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 |  |
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 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,
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.
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 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,
14
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.
| The Whole Works of William Browne | |