1Young Anne: Come, my dear sister, sit with me a while,

2That we both Time and Sorrow may beguile;

3In this sweet shade, by this clear, purling spring,

4We’ll sit and help poor

Philomel2

to sing,

5And to complete the

consort3

and the choir,

6I would I had my

viol, you your lyre4

.

7Elder Pen: Ay me, my sister, Time on restless wheels

8Doth ever turn with wings upon his heels,

9Fast as the sand that

huddles5

through his

glass6

,

10Regardless of our tears, he on doth pass;

11Yet in the shade of this sad sycamore

12We’ll sit, our wants and losses to

deplore7

,

13For all things here which do in

order8

rise,

14Methinks in woe with us do sympathise.

15These

cypress9

, 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 weep;

19These primroses, like us, neglected fade,

20And violets sit weeping in the shade;

21With us, sad

Hyacinthus10

sighs out “ay”,

22And lovely

Amarantha11

doth display

23Her beauties here to no admiring eye;

24Just so

obliviated12

we live and die.

25And for your viol and my

theorbo lute13

,

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

Philomel14

we may lament too late

30Our most disastrous, and too differing, fate.

31O, my sad heart, would we might pass our hours

32As innocently contented as these flowers

33Who show their beauties to admiring eyes,

34Then breathing aromatic odours

dies15

.

35Come, my dear

Nan16

, in this sad shade we’ll lie,

36And like them sweetly live and sweetly die.

37

Adonis’ blood the anemone uprears:17

38Who knows, such virtue may

be18

in our tears;

39These vi’lets, primrose,

pales19

which

appears20

,

40Perhaps their number

springs from virgins’ tears21

.

41O me, I would I might this very hour

42Sigh my sad soul into this

July flower22

;

43Trust me, I gladly would

transmigerate23

,

44That my afflicted life might

have a date24

,

45But we, alas, in sad obscurity

46Must hopeless live and so, I doubt, must die.

47O, that a

rècluse life25

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 try,

51And if what’s future prove 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.