Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904.

Sonnets after Astrophel, etc.

Canto primo: Hark all you ladies that do sleep!

Anonymous

HARK all you ladies that do sleep!

The Fairy Queen PROSERPINA

Bids you awake! and pity them that weep!

You may do in the dark

What the day doth forbid;

Fear not the dogs that bark,

Night will have all hid.

But if you let your lovers moan;

The Fair Queen PROSERPINA

Will send abroad her fairies every one:

That shall pinch black and blue

Your white hands and fair arms;

That did not kindly rue

Your paramours’ harms.

In myrtle arbours on the downs,

The Fairy Queen PROSERPINA

This night by moonshine, leading merry rounds,

Holds watch with sweet LOVE,

Down the dale, up the hill.

No plaints nor griefs may move

Their holy vigil.

All you that will hold watch with LOVE,

The Fairy Queen PROSERPINA

Will make you fairer than DIANA’s dove.

Roses red, lilies white,

And the clear damask hue;

Shall on your cheeks alight.

LOVE will adorn you.

All you that love! or loved before!

The Fairy Queen PROSERPINA

Bids you increase that loving humour more!

They that have not yet fed

On delight amorous;

She vows that they shall lead

Apes in Avernus.