Those, blessings of the earth, we swains do call,
Astra can bless those blessings, earth and all.”
From Book i. Song 2 of Britannia's Pastorals, a long poem with a thin thread of narrative and a wealth of country imagery and similitudes. The first Book was published in 1613, but probably written before 1611: the second Book followed in 1616, and the third remained in a MS. in the Salisbury Cathedral library until 1852, when it was printed by the Percy Society. The genuineness of this third Book has been doubted on insufficient grounds.
AND as within a landscape that doth stand
Wrought by the pencil of some curious hand,
We may descry, here meadow, there a wood,
Here standing ponds, and there a running flood,
Here on some mount a house of pleasure vaunted,
Where once the roaring cannon had been planted;
There on a hill a swain pipes out the day,
Out-braving all the choristers of May;
A huntsman here follows his cry of hounds,
Driving the hare along the fallow grounds;
Whilst one at hand seeming the sport t'allow,
Follows the hounds, and careless leaves the plough;
There in another place some high-raised land
In pride bears out her breasts unto the strand;
Here stands a bridge, and there a conduit-head;
Here round a May-pole some the measures tread;
There boys the truant play and leave their book;
Here stands an angler with a baited hook:
There for a stag one lurks within a bough;
Here sits a maiden milking of her cow;
There on a goodly plain, by time thrown down,
Lies buried in his dust some ancient town;
Who now envillaged, there's only seen
In his vast ruins what his state had been:
And all of these in shadows so express'd,
Make the beholder's eyes to take no rest,
So for the swain the flood did mean to him
To show in nature, not by art to limn,
A tempest's rage; his furious waters threat,
Some on this shore, some on the other, beat.
Here stands a mountain, where was once a dale;
There, where a mountain stood, is now a vale.
LXXXI. A DESCRIPTION OF A MUSICAL CONSORT OF BIRDS.
From Britannia's Pastorals, Book i. Song 3.
TWO nights thus pass'd: the lily-handed morn
Saw Phoebus stealing dew from Ceres' corn.
The mounting lark, day's herald, got on wing,
Bidding each bird choose out his bow and sing.
The lofty treble sung the little wren;
Robin the mean, that best of all loves men;
The nightingale the tenor; and the thrush
The counter-tenor sweetly in a bush:
And that the music might be full in parts,
Birds from the groves flew with right willing hearts.
But, as it seem'd, they thought, as do the swains
Which tune their pipes on sack'd Hibernia's plains,
There should some droning part be, therefore will'd
Some bird to fly into a neighbouring field,
In embassy unto the king of bees,
To aid his partners on the flowers and trees:
Who condescending gladly flew along
To bear the base to his well tuned song.
The crow was willing they should be beholding
To his deep voice, but being hoarse with scolding,
He thus lends aid; upon an oak doth climb,
And nodding with his head, so keepeth time.
LXXXII. RIOT'S CLIMBING OF A HILL.
From Britannia's Pastorals, Book i. Song 5.
́OW as an angler melancholy standing
Upon a green bank yielding room for landing, A wriggling yellow worm thrust on his hook, Now in the midst he throws, then in a nook; Here pulls his line, there throws it in again, Mending his cork and bait, but all in vain; He long stands viewing of the curled stream. At last a hungry pike, or well-grown bream, Snatch at the worm, and hasting fast away, He, knowing it a fish of stubborn sway, Pulls up his rod, but soft, as having skill, Wherewith the hook fast holds the fish's gill. Then all his line he freely yieldeth him, Whilst furiously all up and down doth swim Th' ensnared fish, here on the top doth scud, There underneath the banks, then in the mud; And with his frantic fits so scares the shoal, That each one takes his hide or starting hole. By this the pike, clean wearied, underneath A willow lies, and pants (if fishes breathe); Wherewith the angler gently pulls him to him, And, lest his haste might happen to undo him, Lays down his rod, then takes his line in hand, And by degrees getting the fish to land, Walks to another pool; at length is winner Of such a dish as serves him for his dinner. So when the climber half the way had got, Musing he stood, and busily 'gan plot,
How, since the mount did always steeper tend,
He might with steps secure his journey end.
At last, as wandering boys to gather nuts,
A hooked pole he from a hazel cuts:
Now throws it here, then there, to take some hold,
But bootless and in vain; the rocky mould
Admits no cranny, where his hazel hook
Might promise him a step, till in a nook
Somewhat above his reach he hath espied
A little oak; and having often tried
To catch a bough with standing on his toe,
Or leaping up, yet not prevailing so;
He rolls a stone towards the little tree,
Then gets upon it, fastens warily
His pole unto a bough, and at his drawing
The early rising crow with clamorous cawing
Leaving the green bough flies about the rock,
Whilst twenty twenty couples to him flock.
And now within his reach the thin leaves wave,
With one hand only then he holds his stave,
And with the other grasping first the leaves,
A pretty bough he in his fist receives.
Then to his girdle making fast the hook,
His other hand another bough hath took;
His first a third, and that another gives,
To bring him to the place where his root lives.
Then, as a nimble squirrel from the wood,
Ranging the hedges for his filbert-food,
Sits pertly on a bough his brown nuts cracking,
And from the shell the sweet white kernel taking,
Till, with their crooks and bags, a sort of boys,
To share with him, come with so great a noise,
That he is forced to leave a nut nigh broke,
And for his life leap to a neighbour oak;
Thence to a beech, thence to a row of ashes;
Whilst thro' the quagmires and red water plashes
The boys run dabbling thorough thick and thin,
One tears his hose, another breaks his shin;
This, torn and tatter'd, hath with much ado
Got by the briers; and that hath lost his shoe:
This drops his band; that head-long falls for haste;
Another cries behind for being last.
With sticks and stones and many a sounding holloa,
The little fool, with no small sport, they follow,
Whilst he, from tree to tree, from spray to spray,
Gets to the wood, and hides him in his dray:
Such shift made Riot, ere he could get up.
And so from bough to bough he won the top,
Though hindrances, for ever coming there,
Were often thrust upon him by despair.
From Britannia's Pastorals, Book ii. Song 1. This is an elegy on William Ferrar, the Alexis of Wither's Shepherd's Hunting, who died
"GLIDE soft, ye silver floods,
And every spring:
Within the shady woods
Let no bird sing!
Nor from the grove a turtle dove
Be seen to couple with her love,
But silence on each dale and mountain dwell,
Whilst Willy bids his friend and joy farewell.
"But, of great Thetis' train,
Ye mermaids fair,
That on the shores do plain
Your sea-green hair,
|