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 |  |
Thus sitts the haples swayne: now sighes, now sings:
Sings, sighes, and weepes at once. Then from the springs
Of pitty beggs his pardon. Then his eye
(Wronging his oraizons) some place hard by
Informes his intellect, where he hath seen
His mistris feed her flock, or on the green
Dance to the merry pype: this drives him thence
As one, distracted with the violence
Of some hote fever, casts his clothes awaye,
Longs for the thing he loath'd but yesterdaye,
And fondly thincking 'twill his fitts appease,
Changeth his bedd, but keepes still the disease.
Quitting the playnes to seeke the gloomy springs,
He, like a swan that on Meander sings,
Takes congey of his mates with ling'ring haste,
To finde some streame where he maye sing his last.
Sings, sighes, and weepes at once. Then from the springs
Of pitty beggs his pardon. Then his eye
(Wronging his oraizons) some place hard by
Informes his intellect, where he hath seen
His mistris feed her flock, or on the green
Dance to the merry pype: this drives him thence
As one, distracted with the violence
Of some hote fever, casts his clothes awaye,
Longs for the thing he loath'd but yesterdaye,
And fondly thincking 'twill his fitts appease,
Changeth his bedd, but keepes still the disease.
Quitting the playnes to seeke the gloomy springs,
He, like a swan that on Meander sings,
Takes congey of his mates with ling'ring haste,
To finde some streame where he maye sing his last.
127
Soe haue I lefte my Tavy's flow'ry shore,
Farre-flowing Thamisis, and many more
Attractive pleasures which sweet England yeelds,
Her peopled cittyes and her fertill fields,
For Amphitrite's playnes; those hath myne eye
Chang'd for our whilome fields of Normandy;
For Seyne those have I lefte; for Loyre, the Seyne;
And for the Thoüé changed Loyre againe;
Where to the nymphes of Poictou now I sing
A stranger note (yet such as ev'ry spring
Roules smiling to attend): for none of those
Yet have I lessen'd or exchang'd my woes.
Deere, dearest isle, from the[e] I pass'd awaye
But as a shadowe, when the eye of daye
Shynes otherwhere; for she whose I have been,
By her declining makes me live unseen.
Nor doe I hope that any other light
Can make me her's; the pallid queen of night
And Venus (or some erre) maye with their rayes
Force an observing shade; but none of these
(Meteors to my sett sun) can ever have
That powre thou hadst. Sweet soule, thy silent grave
I give my best verse, if a shepheard's witt
Can make a dead hand capable of yt.
Chaste were our loves, as mutuall; nor did we
Hardly dreame otherwise; our secrecye
Such as I thincke the world hath never knowne
I had a mistris, till that I had none.
Farre-flowing Thamisis, and many more
Attractive pleasures which sweet England yeelds,
Her peopled cittyes and her fertill fields,
For Amphitrite's playnes; those hath myne eye
Chang'd for our whilome fields of Normandy;
For Seyne those have I lefte; for Loyre, the Seyne;
And for the Thoüé changed Loyre againe;
Where to the nymphes of Poictou now I sing
A stranger note (yet such as ev'ry spring
Roules smiling to attend): for none of those
Yet have I lessen'd or exchang'd my woes.
Deere, dearest isle, from the[e] I pass'd awaye
But as a shadowe, when the eye of daye
Shynes otherwhere; for she whose I have been,
By her declining makes me live unseen.
Nor doe I hope that any other light
Can make me her's; the pallid queen of night
And Venus (or some erre) maye with their rayes
Force an observing shade; but none of these
(Meteors to my sett sun) can ever have
That powre thou hadst. Sweet soule, thy silent grave
I give my best verse, if a shepheard's witt
Can make a dead hand capable of yt.
Chaste were our loves, as mutuall; nor did we
Hardly dreame otherwise; our secrecye
Such as I thincke the world hath never knowne
I had a mistris, till that I had none.
Poore Celadyne and I (but happyer he)
Onely in dreames meet our felicitie;
Our joyes but shadowes are; our constant woes
The daye shewes reall; O, unhappy those,
Thrice, thrice unhappy, whoe are ever taking
Their joyes in sleepe, but are most wretched waking!
Onely in dreames meet our felicitie;
Our joyes but shadowes are; our constant woes
The daye shewes reall; O, unhappy those,
Thrice, thrice unhappy, whoe are ever taking
Their joyes in sleepe, but are most wretched waking!
| The Whole Works of William Browne | |