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Home  »  Poetica Erotica  »  “Weep No More”

T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22.

“Weep No More”

By Francis Beaumont (1584–1616) and John Fletcher (1579–1625)
 
(Songs from The Queen of Corinth)

I.

WEEP no more, nor sigh nor groan,
Sorrow calls no time that’s gone;
Violets pluck’d, the sweetest rain
Makes not fresh nor grow again;
Trim thy locks, look cheerfully,        5
Fate’s hidden ends eyes cannot see.
Joys as winged dreams fly fast,
Why should sadness longer last?
Grief is but a wound to woe;
Gentlest fair, mourn, mourn no moe.        10
 
II.
COURT-LADIES, laugh and wonder. Here is one
That weeps because her maidenhead is gone;
Whilst you do never fret, nor chafe, nor cry,
But when too long it keeps you company.
Too well you know, maids are like towns on fire,        15
Wasting themselves, if no man quench desire.
Weep then no more, fool! A new maidenhead
Thou suffer’st loss of, in each chaste tear shed.