English

Libro Primo.

Argomento.

Casting the times with their strong signes,
Death's Master his owne death divines.
Strugling for helpe, his best hope is
Herod's suspition may heale his .
Therefore he sends a fiend to wake
The sleeping Tyrant's fond mistake;
Who feares (in vaine) that he whose Birth
Meanes Heav'n, should meddle with his Earth.

1.

Muse, now the servant of soft Loves no more,

TO MR CHRISTOPHER BROOKE
Thou which art I, ('tis nothing to be so)
Thou which art still thyself, by these shalt know
Part of our passage; and, a hand, or eye
By Hilliard drawn, is worth an history,
By a worse painter made; and (without pride)
When by thy judgement they are dignified,
My lines are such: 'tis the pre-eminence
Of friendship only to impute excellence.
England to whom we owe, what we be, and have,
Sad that her sons did seek a foreign grave
(For, Fate's, or Fortune's drifts none can soothsay,

There's a palace in Florence, the world knows well,
And a statue watches it from the square,
And this story of both do our townsmen tell.

Ages ago, a lady there,
At the farthest window facing the East
Asked, " Who rides by with the royal air?"

The bridesmaids' prattle around her ceased;
She leaned forth, one on either hand;
They saw how the blush of the bride increased —

They felt by its beats her heart expand —
As one at each ear and both in a breath
Whispered, " The Great-Duke Ferdinand."

They are slaves who fear to speak
For the fallen and the weak;
They are slaves who will not choose
Hatred, scoffing, and abuse,
Rather than in silence shrink
From the truth they needs must think;
They are slaves who dare not be
In the right with two or three.

1
The graves the rain makes wet and sleek,
Not men who turned the other cheek,
Cerwyd, and Cywryd, and Caw.
2

The graves beneath the thicket's pall,
Not unavenged were seen to fall
Gwrien, Morien, Morial.
3

Long past, long hid, the strife he bred,
Machawy's soil now roofs his head;
Long, white, the fingers of Beidawg the Red.
4

Siawn's grave is on Hirerw Mound,
Between the earth and his oaken shroud,
A treacherous smiler, bitter, proud.
5

To-morowe ye shall on hunting fare,
And ride, my doughter, in a chare;
It shall be covered with velvet red,
And clothes of fine gold al about your hed,
With damask white and asure-blewe,
Wel diapred with lillies newe;
Your pomelles shall be ended with gold,
Your chaines enameled many a fold;
Your mantel of riche degree,
Purpil palle and ermine free;
Jennettes of Spaine, that been so wight,
Trapped to the ground with velvet bright.
Ye shall have harpe, sautry, and song,
And other mirthes you among.

The Squire her hent in arms two
And kissed her an hundred times and more.
There was mirth and melody,
With harp, gytron and sawtry,
With rote, ribible and clokard,
With pipes, organs and bombard,
With other minstrels them among,
With sytolph and with sawtry song,
With fiddle, record, and dulcimer,
With trumpet and with clarion clear,
With dulcet pipes of many cords
In chamber revelying all the lords
Unto morn that it was day.

Village! thy butcher's son, the steward now,
Still bears the butcher on his burly brow.
Oft with his sire he deigns to ride and stare;
And who like them, at market or at fair?
King of the Inn, he takes the highest place,
And carves the goose, and grimly growls the grace.
There in the loud debate, with might — with might,
Still speaks he last, and conquers still the right;
Red as a lobster, vicious as his horse,
That, like its master, worships fraud and force,
And if the stranger 'scape its kick or bite,

AN EPISTLE TO MR. CUTHBERT JACKSON .

This motly piece to you I send,
Who always were a faithful friend,
Who, if disputes should happen hence,
Can best explain the author's sense,
And, anxious for the publick weal,
Do, what I sing, so often feel.

The want of method pray excuse,
Allowing for a vapour'd Muse;
Nor, to a narrow path confin'd,
Hedge in by rules a roving mind.

The child is genuine, you can trace,

In a dim corner of my room for longer than my fancy thinks
A beautiful and silent Sphinx has watched me through the shifting gloom.

Inviolate and immobile she does not rise she does not stir
For silver moons are naught to her and naught to her the suns that reel.

Red follows grey across the air the waves of moonlight ebb and flow
But with the dawn she does not go and in the night-time she is there.

Dawn follows dawn and nights grow old and all the while this curious cat