I SAW my Lady weep,
And Sorrow proud to be advancàed so
In those fair eyes where all perfections keep.
    Her face was full of woe;
But such a woe (believe me) as wins more hearts
Than Mirth can do with her enticing parts.

    Sorrow was there made fair,
And Passion wise; Tears a delightful thing;
Silence beyond all speech, a wisdom rare:
    She made her sighs to sing,
And all things with so sweet a sadness move
As made my heart at once both grieve and love.

    O fairer than aught else
The world can show, leave off in time to grieve!
Enough, enough: your joyful look excels:
    Tears kill the heart, believe.
O strive not to be excellent in woe,
Which only breeds your beauty’s overthrow.

76   Sister, Awake!

Thomas Bateson’s First Set of
English Madrigals, 1604

SISTER, awake! close not your eyes!
   The day her light discloses,
And the bright morning doth arise
   Out of her bed of roses.

See the clear sun, the world’s bright eye,
   In at our window peeping:
Lo, how he blusheth to espy
   Us idle wenches sleeping!

Therefore awake! make haste, I say,
   And let us, without staying,
All in our gowns of green so gay
   Into the Park a-maying!

77   Devotion

Captain Tobias Hume’s The First
     Part of Airs, &c., 1605

FAIN would I change that note
To which fond Love hath charm’d me
Long, long to sing by rote,
Fancying that that harm’d me:
Yet when this thought doth come,
‘Love is the perfect sum
    Of all delight,’
I have no other choice
Either for pen or voice
    To sing or write.

O Love! they wrong thee much
That say thy sweet is bitter,
When thy rich fruit is such
As nothing can be sweeter.
Fair house of joy and bliss,
Where truest pleasure is,
    I do adore thee:
I know thee what thou art,
I serve thee with my heart,
    And fall before thee.

78   Since First I saw your Face

Thomas Ford’s Music of
   Sundry Kinds, 1607

SINCE first I saw your face I resolved to honour and
renown ye;
If now I be disdainàed I wish my heart had never known ye.
What? I that loved and you that liked, shall we begin to
    wrangle?
No, no, no, my heart is fast, and cannot disentangle.
If I admire or praise you too much, that fault you may forgive
     me;
Or if my hands had stray’d but a touch, then justly might
    you leave me.
I ask’d you leave, you bade me love; is ’t now a time to chide
    me?
No, no, no, I’ll love you still what fortune e’er betide me.
The Sun, whose beams most glorious are, rejecteth no
    beholder,
And your sweet beauty past compare made my poor eyes the
    bolder:
Where beauty moves and wit delights and signs of kindness
    bind me,
There, O there, where’er I go I’ll leave my heart behind me!

79   There is a Lady sweet and kind

Thomas Ford’s Music of
    Sundry Kinds, 1607

THERE is a Lady sweet and kind,
Was never face so pleased my mind;
I did but see her passing by,
And yet I love her till I die.