LiederNet logo

CONTENTS

×
  • Home | Introduction
  • Composers (20,465)
  • Text Authors (20,241)
  • Go to a Random Text
  • What’s New
  • A Small Tour
  • FAQ & Links
  • Donors
  • DONATE

UTILITIES

  • Search Everything
  • Search by Surname
  • Search by Title or First Line
  • Search by Year
  • Search by Collection

CREDITS

  • Emily Ezust
  • Contributors (1,120)
  • Contact Information
  • Bibliography

  • Copyright Statement
  • Privacy Policy

Follow us on Facebook

by Thomas Stanley (1625 - 1678)

Foolish Lover, go and seek
Language: English 
Foolish Lover, go and seek
   For the damask of the rose,
   [And]1 the lilies white dispose 
To adorn thy mistress cheek:

Steal some star out of the sky,
   Rob the phoenix, and the east
   Of her wealthy sweets divest, 
To enrich her breath or eye!

We thy borrow'd pride despise:
   For this wine to which we are
   Votaries, is richer far 
Than her [cheek]2, or breath, or eyes.

And should that coy fair one view
   These diviner beauties, she
   In this flame would rival thee,
And be taught to love thee too.

Come, then, break thy wanton chain, 
   That when this brisk wine hath spread 
   On thy paler cheek a red,
Thou, like us, may'st Love disdain.

Love, thy power must yield to wine!
   And whilst thus ourselves we arm,
   Boldly we defy thy charm: 
For these flames [extinguish]3 thine.

Available sung texts:   ← What is this?

•   J. Gamble 

About the headline (FAQ)

View original text (without footnotes)
1 Gamble: "or"
2 Gamble: "cheeks"
3 Gamble: "distinguish"

Confirmed with Thomas Stanley: his original lyrics, complete, in their collated readings of 1647, 1651, 1657 by Thomas Stanley, edited by Louise Imogen Guiney, J R Tutin, Hull 1907. Page 28.


Text Authorship:

  • by Thomas Stanley (1625 - 1678), "Song" [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]

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

  • by John Gamble (d. 1687), no title, published 1657 [ voice and bass continuo ], from Ayres and dialogues, no. 14, Confirmed with Ayres and dialogues (to be sung to the theorbo-lute or bass-viol) by John Gamble. Printed by W. Godbid for Humphry Mosley at the Princes-Arms In St. Paul's Church-yard, London 1657.
        Score: IMSLP [external link]  [sung text checked 1 time]

Researcher for this page: Iain Sneddon [Guest Editor]

This text was added to the website: 2025-11-30
Line count: 24
Word count: 144

Gentle Reminder

This website began in 1995 as a personal project by Emily Ezust, who has been working on it full-time without a salary since 2008. Our research has never had any government or institutional funding, so if you found the information here useful, please consider making a donation. Your help is greatly appreciated!
–Emily Ezust, Founder

Donate

We use cookies for internal analytics and to earn much-needed advertising revenue. (Did you know you can help support us by turning off ad-blockers?) To learn more, see our Privacy Policy. To learn how to opt out of cookies, please visit this site.

I acknowledge the use of cookies

Contact
Copyright
Privacy

Copyright © 2025 The LiederNet Archive

Site redesign by Shawn Thuris