The Poetry of George Wither Edited by Frank Sidgwick |
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| 4. | THE FOURTH ECLOGUE.
Philaret on Willy calls |
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 | The Poetry of George Wither |  |
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THE FOURTH ECLOGUE. Philaret on Willy calls
To his truely beloved loving
Friend, Mr. William Browne
of the Inner Temple.
The Argument.
Philaret on Willy calls,To sing out his pastorals,
Warrants fame shall grace his rhymes
Spite of envy and the times;
And shows how in care he uses
To take comfort from his Muses.
Philarete.
Prithee, Willy, tell me this,
What new accident there is,
That thou, once the blithest lad,
Art become so wondrous sad,
And so careless of thy quill,
As if thou had'st lost thy skill?
Thou wert wont to charm thy flocks,
And among the massy rocks
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That I have forgot my wrong.
Something hath thee surely crost,
That thy old wont thou hast lost.
Tell me, have I ought mis-said
That hath made thee ill-a-paid?
Hath some churl done thee a spite?
Dost thou miss a lamb to-night?
Frowns thy fairest shepherd's lass?
Or how comes this ill to pass?
Is there any discontent
Worse than this my banishment?
Willy.
Why, doth that so evil seem
That thou nothing worse dost deem?
Shepherd, there full many be,
That will change contents with thee.
Those that choose their walks at will,
On the valley or the hill,
Or those pleasures boast of can,
Groves or fields may yield to man,
Never come to know the rest,
Wherewithal thy mind is blest.
Many a one that oft resorts
To make up the troop at sports,
And in company somewhile,
Happens to strain forth a smile,
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And more inward grief of heart,
Than this place can bring to thee,
While thy mind remaineth free.
Thou bewail'st my want of mirth,
But what find'st thou in this earth,
Wherein ought may be believed
Worth to make me joy'd or grieved?
And yet feel I, natheless,
Part of both, I must confess.
Sometime I of mirth do borrow,
Otherwhile as much of sorrow;
But my present state is such,
As nor joy nor grieve I much.
Philarete.
Why hath Willy then so long
Thus forborne his wonted song?
Wherefore doth he now let fall
His well-tuned pastoral,
And my ears that music bar,
Which I more long after far
Than the liberty I want?
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That were very much to grant.
But doth this hold alway, lad,
Those that sing not must be sad?
Did'st thou ever that bird hear
Sing well, that sings all the year?
Tom the Piper doth not play
Till he wears his pipe away:
There's a time to slack the string,
And a time to leave to sing.
Philarete.
Yea, but no man now is still,
That can sing or tune a quill.
Now to chant it were but reason;
Song and music are in season.
Now in this sweet jolly tide,
Is the earth in all her pride:
The fair Lady of the May,
Trimm'd up in her best array,
Hath invited all the swains
With the lasses of the plains,
To attend upon her sport
At the places of resort.
Corydon with his bold rout
Hath already been about
For the elder shepherds' dole,
And fetch'd in the summer-pole:
Whilst the rest have built a bower,
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Ciel'd so close, with boughs all green,
Titan cannot pry between.
Now the dairy-wenches dream
Of their strawberries and cream,
And each doth herself advance
To be taken in to dance;
Every one that knows to sing,
Fits him for his carolling;
So do those that hope for meed,
Either by the pipe or reed:
And though I am kept away,
I do hear this very day
Many learned grooms do wend
For the garlands to contend,
Which a nymph that hight Desart,
Long a stranger in this part,
With her own fair hand hath wrought
A rare work, they say, past thought,
As appeareth by the name,
For she calls them wreaths of fame.
She hath set in their due place
Every flower that may grace;
And among a thousand mo,
Whereof some but serve for show,
She hath wove in Daphne's tree,
That they may not blasted be.
Which with thyme she edged about,
Lest the work should ravel out.
And that it might wither never,
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These are to be shared among,
Those that do excel for song,
Or their passions can rehearse
In the smooth'st and sweetest verse.
Then for those among the rest
That can play and pipe the best,
There's a kidling with the dam,
A fat wether, and a lamb.
And for those that leapen far,
Wrestle, run, and throw the bar,
There's appointed guerdons too:
He that best the first can do,
Shall, for his reward, be paid
With a sheep-hook, fair inlaid
With fine bone, of a strange beast
That men bring from out the West:
For the next, a scrip of red,
Tassell'd with fine coloured thread:
There's prepared for their meed
That in running make most speed,
Or the cunning measures foot,
Cups of turned maple-root,
Whereupon the skilful man
Hath engraved the loves of Pan:
And the last hath for his due,
A fine napkin wrought with blue.
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Careless of thy merit now?
What dost thou here with a wight
That is shut up from delight
In a solitary den,
As not fit to live with men?
