The passionate shepherd to his love
Christopher Marlowe’s poem “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love” was published in 1599, six years after the poet’s death. Considered one of the earliest examples of the pastoral style of British poetry in the late-Renaissance period, it has inspired several responses, including Walter Raleigh’s poem “The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd”, published the following year.
Christopher Marlowe was born on 26 February 1564 in Canterbury, Kent, England, and he died on 30 May 1593 in Deptford, Kent, England, at the age of 29.Among the most famous of Elizabethan playwrights, Christopher (or Kit) Marlowe was also a poet and translator. The first of his era to achieve critical admiration for his use of blank verse, including in Tamburlaine and Doctor Faustus, he was the foremost dramatist in London in the years just before his mysterious early death.
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Wikipedia page on “The passionate shepherd to his love”
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Wikipedia page on Christopher Marlowe
Come live with me and be my love, And we will all the pleasures prove That valleys, groves, hills, and fields, Woods, or steepy mountain yields.
And we will sit upon the rocks, Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks By shallow rivers to whose falls Melodious birds sing madrigals.
And I will make thee beds of roses And a thousand fragrant posies, A cap of flowers, and a kirtle Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle;
A gown made of the finest wool Which from our pretty Lambs we pull; Fair lined slippers for the cold, With buckles of the purest gold;
A belt of straw and ivy buds, With coral clasps and amber studs: And if these pleasures may thee move, Come live with me, and be my love.
The shepherds’ swains shall dance and sing For thy delight each May-morning: If these delights thy mind may move, Then live with me, and be my love.