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 |  |
Cælia! thou fairest creature euer eye
Beheld, or yet put on mortalitie!
Cælia that hast but iust so much of earth,
As makes thee capable of death! Thou birth
Of euery Vertue, life of euery good!
Whose chastest sports and daily taking food
Is imitation of the highest powres
Who to the earth lend seasonable showres,
That it may beare, we to their Altars bring
Things worthy their accept, our offering.
I the most wretched creature euer eye
Beheld, or yet put on mortalitie,
Vnhappy Philocel, that haue of earth
Too much to giue my sorrowes endlesse birth,
The spring of sad misfortunes; in whom lyes
No blisse that with thy worth can sympathize,
Clouded with woe that hence will neuer flit,
Till deaths eternall night grow one with it:
I as a dying Swan that sadly sings
Her moanfull Dirge vnto the siluer springs,
Which carelesse of her Song glide sleeping by
Without one murmure of kinde Elegie,
Now stand by thee; and as a Turtles mate,
With lamentations inarticulate,
The neere departure from her loue bemones,
Spend these my bootlesse sighes and killing grones.
Here as a man (by Iustice doome) exilde
To Coasts vnknowne, to Desarts rough and wilde,
Stand I to take my latest leaue of thee:
Whose happy and heauen-making company
Might I enioy in Libia's Continent,
Were blest fruition and not banishment.
First of those Eyes that haue already tane
Their leaue of me: Lamps fitting for the Phane
Of heauens most powre, & which might ne're expire
But be as sacred as the Vestall fire:
Then of those plots, where halfe-Ros'd Lillies be,
Not one by Art but Natures industry,
From which I goe as one excluded from
The taintlesse flowres of blest Elizium:
Next from those Lips I part, and may there be
No one that shall hereafter second me!
Guiltlesse of any kisses but their owne,
Their sweets but to themselues to all vnknowne:
For should our Swaines diuulge what sweets there be
Within the Sea-clipt bounds of Britanie,
We should not from inuasions be exempted,
But with that prize would all the world be tempted.
Then from her heart: ô no! let that be neuer,
For if I part from thence I dye for euer.
Be that the Record of my loue and name!
Be that to me as is the Phœnix flame!
Creating still anew what Iustice doome
Must yeeld to dust and a forgotten toombe.
Let thy chaste loue to me (as shadowes run
In full extent vnto the setting Sun)
Meet with my fall; and when that I am gone,
Backe to thy selfe retyre, and there grow one.
If to a second light thy shadow be,
Let him still haue his ray of loue from me;
And if, as I, that likewise doe decline,
Be mine or his, or else be his and mine.
But know no other, nor againe be sped,
“She dyes a virgin that but knowes one bed.”
Beheld, or yet put on mortalitie!
Cælia that hast but iust so much of earth,
As makes thee capable of death! Thou birth
Of euery Vertue, life of euery good!
Whose chastest sports and daily taking food
107
Who to the earth lend seasonable showres,
That it may beare, we to their Altars bring
Things worthy their accept, our offering.
I the most wretched creature euer eye
Beheld, or yet put on mortalitie,
Vnhappy Philocel, that haue of earth
Too much to giue my sorrowes endlesse birth,
The spring of sad misfortunes; in whom lyes
No blisse that with thy worth can sympathize,
Clouded with woe that hence will neuer flit,
Till deaths eternall night grow one with it:
I as a dying Swan that sadly sings
Her moanfull Dirge vnto the siluer springs,
Which carelesse of her Song glide sleeping by
Without one murmure of kinde Elegie,
Now stand by thee; and as a Turtles mate,
With lamentations inarticulate,
The neere departure from her loue bemones,
Spend these my bootlesse sighes and killing grones.
Here as a man (by Iustice doome) exilde
To Coasts vnknowne, to Desarts rough and wilde,
Stand I to take my latest leaue of thee:
Whose happy and heauen-making company
Might I enioy in Libia's Continent,
Were blest fruition and not banishment.
First of those Eyes that haue already tane
Their leaue of me: Lamps fitting for the Phane
Of heauens most powre, & which might ne're expire
But be as sacred as the Vestall fire:
Then of those plots, where halfe-Ros'd Lillies be,
Not one by Art but Natures industry,
From which I goe as one excluded from
The taintlesse flowres of blest Elizium:
Next from those Lips I part, and may there be
No one that shall hereafter second me!
108
Their sweets but to themselues to all vnknowne:
For should our Swaines diuulge what sweets there be
Within the Sea-clipt bounds of Britanie,
We should not from inuasions be exempted,
But with that prize would all the world be tempted.
Then from her heart: ô no! let that be neuer,
For if I part from thence I dye for euer.
Be that the Record of my loue and name!
Be that to me as is the Phœnix flame!
Creating still anew what Iustice doome
Must yeeld to dust and a forgotten toombe.
Let thy chaste loue to me (as shadowes run
In full extent vnto the setting Sun)
Meet with my fall; and when that I am gone,
Backe to thy selfe retyre, and there grow one.
If to a second light thy shadow be,
Let him still haue his ray of loue from me;
And if, as I, that likewise doe decline,
Be mine or his, or else be his and mine.
But know no other, nor againe be sped,
“She dyes a virgin that but knowes one bed.”
| The Whole Works of William Browne | |