Classic Poem

O never ask how I came to this place:
What cannot strong necessity find out?
Rather bemoan my miserable case,
Constrain'd to wander the wide world about.
With wild Sylvanus and his woody crew
In forests, I, at liberty and free,
Liv'd in such pleasures as the world ne'er knew,
Nor any rightly can conceive but we.
This jocond life we many a day enjoy'd,
Till this last age those beastly men forth brought
That all those great and goodly woods destroy'd
Whose growth their grandsires with such sufferance sought:
That fair Felicia, which was but of late
Earth's Paradise, that never had her peer,
Stands now in that most lamentable state
That not a sylvan will inhabit there,
Where in the soft and most delicious shade
In heat of summer we were wont to play,
When the long day too short for us we made,
The sliding hours so slily stole away.
By Cynthia's light, and on the pleasant lawn,
The wanton fairy we were wont to chase,
Which to the nimble cloven-footed faun
Upon the plain durst boldly bid the base.
The sportive nymphs with shouts and laughter shook
The hills and valleys in their wanton play,
Waking the echoes, their last words that took
Till at the last, they louder were than they.
The lofty high wood and the lower spring,
Sheltering the deer in many a sudden shower,
Where quires of birds oft wonted were to sing,
The flaming furnace wholly doth devour:
Once fair Felicia, but now quite defac'd,
Those braveries gone wherein she did abound,
With dainty groves, when she was highly grac'd
With goodly oak, ash, elm and beeches crown'd!
But that from heaven their judgment blinded is,
In human reason it could never be
But that they might have clearly seen by this
Those plagues their next posterity shall see.
The little infant on the mother's lap
For want of fire shall be so sore distress'd
That whilst it draws the lank and empty pap,
The tender lips shall freeze unto the breast.
The quaking cattle, which their wormstall want,
And with bleak winter's northern wind oppress'd,
Their browse and stover waxing lean and scant,
The hungry crows shall with their carrion feast.
Men wanting timber wherewith they should build,
And not a forest in Felicia found,
Shall be enforc'd upon the open field
To dig them caves for houses in the ground.
The land, thus robb'd of all her rich attire,
Naked and bare herself to heaven doth show,
Begging from thence that Jove would dart his fire
Upon those wretches that disrob'd her so.
This beastly brood by no means may abide
The name of their brave ancestors to hear,
By whom their sordid slavery is descried,
So unlike them as though not theirs they were.
Nor yet they sense nor understanding have
Of those brave muses that their country sung,
But with false lips ignobly do deprave
The right and honour that to them belong.
This cruel kind thus viper-like devour
That fruitful soil which them too fully fed:
The earth doth curse the age, and every hour
Again, that it these vip'rous monsters bred.
I, seeing the plagues that shortly are to come
Upon this people, clearly them forsook,
And thus am light into Elysium,
To whose strait search I wholly me betook. Naiis

Poor silly creature, come along with us:
Thou shalt be free of the Elysian fields.
Be not dismay'd or inly grieved thus:
This place content in all abundance yields.
We to the cheerful presence will thee bring
Of Jove's dear daughters, where in shades they sit,
Where thou shalt hear those sacred sisters sing
Most heavenly hymns, the strength and life of wit. Claia

Where to the Delphian God, upon their lyres
His priests seem ravish'd in his height of praise,
While he is crowning his harmonious quires
With circling garlands of immortal bays.