Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Edward Farr, ed. Select Poetry of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth. 1845.

Paraphrase of the Fifth Chapter of the Song of Solomon

CXXIII. Jud Smith

COME, wend unto my garden gay,

My sister and my spowse:

For I haue gathered mirre with spice,

And other goodly bowes.

I meane to eate my honnye, and

My honny-combe so sweete;

And I will drinke my wyne and milke,

For so it seemeth meete.

Eat now, my frinds, do nothing spare,

But be of perfect cheare:

And drink with mirth; for you of me

Are sure beloued deare.

As I laye in a slombring sleepe,

But being wake in mynde,

I heard my true loue speake and knocke,

And all was me to fynde.

Open me the gates, said he,

My sister and my loue,

My darling and my hart’s desyre,

My onely Turtle-doue.

For why? my heade is full of dewe,

And so are all my lockes

Bedecked well in comely wise

With these benighted drops.

I haue put off my coat; how can

I put it on againe?

And if I fyle my washed feete,

Then washt I them in vaine.

But when my loue put in his hande,

Then was my heart so prest

To him, that I was moued much,

And tooke but little rest.

So that I stoode up by aud by,

To open him the doore:

But then my handes coulde drop with myrre,

As was not seene before:

Which myrre ran down my fingers fast,

When they were on the lock,

When I was opening him the dore,

That there before did knocke.

But when to my Beloued I

The doore had opened wyde,

He was departed thence away,

And gone his wayes asyde.

And nowe, as he before did speake,

When I coulde not refraine,

So now I sought him mournfullye,

But found him not againe.

And then I cryed after him

As one that was forsake,

And listened still, but answere none

Woulde he unto me make.