O stay, sweet love

O stay, sweet love; see here the place of sporting;

These gentle flowers smile sweetly to invite us,

And chirping birds are hitherward resorting,

Warbling sweet notes only to delight us:

Then stay, dear love, for, tho' thou run from me,

Run ne'er so fast, yet I will follow thee.

I thought, my love, that I should overtake you;

Sweet heart, sit down under this shadow'd tree,

And I will promise never to forsake you,

So you will grant to me a lover's fee.

Whereat she smiled, and kindly to me said -

I never meant to live and die a maid.