NOTES PAGE 1, POEM No. 1 The lark now leaves his wat'ry nest. This beautiful lyric under the simple title Song appeared in the first collected edition of Davenant's Poems, London, 1673. PAGE 1, No. 2- - Fly hence, shadows. From The Lover's Melancholy, act v. sc. 1; acted 1628. Printed 1629. PAGE 2, No. 3 Pack clouds, and away, and welcome day. Sung by Valerino in act iv. sc. 6 of the Rape of Lucrece, presented about 1605. The play was first printed in 1608, and reprinted in Dialogues and Dramas, 1637. The "Thomas Heywood was by far the most voluminous of the dramatists of his age, and belonged to the class that wrote for bread and dealt with Henslowe. Besides his dramas, Heywood wrote many pageants and considerable prose of the pamphlet class. loss of his Lives of All the Poets, if indeed it was ever published, is much to be deplored. Charles Lamb, in delight at Heywood's exquisite sense of pathos and delicate insight into the human heart, dubbed him a prose Shakespeare.' But even Heywood is not all prose, as this musical song is sufficient to attest.' (Schelling: A Book of Elizabethan Lyrics.) Line 15, Stare: starling. " PAGE 3, No. 2-Sing to Apollo, god of day. This song closes the Comedy of Midas, being sung at its first presentation before the Queenes Maiestie upon Twelfe Day at Night, by the Children of Paules," January 6, 1590. It did not appear in the first printed ed. of 1592, but was restored with six additional songs in the second ed. of the play by Edward Blunt in 1632. PAGE 3, No. 5- Hark, hark! the lark at heaven's gate sings. From act ii. sc. 3 of Cymbeline, 1609. Line 7, Bin: is. PAGE 3, No. 6- Corydon, arise, my Corydon! From England's Helicon, 1600, where it bears the signature Ignoto." Like most of the pieces thus signed it has been attributed to Sir Walter Raleigh, "without,' says Mr. Bullen, "the slightest reason." Line 28, Say: from soie, silk. PAGE 6, No. 7 Phœbus, arise. The text here followed is that of the Maitland Club reprint (1832) of the last edition (1616) of the poems published during Drummond's life. Line 4, Rouse Memnon's mother: Awaken the dawn from the dark earth and the clouds when she is resting. This is one of that limited class of early myths which may be reasonably interpreted as representations of natural phenomena. Aurora in the old mythology is the mother of Memnon (the east) and wife of Tithonus (the appearances of Earth and Sky during the last hours of Night). She leaves him every morning in renewed youth, to prepare the way for Phoebus (the sun), whilst Tithonus remains in perpetual old age and grayness. (F. T. Palgrave: Golden Treasury.) Line 5, Carriere: course. Line 27, By Penèus' streams: Phoebus met his love Daphne,_daughter of the river-god, by the river Penèus, in the vale of Tempe. Line 30, When two thou did to Rome appear: Cf. Livy xxviii. 2 (of the Second Punic War, B. C. 206. In civitate tanto discrimine belli sollicita. multa prodigia nuntiabantur . . . et Alba duos soles visos referebant." A like phenomenon is mentioned again in xxxix. 14. B. C. 204). Cf. also Pliny, Natural History, II. 31; thus translated by Philemon Holland: Over and besides, many sunnes are seen at once, neither above nor beneath the bodie of the true sunne indeed, but crosswise and overthwart; never neere, nor directly against the earthe, neither in the night season, but when the sunne either riseth or setteth. Once they are reported to have been seene at noone day in Bosphorus and continued from morne to even." (This from Aristotle, Meteor., III. 2. 6.) "Three sunnes together our Auncitors in old time have often beheld, as namely when Sp. Posthumius and Q. Mutius, Q. Martius with M. Porcius, M. Antonius with P. Dolabella, and Mar. Lepidus with L. Plancus, were consuls. Yea and we in our daies have seen the like, in the time of Cl. Cæsar of famous memorie, his Consulship, together with Cornelius Orsitus, his colleague. More than three we never this day find to have been seene together." Drummond's reference is perhaps to the famous instance italicized. (A. T. Quiller-Couch, The Golden Pomp.) Line 37, Purple ports of death: (ports: gates). Drummond elsewhere speaks of lips as "coral ports of bliss," and the "double port of love." Line 42, Night like a drunkard reels: Cf. Romeo and Juliet, act ii. sc. 3: And flecked darkness like a drunkard reels From forth day's path and Titan's fiery wheels. to Mr. Line 45, The clouds bespangle with bright_gold_their blue: Palgrave in The Golden Treasury for the last three lines follows the variant which reads:.. The clouds with orient gold spangle their blue And nothing wanting is, save She, alas! Mr. Quiller-Couch