Still she was first, still she my song did end--

in these lines we find a note of triumphant fidelity rare in Campion's
work. Compared with this, that other song beginning:

Follow thy fair sun, unhappy shadow,
Though thou be black as night,
And she made all of light,
Yet follow thy fair sun, unhappy shadow--

seems but the ultimate perfection among valentines. Others of the songs
hesitate between compliment and the finer ecstasy. The compliment is
certainly of the noblest in the lyric which sets out--

When thou must home to shades of underground,
And, there arriv'd, a new admired guest,
The beauteous spirits do ingirt thee round,
White lope, blithe Helen, and the rest,
To hear the stories of thy finisht love
From that smooth tongue whose music hell can move;

but it fades by way of beauty into the triviality of convention in the
second verse:

Then wilt thou speak of banqueting delights,
Of masks and revels which sweet youth did make,
Of tourneys and great challenges of knights,
And all these triumphs for thy beauty's sake:
When thou hast told these honours done to thee,
Then tell, O tell, how thou didst murther me.