The Shepherd And The Nymph

I remember in HS where a classmate and I competed in some school contests and we delivered poems by great classic poets of old. Here's some lines my partner and I recited from memory. I wonder where in the world has my partner gone? Those were the days....Oh-lah-lah!

The Passionate Shepherd To His Love
{Christopher Marlowe}
The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd
{Sir Walter Raleigh}
*********

• Come, live with me and be my love

• And we will all the pleasures prove

• That valleys, groves, hills and fields

• Woods, or steepy mountain yields.

*

• If all the world and love were young,

• And truth in every shepherd's tongue,

• These pretty pleasures might me move

• To live with thee and be thy love.

*
*
*

• And we will sit upon the rocks,

• Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks,

• By shallow rivers, to whose falls,

• Melodious birds sing madrigals.

*

• Time drives the flocks from field to fold,

• When rivers rage and rocks grow cold,

• And Philomel becometh dumb,

• The rest complains of cares to come.

*
*
*

• And I will make thee beds of roses

• And a thousand fragrant posies,

• A cap of flowers and a kirtle,

• Embroider'd all with leaves of myrtle.

*

• The flowers do fade, and wanton fields

• To wayward winter reckoning yields;

• A honey tongue, a heart of gall,

• Is fancy's spring, but sorrow's fall.

*
*
*

• A gown made of the finest wool,

• Which from our pretty lambs we pull;

• Fair-lined slippers for the cold,

• With buckles of the purest gold.

*

• Thy gowns, thy shoes, thy beds of roses,

• Thy cap, thy kirtle and thy posies,

• Soon break, soon wither, soon forgotten--

• In folly ripe, in reason rotten.

*
*
*

• A belt of straw and ivy buds,

• With coral clasps and amber studs,

• And if these pleasures made thee move,

• Come live with me and be my love.

*

• Thy belt of straw and ivy buds,

• Thy coral clasps, thy amber studs,

• All these in me, no means can move,

• To come to thee and be thy love.

*
*
*

• The shepherd swains shall dance and sing,

• For thy delight each May morning;

• If these delights thy mind may move,

• Then live with me and be my love.

*

• But could youth last and love still breed,

• Had joys no date, nor age no need

• Then these delights my mind might move

• To live with thee and be thy love.

*
*
*
*********************************************