| William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Elizabethan Verse. 1907. | | | | May-song | | By Thomas Dekker (c. 1570–1632) |
| | | O, THE MONTH of May, the merry month of May, | |
| So frolic, so gay, and so green, so green, so green! | |
| O, and then did I unto my true love say, | |
| Sweet Peg, thou shalt be my Summer’s Queen. | |
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| Now the nightingale, the pretty nightingale, | 5 |
| The sweetest singer in all the forest choir, | |
| Entreats thee, sweet Peggy, to hear thy true love’s tale: | |
| Lo, yonder she sitteth, her breast against a brier. | |
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| But O, I spy the cuckoo, the cuckoo, the cuckoo! | |
| See where she sitteth; come away, my joy: | 10 |
| Come away, I prithee, I do not like the cuckoo | |
| Should sing where my Peggy and I kiss and toy. | |
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| O, the month of May, the merry month of May, | |
| So frolic, so gay, and so green, so green, so green! | |
| O, and then did I unto my true love say, | 15 |
| Sweet Peg, thou shalt be my Summer’s Queen. | | | | |
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