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JAMES SHIRLEY.

(1596-1667.)

XC. PAN'S HOLIDAY.

From The School of Compliments, acted about 1625 and published in

1631.

WOODMEN, shepherds, come away,

This is Pan's great holiday;

Throw off cares;

With your heaven-aspiring airs

Help us to sing,

While valleys with your echoes ring.

Nymphs that dwell within these groves,
Leave your arbours, bring your loves;
Gather posies,

Crown your golden hair with roses;
As you pass,

Foot like fairies on the grass.

Joy crown our bowers! Philomel,
Leave of Tereus' rape to tell,
Let trees dance,

As they at Thracian lyre did once;
Mountains play,

This is the shepherds' holiday.

PHINEAS FLETCHER.

(1582-1648?.)

XCI. STELLA AND MIRA.

This

From The Prize, the seventh of the Piscatory Eclogues (1633). variation upon the ordinary pastoral theme was doubtless due to the influence of Sannazaro, but Fletcher's fishermen haunt the Thames and the Cam, not the sea. He wrote also a piscatory drama, Sicelides, which was acted at King's College in 1614, and published in 1631. His poems have been edited by Dr. Grosart in the Fuller Worthies Library.

Daphnis.

IRA, thine eyes are those twin-heavenly powers

MIRA,

Which to the widow'd Earth new offspring bring;

No marvel, then, if still thy face so flowers,

And cheeks with beauteous blossoms freshly spring:

So is thy face a never-fading May;

So is thine eye a never-falling day.

Thomalin.

Stella, thine eyes are those twin-brothers fair,

Which tempests slake, and promise quiet seas;

No marvel, then, if thy brown shady hair

Like night portend sweet rest and gentle ease:

Thus is thine eye an ever-calming light;
Thus is thy hair a lover's ne'er-spent night.

Daphnis.

If sleepy poppies yield to lilies white,

If black to snowy lambs, if night to day,
If western shades to fair Aurora's light,

Stella must yield to Mira's shining ray.
In day we sport, in day we shepherds toy;
The night for wolves, the light the shepherd's joy.

Thomalin.

Who white-thorn equals with the violet?

What workman rest compares with painful light? Who wears the glaring glass, and scorns the jet?

Day yield to her that is both day and night. In night the fishers thrive, the workmen play; Love loves the night; night's lovers' holiday.

Daphnis.

Fly then the seas, fly far the dangerous shore:
Mira, if thee the king of seas should spy,
He'll think Medusa sweeter than before,

With fairer hair, and doubly fairer eye,
Is changed again; and with thee ebbing low,
In his deep courts again will never flow.

Thomalin.

Stella, avoid both Phoebus' ear and eye:

His music he will scorn, if thee he hear:

Thee, Daphne, if thy face by chance he spy,

Daphne, now fairer changed, he'll rashly swear;

And, viewing thee, will later rise and fall;

Or, viewing thee, will never rise at all.

XCII. THE SHEPHERD'S LIFE.

From The Purple Island (1633), canto xii. This is an allegorical poem in the manner of The Faerie Queene.

THRICE, O, thrice happy shepherd's life and state!
When courts are happiness' unhappy pawns!

His cottage low, and safely humble gate

Shuts out proud Fortune with her scorns and fawns: No feared treason breaks his quiet sleep: Singing all day, his flocks he learns to keep, Himself as innocent as are his simple sheep.

No Serian worms he knows, that with their thread
Draw out their silken lives:-nor silken pride!
His lambs' warm fleece well fits his little need,
Not in that proud Sidonian tincture dyed.

No empty hopes, no courtly fears him fright;
Nor begging wants his middle fortune bite;
But sweet content exiles both misery and spite.

Instead of music, and base flattering tongues,

Which wait to first salute my lord's uprise,
The cheerful lark wakes him with early songs,
And birds' sweet whistling notes unlock his eyes.
In country plays is all the strife he uses,

Or song, or dance, unto the rural Muses;
And but in music's sports, all differences refuses.

His certain life, that never can deceive him,

Is full of thousand sweets, and rich content; The smooth-leaved beeches in the field receive him With coolest shades, till noon-tide rage is spent; His life is neither tost in boisterous seas

Of troublous world, nor lost in slothful ease; Pleased and full blest he lives, when he his God can please.

His bed of wool yields safe and quiet sleeps,

While by his side his faithful spouse hath place;

His little son into his bosom creeps,

The lively picture of his father's face;

Never his humble house or state torment him;

Less he could like, if less his God had sent him; And when he dies, green turfs, with grassy tomb, content him.

THOMAS NABBES.

(fl. 1638.)

XCIII. THE MILKMAID.

From Tottenham Court (1638). Mr. Bullen has included Nabbes in his series of Old Plays.

WHAT a dainty life the milkmaid leads,

When over the flowery meads

She dabbles in the dew

And sings to her cow,

And feels not the pain

Of love or disdain!

She sleeps in the night, though she toils in the day,
And merrily passeth her time away.

BEN JONSON.
(1573-1637.)

XCIV. THE SHEPHERD'S HOLYDAY.

The opening song of Pan's Anniversary, or The Shepherd's Holyday, a masque shown before King James I. in 1625. It was first published in the 1641 folio of Jonson's Works.

First Nymph.

THUS, thus begin the yearly rites

Are due to Pan on these bright nights;

His morn now riseth and invites

To sports, to dances, and delights:
All envious and profane, away,
This is the shepherd's holyday.

Second Nymph.

Strew, strew the glad and smiling ground

With every flower, yet not confound;

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