If virtue only be an idle name;

If I, when I was born, was born to die;

Why seek I to prolong these loathsome days?
The fairest rose in shortest time decays.

PHOEBUS, ARISE

Phœbus, arise,

And paint the sable skies

1616.

With azure, white, and red;

Rouse Memnon's mother from her Tithon's bed,
That she thy career may with roses spread.

The nightingales thy coming eachwhere sing:
Make an eternal spring;

Give life to this dark world which lieth dead;
Spread forth thy golden hair

In larger locks than thou wast wont before,

And, emperor-like, decore

With diadem of pearl thy temples fair;

Chase hence the ugly night,

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ΙΟ

Which serves but to make dear thy glorious light.

This is the morn should bring unto this grove

My love, to hear and recompense my love.

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Fair king, who all preserves,

But show thy blushing beams,

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And thou two sweeter eyes

Shalt see than those which by Peneus' streams

Did once thy heart surprise;

Nay, suns, which shine as clear

As thou when two thou did to Rome appear.

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Now, Flora, deck thyself in fairest guise.

If that ye, winds, would hear

A voice surpassing far Amphion's lyre,

Beyond the hills to shun his flaming wheels;

The fields with flow'rs are decked in every hue;
The clouds bespangle with bright gold their blue:
Here is the pleasant place,

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And ev'ry thing save her who all should grace.

TO CHLORIS

See, Chloris, how the clouds

Tilt in the azure lists,

And how with Stygian mists

1616.

Each horned hill his giant forehead shrouds;
Jove thund'reth in the air;

5

The air, grown great with rain,

Now seems to bring Deucalion's days again.

I see thee quake; come, let us home repair;
Come hide thee in mine arms,

If not for love, yet to shun greater harms.

ΤΟ

1616.

NO TRUST IN TIME

Look how the flower which ling'ringly doth fade,
The morning's darling late, the summer's queen,
Spoiled of that juice which kept it fresh and green,
As high as it did raise, bows low, the head:

Right so my life, contentments being dead

Or in their contraries but only seen,

With swifter speed declines than erst it spread,
And, blasted, scarce now shows what it hath been.
As doth the pilgrim, therefore, whom the night

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By darkness would imprison on his way,
Think on thy home, my soul, and think aright
Of what yet rests thee of life's wasting day:
Thy sun posts westward, passèd is thy morn,
And twice it is not given thee to be born.

1623.

IO

THE WORLD A GAME

This world a hunting is:

The prey, poor man; the Nimrod fierce is Death;

His speedy greyhounds are

Lust, sickness, envy, care,

Strife that ne'er falls amiss,

With all those ills which haunt us while we breathe.

Now, if by chance we fly

Of these the eager chase,

Old Age with stealing pace

Casts up his nets, and there we panting die.

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1623.

THE PRAISE OF A SOLITARY LIFE

Thrice happy he who by some shady grove,

Far from the clamorous world, doth live his own;
Though solitary, who is not alone,

But doth converse with that Eternal Love.

O how more sweet is birds' harmonious moan,
Or the hoarse sobbings of the widowed dove,
Than those smooth whisp'rings near a prince's throne,
Which good make doubtful, do the evil approve!
O how more sweet is zephyr's wholesome breath,
And sighs embalmed, which new-born flow'rs unfold,
Than that applause vain honour doth bequeath!
How sweet are streams to poison drunk in gold!
The world is full of horrors, troubles, slights:
Woods' harmless shades have only true delights.

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ΙΟ

WILLIAM BROWNE

FROM

BRITANNIA'S PASTORALS

SWEETER SCENTS THAN IN ARABIA FOUND

Then walked they to a grove but near at hand,
Where fiery Titan had but small command,
Because the leaves, conspiring, kept his beams,
For fear of hurting (when he's in extremes)
The under-flowers, which did enrich the ground
With sweeter scents than in Arabia found.

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The earth doth yield (which they through pores exhale) Earth's best of odours, th' aromatical:

Like to that smell which oft our sense descries

Within a field which long unploughed lies,
Somewhat before the setting of the sun;

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And where the rainbow in the horizon

Doth pitch her tips; or as when in the prime,

The earth being troubled with a drought long time,

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The hand of Heaven his spongy clouds doth strain,
And throws into her lap a shower of rain,
She sendeth up, conceivèd from the sun,

A sweet perfume and exhalation.

Not all the ointments brought from Delos' isle,
Nor from the confines of seven-headed Nile,
Nor that brought whence Phoenicians have abodes,
Nor Cyprus' wild vine-flowers, nor that of Rhodes,
Nor roses' oil from Naples, Capua,
Saffron confected in Silicia,

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Nor that of quinces, nor of marjoram,
That ever from the isle of Coös came;

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Nor these, nor any else, though ne'er so rare,
Could with this place for sweetest smells compare.

1613.

A SQUIRREL HUNT

Then, as a nimble squirrel from the wood,
Ranging the hedges for his filberd-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 through 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 tattered, hath with much ado
Got by the briers; and that hath lost his shoe;

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This drops his band; that headlong falls for haste; 15
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.

1613.

20

WALLA, THE FAIREST NYMPH

Fair was the day, but fairer was the maid
Who that day's morn into the greenwoods strayed.
Sweet was the air, but sweeter was her breathing;
Such rare perfumes the roses are bequeathing.
Bright shone the sun, but brighter were her eyes;
Such are the lamps that guide the deities;
Nay such the fire is whence the Pythian knight
Borrows his beams and lends his sister light.
Not Pelops' shoulder whiter than her hands,
Nor snowy swans that jet on Isca's sands;
Sweet Flora, as if ravished with their sight,
In emulation made all lilies white.
For, as I oft have heard the wood-nymphs say,
The dancing fairies, when they left to play,
Then back did pull them, and in holes of trees
Stole the sweet honey from the painful bees

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