by Christopher Marlowe (1564 - 1593) and sometimes misattributed to William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616)

Live with me, and be my love
Language: English 
Live with me, and be my love, 
And we will all the pleasures prove 
That hills and valleys, dales and fields, 
And all the craggy mountains yields. 
  
There will we sit upon the rocks,         
And see the shepherds feed their flocks, 
By shallow rivers, by whose falls 
Melodious birds sing madrigals. 
  
There will I make thee a bed of roses, 
With a thousand fragrant posies,  
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle 
Embroider'd all with leaves of myrtle. 
  
A belt of straw and ivy buds, 
With coral clasps and amber studs; 
And if these pleasures may thee move,  
Then live with me and be my love. 
  
Love's Answer
If that the world and love were young, 
And truth in every shepherd's tongue, 
These pretty pleasures might me move, 
To live with thee and be thy love.

About the headline (FAQ)

Confirmed with The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, ed. by W. J. Craig, London: Oxford University Press: 1914.


Text Authorship:

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):

    [ None yet in the database ]

Set in a modified version by William Sterndale Bennett, Henry Rowley Bishop, Alan Bullard, Johann Friedrich Hugo, Freiherr von Dalberg, Rubin Goldmark, William Mayer, Norman Houston O'Neill, Myron Silberstein.

Set in a modified version by Vivian Fine, Ernest John Moeran, Peter Warlock, Samuel Webbe.


Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

This text was added to the website: 2019-07-24
Line count: 21
Word count: 136