English Poetry I: From Chaucer to Gray.
The Harvard Classics. 1909–14.
Thomas Dekker
181. Country Glee
H
Wait on your Summer-Queen;
Dress up with musk-rose her eglantine bowers,
Daffodils strew the green;
Sing, dance, and play,
’Tis holiday;
The sun does bravely shine
On our ears of corn.
Rich as a pearl
Comes every girl,
This is mine, this is mine, this is mine;
Let us die, ere away they be borne.
Come to behold our sports;
Each bonny lass here is counted a rare one
As those in princes’ courts.
These and we
With country glee,
Will teach the woods to resound,
And the hills with echoes hollow:
Skipping lambs
Their bleating dams,
’Mongst kids shall trip it round;
For joy thus our wenches we follow.
Hounds make a lusty cry;
Spring up, you falconers, partridges freely,
Then let your brave hawks fly.
Horses amain,
Over ridge, over plain,
The dogs have the stag in chase:
’Tis a sport to content a king.
So ho, ho! through the skies
How the proud bird flies,
And sousing, kills with a grace!
Now the deer falls; hark! how they ring.