Englands Helicon :: :: University of Virginia Library

Yee dainty Nimphs that in this blessed Brooke
Doo bath your brest;
Forsake your watry Bowers, and hether looke
At my request.
And you faire Virgins that on Parnasse dwell,
Whence sloweth Helicon the learned well:

Helpe me to blaze
Her worthy praise,
Who in her sexe dooth all excell.

Of faire Eliza be your siluer song,
That blessed wight:
The flower of Virgins, may she flourish long,
In Princely plight:
For shee is Sirinx daughter, without spot,
Which Pan the Sheepheards God on her begot:
So sprung her Grace,
Of heauenly race:
No mortall blemish may her blot.

See where she sits vpon the grassie greene,
O seemely sight:
Yclad in scarlet, like a mayden Queene,
And Ermines white.
Vpon her head a crimson Coronet,
With Daffadills and Damaske Roses set,
Bay leaues betweene,
And Primeroses greene:
Embellish the sweet Violet.

Tell me, haue ye beheld her Angels face,
Like Phœbe faire?
Her heauenly hauiour, her Princely Grace,
Can well compare
The red-Rose medled and the vvhite yfere,
In eyther cheeke depeincten liuely cheere.
Her modest eye,
Her Maiestie,
Where haue you seene the like but there?

I saw Phœbus thrust out his golden head,
On her to gaze:
But when he saw how broade her beames did spread:
It did him maze.

He blusht to see an other Sunne below,
Ne durst againe his fierie face out-show:
Let him if he dare
His brightnes compare
With hers, to haue the ouerthrow.

Shew thy selfe Cinthia with thy siluer rayes,
And be not abasht,
When she the beames of her beauty displayes,
Oh how art thou dasht?
But I will not match her with Latonaes seede,
Such folly great sorrow to Niobe did breede,
Now is she a stone,
And makes deadly moane,
Warning all other to take heede.

Pan may be proud, that euer he begot
Such a Bellibone:
And Sirinx reioyce, that euer was her lot
To beare such a one.
Soone as my Younglings cryen for the dam,
To her will I offer a milke-white Lamb.
Shee is my Goddesse plaine,
And I her Sheepheards Swaine,
Albe for-swonck and for-swat I am.

I see Caliope speede her to the place,
Where my Goddesse shines:
And after her the other Muses trace
With their Violines.
Bin they not Baie-braunches which they doo beare:
All for Eliza in her hand to weare?
So sweetly they play,
And sing all the way,
That it a heauen is to heare.

Loe how finely the Graces can it foote,
to the Instrument:

They dauncen deffely, and singen soote
In their merriment.
Wants not a fourth Grace to make the daunce euen?
Let that roome to my Lady be giuen.
Shee shall be a Grace,
To fill the fourth place,
And raigne with the rest in heauen.

And whether runnes this beuie of Ladies bright
Ranged in a roe?
They been all Ladies of the Lake behight
That vnto her goe:
Chloris, that is the chiefe Nimph of all,
Of Oliue-braunches beares a Coronall:
Oliues beene for peace
When warres doo surcease,
Such for a Princesse beene principall.

Bring hether the Pinke and purple Cullumbine.
With Gillyflowers
Bring sweet Carnasions, and Sops in vvine,
Worne of Paramours.
Strew me the ground with Daffa-down-Dillies,
And Cowslips, and Kings-cups, and loued Lillies,
The pretty Paunce,
And the Cheuisaunce,
Shall match with the faire flower-Delice.

Ye Sheepheards daughters that dwell on the greene,
Hie you there a pace,
Let none come there but such as Virgins beene,
To adorne her Grace.
And when you come where as she is in place:
See that your rudenes doo not you disgrace.
Bind your Fillets fast,
And gird on your wast:
For more finenesse with a Tawdrie lace.

Now rise vp Eliza, decked as thou art,
In royall ray:
And now ye dainty Damsels may depart,
Each one her way.
I feare I haue troubled your troupes too long:
Let dame Eliza thanke you for her Song.
And if you come hether,
When Damzins I gather
I will part them all, you among.

FINIS.

Edm. Spencer.