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1Young Anne: Come, my dear sister, sit with me awhile
2That we both time and sorrow may
beguile2
.3In this sweet shade, by this clear
purling3
spring,4We’ll sit and help poor
Philomel4
to sing;5And to complete the
consort5
and the choir,6I would I had
my viol, you your lyre6
.7Elder Pen: Ay me, my sister! Time on restless wheels
8Doth ever turn with wings upon his heels,
9Fast as the sand that huddles through his
glass7
;10Regardless of our tears, he on doth pass.
11Yet in the shade of this sad
sycamore8
12We’ll sit, our wants and losses to
deplore9
;13For all things here which do
in order10
rise,14Methinks in woe with us do sympathize.
15These
cypress11
, like our hopes, do lesser grow;16This bubbling fount, like our sad eyes, does flow,
17And though it doth a greater murmuring keep,
18Yet we may
teach this living spring to weep12
.19These primroses, like us, neglected fade,
20And violets sit weeping in the shade.
21With us sad
Hyacinthus13
sighs out, “ay!”22And lovely
Amarantha14
doth display23Her beauties here to no admiring eye.
24Just so,
obliviated15
, we live and die;25And for your viol and my
theorbo lute16
,26They both, unstrung, upon the wall hang mute,
27And in a unison will scarcely move,
28They’re so unused (ay me) to strains of love.
29With Philomel we may lament too late
30Our most disastrous, and
too differing, fate17
.31O my sad heart, would we might pass our hours
32As innocently contented as these flowers,
33Who show their beauties to admiring eyes,
34Then
breathing18
aromatic odors, dies.35Come, my dear
Nan19
, in this sad shade we’ll lie,36And, like them, sweetly live and sweetly die.
37
Adonis’ blood the anemone uprears20
.38Who knows? Such virtue may be in our tears:
39These violets, primrose,
pales21
which appears,40Perhaps their number springs from virgins’ tears.
41O me, I would I might this very hour
42Sigh my sad soul into this
gillyflower22
.43Trust me, I gladly would
transmigrate23
,44That my afflicted life might have a
date24
.45But we (alas) in sad obscurity
46Must hopeless live, and so, I
doubt25
, must die.47O that a recluse life had been my fate,
48To take our visits at a
courteous grate26
.49Anne: Stay, my dear sister, I have no mind to die;
50A little more of this base world I’ll
try27
;51And if what’s future
prove28
like what is past,52I’ll patient be; I can but die at last.
53Then let us cease in vain to make our moan,
54And go to our sad mother; she’s alone.