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 |
 | 1, 2. |
 |
|
|
|
| I. |
| II. |
|
| III. |
| IV. |
| V. |
|
| VII. |
| VIII. |
| IX. |
| X. |
 | The Whole Works of William Browne |  |
Excuse me, Thetis, quoth the aged man,
If passion drew me from the words of Pan,
Which thus I follow: You whose flocks, quoth he,
By my protection quit your industry,
For all the good I haue and yet may giue
To such as on the Plaines hereafter liue,
I doe intreat what is not hard to grant,
That not a hand rend from this holy Plant
The smallest branch; and who so cutteth this
Dye for th' offence; to me so hainous 'tis.
And by the Floods infernall here I sweare,
(An oath whose breach the greatest Gods forbeare)
Ere Phœbe thrice twelue times shall fill her hornes
No furzy tuft, thicke wood, nor brake of thornes
Shall harbour Wolfe, nor in this Ile shall breed,
Nor liue one of that kinde: if what's decreed
You keepe inuiolate. To this they swore:
And since those beasts haue frighted vs no more.
But Swaine (quoth Thetis), what is this you tell,
To what you feare shall fall on Philocel?
If passion drew me from the words of Pan,
Which thus I follow: You whose flocks, quoth he,
By my protection quit your industry,
For all the good I haue and yet may giue
To such as on the Plaines hereafter liue,
I doe intreat what is not hard to grant,
That not a hand rend from this holy Plant
The smallest branch; and who so cutteth this
Dye for th' offence; to me so hainous 'tis.
And by the Floods infernall here I sweare,
(An oath whose breach the greatest Gods forbeare)
Ere Phœbe thrice twelue times shall fill her hornes
No furzy tuft, thicke wood, nor brake of thornes
Shall harbour Wolfe, nor in this Ile shall breed,
Nor liue one of that kinde: if what's decreed
You keepe inuiolate. To this they swore:
And since those beasts haue frighted vs no more.
But Swaine (quoth Thetis), what is this you tell,
To what you feare shall fall on Philocel?
| The Whole Works of William Browne | |