Gateway to the Classics: Oxford Book of English Verse, Part 1 by Arthur Quiller-Couch

Oxford Book of English Verse, Part 1

by Arthur Quiller-Couch

Table of Contents

Of a Rose, a Lovely Rose

Spring Song of the Birds

Robin and Makyne

The Bludy Serk

To a Lady

In Honour of the City of London

On the Nativity of Christ

Lament for the Makers

May in the Green-Wood

Carol

Quia Amore Langueo

The Nut-Brown Maid

As Ye Came from the Holy Land

The Lover in Winter Plaineth for the Spring

Balow

The Old Cloak

To Mistress Margery Wentworth

To Mistress Margaret Hussey

Vixi Puellis Nuper Idoneus

To His Lute

Description of Spring

Complaint of the Absence of Her Lover

The Means to Attain Happy Life

A True Love

A Bequest of His Heart

The Night Is Near Gone

Jolly Good Ale and Old

When Flora Had O'erfret the Firth

Lusty May

My Heart Is High Above

A Praise of His Lady

To Her Sea-Faring Lover

The Faithless Shepherdess

Crabbed Age and Youth

How Can the Heart Forget Her?

Since First I Saw Your Face

There Is a Lady Sweet and Kind

Love Not Me For Comely Grace

Splendidis Longum Valedico Nugis

Fair and Fair

On the Death of Sir Philip Sidney

Love Is a Sickness

Ulysses and the Siren

Beauty, Time, and Love

To the Virginian Voyage

The Passionate Shepherd to His Love

Her Reply

Fair and Fair

Œnone:     Fair and fair, and twice so fair,
As fair as any may be;
The fairest shepherd on our green,
A love for any lady.

Paris:         Fair and fair, and twice so fair,
As fair as any may be;
Thy love is fair for thee alone,
And for no other lady.

Œnone:     My love is fair, my love is gay,
As fresh as bin the flowers in May
And of my love my roundelay,
My merry, merry, merry roundelay,

Concludes with Cupid's curse,—

"They that do change old love for new

Pray gods they change for worse!"

Both: They that do change old love for new,

Pray gods they change for worse!

Œnone:     Fair and fair, and twice so fair,
As fair as any may be;
The fairest shepherd on our green,
A love for any lady.

Paris:         Fair and fair, and twice so fair,
As fair as any may be;
Thy love is fair for thee alone,
And for no other lady.

Œnone:     My love can pipe, my love can sing,
My love can many a pretty thing,
And of his lovely praises ring
My merry, merry, merry roundelays.

Amen to Cupid's curse,—

"They that do change old love for new

Pray gods they change for worse!"

Paris: They that do change old love for new

Pray gods they change for worse!

Both:         Fair and fair, and twice so fair,
As fair as any may be;
The fairest shepherd on our green,
A love for any lady.

Fair and fair, and twice so fair,

As fair as any may be;

Thy love is fair for thee alone

And for no other lady.

— George Peele
1558?-1597

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