Easter

Rise heart; thy Lord is risen.  Sing his praise

                                                  Without delayes,

Who takes thee by the hand, that thou likewise

                                                  With him mayst rise:

That, as his death calcined1 thee to dust,

His life may make thee gold, and much more, just.

Awake, my lute, and struggle for thy part

                                                  With all thy art.

The crosse taught all wood to resound his name,

                                                  Who bore the same.

His stretched sinews taught all strings, what key

Is best to celebrate this most high day.

Consort both heart and lute, and twist a song

                                                  Pleasant and long:

Or, since all musick is but three parts2 vied

                                                  And multiplied,

O let thy blessed Spirit bear a part,

And make up our defects with his sweet art.

I got me flowers to straw thy way;

I got me boughs off many a tree:

But thou wast up by break of day,

And brought’st thy sweets along with thee.

The Sunne arising in the East,

Though he give light, & th’ East perfume;

If they should offer to contest

With thy arising, they presume.

Can there be any day but this,

Though many sunnes to shine endeavour?

We count three hundred, but we misse:

There is but one, and that one ever.