Start: ROSE. Here sit thou down up...

Start:

ROSE. Here sit thou down upon this flow’ry bank,

And make a garland for thy Lacy’s head.

These pinks, these roses, and these violets,

These blushing gilliflowers, these marigolds,

The fair embroidery of his coronet,

Carry not half such beauty in their cheeks,

As the sweet countenance of my Lacy doth.

O my most unkind father! O my stars,

Why lower’d you so at my nativity,

To make me love, yet live robb’d of my love?

Here as a thief am I imprisoned

For my dear Lacy’s sake within those walls,

Which by my father’s cost were builded up

For better purposes. Here must I languish

For him that doth as much lament, I know,

Mine absence, as for him I pine in woe.

Dekker, Thomas. The Shoemaker’s Holiday, 1599, Act 2, Scene 1.

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