Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1900.djvu/207

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What is love? 'tis not hereafter;
Present mirth hath present laughter;
  What's to come is still unsure:
In delay there lies no plenty;
Then come kiss me, sweet-and-twenty!
  Youth's a stuff will not endure.


134. Dirge

Come away, come away, death,
  And in sad cypres let me be laid;
Fly away, fly away, breath;
  I am slain by a fair cruel maid.
My shroud of white, stuck all with yew,
        O prepare it!
My part of death, no one so true
        Did share it.

Not a flower, not a flower sweet,
  On my black coffin let there be strown;
Not a friend, not a friend greet
  My poor corse, where my bones shall be thrown:
A thousand thousand sighs to save,
        Lay me, O, where
Sad true lover never find my grave
        To weep there!


134. cypres] crape. 135. Under the Greenwood Tree

Amiens sings:

Under the greenwood tree,
  Who loves to lie with me,
And turn his merry note
Unto the sweet bird's throat,