Thomas Campion

Kind are her answers, But her performance keeps no day; Breaks time, as dancers From their own music when they stray: All her free favors And smooth words wing my hopes in vain. O did ever voice so sweet but only feign? Can true love yield such delay, Converting joy to pain? Lost is our freedom, When we submit to women so: Why do we need ’em, When in their best they work our woe? There is no wisdom Can alter ends, by Fate prefixed. O why is the good of man with evil mixed? Never were days yet called two, But one night went betwixt.

I care not for these ladies, That must be wooed and prayed: Give me kind Amaryllis, The wanton country maid. Nature art disdaineth, Her beauty is her own. Her when we court and kiss, She cries, “Forsooth, let go!” But when we come where comfort is, She never will say no. If I love Amaryllis, She gives me fruit and flowers: But if we love these ladies, We must give golden showers. Give them gold, that sell love, Give me the nut-brown lass, Who, when we court and kiss, She cries, “Forsooth, let go!” But when we come where comfort is, She never will say no. These ladies must have pillows, And beds by strangers wrought; Give me a bower of willows, Of moss and leaves unbought, And fresh Amaryllis, With milk and honey fed; Who, when we court and kiss, She cries, “Forsooth, let go!” But when we come where comfort is, She never will say no.

Follow your saint, follow with accents sweet; Haste you, sad notes, fall at her flying feet. There, wrapp'd in cloud of sorrow, pity move, And tell the ravisher of my soul I perish for her love: But if she scorns my never-ceasing pain, Then burst with sighing in her sight and ne'er return again. All that I sung still to her praise did tend, Still she was first; still she my songs did end; Yet she my love and music both doth fly, The music that her echo is and beauty's sympathy. Then let my notes pursue her scornful flight: It shall suffice that they were breath'd and died for her delight.

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 liv’st 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. Poetry Out Loud Note : In the print anthology, this poem is titled "Follow thy fair sun, unhappy shadow." The student may give either title during the recitation.

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 filled with snow; Yet them no 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.