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 went they on, and Remond did discusse
Their cause of meeting, till they won with pacing
The circuit chosen for the Maidens tracing.
It was a Roundell seated on a plaine,
That stood as Sentinell vnto the Maine,
Enuiron'd round with Trees and many an Arbour,
Wherein melodious birds did nightly harbour:
And on a bough within the quickning Spring,
Would be a teaching of their young to sing;
Whose pleasing Noates the tyred Swaine haue made
To steale a nap at noone-tide in the shade.
Nature her selfe did there in triumph ride,
And made that place the ground of all her pride.
Whose various flowres deceiu'd the rasher eye
In taking them for curious Tapistrie.
A siluer Spring forth of a rocke did fall,
That in a drought did serue to water all.
Vpon the edges of a grassie banke,
A tuft of Trees grew circling in a ranke,
As if they seem'd their sports to gaze vpon,
Or stood as guard against the winde and Sunne:
So faire, so fresh, so greene, so sweet a ground
The piercing eyes of heauen yet neuer found.
Here Doridon all ready met doth see,
(Oh who would not at such a meeting be?)
Where he might doubt, who gaue to other grace,
Whether the place the Maids, or Maids the place.
Here gan the Reede, and merry Bag-pipe play,
Shrill as a Thrush vpon a Morne of May,
(A rurall Musicke for an heauenly traine)
And euery Shepherdesse danc'd with her Swaine.
Their cause of meeting, till they won with pacing
The circuit chosen for the Maidens tracing.
It was a Roundell seated on a plaine,
That stood as Sentinell vnto the Maine,
Enuiron'd round with Trees and many an Arbour,
Wherein melodious birds did nightly harbour:
And on a bough within the quickning Spring,
Would be a teaching of their young to sing;
Whose pleasing Noates the tyred Swaine haue made
To steale a nap at noone-tide in the shade.
Nature her selfe did there in triumph ride,
And made that place the ground of all her pride.
Whose various flowres deceiu'd the rasher eye
In taking them for curious Tapistrie.
A siluer Spring forth of a rocke did fall,
That in a drought did serue to water all.
Vpon the edges of a grassie banke,
A tuft of Trees grew circling in a ranke,
As if they seem'd their sports to gaze vpon,
Or stood as guard against the winde and Sunne:
So faire, so fresh, so greene, so sweet a ground
The piercing eyes of heauen yet neuer found.
Here Doridon all ready met doth see,
(Oh who would not at such a meeting be?)
Where he might doubt, who gaue to other grace,
Whether the place the Maids, or Maids the place.
Here gan the Reede, and merry Bag-pipe play,
Shrill as a Thrush vpon a Morne of May,
(A rurall Musicke for an heauenly traine)
And euery Shepherdesse danc'd with her Swaine.
| The Whole Works of William Browne | |