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Come live with me and be my love, |
A belt of straw and ivy buds, |
This poem was written by a highly regarded contemporary of Shakespeare who was certainly not a shepherd. Marlowe was a well-educated member of the privileged class with connections to Queen Elizabeth's court. He wrote several important plays and was responsible for several new features in English literature. His life ended at a young age in somewhat mysterious violence. This particular poem was published in 1600 in England's Helicon six years after his death. It has become one of the most famous love poems in the English language and has been “answered” or parodied by many poets (see a few below). Jerry succumbed to the same temptation.
The next-to-last stanza was apparently a later addition and may not have been by Marlowe. It appeared in a manuscript by Thornburgh in the 17th century, and also in Walton's The Compleat Angler where it was named The Milk Maid's Song. The version in Francis Palgrave's Golden Treasury of 1875 reads “Thy silver dishes for thy meat As precious as the gods do eat, Shall on an ivory table be Prepared each day for thee and me.”