UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE

UNDER the greenwood tree
Who loves to lie with me,

And turn his merry note

Unto the sweet bird's throatCome hither, come hither, come hither! Here shall he see

No enemy

But winter and rough weather.

Who doth ambition shun
And loves to live i' the sun,
Seeking the food he eats

And pleased with what he getsCome hither, come hither, come hither! Herc shall he see

No enemy

But winter and rough weather.

W. Shakspere.

COUNSEL TO GIRLS

GATHER ye rose-buds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying:

And this same flower that smiles to-day,
To-morrow will be dying.

The glorious Lamp of Heaven, the Sun,

The higher he's a-getting

The sooner will his race be run,

And nearer he's to setting.

That age is best which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times, still succeed the former.

Then be not coy, but use your time;
And while ye may, go marry:
For having lost but once your prime,
You may for ever tarry.

R. Herrick.

IT WAS A LOVER AND HIS LASS

IT was a lover and his lass

With a hey and a ho, and a hey nonino! That o'er the green corn-field did pass

In the spring time, the only pretty ring time, When birds do sing hey ding a ding:

Sweet lovers love the Spring.

Between the acres of the rye

These pretty country folks would lie:
This carol they began that hour,
How that life was but a flower:

And therefore take the present time

With a hey and a ho, and a hey nonino!
For love is crownéd with the prime

In spring time, the only pretty ring time,
When birds do sing hey ding a ding:

Sweet lovers love the Spring.

W. Shakspere.

UP AT A VILLA-DOWN IN THE CITY

(As distinguished by an Italian person of quality)

HAD I but plenty of money, money enough and to spare, The house for me, no doubt, were a house in the city

square.

Ah, such a life, such a life, as one leads at the window there!

Something to see, by Bacchus, something to hear, at least! There, the whole day long, one's life is a perfect feast; While up at a villa one lives, I maintain it, no more than a beast.

Well now, look at our villa! stuck like the horn of a bull Just on a mountain's edge as bare as the creature's skull, Save a mere shag of a bush with hardly a leaf to pull! -I scratch my own, sometimes, to see if the hair's turned wool.

But the city, oh the city-the square with the houses! Why? They are stone-faced, white as a curd, there's something to take the eye!

Houses in four straight lines, not a single front awry! You watch who crosses and gossips, who saunters, who hurries by:

Green blinds, as a matter of course, to draw when the sun gets high;

And the shops with fanciful signs which are painted properly.

What of a villa? Though winter be over in March by

rights,

'Tis May perhaps ere the snow shall have withered well off the heights:

You've the brown ploughed land before, where the oxen

steam and wheeze,

And the hills over-smoked behind by the faint grey olive trees.

Is it better in May, I ask you? You've summer all at

once;

In a day he leaps complete with a few strong April suns!

'Mid the sharp short emerald wheat, scarce risen three fingers well,

The wild tulip, at end of its tube, blows out its great red bell,

Like a thin clear bubble of blood, for the children to pick and sell.

Is it ever hot in the square? There's a fountain to spout and splash!

In the shade it sings and springs; in the shine such foambows flash

On the horses with curling fish-tails, that prance and

paddle and pash

Round the lady atop in the conch-fifty gazers do not abash,

Though all that she wears is some weeds round her waist in a sort of sash!

All the year round at the villa, nothing's to see though you linger,

Except yon cypress that points like Death's lean lifted forefinger.

Some think fireflies pretty, when they mix in the corn and mingle,

Or thrid the stinking hemp till the stalks of it seem a-tingle.

Late August or early September, the stunning cicala is shrill,

And the bees keep up their tiresome whine round the resinous firs on the hill.

Enough of the seasons,-I spare you the months of the fever and chill.

Ere opening your eyes in the city, the blessed church-bells begin:

No sooner the bells leave off, than the diligence rattles in; You get the pick of the news, and it costs you never a pin. By and by there's the travelling doctor gives pills, lets blood, draws teeth;

Or the Pulcinello-trumpet breaks up the market beneath. At the post-office such a scene-picture-the new play piping hot!

And a notice how, only this morning, three liberal thieves were shot.

Above it, behold the archbishop's most fatherly of rebukes, And beneath, with his crown and his lion, some little new law of the Duke's!

Or a sonnet with flowery marge, to the Reverend Don Soand-so

Who is Dante, Boccaccio, Petrarca, St. Jerome, and Cicero,

And moreover," (the sonnet goes rhyming), “the skirts

of St. Paul has reached,

Having preached us those six Lent-lectures more unctuous than ever he preached."

Noon strikes, here sweep the procession! our lady borne smiling and smart

With a pink gauze gown all spangles, and seven swords stuck in her heart!

Bang, whang, whang, goes the drum, tootle-te-tootle the fife; No keeping one's haunches still: it's the greatest pleasure in

life.