in The Golden Pomp follows Mr. Palgrave's example, and expresses his opinion that the ending in the 1616 text "seems comparatively weak. I note, however, that in his later published Oxford Book of English Verse he restores the original ending of the text as it is printed here. PAGE 7, No. 8 - On a fair morning, as I came by the way. From Thomas Morley's Madrigals to Four Voices, 1600. PAGE 9, No. 10 Hey! now the day dawis. "This lovely poem," says Crantoun, "is one of the happiest efforts of Montgomerie's Muse, and shows his lyric genius at its best. It is perhaps the oldest set of words extant, to the air, Hey tuttie taittie-the war-note sounded for the Bruce on the field of Bannockburn and familiarized to every one by Burns's 'Scots wha hae.' From allusions to the tune, Dunbar and other poets prior to Montgomerie, we conclude that it enjoyed a rare popularity. Gavin Douglas bears testimony to the favour in which it was held by the menstralis' of his day in the following lines of The Proloug of the Threttene Buik of Eneados: The dewy grene, pulderit with daseis gay, As menstrallis playing, The joly day now dawis." Line 13, The turtle that true is. Compare, As doth the turtle for her make," in Montgomerie's poem He Bids Adieu to His Mistress. The turtle-dove became celebrated for the constancy of its affection. Indeed, the "billing and cooing" of the pigeon has passed into a proverb. Compare Catullus: Propertius: And Martial: Nec tantum niveo gavisa est ulla columbo Carm. lxviii., 125, 126. Exemplo junctæ tibi sint in amore columbæ - Basia, me copiunt blandas imitata columbas. Amplexa collum basioque tam longo Line 36, Fone: foes. The form is also found as singular. See Fra that they knew that he wa Venus fone. From PAGE 11, No. 11 What bird so sings, yet so does wail. Alexander and Campaspe, act v. sc. 1, first produced at the Court New Year's Eve or Day of Christmas, 1581-2. Line 5, Brave pricksong. "The nightingale's song, being full of rich variety, is often termed prick-song by old writers. So they speak of the cuckoo's plain-song." (Bullen.) "Harmony written or pricked down in opposition to plain-song, where descant rested with the will of the singer." (Chappell.) Line 7, Now at heaven's gate she claps her wings. The comparison has been made of this line to the opening words of Shakespeare's song in Cymbeline, ii. 3. 21. (See p. 3, No. 5.) "A different, but inferior and I think later version of Lyly's song altering the fourth line and also substituting the sparrow for the robin is given, with Cupid and My Campaspe, but without source or author specified in Thomas Lyle's Ancient Ballads and Songs, 1827." (R. Warwick Bond.) PAGE 11, No. 12 Spring, the sweet Spring, is the year's pleas ant King. From Summer's Last Will and Testament, 1600. Line 5, The palm and May, etc. See note to Herrick's Corinna's Maying (p. 24, No. 28) for this old custom of May Day. PAGE 11, No. 13- Fresh Spring, the herald of love's mighty King. From the Amoretti, 1595, Sonnet 1xx. (See note to No. 352.) PAGE 12, No. 14 The soote season, that bud and bloom forth brings. Line 1, Soote: sweet. Line 10, Smale: small. Line 11, Mings: mingles. PAGE 13, No. 15 Full many a glorious morning have I seen. Sonnet xxxiii. in Shake-speare's Sonnettes, 1609. Line 6, Rack: vapours. Malone here explains rack to be the fleeting motion of the clouds: it more properly means the clouds themselves moving before the wind. Cf. Kipling in The Bell Buoy: When the smoking scud is blown And the greasy wind-rack lowers. PAGE 14, No. 16- Beauty, sweet Love, is like the morning dew. In Dr. Grosart's ed. of Daniel's Works, this sonnet is numbered 1., though in earlier editions it is assigned xlvii. in Delia, 1592. The date of publication of these sonnets one year after those of Sidney's, classes their author with the latter poet as a pioneer in the experiment of a literary fashion which shares with the drama the glories of the Age that left them unexcelled. Line 2, Refresh: refreshing. Line 5, Flourish: flourishing, i. e. to blossom. Line 11, And that, in Beauty's Lease: In the ed. of 1594 appears a later version of these concluding lines: When time has made a passport of thy fears, PAGE 14, No. 17-When daffodils begin to peer. Autolycus' song in The Winter's Tale, 1611; act iv. sc. 3. In the text of the play an interjected sentence and two more stanzas follow the three verses here given: I have served Prince Florizel and in my time wore three-pile [velvet]; but now I am out of service: But shall I go mourn for that, my dear? The pale moon shines by night: And when I wander here and there, If tinkers may have leave to live, |