HOW SHOULD I YOUR TRUE LOVE KNOW?

From HAMLET

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

OW should I your true love know

From another one?

By his cockle hat and staff,

And his sandal shoon.

He is dead and gone, lady,

He is dead and gone,

At his head a grass-green turf,

At his heels a stone.

White his shroud as the mountain snow,

Larded with sweet flowers,

Which bewept to the grave did go

With true-love showers.

A

THE NIGHTINGALE

From CYNTHIA, ETC.

RICHARD BARNFIELD

S it fell upon a day

In the merry month of May,

Sitting in a pleasant shade

Which a grove of myrtles made,
Beasts did leap and birds did sing,

Trees did grow and plants did spring,
Everything did banish moan

Save the nightingale alone.
She, poor bird, as all forlorn,
Lean'd her breast against a thorn,

And there sung the dolefullest ditty
That to hear it was great pity.

Fie, fie, fie, now would she cry;

Tereu, tereu, by and by:

That to hear her so complain

Scarce I could from tears refrain;

For her griefs so lively shown
Made me think upon mine own.

-Ah, thought I, thou mourn'st in vain, None takes pity on thy pain:

Senseless trees they cannot hear thee;
King Pandion, he is dead,

All thy friends are lapp'd in lead:
All thy fellow birds do sing
Careless of thy sorrowing:
Even so, poor bird, like thee
None alive will pity me.

QUEEN MAB'S VISIT TO PIGWIGGEN

From NYMPHIDIA: THE COURT OF FAIRY

MICHAEL DRAYTON

ER chariot ready straight is made,
Each thing therein is fitting laid,
That she by nothing might be staid,
For nought must be her letting;-
Four nimble gnats the horses were,
Their harnesses of gossamere,
Fly Cranion her charioteer,

Upon the coach-box getting.

Her chariot of a snail's fine shell,
Which for the colours did excel;
The fair Queen Mab becoming well,
So lively was the limning:
The seat, the soft wool of the bee,
The cover (gallantly to see)

The wing of a pied butterfly;

I trow 'twas simple trimming.

The wheels composed of crickets' bones,
And daintily made for the nonce :
For fear of rattling on the stones,

With thistle-down they shod it;
For all her maidens much did fear,
If Oberon had chanced to hear

That Mab, his queen, should have been there,

He would not have abode it.

She mounts her chariot in a trice,
Nor would she stay for no advice,
Until her maids, that were so nice,
To wait on her were fitted,
But ran herself away alone;

Which when they heard, there was not one
But hasted after to begone,

As she had been diswitted.

Hop and Mop and Drab, so clear,
Pip and Trip and Skip that were
To Mab, their sovereign, dear,

Her special maids of honour;
Fib and Tib and Pink and Pin,
Tick and Quick and Jill and Fin,
Tit and Nit and Wap and Win,
The train that wait upon her.

Upon a grasshopper they got,
And what with amble and with trot,
For hedge or ditch they spared not,

But after her they hie them.

A cobweb over them they throw,
To shield the wind if it should blow,
Themselves they wisely could bestow
Lest any should espy them.