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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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Cease Remond (quoth the Boy) no more complaine,
Thy fairest Fida liues; nor doe thou staine
With vile reproaches any power aboue,
They all as much as thee haue beene in loue:
Saturne his Rhea; Jupiter had store,
As Iö, Leda, Eurŏpa, and more;
Mars entred Vulcans bed; pertooke his ioy:
Phœbus had Daphne, and the

Hyacinth.

sweet-fac'd Boy;

Venus, Adonis; and the God of Wit
In chastest bonds was to the Muses knit,
And yet remaines so, nor can any seuer
His loue, but brother-like affects them euer;
Pale-changefull Cinthia her Endimion had,

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And oft on Latmus sported with that Lad:
If these were subiect (as all mortall men)
Vnto the golden shafts, they could not then
But by their owne affections rightly ghesse
Her death would draw on thine; thy wretchednesse
Charge them respectlesse; since no Swaine then thee
Hath offred more vnto each Deitie.
But feare not, Remond, for those sacred Powres
Tread on obliuion; no desert of ours
Can be intoomb'd in their celestiall brests;
They weigh our offrings, and our solemne feasts,
And they forget thee not: Fida (thy deere)
Treads on the earth, the blood that's sprinkled here
Ne're fill'd her veynes, the Hynd possest this gore,
See where the Coller lyes she whilome wore;
Some Dog hath slaine her, or the griping Carle
That spoiles our Plaines in digging them for Marle.