JOHN FORD (fl. 1639)

SONG

FROM THE BROKEN HEART

Can you paint a thought? or number
Every fancy in a slumber?

Can you count soft minutes roving
From a dial's point by moving?
Can you grasp a sigh? or, lastly,
Rob a virgin's honour chastely?

No, O, no! yet you may
Sooner do both that and this,
This and that, and never miss,
Than by any praise display
Beauty's beauty; such a glory,
As beyond all fate, all story,
All arms, all arts,

All loves, all hearts,
Greater than those or they,
Do, shall, and must obey.

Glories, pleasures, pomps, delights, and ease,

Can but please

The outward senses, when the mind

Is or untroubled or by peace refined.

IST VOICE. Crowns may flourish and decay, 5 Beauties shine, but fade away. 2ND VOICE. Youth may revel, yet it must Lie down in a bed of dust.

3RD VOICE. Earthly honours flow and waste, Time alone doth change and last.

CHOR.

ΙΟ

Sorrows mingled with contents prepare Rest for care;

Love only reigns in death; though art

Can find no comfort for a broken heart.

146

Must in his harvest or lose all again. Now must he pluck the rose lest other hands,

Or tempests, blemish what so fairly stands: And therefore, as they had before decreed, Our shepherd gets a boat, and with all speed, In night, that doth on lovers' actions smile, Arrived safe on Mona's fruitful isle.2

152 Between two rocks (immortal, without mother,)

That stand as if out-facing one another,
There ran a creek up, intricate and blind, 155
As if the waters hid them from the wind;
Which never wash'd but at a higher tide
The frizzled coats which do the mountains
hide;

Where never gale was longer known to stay 159
Than from the smooth wave it had swept

How each field turns a street, each street a park

Made green and trimm'd with trees; see how

Devotion gives each house a bough

Or branch: each porch, each door ere this
An ark, a tabernacle is,

Made up of white-thorn, neatly interwove;
As if here were those cooler shades of love.
Can such delights be in the street
And open fields and we not see't?
Come, we'll abroad; and let's obey
The proclamation made for May:
And sin no more, as we have done, by staying;
But, my Corinna, come, let's go a-Maying.

40

CHAPTER I. PISCATOR, VENATOR, AUCEPS 4 Piscator. You are well overtaken, Gentlemen! A good morning to you both! I have stretched my legs up Tottenham Hill to overtake you, hoping your business may occasion you towards Ware, whither I am going this fine fresh May morning.

Venator. Sir, I, for my part, shall almost answer your hopes; for my purpose is to drink my morning's draught at the Thatched House in Hoddesden; and I think not to rest till I come thither, where I have appointed a friend or two to meet me: but for this gentleman that you see with me, I know not how far he intends his journey; he came so lately into