LiederNet logo

CONTENTS

×
  • Home | Introduction
  • Composers (20,733)
  • Text Authors (20,646)
  • 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 (1,124)
  • Contact Information
  • Bibliography

  • Copyright Statement
  • Privacy Policy

Follow us on Facebook

by Christopher Marlowe (1564 - 1593)

Come live with me and be my Love
NOTE: the footnotes have been removed from this text; return to general view
Language: English 
Come live with me and be my Love,
And we will all the pleasures prove
That hills and valleys, dales and field,
Or woods or steepy mountain yields.
 
And we will sit upon the rocks
And see the shepherds feed their flocks,
By shallow rivers, to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.
 
And I will make thee beds of roses
And a thousand fragrant posies,
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
Embroider'd all with leaves of myrtle.
 
A gown made of the finest wool,
Which from our pretty lambs we pull,
Fair linèd slippers for the cold,
With buckles of the purest gold.
 
A belt of straw and ivy buds
With coral clasps and amber studs:
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Come live with me and be my Love.
 
The silver dishes for thy meat
As precious as the gods do eat,
Shall on an ivory table be
Prepared each day for thee and me.
 
The shepherd swains shall dance and sing
For thy delight each May-morning:
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me and be my Love.

Available sung texts:   ← What is this?

•   V. Fine •   E. Moeran •   S. Webbe 

E. Moeran sets stanzas 1-5
S. Webbe sets stanzas 1, 3, 5, 7
V. Fine sets stanzas 1-3, 5, 7
P. Warlock sets stanzas 1-5, 7

About the headline (FAQ)

View text with all available footnotes

First published in England's Helicon, 1600


Text Authorship:

  • by Christopher Marlowe (1564 - 1593), "The passionate shepherd to his love" [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]

Go to the general view


Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

This text was added to the website: 2011-04-01
Line count: 28
Word count: 196

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 © 2026 The LiederNet Archive

Site redesign by Shawn Thuris