The Whole Works of William Browne of Tavistock ... Now first collected and edited, with a memoir of the poet, and notes, by W. Carew Hazlitt, of the Inner Temple |
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 | The Whole Works of William Browne |  |
151
Nor happyer names ere grac'd a golden tongue:
O! they are better fitting his sweet stripe,
Who on the bankes of Ancor tun'd his Pipe:
Or rather for that learned Swaine whose layes
Diuinest Homer crown'd with deathlesse Bayes:
Or any one sent from the sacred Well
Inheriting the soule of Astrophell:
These, these in golden lines might write this Story,
And make these loues their owne eternall glory:
Whilst I a Swaine as weake in yeeres as skill,
Should in the valley heare them on the hill,
Yet (when my Sheepe haue at their Cesterne beene,
And I haue brought them backe to sheare the greene)
To misse an idle houre, and not for meed,
VVith choicest relish shall mine Oaten Reed
Record their worths: and though in accents rare
I misse the glory of a charming ayre,
My Muse may one day make the Courtly Swaines
Enamour'd on the Musicke of the Plaines,
And as vpon a hill she brauely sings,
Teach humble Dales to weepe in Crystall Springs.
| The Whole Works of William Browne | |