Page:Golden Treasury of English Songs and Lyrics.djvu/45

 

Reserve them for my love, not for their rhyme
Exceeded by the height of happier men.

O then vouchsafe me but this loving thought—
‘Had my friend’s muse grown with this growing age,
A dearer birth than this his love had brought,
To march in ranks of better equipage:

But since he died, and poets better prove,
Theirs for their style I’ll read, his for his love.’
W. Shakespeare

xlix

THE TRIUMPH OF DEATH

No longer mourn for me when I am dead
Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell
Give warning to the world, that I am fled
From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell;

Nay, if you read this line, remember not
The hand that writ it; for I love you so,
That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot
If thinking on me then should make you woe.

O if, I say, you look upon this verse
When I perhaps compounded am with clay,
Do not so much as my poor name rehearse,
But let your love even with my life decay;

Lest the wise world should look into your moan.
And mock you with me after I am gone.
W. Shakespeare

l

MADRIGAL

Tell me where is Fancy bred,
Or in the heart, or in the head?
How begot, how nourishéd?
⁠Reply, reply.