THE PASSIONATE SHEPHERD TO HIS LOVE

THE PASSIONATE SHEPHERD TO HIS LOVE
(Before 1593.)

COME live with me, and be my love;
And we will all the pleasures prove
That hills and valleys, dales and fields,
Woods, or steepy mountain yields.

And we will sit upon the rocks,
Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks
By shallow rivers, to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.

And I will make thee beds of roses
And a thousand fragrant posies;
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle;

A gown made of the finest wool
Which from our pretty lambs we pull;
Fair-lined slippers for the cold,
With buckles of the purest gold;

A belt of straw and ivy-buds,
With coral clasps and amber-studs:
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Come live with me, and be my love.

The shepherd-swains shall dance and sing
For thy delight each May-morning:
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me and be my love.



note: 1 Dyce's "Marlowe," iii. 299. An imperfect copy was
printed in the "Passionate Pilgrim" in 1599, and it is
quoted in the "Merry Wives of Windsor," iii. 1. It was
printed at length with Marlowe's name in "England's
Helicon," 1600; and also in Walton's "Compleat Angler,"
1653, as "that smooth song which was made by Kit Mar-
low, now at least fifty years ago." Marlowe died sixty
years before,—in 1593.