Hello and welcome to the Daily Poem. I'm Heidi White, filling in for David Kern, and today is Wednesday, September 30th.

We've been reading a lot of modern poetry lately, and so today I thought we would go back, back all the way to the 16th century, with a poem by Christopher Marlowe, who was a British poet. He lived from 1564 to 1593.

He was born in Canterbury, England, and educated at Cambridge, and he became one of the leading

writers of his day. He was a poet and a playwright. And he lived a very, very interesting and very life.

There were rumors that he was involved in criminal activity, forging fake money, being a secret

agent for Queen Elizabeth. And he did indeed die young in a bar fight, a violent eruption over the bill, actually.

He wrote plays such as Tamburlaine, Dr. Faustus, the Jew of Malta, and more.

He was surpassed only by Shakespeare in his brilliance and his writing skill at the time.

And he was known for hating Shakespeare for it, actually.

So Christopher Marlow lived a very interesting life, definitely worth a Google search or a study.

But today I'm going to read for you one of his poems, The Passionate Shepherd to His Love, and this is how it goes.

Come live with me and be my love, and we will all the pleasures prove that valleys, groves, hills, and fields, woods, or steepy mountain yields.

And we will sit upon the rocks,

seeing the shepherds feed their flocks.

By shallow rivers to whose falls,

melodious birds sing madrigals.

And I will make the beds of roses and a thousand fragrant posies,

a cap of flowers and a curtail, embroidered all with leaves of myrtle.

A gown made of the finest wool, which from our pretty lambs we pull, fair lineed slippers for the

cold, with buckles of the purest gold. A belt of straw and ivy buds with coral clasps and amber studs.

And if these pleasures may thee move, come live with me and be my love.

The shepherd's swains shall dance and sing, for thy delight each May morning.

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