Sing on, sweet Muse, and whilst I feed mine eyes
Upon a jewel and unvalued prize,
As bright a star, a dame, as fair, as chaste,
As eye beheld, or shall, till Nature's last,
Charm her quick senses, and with raptures sweet
Make her affection with your cadence meet!
And if her graceful tongue admire one strain,
It is the best reward my pipe would gain.
In lieu whereof, in laurel-worthy rhymes
Her love shall live until the end of times,
And spite of age the last of days shall see
Her name embalm'd in sacred poesy.
Sadly alone upon the aged rocks,

Her eyes these lines acquainted with her mind
Had scarcely made, when o'er the hill behind
She heard a woman cry: “Ah well-a-day,
What shall I do? Go home, or fly, or stay?”
Admir'd Marina rose, and with a pace
As graceful as the goddesses did trace
O'er stately Ida when fond Paris' doom
Kindled the fire should mighty Troy entomb,
She went to aid the woman in distress,
(True beauty never was found merciless)
Yet durst she not go nigh lest, being spied,
Some villain's outrage that might then betide,
For ought she knew, unto the crying maid,

No sooner had Marina got the wood,
But as the trees she nearly search'd for food,
A villain lean as any rake appears,
That look'd, as pinch'd with famine, Egypt's years,
Worn out and wasted to the pithless bone,
As one that had a long consumption.
His rusty teeth (forsaken of his lips
As they had serv'd with want two 'prenticeships)
Did through his pallid cheek and lankest skin
Bewray what number were enrank'd within.
His greedy eyes deep sunk into his head,
Which with a rough hair was o'ercovered.
How many bones made up this starved wight

Near to the shore that border'd on the rock
No merry swain was seen to feed his flock,
No lusty neatherd thither drove his kine,
Nor boorish hogherd fed his rooting swine:
A stony ground it was, sweet herbage fail'd:
Nought there but weeds, which Limos, strongly nail'd,
Tore from their mother's breast to stuff his maw.
No crab-tree bore his load, nor thorn his haw.
As in a forest well complete with deer
We see the hollies, ashes, everywhere
Robb'd of their clothing by the browsing game:
So near the rock all trees where'er you came,

Twice had the cock crown, and in cities strong
The bellman's doleful noise and careful song
Told men, whose watchful eyes no slumber hent,
What store of hours theft-guilty night had spent,
Yet had not Morpheus with this maiden been,
As fearing Limos, whose impetuous teen
Kept gentle rest from all to whom his cave
Yielded enclosure deadly as the grave;
But to all sad laments left her forlorn,
In which three watches she had nigh outworn.
Fair silver-footed Thetis that time threw
Along the ocean with a beauteous crew

But let us leave, fair Muse, the banks of Po;
Thetis forsook his brave stream long ago,
And we must after. See, in haste she sweeps
Along the Celtic shores; th' Armorick deeps
She now is ent'ring: bear up then ahead,
And by that time she hath discovered
Our alablaster rocks, we may descry
And ken with her the coasts of Britany.
There will she anchor cast to hear the songs
Of English shepherds, whose all-tuneful tongues
So pleas'd the naiades, they did report
Their songs' perfection in great Nereus' court:
Which Thetis hearing, did appoint a day

THE Muses' friend (grey-eyed Aurora) yet
Held all the meadows in a cooling sweat,
The milk-white gossamers not upwards snow'd,
Nor was the sharp and useful-steering goad
Laid on the strong-neck'd ox; no gentle bud
The sun had dried; the cattle chew'd the cud
Low levell'd on the grass; no fly's quick sting
Enforc'd the stonehorse in a furious ring
To tear the passive earth, nor lash his tail
About his buttocks broad; the slimy snail
Might on the wainscot, by his many mazes,
Winding meanders and self-knitting traces,

Look as a traveller in summer's day,
Nigh chok'd with dust and molt with Titan's ray,
Longs for a spring to cool his inward heat,
And to that end with vows doth Heaven entreat,
When going further finds an apple-tree,
Standing as did old Hospitality,
With ready arms to succour any needs:
Hence plucks an apple, tastes it, and it breeds
So great a liking in him for his thirst,
That up he climbs, and gathers to the first
A second, third; nay, will not cease to pull
Till he have got his cap and pockets full:
“Things long desir'd so well esteemed are,

Eöus and his fellows in the team,
(Who, since their wat'ring in the Western stream,
Had run a furious journey to appease
The night-sick eyes of our Antipodes,)
Now sweating were in our horizon seen
To drink the cold dew from each flow'ry green:
When Triton's trumpet with a shrill command
Told silver-footed Thetis was at hand.
As I have seen when on the breast of Thames
A heavenly bevy of sweet English dames,
In some calm ev'ning of delightful May,
With music give a farewell to the day,
Or as they would, with an admired tone,

Davies and Wither, by whose Muses power
A natural day to me seems but an hour,
And could I ever hear their learned lays,
Ages would turn to artificial days.
These sweetly chanted to the Queen of Waves,
She prais'd, and what she prais'd, no tongue depraves
Then base contempt (unworthy our report)
Fly from the Muses and their fair resort,
And exercise thy spleen on men like thee:
Such are more fit to be contemn'd than we.
'Tis not the rancour of a canker'd heart
That can debase the excellence of Art;
Nor great in titles make our worth obey,