What is étélove? ’tis not hereafter: Present mirth hath present laughter; What’s to come is still unsure: In delay there lies no plenty; Then come kiss me, sweet and twenty, Youth’s a stuff will not endure. _William Shakespeare._
SIGH no more, ladies, sigh no more, Men were deceivers ever; One foot in sea, and one on shore, To one thing constant never; Then sigh not so, But let them go, And be you blithe and bonny; Converting all your sounds of woe Into hey nonny, nonny.
Sing no more ditties, sing no more, Of dumps so dull and heavy; The fraud of men was ever so, Since summer first was leavy: Then sigh not so, But let them go, And be you blithe and bonny; Converting all your sounds of woe Into hey nonny, nonny. _William Shakespeare._
IN the merry month of May, In a morn by break of day, With a troop of damsels playing Forth I rode, forsooth, a-maying, When anon by a woodside, Where as May was in his pride, I espied, all alone, Phillida and Corydon.
Much ado there was, God wot! He would love, and she would not: She said, never man was true: He says, none was false to you. He said, he had loved her long: She says, Love should have no wrong.
Corydon would kiss her then, She says, maids must kiss no men, Till they do for good and all. Then she made the shepherd call All the heavens to witness, truth Never loved a truer youth.
Thus, with many a pretty oath, Yea, and nay, and faith and troth!— Such as silly shepherds use When they will not love abuse; Love, which had been long deluded, Was with kisses sweet concluded: And Phillida, with garlands gay, Was made the lady of the May. _Nicholas Breton._
THERE is a garden in her face Where roses and white lilies blow; A heavenly paradise is that place, Wherein all pleasant fruits do grow; There cherries grow that none may buy, Till cherry-ripe themselves do cry.
Those cherries fairly do enclose Of Orient pearl a double row, Which when her lovely laughter shows, They look like rose-buds fill’d with snow; Yet them no peer or prince may buy, Till cherry-ripe themselves do cry.
Her eyes like angels watch them still; Her brows like bended bows do stand, Threat’ning with piercing frowns to kill All that approach with eye or hand These sacred cherries to come nigh,— Till cherry-ripe themselves do cry! _Richard Allison._