The Works of Thomas Campion Complete Songs, Masques, and Treatises with a Selection of the Latin Verse: Edited with an introduction and notes by Walter R. Davis |
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The fifth Chapter, of the Iambick Dimeter, or English march.
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 | The Works of Thomas Campion |  |
301
The fifth Chapter, of the Iambick Dimeter, or English march.
302
[Raving warre, begot]
Raving warre, begotIn the thirstye sands
Of the Lybian Iles,
Wasts our emptye fields;
What the greedye rage
Of fell wintrye stormes
Could not turne to spoile,
Fierce Bellona now
Hath laid desolate,
Voyd of fruit, or hope.
Th'eger thriftye hinde,
Whose rude toyle reviv'd
Our skie-blasted earth,
Himselfe is but earth,
Left a skorne to fate
Through seditious armes:
And that soile, alive
Which he duly nurst,
Which him duly fed,
Dead his body feeds:
Yet not all the glebe
His tuffe hands manur'd
Now one turfe affords
His poore funerall.
Thus still needy lives,
Thus still needy dyes
Th'unknowne multitude.
An example Lyrical.
Greatest in thy wars,Greater in thy peace,
Dread Elizabeth;
Our muse only Truth,
Figments cannot use,
Thy ritch name to deck
That it selfe adornes:
But should now this age
Let all poesye fayne,
Fayning poesye could
Nothing faine at all
Worthy halfe thy fame.
303
An example Epigrammaticall.
Kind in every kinde,This, deare Ned, resolve,
Never of thy prayse
Be too prodigall;
He that prayseth all
Can praise truly none.
| The Works of Thomas Campion | |