When will my May come, that I may embrace thee?
When will the hower be of my soules joying?
If thou wilt come and dwell with me at home,
My sheepcote shall be strowed with new greene rushes
Weele haunt the trembling prickets as they rome
About the fields, along the hauthorne bushes;
I have a pie-bald curre to hunt the hare,
So we will live with daintie forrest fare.
And when it pleaseth thee to walke abroad
Abroad into the fields to take fresh ayre,
The meades with Floras treasure should be strowde,
The mantled meaddowes, and the fields so fayre.
And by a silver well with golden sands
Ile sit me downe, and wash thine ivory hands.
But it thou wilt not pittie my complaint,
My teares, nor vowes, nor oathes, made to thy beautie:
What shall I do but languish, die, or faint,
Since thou dost scorne my teares, and my soules duetie:
And teares contemned, vowes and oaths must faile,
And where teares cannot, nothing can prevaile.
When will my May come, that I may embrace thee?