Short Poems

Welladay, welladay, poor Colin, thou art going to the ground,
The love whom Thestylis hath slain,
Hard heart, fair face, fraught with disdain,
Disdain in love a deadly wound.
Wound her, sweet Love, so deep again,
That she may feel the dying pain
Of this unhappy shepherd's swain,
And die for love as Colin died, as Colin died.

But if thou wilt not pittie my complaint,
My teares, nor vowes, nor oathes, made to thy beautie:
What shall I do but languish, die, or faint,
Since thou dost scorne my teares, and my soules duetie:
And teares contemned, vowes and oaths must faile,
And where teares cannot, nothing can prevaile.

If thou wilt come and dwell with me at home,
My sheepcote shall be strowed with new greene rushes;
Weele haunt the trembling prickets as they rome
About the fields, along the hauthorne bushes;
I have a pie-bald curre to hunt the hare,
So we will live with daintie forrest fare.

FOURTH BOOK, LINES 688 92

She who to lift her heavy eyes had tried
Faints while the deep wound gurgles at her side
Thrice on her elbow propped she strove to uphold
Her frame — thrice back upon the couch was rolled,
Then with a wandering eye in heaven's blue round
She sought the light and groaned when she had found.

14 Saturday, 23 December 1752

Admonet, et magnâ testatur voce per umbras:
Discite justitiam moniti, et non temnere Divos.
Virg. [Aen. VI 619 20]

Ev'n yet his voice from Hell's dread shades we hear —
" Beware, learn justice, and the Gods revere."

21 Tuesday, 16 January 1753

Si genus humanum et mortalia temnitis arma;
At sperate Deos memores fandi atque nefandi.
Virg. [Aen. I 542 3]

Of mortal Justice if thou scorn the rod —
Believe and tremble, thou art judg'd of God.

48 Saturday, I September 1750

Projecere animam! quam vellent aethere in alto
Nunc et pauperiem, et duros tolerare labores!
[Virg. Aen. VI 436 7]

For healthful indigence in vain they pray,
In quest of wealth who throw their lives away.

Another.

Art thou of Chius ? No. Of Salamine ?
As little. Was the Smyrnean Countrie thine?
Nor so. Which then? Was Cumas ? Colophone ?
Nor one, nor other. Art thou then of none,
That Fame proclames thee? None. Thy Reason call:
If I confesse of one, I anger all.

Another.

Seuen kingdomes stroue, in which should swell the wombe
That bore great Homer; whom Fame freed from Tombe:
Argos, Chius, Pylos, Smyrna, Colophone;
The learn'd Athenian , and Vlyssean Throne.

Another.

The great Maeonides doth onely write;
And to him dictates, the great God of Light.