| William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Elizabethan Verse. 1907. | | | | A Sweet Pastoral | | By Nicholas Breton (1545–1626) |
| | | GOOD Muse, rock me to sleep | |
| With some sweet harmony; | |
| The weary eye is not to keep | |
| Thy wary company. | |
| |
| Sweet Love, begone awhile; | 5 |
| Thou know’st my heaviness; | |
| Beauty is born but to beguile | |
| My heart of happiness. | |
| |
| See how my little flock, | |
| That loved to feed on high, | 10 |
| Do headlong tumble down the rock | |
| And in the valley die. | |
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| The bushes and the trees | |
| That were so fresh and green, | |
| Do all their dainty colour leese, | 15 |
| And not a leaf is seen. | |
| |
| The blackbird and the thrush | |
| That made the woods to ring, | |
| With all the rest are now at hush | |
| And not a note they sing. | 20 |
| |
| Sweet Philomel, the bird | |
| That hath the heavenly throat, | |
| Doth now, alas! not once afford | |
| Recording of a note. | |
| |
| The flowers have had a frost, | 25 |
| Each herb hath lost her savour, | |
| And Phyllida the fair hath lost | |
| The comfort of her favour. | |
| |
| Now all these careful sights | |
| So kill me in conceit, | 30 |
| That now to hope: upon delights, | |
| It is but mere deceit. | |
| |
| And therefore, my sweet Muse, | |
| Thou know’st what help is best; | |
| Do now thy heavenly cunning use | 35 |
| To set my heart at rest: | |
| |
| And in a dream bewray | |
| What fate shall be my friend, | |
| Whether my life shall still decay, | |
| Or when my sorrow end. | 40 | | | |
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