dots-menu
×

Home  »  The Book of Elizabethan Verse  »  James Shirley (1596–1666)

William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Elizabethan Verse. 1907.

Piping Peace

James Shirley (1596–1666)

YOU virgins that did late despair

To keep your wealth from cruel men,

Tie up in silk your careless hair:

Soft peace is come again.

Now lovers’ eyes may gently shoot

A flame that will not kill;

The drum was angry, but the lute

Shall whisper what you will.

Sing Io, Io! for his sake

That hath restored your drooping heads;

With choice of sweetest flowers make

A garden where he treads;

Whilst we whole groves of laurel bring,

A petty triumph for his brow,

Who is the Master of our spring

And all the bloom we owe.