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Thomas Campion (1567-1620)
from The Third Booke of Ayres
XII.
Now winter nights enlarge
The number of their houres,
And clouds their stormes discharge
Upon the ayrie towres;
Let now the chimneys blaze
And cups o'erflow with wine,
Let well-tun'd words amaze
With harmonie divine.
Now yellow waxen lights
Shall waite on hunny Love
While youthful Revels, Masks, and Courtly sights
Sleepes leaden spels remove.
This time doth well dispence
With lovers long discourse;
Much speech hath some defence,
Though beauty no remorse.
All doe not all things well:
Some measures comely tread,
Some knotted Ridles tell,
Some Poems smoothly read.
The Summer hath his joyes,
And Winter his delights;
Though Love and all his pleasures are but toyes,
They shorten tedious nights.
The above poem is often titled by its first line. It appeared
in Campion's The Third and Fourth Booke
of Ayeres in 1617.
It can be found in:
Campion, Thomas. The Works of Thomas Campion; Complete Songs,
Masques, and Treatises with a Selection of the Latin Verse. Walter
R. Davis, ed. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1967.
Ferguson, Margaret, Mary Jo Salter, and Jon Stallworthy, eds. The Norton Anthology of Poetry
(Fourth Edition). New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1996.
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