These screech-owl's feathers and the prickling briar,
That all thy thorny cares an end may have.
Then come, you fairies, dance with me a round!
Dance in a circle, let my love be centre!
Melodiously breathe an enchanted sound:
Melt her hard heart that some remorse may enter!
In vain are all the charms I can devise;
She hath an art to break them with her eyes."
Page 52. "Disdain me still."—Ascribed to Lord Pembroke in the Poems of Pembroke and Ruddier (1660); but the authorship is doubtful.
Page 64. "Lady, when I behold the roses sprouting."—Gracefully paraphrased from an Italian madrigal of Celiano:—
"Quand' io miro le rose,
Ch' in voi natura pose;
E quelle che v' ha l'arte
Nel vago seno sparte;
Non so conoscer poi
Se vol le rose, o sian le rose in voi."
There is another version of this madrigal (Mr. J. M. Thomson reminds me) in Lodge's William Longbeard, 1593.
Page 68. "Those eyes that set my fancy," &c.—A free rendering of Desportes' sonnet:—
"Du bel œil de Diane est my flamme empruntée,
En ses nœuds blon-dorez mon cœur est arresté," &c.
Page 71. "So saith my fair and beautiful Lycoris."—This little poem and the next are renderings of an Italian madrigal of Guarini.
Page 80. "There is a garden in her face."—This poem is set to music in Alison's Hour's Recreation, 1606, and Robert Jones' Ultimum Vale (1608). Herrick's dainty verses, "Cherry ripe, ripe, ripe! I cry," are too well known to bear repetition.
