Prepares for sweetest rest, while silvans greet her, Fell from him as loose skin from some young child BOOK I. SONG 5. The poet's ambition. A truer love the Muses never sung, Nor happier names e'er graced a golden tongue: Inheriting the soul of Astrophell3: These, these in golden lines might write this story, With choicest relish shall mine oaten reed Record their worths and though in accents rare I miss the glory of a charming air, My Muse may one day make the courtly swains And as upon a hill she bravely sings Teach humble dales to weep in crystal springs. 1 Drayton. 2 Chapman. 3 Sidney. BOOK II. SONG I. The praise of Spenser. All their pipes were still, And Colin Clout began to tune his quill That had the Thracian played but half so well, But ere he ended his melodious song An host of angels flew the clouds among, And rapt this swan from his attentive mates, To make him one of their associates In Heaven's fair quire: where now he sings the praise BOOK II. SONG I. A lament for his friend. Glide soft, ye silver floods, 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, But of great Thetis' train That on the shores do plain Your sea-green hair, As ye in trammels knit your locks In heavy murmurs through the broad shores tell, Cease, cease, ye murmuring winds, To move a wave; But if with troubled minds You seek his grave, Know 'tis as various as yourselves Now in the deep, then on the shelves, His coffin tossed by fish and surges fell, Whilst Willy weeps, and bids all joy farewell Had he, Arion like Been judged to drown, He on his lute could strike So rare a sown, A thousand dolphins would have come And jointly strive to bring him home. But he on shipboard died, by sickness fell, Since when his Willy paid all joy farewell. 'Great Neptune, hear a swain! And with a golden chain For pity make It fast unto a rock near land! Where ev'ry calmy morn I'll stand, And ere one sheep out of my fold I tell, BOOK II. SONG 2. The praise of Sydney. Ere their arrival Astrophell had done Thou far far more than mortal man, whose style Be all the garlands, crown his tomb with bay, He sweetly touchèd what I harshly hit, May taste with him the dews of Hippocrene,— BOOK II. SONG 3. A colour passage. As in the rainbow's many-coloured hue, Here see we watchet deepened with a blue; Yellow and flame, with streaks of green betwixt, A bloody stream into a blushing run, And ends still with the colour which begun ; Bringing the lightest to the deep'st again, With such rare art each mingleth with his fellow, The blue with watchet, green and red with yellow; Like to the changes which we daily see About the dove's neck with variety, Where none can say, though he it strict attends, So did the maidens with their various flowers Deck up their windows, and make neat their bowers; Using such cunning as they did dispose The ruddy piny with the lighter rose, The monk's-hoods with the bugloss, and entwine BOOK II. SONG 3. The description of Walla. A green silk frock her comely shoulders clad, Nor that which girt the fairest flower of Greece. A deep fringe hung of rich and twisted gold; |