Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.
John Fletcher. 15791625216. Melancholy
HENCE, all you vain delights, | |
As short as are the nights | |
Wherein you spend your folly! | |
There ‘s naught in this life sweet, | |
If men were wise to see’t, | 5 |
But only melancholy— | |
O sweetest melancholy! | |
Welcome, folded arms and fixèd eyes, | |
A sight that piercing mortifies, | |
A look that ‘s fasten’d to the ground, | 10 |
A tongue chain’d up without a sound! | |
Fountain-heads and pathless groves, | |
Places which pale passion loves! | |
Moonlight walks, when all the fowls | |
Are warmly housed, save bats and owls! | 15 |
A midnight bell, a parting groan— | |
These are the sounds we feed upon: | |
Then stretch our bones in a still gloomy valley, | |
Nothing ‘s so dainty sweet as lovely melancholy. |