There is more of jest than of sorrow in the last line. It is an act of
courtesy. Through all these songs, however, there is a continuous expense
of beauty, of a very fortune of admiration, that entitles Campion to a
place above any of the other contemporaries of Shakespeare as a writer of
songs. His dates (1567-1620) almost coincide with those of Shakespeare.
Living in an age of music, he wrote music that Shakespeare alone could
equal and even Shakespeare could hardly surpass. Campion's words are
themselves airs. They give us at once singer and song and stringed
instrument.

It is only in music, however, that Campion is in any way comparable to
Shakespeare. Shakespeare is the nonpareil among song-writers, not merely
because of his music, but because of the imaginative riches that he pours
out in his songs. In contrast with his abundance, Campion's fortune seems
lean, like his person. Campion could not see the world for lovely ladies.
Shakespeare in his lightest songs was always aware of the abundant
background of the visible world. Campion seems scarcely to know of the
existence of the world apart from the needs of a masque-writer. Among his
songs there is nothing comparable to "When daisies pied and violets blue,"
or "Where the bee sucks," or "You spotted snakes with double tongue," or
"When daffodils begin to peer," or "Full fathom five," or "Fear no more
the heat o' the sun." He had neither Shakespeare's eye nor Shakespeare's
experiencing soul. He puts no girdle round the world in his verse. He
knows but one mood and its sub-moods. Though he can write

There is a garden in her face,
Where roses and white lilies grow,

he brings into his songs none of the dye and fragrance of flowers.