O sweetest heart of all thy time save one,
Star seen for love’s sake nearest to the sun,
Hung lamplike o’er a dense and doleful city,
Not Shakespeare’s very spirit, howe’er more great,
Than thine toward man was more compassionate,
Nor gave Christ praise from lips more sweet with pity.
ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE: ‘Thomas Decker’
Dekker was a prolific writer of plays and pamphlets. Never wealthy, he lived a hand-to-mouth existence and was never financially secure. Little is known about him until 1597, when he was already working for the theatre-manager Philip Henslowe, for whom he wrote some forty-four plays, usually in collaboration with others. Some of his collaborators are Henry Chettle (Patient Grissil), Thomas Middleton (The Honest Whore and The Roaring Girl), John Webster (Westward Ho!) and John Ford (The Witch of Edmonton). Jonson satirized him in The Poetaster (1601), and Dekker responded with Satiromastix, Or the Untrussing of the Humorous Poet (1602). His pamphlets tell us a great deal about contemporary low-life in London. The Wonderful Year (1603) describes the London plagues, The Seven Deadly Sins (1606) portrays the vices and foibles of London citizens, The Bellman of London (1608) catalogues the roguery of Elizabethan con men, and The Gull’s Hornbook (1609) satirizes young dandies. There were two sides to Dekker – the Rabelaisian describer of low life, and the Romantic poet full of tender pathos. He is remembered chiefly for his realistic portrayals of London life, and his masterpiece is probably The Shoemaker’s Holiday (1599). The first two poems printed here are from Patient Grissil (1603), a play he wrote with Henry Chettle and William Haughton. Dekker’s sympathy for the underprivileged and dispossessed, evident in so much of his writing, was born of personal experience: as early as 1598 he was forced to borrow money from Henslowe to be released from a debtor’s prison. He was in prison for debt once more from 1612 until 1619, and it seems likely that he died in debt, since his widow renounced her right to administer his estate.
Golden slumbers kisse your eyes,
Smiles awake you when you rise:
Sleepe pretty wantons doe not cry,
And I will sing a lullabie,
Rocke them rocke them lullabie.
Care is heauy therefore sleepe you,
You are care and care must keep you:
Sleepe pretty wantons do not cry,
And I will sing a lullabie.
Rocke them rocke them lullabie.
(Berners, Howells, McCartney, Somervell, Stanford)
Art thou poore yet hast thou golden Slumbers:
Oh sweet content!
Art thou rich yet is thy minde perplexed?
Oh punnishment!
Dost thou laugh to see how fooles are vexed?
To ad to golden numbers, golden numbers.
O sweet content! O sweet, O sweet content!
Worke apace, apace, apace, apace:
Honest labour beares a louely face,
Then hey noney, noney: hey noney, noney!
Canst drinke the waters of the Crisped spring?
O sweet content!
Swim’st thou in wealth, yet sinck’st in thine owne teares?
O punnishment!
Then hee that patiently want’s burden beares,
No burden beares, but is a King, a King!
O sweet content! O sweet, O sweet content!
Worke apace, apace, apace, apace:
Honest labour beares a louely face,
Then hey noney noney: hey noney noney!
(Blumenthal, Davies, Stanford)
O the month of Maie, the merry month of Maie,
So frolicke2, so gay, and so greene, so greene, so greene:
O, and then did I, vnto my true loue say,
Sweete Peg, thou shalt be my Summers Queene.
Now the Nightingale, the prettie Nightingale,
The sweetest singer in all the Forrests quier,
Intreates thee sweete Peggie, to heare thy true loues tale:
Loe, yonder she sitteth, her breast against a brier.
But O I spie the Cuckoo, the Cuckoo, the Cuckoo,3
See where she sitteth, come away my ioy:
Come away I prithee, I do not like the Cuckoo
Should sing where my Peggie and I kisse and toy.
O the month of Maie, the merry month of Maie,
So frolike, so gay, and so greene, so greene, so greene:
And then did I, vnto my true loue say,
Sweete Peg, thou shalt be my Summers Queene.
(Ireland)
Cold’s the wind, and wet’s the raine,
Saint Hugh2 be our good speede:
Ill is the weather that bringeth no gaine,
Nor helpes good hearts in neede.
Trowle3 the boll, the iolly Nut-browne4 boll,
And here kind mate to thee:
Let’s sing a dirge for Saint Hughes soule,
And downe it merrily.
Downe a downe, hey downe a downe,
Hey derie derie down a down, Close with the tenor boy.5
Ho well done, to me let come,
Ring compasse gentle ioy.6
Trowle the boll, the Nut-browne boll,
And here kind &c. as often as there be men to drinke.
At last when all haue drunke, this verse.
Cold’s the wind, and wet’s the raine,
Saint Hugh be our good speede:
Ill is the weather that bringeth no gaine,
Nor helpes good hearts in neede.