Thomas Campion, a middle-class Englishman who attended Cambridge to study law but ultimately became a successful physician, published primarily as an amateur, but his work was fairly widely known even in his own time. His poetry is varied, often adapted specifically to the demands of singing (regular stanzas, in particular, to fit with the music), and rather learned. The last is a fairly free paraphrase of a poem by the Roman poet Horace -- Integer vitae scelerisque purus, but it also has a certain affinity with Psalm I, illustrating the seamless integration of classical and Biblical idiom that marked the English renaissance through Marvell and Milton.

When to her lute Corinna sings,
Her voice revives the leaden strings,
And doth in highest notes appear
As any challenged echo clear;
But when she doth of mourning speak,
Even with her sighs the strings do break.

And as her lute doth live or die,
Led by her passion, so must I:
For when of pleasure she doth sing,
My thoughts enjoy a sudden spring;
But if she doth of sorrow speak,
Even from my heart the strings do break.

---

Now winter nights enlarge
The number of their hours,
And clouds their storms discharge
Upon the airy towers.
Let now the chimneys blaze,
And cups o'erflow with wine;
Let well-tuned words amaze
With harmony divine.
Now yellow waxen lights
Shall wait on honey Love,
While youthful revels, masques, and courtly sights
Sleep's leaden spells remove.

This time doth well dispense
With lovers' long discourse.
Much speech hath some defense
Though beauty no remorse.
All do not all things well:
Some measures comely tread,
Some knotted riddles tell,
Some poems smoothly read.
The Summer hath his joys,
And Winter his delights;
Though Love and all his pleasures are but toys,
They shorten tedious nights.

---

The man of life upright,
Whose guiltless heart is free
From all dishonest deeds,
Or thought of vanity;

The man whose silent days
In harmless joys are spent,
Whom hopes cannot delude,
Nor sorrow discontent;

That man needs neither towers
Nor armor for defense,
Nor secret vaults to fly
From thunder's violence.

He only can behold
With unaffrighted eyes
The horrors of the deep
And terrors of the skies.

Thus, scorning all the cares
That fate or fortune brings,
He makes the heav'n his book,
HIs wisdom heav'nly things,

Good thoughts his only friends,
His wealth a well-spent age,
The earth his sober inn
And quiet pigrimage.