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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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As in the Rainbowes many coloured hew,
Here see we watchet deepned with a blew:
There a darke tawnie with a purple mixt,
Yealow and flame, with streakes of greene betwixt,
A bloudy streame into a blushing run,
And ends still with the colour which begun;
Drawing the deeper to a lighter staine,
Bringing the lightest to the deep'st againe,
With such rare Art each mingleth with his fellow,
The blew with watchet, greene and red with yealow;
Like to the changes which we daily see
About the Doues necke with varietie,
Where none can say (though he it strict attends)
Here one begins, and there the other ends:
So did the Maidens with their various flowres
Decke vp their windowes, and make neat their bowres:
Vsing such cunning as they did dispose
The ruddy Piny with the lighter Rose,
The Moncks-hood with the Buglosse, and intwine
The white, the blew, the flesh-like Columbine
With Pinckes, Sweet-Williams: that farre off the eye

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Could not the manner of their mixtures spye.