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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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Saw you a lusty Mastiue at the stake,
Throwne from a cunning Bull, more fiercely make
A quicke returne? yet to preuent the goare
Or deadly bruize which he escap'd before,
Winde here and there, nay creepe if rightly bred,
And proffring otherwhere, fight still at head:
So though the stubborn boughes did thrust him back,
(For Nature, loath so rare a Iewels wracke,
Seem'd as she here and there had plash'd a tree,
If possible to hinder Destiny.)
The sauage Beast foaming with anger flyes
More fiercely then before, and now he tries
By sleights to take the Maid; as I haue seene
A nimble Tumbler on a burrow'd greene,

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Bend cleane awry his course, yet giue a checke
And throw himselfe vpon a Rabbets necke.
For as he hotly chas'd the Loue of Pan,
A heard of Deere out of a thicket ran,
To whom he quickly turn'd, as if he meant
To leaue the Maid, but when she swiftly bent
Her race downe to the Plaine, the swifter Deere
He soone forsooke. And now was got so neere
That (all in vaine) she turned to and fro
(As well she could) but not preuailing so,
Breathlesse and weary calling on her Loue
With fearefull shrikes that all the Ecchoes moue
(To call him to) she fell downe deadly wan,
And ends her sweet life with the name of Pan.