And ere the Sunne had clym'd the easterne hils,
To guild the mutt'ring bournes, and pritty rils,
Before the lab'ring bee had left the hive,
And nimble fishes which in rivers dive,
Began to leape, and catch the drowned flie,
I rose from rest, not infelicitie.
Seeking the place of Charitie's resort,
Unware I hap'ned on a prince's court;
Where meeting Greatnesse, I requir'd reliefe,
(O happy undelayed) she said in briefe,
To small effect thine oratorie tends,
How can I keepe thee and so many friends?
If of my houshold I should make thee one,
Farewell my servant Adulation:

I know she will not stay when thou art there:
But seeke some great man's service other-where.
Darkenesse and light, summer and winter's weather
May be at once, ere you two live together.'
Thus with a nod she left me cloath'd in woe.

"Thence to the citie once I thought to goe, But somewhat in my mind this thought had throwne,

It was a place wherein I was not knowne.' And therefore went unto these homely townes, Sweetly environ'd with the dazied downes.

"Upon a streame washing a village end A mill is plac'd, that never difference kend 'Twixt dayes for worke, and holy tides for rest, But always wrought and ground the neighbour's Before the dore I saw the miller walking, [grest. And other two (his neighbours) with him talking; One of them was a weaver, and the other The village tayler, and his trusty brother; To them I came, and thus my sute began: 'Content the riches of a country-man Attend your actions, be more happy still, Than I am haplesse ! and as yonder mill, Though in his turning it obey the streame, Yet by the head-strong torrent from his beame Is unremov'd, and till the wheele be tore, It dayly toyles; then rests, and works no more: So in life's motion may you never be [miserie.' (Though sway'd with griefes) o'er-borne with ́“With that the miller laughing, brush'd his cloathes,

Then swore by cocke and other dunghill oathes,
I greatly was to blame, that durst so wade
Into the knowledge of a wheel-wright's trade.
I, neighbour,' quoth the tayler (then he bent
His pace to me, spruce like a Jacke of Lent)
"Your judgement is not seame-rent when you spend
Nor is it botching, for I cannot mend it.
And maiden, let me tell you in displeasure,
You must not presse the cloath you cannot measure:
But let your steps be stitcht to wisedome's chalk-
ing,

[it,

[ing.'

And cast presumptuous shreds out of your walk-
The weaver said, 'Fie wench, yourselfe you wrong,
Thus to let slip the shuttle of your tong:
For marke me well, yea, marke me well, I say,
I see you worke your specche's web astray.'
"Sad to the soule, o'er laid with idle words,
'O Heaven,' quoth I, where is the place affords
A friend to helpe, or any heart that rath
The most dejected hopes of wronged Truth!'

• Truth!' quoth the miller, 'plainley for our parts,

I and the weaver hate thee with our hearts:
The strifes you raise I will not now discusse,
Between our honest customers and us:

When this brave swaine (approved valerous,
In opposition of a tyrannous

And bloudy savage) being long time gone
Quelling bis rage with faithlesse Gerion ",
Returned from the stratagems of warres,
(Inriched with his quail'd foes bootlesse scarres)
To see the cleare eyes of his dearest love,
And that her skill in hearbs might helpe remove
The freshing of a wound which he had got
In her defence, by Envie's poyson'd shot,
And coming through a grove wherein his faire
Lay with her brests displaid to take the aire,
His rushing through the boughs made her arise,
And dreading some wild beast's rude enterprise,
Directs towards the noyse a sharp'ned dart,
That reach'd the life of his undaunted heart;
Which when she knew, twice twentie moones
nie spent

In teares for him, and dy'd in languishment.
"Within an arbour shadow'd with a vine,
Mixed with rosemary and eglantine,

A shepheardesse was set, as faire as yoong,
Whose praise full many a shepheard whilome sung,
Who on an altar faire had to her name,
In consecration many an anagram :
And when with sngred straines they strove to raise
Worth, to a garland of immortall bayes;
She as the learned'st maide was chose by them,
(Her flaxed hair crown'd with an anadem)
To judge who best deserv'd, for she could fit
The height of praise unto the height of wit.
But well-a-day those happy times were gone,
(Millions admit a full substraction).

