Summer's Last Will and Testament (excerpt)
Spring,
the
sweet
spring,
is
the
year's
pleasant
king,
Then
blooms
each
thing,
then
maids
dance
in
a
ring,
Cold
doth
not
sting,
the
pretty
birds
do
sing:
Cuckoo,
jug-jug,
pu-we,
to-witta-woo!
The
palm
and
may
make
country
houses
gay,
Lambs
frisk
and
play,
the
shepherds
pipe
all
day,
And
we
hear
aye
birds
tune
this
merry
lay:
Cuckoo,
jug-jug,
pu-we,
to-witta-woo!
The
fields
breathe
sweet,
the
daisies
kiss
our
feet,
Young
lovers
meet,
old
wives
a-sunning
sit,
In
every
street
these
tunes
our
ears
do
greet:
Cuckoo,
jug-jug,
pu-we,
to
witta-woo!
Thomas Nashe
Thomas Nashe, (born 1567, Lowestoft, Suffolk, Eng.—died c. 1601, Yarmouth, Norfolk?), pamphleteer, poet, dramatist, and author of The Unfortunate Traveller; or, The Life of Jacke Wilton (1594), the first picaresque novel in English. Nashe was educated at the University of Cambridge, and about 1588 he went to London, where he became associated with Robert Greene and other professional writers. In 1589 he wrote The Anatomie of Absurditie and the preface to Greene’s Menaphon. Both works are bold, opinionated surveys of the contemporary state of writing; occasionally obscure, they are euphuistic in style and range freely over a great variety of topics.