Classic Poem

First Minstrel

The budding floweret blushes at the light,
The meads are sprinkled with the yellow hue;
In daisied mantles is the mountain dight,
The nesh young cowslip bendeth with the dew;
The trees enleafed, unto heaven straught,
When gentle winds do blow, to whistling din are brought.

The evening comes, and brings the dew along;
The ruddy welkin shineth to the eyne;
Around the ale-stake minstrels sing the song,
Young ivy round the doorpost doth entwine;
I lay me on the grass; yet, to my will,
Albeit all is fair, there lacketh something still.

Second Minstrel

So Adam thought when once, in Paradise,
All heaven and earth did homage to his mind;
In woman only mannes pleasure lies,
As instruments of joy are those of kind.
Go, take a wife unto thine arms, and see
Winter, and barren hills, will have a charm for thee.

Third Minstrel

When Autumn bleak and sunburnt doth appear,
With his gold hand gilding the falling leaf,
Bringing up Winter to fulfil the year,
Bearing upon his back the ripened sheaf,
When all the hills with woody seed are white,
When lightning-fires and lemes do meet from far the sight;

When the fair apples, red as evening sky,
Do bend the tree unto the fruitful ground,
When juicy pears, and berries of black dye,
Do dance in air and call the eyes around,
Then, be the evening foul or be it fair,
Methinks my hartys joy is steynced with some care.

Second Minstrel

Angels are wrought to be of neither kind,
Angels alone from hot desire are free;
There is a somewhat ever in the mind
That, without woman, cannot stilled be.
No saint in cell but, having blood and tere,
Do find the sprite to joy in sight of woman fair.