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Home  »  The Oxford Book of English Verse  »  58. A Pedlar John Dowland’s Second Book of Songs or Airs

Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.

Anonymous. 1600

58. A Pedlar John Dowland’s Second Book of Songs or Airs

FINE knacks for ladies! cheap, choice, brave, and new, 
  Good pennyworths—but money cannot move: 
I keep a fair but for the Fair to view— 
  A beggar may be liberal of love. 
Though all my wares be trash, the heart is true,         5
                    The heart is true. 
 
Great gifts are guiles and look for gifts again; 
  My trifles come as treasures from my mind: 
It is a precious jewel to be plain; 
  Sometimes in shell the orient’st pearls we find:—  10
Of others take a sheaf, of me a grain! 
                    Of me a grain!