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 |  |
Within as short time as the swiftest Swaine
Can to our May-pole run and come againe,
The little Redbrest to the prickled thorne
Return'd, and sung there as he had beforne:
And faire Marina to the loope-hole went,
Pittying the pretty Bird, whose punishment
Limos would not deferre if he were spide.
No sooner had the bird the Maiden eyde,
But leaping on the rocke, downe from a bough,
He takes a Cherry vp (which he but now
Had thither brought, and in that place had laid
Till to the cleft his song had drawne the Maid),
And flying with the small stem in his bill,
(A choiser fruit, then hangs on Bacchus hill)
In faire Marina's bosome tooke his rest,
A heauenly seat fit for so sweet a guest:
Where Citherea's Doues might billing sit,
And Gods and men with Enuie looke on it;
Where rose two mountaines, whose rare sweets to crop
Was harder then to reach Olympus top:
For those the Gods can; but to climbe these hils
Their powres no other were then mortall wils.
Here left the Bird the Cherry, and anone
Forsooke her bosome, and for more is gone,
Making such speedy flights into the Thicke,
That she admir'd he went and came so quicke.
Then lest his many Cherries should distast,
Some other fruit he brings then he brought last.
Sometime of Strawberries a little stem,
Oft changing colours as he gath'red them:
Some greene, some white, some red on them infus'd,
These lou'd, those fear'd, they blush'd to be so vs'd.
The Peascod greene oft with no little toyle
Hee'd seeke for in the fattest fertil'st soile,
And rend it from the stalke to bring it to her,
And in her bosome for acceptance wooe her.
No Berry in the Groue or Forrest grew,
That fit for nourishment the kinde Bird knew,
Nor any powrefull herbe in open field
To serue her brood the teeming earth did yeeld,
But with his vtmost industry he sought it,
And to the Caue for chaste Marina brought it.
So from one well-stor'd garden to another,
To gather Simples runs a carefull mother,
Whose onely childe lies on the shaking bed
Grip'd with a Feuer (sometime honoured
In Rome as if a God) nor is she bent
To other herbes then those for which she went.
Can to our May-pole run and come againe,
The little Redbrest to the prickled thorne
Return'd, and sung there as he had beforne:
And faire Marina to the loope-hole went,
Pittying the pretty Bird, whose punishment
Limos would not deferre if he were spide.
No sooner had the bird the Maiden eyde,
But leaping on the rocke, downe from a bough,
He takes a Cherry vp (which he but now
Had thither brought, and in that place had laid
Till to the cleft his song had drawne the Maid),
And flying with the small stem in his bill,
(A choiser fruit, then hangs on Bacchus hill)
In faire Marina's bosome tooke his rest,
A heauenly seat fit for so sweet a guest:
Where Citherea's Doues might billing sit,
And Gods and men with Enuie looke on it;
Where rose two mountaines, whose rare sweets to crop
Was harder then to reach Olympus top:
For those the Gods can; but to climbe these hils
Their powres no other were then mortall wils.
Here left the Bird the Cherry, and anone
Forsooke her bosome, and for more is gone,
Making such speedy flights into the Thicke,
That she admir'd he went and came so quicke.
Then lest his many Cherries should distast,
Some other fruit he brings then he brought last.
29
Oft changing colours as he gath'red them:
Some greene, some white, some red on them infus'd,
These lou'd, those fear'd, they blush'd to be so vs'd.
The Peascod greene oft with no little toyle
Hee'd seeke for in the fattest fertil'st soile,
And rend it from the stalke to bring it to her,
And in her bosome for acceptance wooe her.
No Berry in the Groue or Forrest grew,
That fit for nourishment the kinde Bird knew,
Nor any powrefull herbe in open field
To serue her brood the teeming earth did yeeld,
But with his vtmost industry he sought it,
And to the Caue for chaste Marina brought it.
So from one well-stor'd garden to another,
To gather Simples runs a carefull mother,
Whose onely childe lies on the shaking bed
Grip'd with a Feuer (sometime honoured
In Rome as if a God) nor is she bent
To other herbes then those for which she went.
| The Whole Works of William Browne | |