Come merry Spring delight us / Mary Wroth

Song 3

Come merry Spring delight us,
For Winter long did spight us,
In pleasure still persever,
Thy beauties ending never:
            Spring, and grow
            Lasting so,
With joyes increasing ever.

Let cold from hence be banish'd,
Till hopes from me be vanish'd,
But bless thy daynties growing
In fulnesse freely flowing:
            Sweet Birds sing
            For the Spring,
All mirth is now bestowing.

Philomel in this Arbour
Makes now her loving Harbour,
Yet of her state complaining,
Her Notes in mildnesse strayning,
            Which though sweet,
            Yet doe meet,
Her former lucklesse paining.

~~
Mary Wroth (1587-1633)
from Pamphilia to Amphilanthus, 1621

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Katayama Yokoku (1760-1801), Kiku Jido and Flowers and Birds. PD, Wikimedia Commons

Mary Wroth biography