Go, my Willy, get thee gone,
Leave me in exile alone;
Hie thee to that merry throng,
And amaze them with thy song.
Thou art young, yet such a lay
Never graced the month of May,
As, if they provoke thy skill,
Thou canst fit unto thy quill;
I with wonder heard thee sing,
At our last year's revelling.
Then I with the rest was free,
When unknown I noted thee,
And perceived the ruder swains
Envy thy far sweeter strains.
Yea, I saw the lasses cling
Round about thee in a ring,
As if each one jealous were
Any but herself should hear.
And I know they yet do long
For the res'due of thy song.
Haste thee then to sing it forth;
Take the benefit of worth,
And Desert will sure bequeathe
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Hie thee, Willy, hie away.
Willy.
Phila, rather let me stay,
And be desolate with thee,
Than at those their revels be;
Nought such is my skill, I wis,
As indeed thou deem'st it is.
But whate'er it be, I must
Be content, and shall, I trust.
For a song I do not pass
'Mong'st my friends, but what, alas!
Should I have to do with them
That my music do contemn?
Some there are, as well I wot,
That the same yet favour not;
Yet I cannot well avow
They my carols disallow;
But such malice I have spied,
'Tis as much as if they did.
Philarete.
Willy, what may those men be
Are so ill to malice thee?
Willy.
Some are worthy, well-esteem'd,
Some without worth are so deem'd.
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They have nor esteem, nor merit.
Philarete.
What's the wrong?
Willy.
A slight offence,
Wherewithal I can dispense;
But hereafter for their sake
To myself I'll music make.
Philarete.
What, because some clown offends,
Wilt thou punish all thy friends?
Willy.
Do not, Phil, misunderstand me,
Those that love me may command me;
But, thou know'st, I am but young,
And the pastoral I sung,
Is by some supposed to be
By a strain too high for me:
So they kindly let me gain
Not my labour for my pain.
Trust me, I do wonder why
They should me my own deny.
Though I'm young, I scorn to flit
On the wings of borrowed wit.
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Whither others cannot bear me.
Yet I'll keep my skill in store,
Till I've seen some winters more.
Philarete.
But, in earnest, mean'st thou so?
Then thou art not wise, I trow:
Better shall advise thee Pan,
For thou dost not rightly than;
That's the ready way to blot
All the credit thou hast got.
Rather in thy age's prime,
Get another start of Time,
And make those that so fond be,
Spite of their own dulness see
That the sacred Muses can
Make a child in years a man.
It is known what thou canst do,
For it is not long ago,
When that Cuddy, thou, and I,
Each the others' skill to try,
At Saint Dunstan's charmed well,
As some present there can tell,
Sang upon a sudden theme,
Sitting by the crimson stream;
Where if thou didst well or no,
Yet remains the song to show.
Much experience more I've had,
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And would make the world to know it,
But that time will further show it.
Envy makes their tongues now run
More than doubt of what is done.
For that needs must be thy own,
Or to be some other's known:
But how then will 't suit unto
What thou shalt hereafter do?
Or, I wonder, where is he
Would with that song part to thee?
Nay, were there so mad a swain,
Could such glory sell for gain,
Phœbus would not have combined
That gift with so base a mind.
Never did the Nine impart
The sweet secrets of their art
Unto any that did scorn
We should see their favours worn.
Therefore unto those that say,
Were they pleased to sing a lay,
They could do 't, and will not tho',
This I speak, for this I know;
None e'er drunk the Thespian spring,
And knew how, but he did sing.
For that once infused in man
Makes him show't, do what he can.
Nay, those that do only sip,
Or but ev'n their fingers dip
In that sacred fount, poor elves,
Of that brood will show themselves.
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They will speak, though to their shame.
Let those then at thee repine
That by their wits measure thine;
Needs those songs must be thine own,
And that one day will be known.
That poor imputation too,
I myself do undergo;
But it will appear ere long,
That 'twas envy sought our wrong,
Who at twice-ten have sung more
Than some will do at fourscore.
Cheer thee, honest Willy, then,
And begin thy song again.
Willy.
Fain I would, but I do fear
When again my lines they hear,
If they yield they are my rhymes,
They will fain some other crimes;
And 'tis no safe vent'ring by
Where we see detraction lie.
For do what I can, I doubt
She will pick some quarrel out;
And I oft have heard defended,
Little said is soon amended.
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Seest thou not in clearest days
Oft thick fogs cloud heaven's rays,
And that vapours which do breathe
From the earth's gross womb beneath,
Seem not to us with black steams
To pollute the sun's bright beams,
And yet vanish into air,
Leaving it unblemish'd fair?
So, my Willy, shall it be
With detraction's breath and thee.
It shall never rise so high
As to stain thy poesy.
