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 |  |
Whilome, great Pan, the Father of our flocks
Lou'd a faire lasse so famous for her locks,
That in her time all women first begun
To lay their looser tresses to the Sun.
And theirs whose hew to hers was not agreeing,
Were still roll'd vp as hardly worth the seeing.
Fondly haue some beene led to thinke, that Man
Musiques invention first of all began
From the dull Hammers stroke; since well we know
From sure tradition that hath taught vs so,
Pan sitting once to sport him with his Fayre
Mark'd the intention of the gentle ayre,
In the sweet sound her chaste words brought along,
Fram'd by the repercussion of her tongue:
And from that harmony begun the Art
Which others (though vniustly) doe impart
To bright Apollo from a meaner ground:
A sledge or parched nerues; meane things to found
So rare an Art on; when there might be giuen
All earth for matter with the gyre of heauen.
To keepe her slender fingers from the Sunne,
Pan through the pastures oftentimes hath run
To plucke the speckled Fox-gloues from their stem,
And on those fingers neatly placed them.
The Hony-suckles would he often strip,
And lay their sweetnesse on her sweeter lip:
And then as in reward of such his paine,
Sip from those cherries some of it againe.
Some say that Nature, while this louely Maid
Liu'd on our plaines, the teeming earth araid
With Damaske Roses in each pleasant place,
That men might liken somewhat to her face.
Others report: Venus, afraid her sonne
Might loue a mortall as he once had done,
Preferr'd an earnest sute to highest Ioue,
That he which bore the winged shafts of loue,
Might be debarr'd his sight, which sute was sign'd,
And euer since the God of Loue is blinde.
Hence is't he shoots his shafts so cleane awry:
Men learne to loue when they should learne to dye.
And women, which before to loue began
Man without wealth, loue wealth without a man.
Lou'd a faire lasse so famous for her locks,
That in her time all women first begun
To lay their looser tresses to the Sun.
75
Were still roll'd vp as hardly worth the seeing.
Fondly haue some beene led to thinke, that Man
Musiques invention first of all began
From the dull Hammers stroke; since well we know
From sure tradition that hath taught vs so,
Pan sitting once to sport him with his Fayre
Mark'd the intention of the gentle ayre,
In the sweet sound her chaste words brought along,
Fram'd by the repercussion of her tongue:
And from that harmony begun the Art
Which others (though vniustly) doe impart
To bright Apollo from a meaner ground:
A sledge or parched nerues; meane things to found
So rare an Art on; when there might be giuen
All earth for matter with the gyre of heauen.
To keepe her slender fingers from the Sunne,
Pan through the pastures oftentimes hath run
To plucke the speckled Fox-gloues from their stem,
And on those fingers neatly placed them.
The Hony-suckles would he often strip,
And lay their sweetnesse on her sweeter lip:
And then as in reward of such his paine,
Sip from those cherries some of it againe.
Some say that Nature, while this louely Maid
Liu'd on our plaines, the teeming earth araid
With Damaske Roses in each pleasant place,
That men might liken somewhat to her face.
Others report: Venus, afraid her sonne
Might loue a mortall as he once had done,
Preferr'd an earnest sute to highest Ioue,
That he which bore the winged shafts of loue,
Might be debarr'd his sight, which sute was sign'd,
And euer since the God of Loue is blinde.
Hence is't he shoots his shafts so cleane awry:
Men learne to loue when they should learne to dye.
76
Man without wealth, loue wealth without a man.
| The Whole Works of William Browne | |