Note 1. From Campion’s Fourth Book of Airs, 1617. Also set to music in Alison’s Hour’s Recreation in Music, 1606, and Robert Jones’s Ultimum Vale, 1608. “Cherry Ripe” was a popular street cry of the age. Compare Herrick’s poem of the same title, and Jonson’s The New Cry. Mr. Erskine, in his study of The Elizabethan Lyric (2d. ed., 1905), says of this poem: “The unity of the poem is secured by the refrain describing her lips—‘cherry ripe.’ Each stanza pictures some feature of the lady’s beauty, but always in relation to her lips. In some respects the song represents the highest skill of the madrigal writers; its theme is extremely slight, but its effect is one of richness without superfluity and of sweetness without lack of force.” [back]
