The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd

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This is the archive for the Jewelry Poetry Page of the Beadshaper web site. Every month a piece of jewelry on the Beadshaper site is named after a classic poem. To see the Beadshaper site, please click http://www.beadshaper.com/ . The following poem is the one for the month of July 2007.

The Nymph’s Reply to the Sheperd
By Sir Walter Raleigh (1552-1618)

If all the world and love were young,
And truth in every sheperd’s tongue,
These pretty pleasures might me move
To live with thee and be thy love.

Time drives the flocks from field to fold,
When rivers rage and rocks grow cold,
And Philomel becometh dumb;
The rest complains of cares to come.

The flowers do fade, and wanton fields
To wayward winter reckoning yields;
A honey tongue, a heart of gall,
Is fancy's spring, but sorrows fall.

Thy gowns, thy shoes, thy bed of roses,
Thy cap, thy kirtle, and thy posies
Soon break, soon wither, soon forgotten,
In folly ripe, in reason rotten.

Thy belt of straw and ivy buds,
Thy coral clasps and amber studs,
All these in me no means can move
To come to thee and be thy love.

But could youth last and love still breed,
Had joys no date nor age no need,
Then these delights my mind might move
To live with thee and be thy love.