As that sun doth oft exhale
Vapours from each rotten vale,
Poesy so sometime drains
Gross conceits from muddy brains,
Mists of envy, fogs of spite,
'Twixt men's judgments and her light:
But so much her power may do,
That she can dissolve them too.
If thy verse do bravely tower,
As she makes wing, she gets power:
Yet the higher she doth soar,
She's affronted still the more:
Till she to the high'st hath past,
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Let nought therefore thee affright,
But make forward in thy flight;
For if I could match thy rhyme,
To the very stars I'd climb,
There begin again, and fly
Till I reach'd eternity.
But, alas, my Muse is slow;
For thy pace she flags too low:
Yea, the more's her hapless fate,
Her short wings were clipp'd of late,
And poor I, her fortune ruing,
Am myself put up a-mewing.
But if I my cage can rid,
I'll fly where I never did.
And though for her sake I'm crost,
Though my best hopes I have lost,
And knew she would make my trouble
Ten times more than ten times double,
I would love and keep her too
Spite of all the world could do.
For though banish'd from my flocks,
And, confined within these rocks,
Here I waste away the light
And consume the sullen night,
She doth for my comfort stay,
And keeps many cares away.
Though I miss the flow'ry fields,
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Though I may not see those groves,
Where the shepherds chant their loves,
And the lasses more excel
Than the sweet-voiced Philomel,
Though of all those pleasures past
Nothing now remains at last,
But remembrance, poor relief,
That more makes than mends my grief;
She's my mind's companion still,
Maugre envy's evil will,
Whence she should be driven too,
Were 't in mortal's power to do.
She doth tell me where to borrow
Comfort in the midst of sorrow,
Makes the desolatest place
To her presence be a grace,
And the blackest discontents
To be pleasing ornaments.
In my former days of bliss,
Her divine skill taught me this,
That from everything I saw
I could some invention draw,
And raise pleasure to her height,
Through the meanest object's sight.
By the murmur of a spring,
Or the least bough's rusteling;
By a daisy whose leaves spread
Shut when Titan goes to bed,
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She could more infuse in me
Than all Nature's beauties can
In some other wiser man.
By her help I also now
Make this churlish place allow
Some things that may sweeten gladness
In the very gall of sadness.
The dull loneness, the black shade
That these hanging vaults have made,
The strange music of the waves
Beating on these hollow caves,
This black den which rocks emboss
Overgrown with eldest moss,
The rude portals that give light
More to terror than delight,
This my chamber of neglect,
Wall'd about with disrespect;
From all these and this dull air,
A fit object for despair,
She hath taught me by her might
To draw comfort and delight.
Therefore, thou best earthly bliss,
I will cherish thee for this.
Poesy, thou sweet'st content
That e'er heav'n to mortals lent,
Though they as a trifle leave thee
Whose dull thoughts cannot conceive thee,
Though thou be to them a scorn
That to nought but earth are born,
Let my life no longer be
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Though our wise ones call thee madness,
Let me never taste of gladness
If I love not thy mad'st fits,
More than all their greatest wits.
And though some too seeming holy
Do account thy raptures folly,
Thou dost teach me to contemn
What makes knaves and fools of them
Oh, high power! that oft doth carry
Men above—
Willy.
Good Philarete, tarry,
I do fear thou wilt be gone
Quite above my reach anon.
The kind flames of poesy
Have now borne thy thoughts so high,
That they up in heaven be,
And have quite forgotten me.
Call thyself to mind again;
Are these raptures for a swain
That attends on lowly sheep,
And with simple herds doth keep?
Philarete.
Thanks, my Willy; I had run
Till that time had lodged the sun,
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But thy pardon here I pray.
Loved Apollo's sacred sire
Had raised up my spirits higher,
Through the love of poesy,
Than indeed they use to fly.
But as I said, I say still,
If that I had Willy's skill,
Envy nor detraction's tongue
Should e'er make me leave my song,
But I'd sing it every day
Till they pined themselves away.
Be thou then advised in this
Which both just and fitting is;
Finish what thou hast begun,
Or at least still forward run.
Hail and thunder ill he'll bear
That a blast of wind doth fear:
And if words will thus affray thee,
Prithee how will deeds dismay thee?
Do not think so rathe a song
Can pass through the vulgar throng,
And escape without a touch,
Or that they can hurt it much:
Frosts we see do nip that thing
Which is forward'st in the spring:
Yet at last for all such lets
Somewhat of the rest it gets.
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Therefore, my kind Willy, now,
Since thy folding time draws on
And I see thou must be gone,
Thee I earnestly beseech
To remember this my speech,
And some little counsel take
For Philarete his sake:
And I more of this will say,
If thou come next holiday.
| The Poetry of George Wither | |