"And as the yeere hath first his jocund spring,
Wherein the leaves, to birds' sweet carrolling,
Dance with the winde: then sees the summer's day
Perfect the embrion blossome of each spray:
Next commeth autumne, when the threshed sheafe
Looseth his graine, and every tree his leafe:
Lastly cold winter's rage, with many a storme,
Threats the proud pines which Ida's toppe adorne,
And makes the sappe leave succourlesse the shoote,
Shrinking to comfort his decaying roote.
Or as a quaint musitian being won,
To run a point of sweet division,
Gets by degrees unto the highest key;
Then, with like order falleth in his play
Into a deeper tone; and lastly, throwes
His period in a diapazon close:
So every humane thing terrestriall,
His utmost height attain'd, bends to his fall.
And as a comely youth, in fairest age,
Enamour'd on a maide (whose parentage
Had Fate adorn'd, as Nature deckt her eye,
Might at a becke command a monarchie)
But poore and faire could never yet bewitch
A miser's minde, preferring foule and rich;
And therefore (as a king's heart left behind,
When as his corps are borne to be enshrin'd)
(His parent's will, a law) like that dead corse,
Leaving his heart, is brought unto his horse,
Carried unto a place that can impart
No secret embassie unto his heart,
Climbes some proud hill, whose stately eminence
Vassals the fruitfull vale's circumference:
From whence, no sooner can his lights descry
The place enriched by his mistresse' eye:

"Earle of Essex's expedition to Cales. 1 Queen Elizabeth.

(And with a christall ring did seeme to marry
Themselves, to this small ile sad-solitarie :)
Upon whose brest (which trembled as it ranne)
Rode the faire downie-silver-coated swan :
And on the banckes each cypresse bow'd his head,
To heare the swan sing her owne epiced '.

"As when the gallant youth which live upon
The westerne downes of lovely Albion,
Meeting, some festivall to solemnize,
Choose out two, skil'd in wrastling exercise,
Who strongly at the wrist or coller cling,
Whilst arme in arme the people make a ring.
So did the water round this ile inclincke,
And so the trees grew on the water's brincke:
Waters their streames about the iland scatter;
And trees perform'd as much unto the water:
Under whose shade the nightingale would bring
Her chirping young, and teach them how to sing.
The woods' most sad musitians hither hye,
As it had beene the silvian's castaly,
And warbled forth such elegyacke straines,
That struke the windes dumbe; and the motly
plaines

Were fill'd with envy, that such shady places
Held all the world's delights in their imbraces.
"O how (me thinkes) the impes of Moeme bring
Dewes of invention from their sacred spring!
Here could I spend that spring of poesie,
Which not twice ten sunnes have bestow'd on me ;
And tell the world, the Muse's love appeares
In nonag'd youth, as in the length of yeeres.
But ere my Muse erected have the frame, [name,
Wherein tenshrine an unknowne shepheard's
She many a grove and other woods must treade,
More hils, more dales, more founts, must be dis-
plaid,

More meadowcs, rockes, and from them all elect
Matter befitting such an architect.

"As children on a play-day leave the schooles,
And gladly runne unto the swimming pooles,
Or in the thickets, all with nettles stung,
Rush to dispoile some sweet thrush of her young;
Or with their hats (for fish) lade in a brooke
Withouten paine: but when the morne doth looke
Out of the easterne gates, a snayle would faster
Glide to the schooles, than they unto their master:
So when before I sung the songs of birds,
(Whilst every moment sweet'ned lines affords)
I pip'd devoid of paine; but now I come
Unto my taske, my Muse is stricken dumbe.
My blubb'ring pen her sable teares lets fall,
In characters right hyrogliphicall,

And mixing with my teares, are ready turning
My late white paper to a weede of mourning;
Or incke and paper strive how to impart
My words, the weedes they wore, within my hart:
Or else the blots unwilling are my rimes
And their sad cause should live till after-times;
Fearing, if men their subject should descry,
'They forthwith would dissolve in teares, and die.
Upon the island's craggy rising bill

A quadrant raune, wherein, by artlesse skill,
At every corner Nature did erect

A columne rude, yet voyde of all defect:
Whereon a marble lay. The thick-growne bryer,
And prickled hawthorne, (woven all entyre)
Together clung, and barr'd the gladsome light
From any enterance, fitting onely night.

1

! A funerall song before the corps be interred.

་་

No way to it but one, steepe and obscure,
The staires of rugged stone, seldome in ure,
All over-growne with mosse, as Nature sate
To entertaine Griefe with a cloth of state.
Hardly unto the toppe I had ascended,
But that the trees (siding the steps) befriended
My weary limbes, who bowing downe their armes,
Gave hold unto my hands to scape from barmes:
Which evermore are ready, still present
Our feete, in climbing places eminent.
Before the doore (to hinder Phoebus' view)
A shady boxe-tree grasped with an yewgh,
As in the place' behalfe they menac'd warre
Against the radyance of each sparkling starre.
And on their barkes (which time had nigh deprav'd)
These lines (it seem'd) had beene of old engrav'd:
This place was fram'd of yore, to be possest
By one which sometime hath beene happiest.'
Lovely Ida, the most beautious
Of all the darlings of Oceanus,

