Selections from the Poems of Michael Drayton

BODLEIAN

+3.2.1902

LIBRAR

TO DOROTHEA.

EAR little maid with laughing eyes,

DEAR

Wistful, wilful, winsome, wise,

Fain would I lightly poetise

In stanzas cheery;

But days are short and nights are long, And shrill winds pipe a restless song, Complaining of the wide world's wrong In accents dreary.

Ah! welladay! the mist and rain
Drive rudely over hill and plain ;
December hurries up amain

With drum and tabor;

And blown to left and blown to right,
Scared birds that cannot keep their flight

Drop, baffled and outwearied quite
By battling labour.

We cannot speed the blust ring hours,
Or quell the angry Winter's powers,
Or bring the sunshine and the flowers
We love so dearly;

But we can sing and we can play,
And we can make the dullest day
As merry as the lark in May
That carolls clearly.

Sweet baby mine with hair of gold,
List to a song was sung of old,
A story of Pigwiggen bold

On earwig prancing;

Of Oberon with threat ning mien,

And gamesome Puck, and Mab the Queen;
And light-foot elves by moonlight seen
On greensward dancing.

And you must love the singer well
Who knew such dainty tales to tell;
'Faith, Michael Drayton bears the bell
For numbers airy.

The garden-ways are blank and bare;
Come from the window, draw the chair
Nearer the fire, and we'll repair

To Court of Fairy.

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