Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1900.djvu/748

 O Sorrow! Why dost borrow The mellow ditties from a mourning tongue?— To give at evening pale Unto the nightingale, That thou mayst listen the cold dews among?

O Sorrow! Why dost borrow Heart's lightness from the merriment of May?— A lover would not tread A cowslip on the head, Though he should dance from eve till peep of day— Nor any drooping flower Held sacred for thy bower, Wherever he may sport himself and play.

To Sorrow I bade good morrow, And thought to leave her far away behind; But cheerly, cheerly, She loves me dearly; She is so constant to me, and so kind: I would deceive her, And so leave her, But ah! she is so constant and so kind.

Beneath my palm-trees, by the river side, I sat a-weeping: in the whole world wide There was no one to ask me why I wept,— And so I kept Brimming the water-lily cups with tears Cold as my fears.