For the flowers now, that, frighted, thou let'st fall
From Dis's wagon! daffodils,
That come before the swallow dares, and take
The winds of March with beauty; violets, dim,
But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes,
Or Cytherea's breath; pale primroses,
That die unmarried, ere they can behold
Bright Phœbus in his strength;
bold oxlips, and The crown-imperial; lilies of all kinds,
The flower-de-luce being one! O, these I lack,
To make you garlands of.
Where the bee sucks, there suck I;
In a cowslip's bell I lie:
There I couch when owls do cry,
On the bat's back I do fly,
Merrily, merrily, shall I live now,
Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.
I am that merry wanderer of the night.
I jest to Oberon, and make him smile,
When I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile,
Neighing in likeness of a filly foal:
And sometime lurk I in a gossip's bowl,
In very likeness of a roasted crab;
And, when she drinks, against her lips I bob,
And on her wither'd dew-lap pour the ale.
The wisest aunt,† telling the saddest tale,
Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me;
Then slip I from her seat, down topples she,
And tailor cries, and falls into a cough;
And then the whole quire hold their hips and loffe;
And waxen in their mirth, and neeze, and swear,
A merrier hour was never wasted there.
When icicles hang by the wall,
And Dick the shepherd blows his nail,
And Tom bears logs into the hall,
And milk comes frozen home in pail,
When blood is nipp'd, and ways be foul,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
Tu-whit, to-who, a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.
When all aloud the wind doth blow,
And coughing drowns the parson's saw,
And birds sit brooding in the snow,
And Marian's nose looks red and raw;
When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
Tu-whit, to-who, a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.
Thorough bush, thorough briar,
Over park, over pale,
Thorough flood, thorough fire,
I do wander every where,
Swifter than the moones sphere;
And I serve the fairy queen,
To dew her orbs* upon the green :
The cowslips tall her pensioners be;
In their gold coats spots you see;
Those be rubies, fairy favours,
In those freckles live their savours :
I must go seek some dew-drops here,
And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear.
Orpheus with his lute made trees,
And the mountain-tops, that freeze,
Bow themselves, when he did sing:
To his music, plants, and flowers,
Ever sprung; as sun, and showers,
There had been a lasting spring.
Every thing that heard him play,
Even the billows of the sea,
Hung their heads, and then lay by.
In sweet music is such art;
Killing care, and grief of heart,
Fall asleep, or, hearing die.
The sun's a thief, and with his great attraction
Robs the vast sea: the moon's an arrant thief,
And her pale fire she snatches from the sun :
The sea's a thief, whose liquid surge resolves
The moon into salt tears: the earth's a thief,
That feeds and breeds by a composture* stolen
From general excrement: each thing's a thief;
The laws, your curb and whip, in their rough power
Have uncheck'd theft.
27-iv. 3.
The snail, whose tender horns being hit, Shrinks backward in his shelly cave with pain, And there, all smother'd up in shade doth sit, Long after fearing to creep forth again.
The pleasant'st angling is to see the fish
Cut with her golden oars the silver stream,
And greedily devour the treacherous bait.
Whose icy current, and compulsive course
Ne'er feels retiring ebb, but keeps due on
To the Propontic, and the Hellespont.
Time's ruin, beauty's wreck, and grim care's reign; Her cheeks with chaps and wrinkles were disguised; Of what she was, no semblance did remain:
Her blue blood changed to black in every vein,
Wanting the spring that those shrunk pipes had fed, Show'd life imprison'd in a body dead.
These gray locks, the pursuivants of death,
Nestor-like aged, in an age of care;
These eyes,-like lamps, whose wasting oil is spent, Wax dim, as drawing to their exigent:
Weak shoulders overborne with burd'ning grief;
And pithless arms, like to a wither'd vine
That droops his sapless branches to the ground :-
Yet are these feet, whose strengthless stay is numb,
Unable to support this lump of clay,-
Swift-winged with desire to get a grave.
Whilst summer lasts, and I live here, Fidele,
I'll sweeten thy sad grave: Thou shalt not lack
The flower, that's like thy face, pale primrose; nor
The azured hare-bell, like thy veins; no, nor
The leaf of eglantine, whom not to slander,
Out-sweeten'd not thy breath: the ruddock* would,
With charitable bill (O bill, sore-shaming
Those rich-left heirs, that let their fathers lie
Without a monument !) bring thee all this;
Yea, and furr'd moss besides, when flowers are none,
To winter-ground† thy corse.
Fear no more the heat o' the sun,
Nor the furious winter's rages;
Thou thy worldly task hast done,
Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages:
Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.
Fear no more the frown o' the great,
Thou art past the tyrant's stroke;
Care no more to clothe, and eat;
To thee the reed is as the oak:
† Probably a corrupt reading for wither round thy corse.
The sceptre, learning, physic, must
All follow this, and come to dust.
Fear no more the light'ning flash,
Nor the all-dreaded thunder-stone ;
Fear not slander, censure* rash:
Thou hast finish'd joy and moan:
All lovers young, all lovers must
Consignt to thee, and come to dust.
I will rob Tellust of her weeds,
To strew thy green with flowers; the yellows, blues,
The purple violets, and marigolds,
Shall, as a chaplet, hang upon thy grave,
While summer days do last.
How use doth breed a habit in a man!
This shadowy desert, unfrequented woods,
I better brook than flourishing peopled towns;
Here can I sit alone, unseen of any,
And, to the nightingale's complaining notes,
Tune my distresses, and record my woes.
O thou that dost inhabit in my breast,
Leave not the mansion so long tenantless;
Lest, growing ruinous, the building fall,
And leave no memory of what it was!
And dizzy 'tis, to cast one's eyes so low !
The crows, and choughs, that wing the midway air,
Show scarce so gross as beetles: half way down,
Hangs one that gathers samphire :|| dreadful trade!
Methinks, he seems no bigger than his head :
The fishermen, that walk upon the beach,
Appear like mice and yon' tall anchoring bark,
Diminish'd to her cock; her cock, a buoy
Almost too small for sight: The murmuring surge,
That on the unnumber'd idle pebbles chafes,
A vegetable gathered for pickling.
† Seal the same contract. § Daws.
Her cock-boat.
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