My darling, my coney,[327] my bird so bright of ble:[328]
Sweetheart, I say, all hail to thee!
How do our loves? be they fast asleep?
Or the old liveliness do they still keep?
YOUNG WOMAN. Do ye ask, and[329] my love be fast asleep?
O, if a woman may utter her mind,
My love had almost made me to weep,
Because that even now I did not you find;
I thought it surely a whole hundred year,[330]
Till in this place I saw you here.
YOUNG MAN. Alack, alack, I am sorry for this!
I had such business, I might not come;
But ye may perceive what my wit is,
How small regard I have and wisdom.
YOUNG WOMAN. Whereas ye ask me concerning my love,
I well assure you it doth daily augment;
Nothing can make me start or move;
You only to love is mine intent.
YOUNG MAN. And as for my love it doth never relent,
For of you I do dream, of you I do think;
To dinner and supper I never went,
But of beer and wine to you I did drink.
Now of such thinks[331] therefore to make an end,
Which pitiful lovers do cruelly torment,
To marriage, in God's name, let us descend,
As unto this hour we have been bent.
YOUNG WOMAN. Your will to accomplish I am as ready
As any woman, believe me truly.
YOUNG MAN. This ring then I give you as a token sure,
Whereby our love shall always endure.
YOUNG WOMAN. With a pure pretence your pledge I take gladly,
For a sign of our love, faith, and fidelity.
YOUNG MAN. Now I am safe, now I am glad,
Now I do live, now I do reign;
Methought till now I was too sad,
Wherefore, sadness, fly hence again!
Away with those words which my father brought out!
Away with his sageness and exhortation!
He could not make me his fool or his lout,
And put me besides this delectation.
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