Fair, if you expect admiring

Thomas Campian (o Campion; 12 febbraio 1567 - 1620): Fair, if you expect admiring, ayre (pubblicato nel Third Booke of Ayres, 1617, n. 8). Nigel Rogers, tenore; Desmond Dupré, liuto.

Fair, if you expect admiring,
Sweet, if you provoke desiring,
Grace dear love with kind requiting.
Fond, but if thy light be blindness,
Fair, if thou affect unkindness,
Fly, both love and love’s delighting.
Then, when hope is lost and love is scorned,
I’ll bury my desires, and quench the fires that ever yet in vain have burned.

Fates, if you rule lovers’ fortune,
Stars, if men your powers importune,
Yield relief by your relenting.
Time, if sorrow be not endless,
Hope made vain, and pity friendless,
Help to ease my long lamenting.
But if griefs remain still unredressed,
I’ll fly to her again, and she for pity to renew my hopes distressed.

She never will say no

Thomas Campian (o Campion; 1567 - 1° marzo 1620): I care not for these ladies, ayre (pubblicato in A Booke of Ayres, 1601). Alfred Deller, controtenore; Desmond Dupré, liuto.

I care not for these ladies
That must be wooed and prayed:
Give me kind Amaryllis,
The wanton country maid.
Nature art disdaineth,
Her beauty is her own.
Her when we court and kiss,
She cries, “Forsooth, let go!”
But when we come where comfort is,
She never will say no.

If I love Amaryllis,
She gives me fruit and flowers:
But if we love these ladies,
We must give golden showers.
Give them gold, that sell love,
Give me the nut-brown lass,
Who, when we court and kiss,
She cries, “Forsooth, let go!”
But when we come where comfort is,
She never will say no.

These ladies must have pillows,
And beds by strangers wrought;
Give me a bower of willows,
Of moss and leaves unbought,
And fresh Amaryllis,
With milk and honey fed;
Who, when we court and kiss,
She cries, “Forsooth, let go!”
But when we come where comfort is,
She never will say no.

Campian - I care not

Never weather-beaten saile


Thomas Campian (o Campion; 12 febbraio 1567 - 1620): Never weather-beaten saile, ayre (pubblicato nel First Book of Ayres, 1613, n. 11). Ensemble Phoenix Munich e Stile Antico.

Never weather-beaten saile more willing bent to shore.
Never tired pilgrim’s limbs affected slumber more,
Than my wearied sprite now longs to fly out of my troubled breast:
O come quickly, sweetest Lord, and take my soul to rest.

Ever blooming are the joys of Heaven’s high Paradise.
Cold age deafs not there our ears nor vapour dims our eyes:
Glory there the sun outshines whose beams the blessed only see:
O come quickly, glorious Lord, and raise my sprite to thee.