1 Lord, Lord, she will be a joyful woman.
2 And joy comes well in such a needy time.
3 But now I'll tell thee joyful tidings, girl.
4 Alack, my child is dead, And with my child my joys are buried.
5 But that a joy past joy calls out on me, It were a grief so brief to part with thee.
6 Now by Saint Peter's Church, and Peter too, He shall not make me there a joyful bride.
7 Ah me, how sweet is love itself possess'd, When but love's shadows are so rich in joy.
8 If I may trust the flattering eye of sleep, My dreams presage some joyful news at hand.
9 Back, foolish tears, back to your native spring, Your tributary drops belong to woe, Which you mistaking offer up to joy.
10 Amen, amen, but come what sorrow can, It cannot countervail the exchange of joy That one short minute gives me in her sight.
11 Well, well, thou hast a careful father, child; One who to put thee from thy heaviness, Hath sorted out a sudden day of joy, That thou expects not, nor I look'd not for.
12 Within this hour my man shall be with thee, And bring thee cords made like a tackled stair, Which to the high topgallant of my joy Must be my convoy in the secret night.
13 Marry, my child, early next Thursday morn The gallant, young, and noble gentleman, The County Paris, at Saint Peter's Church, Shall happily make thee there a joyful bride.
14 Although I joy in thee, I have no joy of this contract tonight; It is too rash, too unadvis'd, too sudden, Too like the lightning, which doth cease to be Ere one can say It lightens.
15 Ah, Juliet, if the measure of thy joy Be heap'd like mine, and that thy skill be more To blazon it, then sweeten with thy breath This neighbour air, and let rich music's tongue Unfold the imagin'd happiness that both Receive in either by this dear encounter.
16 But look thou stay not till the watch be set, For then thou canst not pass to Mantua; Where thou shalt live till we can find a time To blaze your marriage, reconcile your friends, Beg pardon of the Prince, and call thee back With twenty hundred thousand times more joy Than thou went'st forth in lamentation.