when Gloriana shone:’

Tom Heywood

Gloriana

All in a garden green Thrushes were singing; Red rose and white between, Lilies were springing; It was the merry May; Yet sang my Lady:— ‘Nay, Sweet, now nay, now nay! I am not ready.’

Then to a pleasant shade I did invite her: All things a concert made, For to delight her; p. 25Under, the grass was gay; Yet sang my Lady:— ‘Nay, Sweet, now nay, now nay! I am not ready.’

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p. 26XIV

p. 26

Why do you linger and loiter, O most sweet? Why do you falter and delay, Now that the insolent, high-blooded May Comes greeting and to greet? Comes with her instant summonings to stray Down the green, antient way— The leafy, still, rose-haunted, eye-proof street!— Where true lovers each other may entreat, Ere the gold hair turn gray? Entreat, and fleet Life gaudily, and so play out their play, Even with the triumphing May— The young-eyed, smiling, irresistible May!

Why do you loiter and linger, O most dear? Why do you dream and palter and stay, When every dawn, that rushes up the bay, Brings nearer, and more near, The Terror, the Discomforter, whose prey, p. 27Belovèd, we must be? Nor prayer, nor tear, Lets his arraignment; but we disappear, What time the gold turns gray, Into the sheer, Blind gulfs unglutted of mere Yesterday, With the unlingering May— The good, fulfilling, irresponsible May!

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p. 28XV

p. 28

Come where my Lady lies, Sleeping down the golden hours! Cover her with flowers.

Bluebells from the clearings, Flag-flowers from the rills, Wildings from the lush hedgerows, Delicate daffodils, Sweetlings from the formal plots, Bloomkins from the bowers— Heap them round her where she sleeps, Cover her with flowers!

Sweet-pea and pansy, Red hawthorn and white; Gilliflowers—like praising souls; Lilies—lamps of light: p. 29Nurselings of what happy winds, Suns, and stars, and showers! Joylets good to see and smell—  Cover her with flowers!

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