(Attributed to Sir
Walter Raleigh.)

Now what is love, I pray thee tell?
It is that fountain and that well
Where pleasures and repentance dwell;
It is perhaps that sancing-bell[11]
That tolls all in to heaven or hell:
And this is love, as I hear tell.

Now what is love, I pray thee say?
It is a work on holyday,
It is December matched with May,
When lusty bloods in fresh array
Hear ten months after of their play:
And this is love, as I hear say.

Now what is love, I pray thee feign?
It is a sunshine mixed with rain,
It is a gentle pleasing pain,
A flower that dies and springs again,
It is a No that would full fain:
And this is love as I hear sain.

Yet what is love, I pray thee say?
It is a pretty shady way
As well found out by night as day,
It is a thing will soon decay;
Then take the vantage whilst you may:
And this is love, as I hear say.
Now what is love, I pray thee show?
A thing that creeps, it cannot go,
A prize that passeth to and fro,
A thing for one, a thing for mo,
And he that proves shall find it so:
And this is love, as I well know.

[11] Saint's-bell; the little bell that called to prayers.

From THOMAS CAMPION's _Third Book of Airs_ (circ. 1613).

Now winter nights enlarge
The number of their hours,
And clouds their storms discharge
Upon the airy towers.
Let now the chimneys blaze,
And cups o'erflow with wine;
Let well-tuned words amaze
With harmony divine.
Now yellow waxen lights
Shall wait on honey love,
While youthful revels, masques, and courtly sights
Sleep's leaden spells remove.

This time doth well dispense
With lovers' long discourse;
Much, speech hath some defence
Though beauty no remorse.
All do not all things well;
Some measures comely tread,
Some knotted riddles tell,
Some poems smoothly read.
The summer hath his joys
And winter his delights;
Though love and all his pleasures are but toys,
They shorten tedious nights.

From JOHN WARD's _First Set of English Madrigals_, 1613.

O say, dear life, when shall these twin-born berries,
So lovely-ripe, by my rude lips be tasted?
Shall I not pluck (sweet, say not _nay_) those cherries?
O let them not with summer's heat be blasted.
Nature, thou know'st, bestow'd them free on the