Pack, clouds away! and welcome day!
With night we banish sorrow;
Sweet air, blow soft, mount larks aloft
To give my love good-morrow!
Wings from the wind to please her mind,
Notes from the lark I’ll borrow;
Bird, prune thy wing, nightingale, sing,
To give my love good-morrow;
To give my love good-morrow;
Notes from them both I’ll borrow.
Wake from thy nest, Robin Redbreast,
Sing birds in every furrow;
And from each hill, let music shrill
Give my fair love good-morrow!
Blackbird and thrush in every bush,
Stare, linnet, and ****-sparrow!
You pretty elves, amongst yourselves,
Sing my fair love good-morrow;
To give my love good-morrow,
Sing birds in every furrow.
Thomas Heywood (early 1570s – 16 August 1641) was a prominent English playwright, actor, and author whose peak period of activity falls between late Elizabethan and early Jacobean theatre.
He wrote for the stage, and (perhaps disingenuously) protested against the printing of his works, saying he had no time to revise them.
Johann Ludwig Tieck called him the "model of a light and rare talent", and Charles Lamb wrote that he was a "prose Shakespeare"; Professor Ward, one of Heywood's most sympathetic editors, pointed out that Heywood had a keen eye for dramatic situations and great constructive skill, but his powers of characterization were not on a par with his stagecraft.
He delighted in what he called "merry accidents", that is, in coarse, broad farce; his fancy and invention were inexhaustible.
Heywood's best known plays are his domestic tragedies and comedies (plays set among the English middle classes); his masterpiece is generally considered to be A Woman Killed with Kindness (acted 1603; printed 1607), a domestic tragedy about an adulterous wife.
Also, a widely admired Plautine farce The English Traveller (acted approximately 1627; printed 15 July 1633), which is also known for its informative "Preface", giving Heywood an opportunity to inform the reader about his prolific creative output.
His citizen comedies are noteworthy because of their physicality and energy. They provide a ******-geography of the sights, smells, and sounds of London's wharfs, markets, shops, and streets which contrasts with the more conventional generalisations about the sites of commerce, which are satirised in city comedies.
sub-entry: bird in the hand
(open the furrow --------------)
and let loose
bird in the hand
(close to flying)
to measure what's worth of sharing
desire in a play on a midnight-watch
(all familiar with the adage)
good love on the wing of morrow
unpunctuated, leaves option wide open
(let bird sing you sweet-song.. love)