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The Shorter Poems of Ralph Knevet

A Critical Edition by Amy M. Charles

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[4] Solitude

Though to the world I seeme to bee,
Mix'd in a concurse of societye,
Farre from a life contemplative,

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Yet with a Desert I dare strive,
For solitude, and in this can
Both personate the Owle, and Pellican.
The tender Bee doth dwell
All winter, in his warme sexangled cell:
Untill Aurora bright besmeares
The woods, with her melliflo'us teares,
And to the feilds doth him invite,
With new borne flowres, to feast his appetite.
But I am to my cell confin'd,
By longer winter and blasts more unkind,
Then those of Boreas, where I doe
Endeavour to improve my woe,
(And though uncloyster'd) yet dare vye
Sad howres, with the monasticke Votarye.
While in this vale of teares I stay,
Those upper springs unto mee Lord bewray,
That when these nether springs are dry'd,
Those may arise with a full tide,
To cleanse the guilt of that defect,
Which my two nether springs could not effect.