem
Yearly out of his watery cell
To deck great Neptune's diadem.

The Tritons dancing in a ring,
Before his palace-gates do make
The water with their echoes quake,
Like the great thunder sounding:

The sea-nymphs chant their accents shrill,

And the sirens, taught to kill

With their sweet voice,

Make every echoing rock reply,

Unto their gentle murmuring noise,

The praise of Neptune's empery.

WINTER NIGHTS.

From Campion's Third Book of Airs, about 1617.

NOW winter nights enlarge

The number of their hours;

And clouds their storms discharge
Upon the airy towers.

Let now the chimneys blaze
And cups o'erflow with wine,
Let well-tuned words amaze
With harmony divine!
Now yellow waxen lights

Shall wait on honey love

While youthful revels, masques, and courtly sights.
Sleep's leaden spells remove.

This time doth well dispense

With lovers' long discourse;

Much speech hath some defence,
Though beauty no remorse.

All do not all things well:
Some measures comely tread,

Some knotted riddles tell,
Some poems smoothly read.

The summer hath his joys,

And winter his delights;

Though love and all his pleasures are but toys,
They shorten tedious nights.

THE CHARM.

From Campion's Third Book of Airs.

THRICE toss these oaken ashes in the air,

Thrice sit thou mute in this enchanted chair,

Then thrice-three times tie up this true love's knot,
And murmur soft "She will or she will not ".