LYLY, John


What Bird So Sings, Yet So Does Wail?

What bird so sings, yet so does wail?

Oh, 'tis the ravished nightingale.

Jug, jug, jug, jug, tereu, she cries,

And still her woes at midnight rise.

Brave prick-song! Who is't now we hear?

None but the lark so shrill and clear;

How at heaven's gates she claps her wings,

The morn not waking till she sings.

Hark, hark, with what a pretty throat

Poor robin redbreast tunes his note;

Hark how the jolly cuckoos sing

Cuckoo, to welcome in the spring,

Cuckoo, to welcome in the spring.


Hymn to Apollo

Sing to Apollo, god of day,

Whose golden beams with morning play,

And make her eyes as brightly shine,

Aurora's face is called divine ;

Sing to Phoebus and that throne

Of diamonds which he sits upon.

Io pæans let us sing

To physic's and to poesy's king !

Crown all his altars with bright fire,

Laurels bind about his lyre,

A Daphnean coronet for his head,

The Muses dance about his bed ;

When on his ravishing lute he plays,

Strew his temple round with bays.

Io pæans let us sing

To the glittering Delian king !