Classic Poem

As I have seen the Lady of the May
Set in an arbour, on a holiday,
Built by the May-pole, where the jocund swains
Dance with the maidens to the bagpipe's strains,
When envious night commands them to be gone,
Call for the merry youngsters one by one,
And for their well performance soon disposes:
To this a garland interwove with roses,
To that a carved hook or well-wrought scrip,
Gracing another with her cherry lip;
To one her garter, to another then
A handkerchief cast o'er and o'er again;
And none returneth empty that hath spent
His pains to fill their rural merriment:
So Nereus' daughter, when the swains had done,
With an unsparing, liberal hand begun
To give to every one that sung before,
Rich orient pearls brought from her hidden store,
Red branching coral, and as precious gems
As ever beautified the diadems:
That they might live what chance their sheep betide,
On her reward, yet leave their heirs beside.
Since when I think the world doth nothing give them,
As weening Thetis ever should relieve them;
And poets freely spend a golden shower,
As they expected her again each hour.
Then with her thanks and praises for their skill
In tuning numbers of the sacred hill,
She them dismiss'd to their contented cotes;
And every swain a several passage floats
Upon his dolphin. Since whose safe repair,
Those fishes like a well-composed air;
And (as in love to men) are ever seen
Before a tempest's rough regardless teen,
To swim high on the waves, as none should dare,
Excepting fishes, to adventure there.
When these had left her, she drave on in pride
Her prouder coursers through the swelling tide,
To view the Cambrian cliffs, and had not gone
An hour's full speed, but near a rock (whereon
Congealed frost and snow in summer lay,
Seldom dissolved by Hyperion's ray,)
She saw a troop of people take their seat,
Whereof some wrung their hands, and some did beat
Their troubled breasts, in sign of mickle woe,
For those are actions grief enforceth to.
Willing to know the cause, somewhat near hand
She spies an aged man sit by the strand,
Upon a green hillside, not meanly crown'd
With golden flowers, as chief of all the ground:
By him a little lad, his cunning heir,
Tracing green rushes for a winter chair,
The old man while his son full neatly knits them
Unto his work begun, as trimly fits them,
Both so intending what they first propounded,
As all their thoughts by what they wrought were bounded.
To them she came, and kindly thus bespake;
Ye happy creatures, that your pleasures take
In what your needs enforce, and never aim
A limitless desire to what may maim
The settled quiet of a peaceful state,
Patience attend your labours! And when Fate
Brings on the restful night to your long days,
Wend to the fields of bliss! Thus Thetis prays.
Fair queen, to whom all duteous praise we owe,
Since from thy spacious cistern daily flow
(Replied the swain) refreshing streams that fill
Earth's dugs, the hillocks, so preserving still
The infant grass, when else our lambs might bleat
In vain for suck, whose dams have nought to eat:
For these thy prayers we are doubly bound,
And that these cleeves should know; but, O, to sound
My often mended pipe presumption were,
Since Pan would play if thou wouldst please to hear.
The louder blasts which I was wont to blow
Are now but faint, nor do my fingers know
To touch half part those merry tunes I had.
Yet if thou please to grace my little lad
With thy attention, he may somewhat strike
Which thou from one so young may'st chance to like.
With that the little shepherd left his task,
And with a blush, the roses' only mask,
Denied to sing. Ah father, quoth the boy,
How can I tune a seeming note of joy?
The work which you command me, I intend
Scarce with a half-bent mind, and therefore spend
In doing little, now, an hour or two,
Which I in lesser time could neater do.
As oft as I with my more nimble joints
Trace the sharp rushes' ends, I mind the points
Which Philocel did give; and when I brush
The pretty tuft that grows beside the rush,
I never can forget in yonder lair
How Philocel was wont to stroke my hair.
No more shall I be ta'en unto the wake,
Nor wend a-fishing to the winding lake;
No more shall I be taught on silver strings
To learn the measures of our banquetings;
The twisted collars and the ringing bells,
The morris scarves and cleanest drinking shells
Will never be renew'd by any one;
Nor shall I care for more when he is gone.
See! yonder hill where he was wont to sit,
A cloud doth keep the golden sun from it,
And for his seat, as teaching us, hath made
A mourning covering with a scowling shade.
The dew-on every flower this morn hath lain
Longer than it was wont this side the plain;
Belike they mean, since my best friend must die,
To shed their silver drops as he goes by.
Not all this day here, nor in coming hither,
Heard I the sweet birds tune their songs together,
Except one nightingale in yonder dell
Sigh'd a sad elegy for Philocel;
Near whom a wood-dove kept no small ado
To bid me in her language “Do so too.”
The wether's bell that leads our flock around
Yields, as methinks, this day a deader sound.
The little sparrows which in hedges creep,
Ere I was up did seem to bid me weep.
If these do so, can I have feeling less,
That am more apt to take and to express?
No; let my own tunes be the mandrake's groan,
If now they tend to mirth when all have none.