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Classic and Contemporary Poetry


MENAPHON: MELICERTUS' MADRIGAL by ROBERT GREENE

First Line: WHAT ARE MY SHEEP WITHOUT THEIR WONTED FOOD?
Last Line: WHERETO THIS SOLACE TENDS!
Subject(s): COUNTRY LIFE; HAPPINESS; LOVE; MAN-WOMAN RELATIONSHIPS; JOY; DELIGHT; MALE-FEMALE RELATIONS;

WHAT are my sheep without their wonted food?
What is my life except I gain my love?
My sheep consume and faint for want of blood,
My life is lost unless I grace approve:
No flower that sapless thrives,
No turtle without fere.

The day without the sun doth lour for woe,
Then woe mine eyes, unless they beauty see;
My sun Samela's eyes, by whom I know
Wherein delight consists, where pleasures be:
Naught more the heart revives
Than to embrace his dear.

The stars from earthly humours gain their light,
Our humours by their light possess their power;
Samela's eyes, fed by my weeping sight,
Infuse my pain or joys by smile or lour;
So wends the source of love;
It feeds, it fails, it ends.

Kind looks, clear to your joy behold her eyes,
Admire her heart, desire to taste her kisses;
In them the heaven of joy and solace lies,
Without them every hope his succour misses:
O, how I love to prove
Whereto this solace tends!



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