Hesperia's envy and the westerne pride, Whose party-coloured garment Nature dy'd In more eye-pleasing hewes, with richer graine, Than Iris' bow attending Aprill's raine. Whose lilly-white, inshaded with the rose, | Had that man' seene, who sung th' Æneidos, Dido had in oblivion slept, and she Had given his Muse her best eternitic. Had brave Atrides (who did erst imploy His force to mixe his dead with those of Troy) Beene proffered for a truce her fained peece, Helen had staid, and that had gone to Greece: The Phrygian soile had not bin drunk with bloud, Achilles langer breath'd, and Troy yet stood: The prince of poets had not sung his story, My friend had lost his ever-living glory.

4

When Crueltie itself sate almost crying,
Nought being heard but what the minde affrights,
When Autumne had disrob'd the Summer's pride,
Then England's honour,' Europe's wonder, dy'd!

O saddest straine that c'er Muses sung!
A text of woe for griefe to comment on;
Teares, sighes, and sobs. give passage to my tongue,
Or I shall spend you till the last is gone.
Which done, my heart in flames of burning love
(Wanting his moisture) shall to cynders turne:
But first, by me
Bequeathed be

To strew the place wherein his sacred urne
Shall be inclos'd, this might in many move

The like effect: (who would not do it?) when
No grave befits him but the hearts of men.
'That man, whose masse of sorrow hath bene such,
That by their waight, laid on each severall part,
His fountaines are so dry, he but as much
As one poore drop hath left to ease his heart;
Why should he keepe it? since the time doth call,
That he ne'er better can bestow it in:
If so he feares

Their griefes display

To men, so cloyde, they faine would heare no more? Though blaming those whose plaints they cannot heare:

And with this wish, their passions I allow, May that Muse never speake that's silent now! 'Is Henrie dead? Alas! and do I live To sing a scrich-owle's noate that he is dead? If any one a fitter theame can give, Come, give it now, or never to be read. But let him see it doe of horrour taste, Anguish, destruction: could it rend in sunder With fearefull grones The senselesse stones,

Yet should we hardly be enforc'd to wonder,
Our foriner griefes would so exceed their last:
Time cannot make our sorrowes aught com-
[greater.

pleater;

Nor adde one griefe to make our mourning 'England was ne'er ingirt with waves till now; Till now it held part with the continent : Aye me! some one in pitty shew me, how I might in dolefull numbers so lament, That any one which lov'd him, hated me, Might dearely love nie, for lamenting hin. Alas! my plaint In such constraint [swimme, Breakes forth in rage, that though my passions Yet are they drowned cre they landed be:

Imperfect lines! O happy! were I hurl'd And cut from life, as England from the world. "O happier had we bene! if we had beene Where hath the glorious eye of Heaven seene Never made happy by enjoying thee! A spectacle of greater misery? [spring; Time, turne thy course, and bring againe the Breake Nature's lawes; search the records of old, If ought befell Might paralell

Sad Brittaine's case: weepe, rockes, and Heaven What seas of sorrow she is plunged in. [behold,

Where stormes of woe so mainely have beset her; She hath no place for worse, nor hope for better. 'Brittaine was whilom known (by more than fame) To be one of the ilands fortunate; What franticke man would give her now that name, Lying so ruefull and disconsolate ? Hath not her watery zone, in murmuring, Fill'd every shore with echoes of her crie? Yes, Thetis raves,

And bids her waves

Bring all the nymphs within her emperie
To be assistant in her sorrowing:

See where they sadly sit on Isis' shore,
And rend their hayres as they would joy no more.

'Isis, the glory of the western world,
When our heroe (honour'd Essex) dy'd,
Strucken with wonder, backe againe she hurl'd,
And fill'd her banckes with an unwoonted tyde:
As if she stood in doubt, if it were so,
And for the certaintie had turn'd her way.
Why doe not now

Her waves reflow?

Poore nymph, her sorrowes will not let her stay; Or flyes to tell the world her countrie's woe:

Or cares not to come backe, perhaps, as showing Our teares should make the flood, not her reflowing.

'Sometimes a tyrant helde the reynes of Rome, Wyshing to all the citie but one head, That all at once might undergoe his doome, And by one blow from life be severed. Fate wisht the like on England, and 'twas given: (O miserable men, enthral'd to Fate!) Whose heavy hand,

That never scand

The misery of kingdomes, ruinates,
Minding to leave her of all joyes bereaven,
With one sad blow (alas! can worser fall!)
Hath given this little ile her funerall.