| William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Elizabethan Verse. 1907. | | | | The Mad Maid’s Song | | By Robert Herrick (1591–1674) |
| | | GOOD-MORROW to the day so fair, | |
| Good-morrow, sir, to you; | |
| Good-morrow to mine own torn hair | |
| Bedabbled with the dew. | |
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| Good-morrow to this primrose too, | 5 |
| Good-morrow to each maid | |
| That will with flowers the tomb bestrew | |
| Wherein my love is laid. | |
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| Ah! woe is me, woe, woe is me, | |
| Alack and well-a-day! | 10 |
| For pity, sir, find out that bee | |
| Which bore my love away. | |
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| I’ll seek him in your bonnet brave, | |
| I’ll seek him in your eyes; | |
| Nay, now I think they’ve made his grave | 15 |
| I’ th’ bed of strawberries. | |
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| I’ll seek him there; I know ere this | |
| The cold, cold earth doth shake him, | |
| But I will go or send a kiss | |
| By you, sir, to awake him. | 20 |
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| Pray hurt him not; though he be dead, | |
| He knows well who do love him, | |
| And who with green turfs rear his head, | |
| And who do rudely move him. | |
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| He’s soft and tender (pray take heed); | 25 |
| With bands of cowslips bind him, | |
| And bring him home; but ’tis decreed | |
| That I shall never find him. | | | | |
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