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 |  |
My free-borne Muse will not like Danae be,
Won with base drosse to clip with slauery;
Nor lend her choiser Balme to worthlesse men,
Whose names would dye but for some hired pen.
No: if I praise, Vertue shall draw me to it,
And not a base procurement make me doe it.
What now I sing is but to passe away
A tedious houre, as some Musitians play;
Or make another my owne griefes bemone;
Or to be least alone when most alone.
In this can I as oft as I will choose,
Hug sweet content by my retired Muse,
And in a study finde as much to please
As others in the greatest Pallaces.
Each man that liues (according to his powre)
On what he loues bestowes an idle houre;
In stead of Hounds that make the woodded hils
Talke in a hundred voyces to the Rils,
I like the pleasing cadence of a line
Strucke by the consort of the sacred Nine.
In lieu of Hawkes, the raptures of my soule
Transcend their pitch and baser earths controule.
For running Horses, Contemplation flyes
With quickest speed to win the greatest prize.
For courtly dancing I can take more pleasure
To heare a Verse keepe time and equall measure.
For winning Riches, seeke the best directions
How I may well subdue mine owne affections.
For raising stately piles for heires to come,
Here in this Poem I erect my toombe.
And time may be so kinde in these weake lines
To keepe my Name enroll'd past his that shines
In guilded Marble, or in brazen leaues:
Since Verse preserues, when Stone & Brasse deceiues.
Or if (as worthlesse) Time not lets it liue
To those full dayes which others Muses giue,
Yet I am sure I shall be heard and sung
Of most seuerest eld, and kinder young
Beyond my daies; and, maugre Enuies strife,
Adde to my name some houres beyond my life.
Won with base drosse to clip with slauery;
Nor lend her choiser Balme to worthlesse men,
Whose names would dye but for some hired pen.
No: if I praise, Vertue shall draw me to it,
And not a base procurement make me doe it.
What now I sing is but to passe away
A tedious houre, as some Musitians play;
Or make another my owne griefes bemone;
Or to be least alone when most alone.
In this can I as oft as I will choose,
Hug sweet content by my retired Muse,
And in a study finde as much to please
As others in the greatest Pallaces.
Each man that liues (according to his powre)
On what he loues bestowes an idle houre;
In stead of Hounds that make the woodded hils
Talke in a hundred voyces to the Rils,
I like the pleasing cadence of a line
Strucke by the consort of the sacred Nine.
In lieu of Hawkes, the raptures of my soule
Transcend their pitch and baser earths controule.
For running Horses, Contemplation flyes
With quickest speed to win the greatest prize.
For courtly dancing I can take more pleasure
To heare a Verse keepe time and equall measure.
For winning Riches, seeke the best directions
How I may well subdue mine owne affections.
For raising stately piles for heires to come,
Here in this Poem I erect my toombe.
And time may be so kinde in these weake lines
To keepe my Name enroll'd past his that shines
69
Since Verse preserues, when Stone & Brasse deceiues.
Or if (as worthlesse) Time not lets it liue
To those full dayes which others Muses giue,
Yet I am sure I shall be heard and sung
Of most seuerest eld, and kinder young
Beyond my daies; and, maugre Enuies strife,
Adde to my name some houres beyond my life.
| The Whole Works of William Browne | |