| William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Elizabethan Verse. 1907. | | | | A Canzon Pastoral in Honour of Her Majesty | | By Edmund Bolton (1575?–1633?) |
| | | ALAS! what pleasure, now the pleasant spring | |
| Hath given place | |
| To harsh black frosts the sad ground covering, | |
| Can we, poor we, embrace, | |
| When every bird on every branch can sing | 5 |
| Naught but this note of woe, Alas? | |
| Alas! this note of woe why should we sound? | |
| With us, as May, September hath a prime; | |
| Then, birds and branches, your Alas! is fond, | |
| Which call upon the absent summer-time. | 10 |
| For did flowers make our May, | |
| Or the sunbeams your day, | |
| When night and winter did the world embrace, | |
| Well might you wail your ill and sing, Alas! | |
| |
| Lo, matron-like the earth herself attires | 15 |
| In habit grave; | |
| Naked the fields are, bloomless are the briars, | |
| Yet we a summer have, | |
| Who in our clime kindleth these living fires, | |
| Which blooms can on the briars save. | 20 |
| No ice doth crystallize the running brook, | |
| No blast deflowers the flower-adornèd field. | |
| Crystal is clear, but clearer is the look | |
| Which to our climes these living fires doth yield. | |
| Winter, though everywhere, | 25 |
| Hath no abiding here: | |
| On brooks and briars she doth rule alone. | |
| The sun which lights our world is always one. | | | | |
|
|
