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 |  |
Downe in a dell (where in that
Month whose fame
Growes greater by the man who gaue it name,
Stands many a well-pil'd cocke of short sweet hay
That feeds the husbands Neat each Winters day)
A mountaine had his foot, and gan to rise
In stately height to parlee with the Skies.
And yet as blaming his owne lofty gate,
Waighing the fickle props in things of state,
His head began to droope, and down-wards bending,
Knockt on that brest which gaue it birth and ending:
And lyes so with an hollow hanging vaut,
As when some boy trying the Somersaut,
Stands on his head, and feet, as hee did lie
To kicke against earths spangled Canopie;
When seeing that his heeles are of such weight,
That he cannot obtaine their purpos'd height,
Leaues any more to striue; and thus doth say,
What now I cannot doe, another day
May well effect: it cannot be denide
I shew'd a will to act, because I tride:
The Scornefull-hill men call'd him, who did scorne
So to be call'd, by reason he had borne
No hate to greatnesse, but a minde to be
The slaue of greatnesse, through Humilitie:
For had his Mother Nature thought it meet
He meekly bowing would haue kist her feet.
Growes greater by the man who gaue it name,
Stands many a well-pil'd cocke of short sweet hay
That feeds the husbands Neat each Winters day)
A mountaine had his foot, and gan to rise
In stately height to parlee with the Skies.
And yet as blaming his owne lofty gate,
Waighing the fickle props in things of state,
His head began to droope, and down-wards bending,
Knockt on that brest which gaue it birth and ending:
And lyes so with an hollow hanging vaut,
As when some boy trying the Somersaut,
Stands on his head, and feet, as hee did lie
To kicke against earths spangled Canopie;
When seeing that his heeles are of such weight,
That he cannot obtaine their purpos'd height,
Leaues any more to striue; and thus doth say,
What now I cannot doe, another day
May well effect: it cannot be denide
I shew'd a will to act, because I tride:
The Scornefull-hill men call'd him, who did scorne
So to be call'd, by reason he had borne
No hate to greatnesse, but a minde to be
The slaue of greatnesse, through Humilitie:
For had his Mother Nature thought it meet
He meekly bowing would haue kist her feet.
| The Whole Works of William Browne | |