T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22.
Hark, All You Ladies That Do Sleep
By Thomas Campion (1567–1620)| 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; | 5 |
| Fear not the dogs that bark, | |
| Night will have all hid. | |
| But if you let your lovers moan, | |
| The fairy-queen Proserpina | |
| Will send abroad her fairies every one, | 10 |
| 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 | 15 |
| The fairy-queen Proserpina, | |
| This night by moonshine leading merry rounds, | |
| Holds a watch with sweet love, | |
| Down the dale, up the hill; | |
| No plaints or groans may move | 20 |
| Their holy vigil. | |
| All you that will hold watch with love, | |
| The fairy-queen Proserpina | |
| Will make you fairer than Dione’s dove; | |
| Roses red, lilies white, | 25 |
| 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 | 30 |
| Bids you increase that loving humour more: | |
| They that have not fed | |
| On delight amorous, | |
| She vows that they shall lead | |
| Apes in Avernus. | 35 |