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 |  |
Looke as a Louer with a lingring kisse
About to part with the best halfe that's his,
Faine would he stay but that he feares to doe it,
And curseth time for so fast hastning to it:
Now takes his leaue, and yet begins anew
To make lesse vowes then are esteemed true:
Then saies he must be gone, and then doth finde
Something he should haue spoke that's out of minde;
And whilst he stands to look for't in her eyes,
Their sad-sweet glance so tye his faculties
To thinke from what he parts, that he is now
As farre from leauing her, or knowing how,
As when he came; begins his former straine,
To kisse, to vow, and take his leaue againe:
Then turns, comes back, sighes, parts, & yet doth go,
Apt to retire, and loath to leaue her so.
Braue Streame, so part I from thy flowrie banke,
Where first I breath'd, and (though vnworthy) dranke
Those sacred waters which the Muses bring
To wooe Britannia to their ceaslesse spring.
Now would I on, but that the crystall Wels,
The fertill Meadowes and their pleasing smels,
The Woods delightfull and the scatt'red Groues,
(Where many Nymphs walk with their chaster Loues)
Soone make me stay: And think that Ordgar's son
(Admonish'd by a heauenly vision)
Not without cause did that apt fabricke reare,
(Wherein we nothing now but Eccho's heare
That wont with heauenly Anthemes daily ring
And duest praises to the greatest King)
In this choise plot. Since he could light vpon
No place so fit for contemplation.
Though I a while must leaue this happy soyle,
And follow Thetis in a pleasing toyle,
Yet when I shall returne, Ile striue to draw
The Nymphs by Thamar, Tauy, Ex and Tau,
By Turridge, Otter, Ock, by Dert and Plym,
With all the Nayades that fish and swim
In their cleare streames, to these our rising Downes,
Where while they make vs chaplets, wreaths and crowns,
Ile tune my Reed vnto a higher key,
(And haue already cond some of the Lay)
Wherein (as Mantua by her Virgils birth
And Thames by him that sung her Nuptiall mirth)
You may be knowne (though not in equall pride)
As farre as Tiber throwes his swelling Tide.
And by a Shepherd (feeding on your plaines)
In humble, lowly, plaine, and ruder straines,
Heare your worths challenge other floods among,
To haue a period equall with their song.
About to part with the best halfe that's his,
Faine would he stay but that he feares to doe it,
And curseth time for so fast hastning to it:
Now takes his leaue, and yet begins anew
To make lesse vowes then are esteemed true:
Then saies he must be gone, and then doth finde
Something he should haue spoke that's out of minde;
And whilst he stands to look for't in her eyes,
Their sad-sweet glance so tye his faculties
To thinke from what he parts, that he is now
As farre from leauing her, or knowing how,
64
To kisse, to vow, and take his leaue againe:
Then turns, comes back, sighes, parts, & yet doth go,
Apt to retire, and loath to leaue her so.
Braue Streame, so part I from thy flowrie banke,
Where first I breath'd, and (though vnworthy) dranke
Those sacred waters which the Muses bring
To wooe Britannia to their ceaslesse spring.
Now would I on, but that the crystall Wels,
The fertill Meadowes and their pleasing smels,
The Woods delightfull and the scatt'red Groues,
(Where many Nymphs walk with their chaster Loues)
Soone make me stay: And think that Ordgar's son
(Admonish'd by a heauenly vision)
Not without cause did that apt fabricke reare,
(Wherein we nothing now but Eccho's heare
That wont with heauenly Anthemes daily ring
And duest praises to the greatest King)
In this choise plot. Since he could light vpon
No place so fit for contemplation.
Though I a while must leaue this happy soyle,
And follow Thetis in a pleasing toyle,
Yet when I shall returne, Ile striue to draw
The Nymphs by Thamar, Tauy, Ex and Tau,
By Turridge, Otter, Ock, by Dert and Plym,
With all the Nayades that fish and swim
In their cleare streames, to these our rising Downes,
Where while they make vs chaplets, wreaths and crowns,
Ile tune my Reed vnto a higher key,
(And haue already cond some of the Lay)
Wherein (as Mantua by her Virgils birth
And Thames by him that sung her Nuptiall mirth)
You may be knowne (though not in equall pride)
As farre as Tiber throwes his swelling Tide.
And by a Shepherd (feeding on your plaines)
In humble, lowly, plaine, and ruder straines,
65
To haue a period equall with their song.
| The Whole Works of William Browne | |