CAMPION, Thomas


Shall I Come, Sweet Love to Thee

SHALL 1 I come, sweet Love, to thee

When the evening beams are set?

Shall I not excluded be?

Will you find no feignèd let?

Let me not, for pity, more

Tell the long hours at your door.

Who can tell what thief or foe,

In the covert of the night,

For his prey will work my woe,

Or through wicked foul despite?

So may I die unredrest

Ere my long love be possest.

But to let such dangers pass,

Which a lover’s thoughts disdain,

’Tis enough in such a place

To attend love’s joys in vain:

Do not mock me in thy bed,

While these cold nights freeze me dead.

Cherry-ripe

There is a garden in her face

Where roses and white lilies blow;

A heavenly paradise is that place,

Wherein all pleasant fruits do flow:

There cherries grow which 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 nor peer nor prince can 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 attempt with eye or hand

Those sacred cherries to come nigh,

Till 'Cherry-ripe' themselves do cry.

Integer vitae

THE man of life upright,

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

Of Neptune's empire let us sing,

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 wat'ry 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 ev'ry echoing rock reply

Unto their gentle murmuring noise

The praise of Neptune's empery.

Though you are young and I am old

Though you are young and I am old,

Though your veins hot and my blood cold,

Though youth is moist and age is dry,

Yet embers live when flames do die.

The tender graft is eas'ly broke,

But who shall shake the sturdy oak?

You are more fresh and fair than I,

Yet stubs do live when flower do die.

Thou, that thy youth dost vainly boast,

Know, buds are soonest nipped with frost.

Think that thy fortune still doth cry:

Thou fool, tomorrow thou must die