Small water wants the flower so sheen:
'Tis a love-lily ever green.

Envious tongues have told a girl that her complexion is not good. She
replies, with imagery like that of Virgil's 'Alba ligustra cadunt,
vaccinia nigra leguntur' (p. 31):--

Think it no grief that I am brown,
For all brunettes are born to reign:
White is the snow, yet trodden down;
Black pepper kings need not disdain:
White snow lies mounded on the vales
Black pepper's weighed in brazen scales.

Another song runs on the same subject (p. 38):--

The whole world tells me that I'm brown,
The brown earth gives us goodly corn:
The clove-pink too, however brown,
Yet proudly in the hand 'tis borne.
They say my love is black, but he
Shines like an angel-form to me:
They say my love is dark as night;
To me he seems a shape of light.

The freshness of the following spring song recalls the ballads of the
Val de Vire in Normandy (p. 85):--

It was the morning of the first of May,
Into the close I went to pluck a flower;
And there I found a bird of woodland gay,
Who whiled with songs of love the silent hour.
O bird, who fliest from fair Florence, how
Dear love begins, I prithee teach me now!--
Love it begins with music and with song,
And ends with sorrow and with sighs ere long.

Love at first sight is described (p. 79):--

The very moment that we met,
That moment love began to beat:
One glance of love we gave, and swore
Never to part for evermore;
We swore together, sighing deep,
Never to part till Death's long sleep.

Here too is a memory of the first days of love (p. 79):--

If I remember, it was May
When love began between us two:
The roses in the close were gay,
The cherries blackened on the bough.
O cherries black and pears so green!
Of maidens fair you are the queen.
Fruit of black cherry and sweet pear!
Of sweethearts you're the queen, I swear.

The troth is plighted with such promises as these (p. 230):--

Or ere I leave you, love divine,
Dead tongues shall stir and utter speech,
And running rivers flow with wine,
And fishes swim upon the beach;
Or ere I leave or shun you, these
Lemons shall grow on orange-trees.

The girl confesses her love after this fashion (p. 86):--

Passing across the billowy sea,
I let, alas, my poor heart fall;
I bade the sailors bring it me;
They said they had not seen it fall.
I asked the sailors,