Cloysterd in These Living Walls of Jet

Manerly Margery Mylk and Ale

Ay, beshrewe yow! Be my fay
This wanton clarkis be nyse allway.
Avent, avent, my popagay!
“What, will ye do nothing but play”
Tully, valy, strawe, let be I say!
Gup, Cristian Clowte, gup, Jak of the Vale,
With manerly Margery Mylk and Ale.

“Be Gadm nye be a praty pode
And I love you an hole cart lode.”
Strawe, jamys foder, ye play the fode;
I am no hackney for your rode;
Go watch a bole, your bak is brode.
Gup, Cristian Clowte, gup, Jak of the Vale,
With manerly Margery Mylk and Ale.

Iwiss, ye dele uncurtesly;
What, wolde ye frompill me now? Fy, fy!
“What, and ye shal be my piggesnye?”
Be Crist!, ye shall not! No, no, hardely!
I will not be japed bodely.
Gup, Cristian Clowte, gup, Jak of the Vale,
With manerly Margery Mylk and Ale.

“Walke forth your way, ye cost me nought;
Now have I fownd what I have sought,
The best chepe flessh that evyr I bought.”
Yet, for his love that all hath wrought
Wed me or els I dye for thought!
Gup, Cristian Clowte, your breth is stale,
With manerly Margery Milk and Ale
Gup, Cristian Clowte, gup, Jak of the Vale,
With manerly Margery Mylk and Ale.

Mayster John Skelton Poete Laureat

XIV

Blame not my cheeks, though pale with love they be;
The kindly heate unto my heart is flowne,
To cherish it that is dismaid by thee,
Who art so cruell and unsteedfast growne:
For nature, cald for by distressed harts,
Neglects and quite forsakes the outward partes.

But they whose cheekes with careles blood are stain’d
Nurse not one sparke of love within there harts,
And, when they woe, they speake with passion fain’d,
For their fat love lyes in their outward parts:
But in their brests, where love his court should hold,
Poore Cupid sits and blowes his nailes for cold.

Thomas Campion

25

Cupid, I hate thee, which I’de have thee know,
A naked starveling ever may’st thou be,
Poore rogue, goe pawn thy fascia and thy bow,
For some few ragges, wherewith to cover thee;
Or if thou’lt not, thy archerie forbeare,
To some base rustick doe thy selfe preferre,
And when corne’s sowne, or growne into the eare,
Practise thy quiver, and turne crow-keeper;
Or being blind (as fittest for the trade)
Goe hyre thy selfe some bungling harpers boy;
They that are blind, are minstrels often made,
So may’st thou live, to thy faire mothers joy:
That whilst with Mars she holdeth her old way,
Thou, her blinde sonne, may’st sit by them, and play.

Michael Drayton

The Flea.

Marke but this flea, and marke in this,
How little that which thou deny’st me is;
It suck’d me first, and now sucks thee,
And in this flea, our two bloods mingled bee;
Thou know’st that this cannot be said
A sinne, nor shame, nor losse of maidenhead,
Yet this enjoyes before it wooe,
And pamper’d swells with one blood made of two,
And this, alas, is more than we would doe.

Oh stay, three lives in one flea spare,
Where wee almost, nay more than marryed are.
This flea is you and I, and this
Our mariage bed, and mariage temple is;
Though parents grudge, and you, w’are met,
And cloysterd in these living walls of Jet.
Though use make you apt to kill me,
Let not to that, self murder added bee,
And sacrilege, three sinnes in killing three.

Cruell and sodaine, hast thou since
Purpled thy naile, in blood of innocence?
Wherein could this flea guilty bee,
Except in that drop which it suckt from thee?
Yet thou triumph’st, and saist that thou
Find’st not thy selfe, nor mee the weaker now;
‘Tis true, then learne how false, feares bee;
Just so much honor, when thou yeeld’st to mee,
Will wast, as this flea’s death tooke life from thee.

John Donne