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. |
 |
|
|
|
|
 | The Whole Works of William Browne |  |
For as a Labourer toyling at a Bay
To force some cleere streame from his wonted way,
Working on this side sees the water run
Where he wrought last, and thought it firmely done;
And that leake stopt, heares it come breaking out
Another where, in a farre greater spout,
Which mended to, and with a turfe made trim,
The brooke is ready to o'reflow the brim:
Or in the banke the water hauing got,
Some Mole-hole, runs where he expected not:
And when all's done, still feares lest some great raine
Might bring a flood and throw all downe againe:
So in our Shepherds loue: one hazard gone,
Another still as bad was comming on.
This danger past, another doth begin,
And one mishap thrust out lets twenty in.
For he that loues, and in it hath no stay,
Limits his blisse seld' past the Marriage day.
To force some cleere streame from his wonted way,
Working on this side sees the water run
Where he wrought last, and thought it firmely done;
And that leake stopt, heares it come breaking out
Another where, in a farre greater spout,
Which mended to, and with a turfe made trim,
The brooke is ready to o'reflow the brim:
Or in the banke the water hauing got,
Some Mole-hole, runs where he expected not:
And when all's done, still feares lest some great raine
Might bring a flood and throw all downe againe:
95
Another still as bad was comming on.
This danger past, another doth begin,
And one mishap thrust out lets twenty in.
For he that loues, and in it hath no stay,
Limits his blisse seld' past the Marriage day.
| The Whole Works of William Browne | |