The Flower of the Mind

								


   Or sing the thing that mote thy mind delight,

   Do not thy servant’s simple boon refuse;

   But let this day, let this one day, be mine;

   Let all the rest be thine.

   Then I thy sovereign praises loud will sing,

   That all the woods shall answer, and their echo ring.



   Hark! how the minstrels ’gin to shrill aloud

   Their merry Music that resounds from far,

   The pipe, the tabor, and the trembling crowd,

   That well agree withouten breach or jar.

   But, most of all, the damsels do delight

   When they their timbrels smite,

   And thereunto do dance and carol sweet,

   That all the senses they do ravish quite;

   The whiles the boys run up and down the street,

   Crying aloud with strong confused noise,

   As if it were one voice,

   Hymen! iö Hymen!  Hymen, they do shout;

   That even to the heavens their shouting shrill

   Doth reach, and all the firmament doth fill;

   To which the people standing all about,

   As in approvance, do thereto applaud,

   And loud advance her laud;

   And evermore they Hymen, Hymen! sing,

   That all the woods them answer, and their echo ring.



   Lo! where she comes along with portly pace,

   Like Phœbe, from her chamber of the East,

   Arising forth to run her mighty race,

   Clad all in white, that seems a virgin best.

   So well it her beseems, that ye would ween

   Some angel she had been.

   Her long loose yellow locks like golden wire,

   Sprinkled with pearl, and pearling flowers atween,

   Do like a golden mantle her attire;

   And, being crowned with a garland green,

   Seem like some maiden Queen.

   Her modest eyes, abashed to behold

   So many gazers as on her do stare,

   Upon the lowly ground affixed are;

   Ne dare lift up her countenance too bold,

   But blush to hear her praises sung so loud,

   So far from being proud.

   Nathless, do ye still loud her praises sing,

   That all the woods may answer, and your echo ring.



   Tell me, ye merchants’ daughters, did ye see

   So fair a creature in your town before;

   So sweet, so lovely, and so mild as she,

   Adorned with beauty’s grace and virtue’s store?

   Her goodly eyes like sapphires shining bright,

   Her forehead ivory white,

   Her cheeks like apples which the sun hath ruddied,

   Her lips like cherries charming men to bite,

   Her breast like to a bowl of cream uncrudded,

   Her paps like lilies budded,

   Her snowy neck like to a marble tower;

   And all her body like a palace fair,

   Ascending up, with many a stately stair,

   To honour’s seat and chastity’s sweet bower.

   Why stand ye still, ye virgins, in amaze,

   Upon her so to gaze,

   Whiles ye forget your former lay to sing,

   To which the woods did answer, and your echo ring?



   But if ye saw that which no eyes can see,

   The inward beauty of her lively spright,

   Garnished with heavenly gifts of high degree,

   Much more then would ye wonder at that sight,