XI. If April fresh doth kindly give us flowers

Robert Tofte (1561–1620)

IF April fresh doth kindly give us flowers;

September yields with more increase the fruit.

Sweetest, you have in bosom, Beauty’s Bowers,

Both these sweet tides: whence forth they always shoot

Both flower and fruit. All only you, alone,

Can give me, when you please; or else can none.

O dainty bosom, bosom rich in price,

Surmounting mountains huge of beaten gold;

Whose whiteness braves the whitest snow that lies

On highest hills, whose height none can behold.

In you, my soul doth hope, without annoy,

Both Spring and Harvest, one day to enjoy.

Roma.