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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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117

Faire Thetis whose command the waues obey,
Loathing the losse of so much worth as they,
Was gone before their fall; and by her powre
The Billowes (mercilesse, vs'd to deuoure,
And not to saue) she made to swell vp high,
Euen at the instant when the tragedy
Of those kinde soules should end: so to receiue them,
And keepe what crueltie would faine bereaue them.
Her hest was soone perform'd: and now they lay
Imbracing on the surface of the Sea,
Void of all sense; a spectacle so sad
That Thetis, nor no Nymph which there she had,
Touch'd with their woes, could for a while refraine,
But from their heauenly eyes did sadly raine
Such showres of teares (so powrefull, since diuine)
That euer since the Sea doth taste of Bryne.
With teares, thus to make good her first intent,
She both the Louers to her Chariot hent:
Recalling Life that had not cleerely tane
Full leaue of his or her more curious Phane,
And with her praise sung by these thankfull paire
Steer'd on her Coursers (swift as fleeting ayre)
Towards her Pallace built beneath the Seas,
Proud of her iourney, but more proud of these.