1. ‘To M. Henry Lawes, the excellent Composer of his Lyricks’

Touch but thy Lire (my Harrie) and I heare
From thee some raptures of the rare Gotire.
Then if thy voice commingle with the String,
I hear in thee rare Laniere to sing;
Or curious Wilson: Tell me, canst thou be
Less than Apollo, that usurp’st such Three?
Three, unto whom the whole world give applause;
Yet their Three praises, praise but One; that’s Lawes.

1. ‘Upon M. William Lawes, the rare Musitian’

Sho’d I not put on Blacks, when each one here
Comes with his Cypresse, and devotes a teare?
Sho’d I not grieve (my Lawes) when every Lute,
Violl, and Voice, is (by thy losse) struck mute?
Thy loss, brave man! whose Numbers have been hurl’d,
And no less prais’d, then spread throughout the world.
Some have Thee call’d Amphion; some of us,
Nam’d thee Terpander, or sweet Orpheus:
Some this, some that, but all in this agree,
Musique had both her birth and death with Thee.

1. ‘This most popular of Hatton’s songs owes much stylistically to Schumann, whose songs he had edited for English consumption. Even so, it is still an extremely fresh composition and one that richly deserves space in any collection of the best songs of the nineteenth century from the best composers, although it would be tactful, perhaps, to leave a space between it and Schumann’s “Ich grolle nicht” ’ (Michael R. Turner and Antony Miall from Just a Song at Twilight, 1975).

2. protesting or declaring his devotion.

1. The Catherine pear is streaked with red. Cf. Suckling’s ‘Ballad on a Wedding’: ‘streaks of red were mingled there,/Such as are on a Katherine Pear’.

1. to confiscate property for debt.

2. Hesperus.

1. A street-vendor’s cry.

1. The shape of the poem on the page resembles an hour-glass, underlining the theme of transience.

1. baptism.

1. as an angler casts his line.