Classic Poem

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
Was soon perceiv'd; a man of dimmest sight
Apparently might see them knit, and tell
How all his veins and every sinew fell.
His belly inwards drawn, his bowels press'd,
His unfill'd skin hung dangling on his breast,
His feeble knees with pain enough uphold
That pined carcase, casten in a mould
Cut out by Death's grim form. If small legs wan
Ever the title of a gentleman,
His did acquire it. In his flesh pull'd down
As he had liv'd in a beleaguer'd town,
Where plenty had so long estranged been
That men most worthy note in grief were seen
(Though they rejoic'd to have attain'd such meat)
Of rats and half-tann'd hides with stomachs great
Gladly to feed: and where a nurse, most vild,
Drunk her own milk, and starv'd her crying child.
Yet he through want of food not thus became:
But Nature first decreed, that as the flame
Is never seen to fly his nourishment,
But all consumes: and still the more is lent
The more it covets: and as all the floods,
Down trenching from small groves and greater woods,
The vast insatiate sea doth still devour,
And yet his thirst not quenched by their power:
So ever should befall this starved wight,
The more his viands more his appetite.
Whate'er the deeps bring forth, or earth, or air,
He ravine should, and want in greatest fare.
And what a city twice seven years would serve,
He should devour, and yet be like to starve.
A wretch so empty, that if e'er there be
In Nature found the least vacuity,
'Twill be in him. The grave to Ceres' store;
A cannibal to lab'rers old and poor;
A sponge-like dropsy, drinking till it burst;
The sickness term'd the wolf, vild and accurs'd;
In some respects like th' art of alchemy,
That thrives least when it long'st doth multiply.
Limos he cleeped was: whose long-nail'd paw
Seizing Marina, and his sharp-fang'd jaw
(The strongest part he had) fix'd in her weeds,
He torc'd her thence, through thickets and high reeds,
Towards his cave. Her fate the swift winds rue,
And round the grove in heavy murmurs flew.
The limbs of trees that, as in love with either,
In close embracements long had liv'd together,
Rubb'd each on other, and in shrieks did show
The winds had mov'd more partners of their woe.
Old and decayed stocks that long time spent
Upon their arms their roots' chief nourishment,
And that drawn dry, as freely did impart
Their boughs a-feeding on their father's heart,
Yet by respectless imps when all was gone,
Pithless and sapless, naked left alone,
Their hollow trunks, fill'd with their neighbours' moans,
Sent from a thousand vents ten thousand groans.
All birds flew from the wood, as they had been
Scar'd with a strong bolt rattling 'mong the treen.
Limos with his sweet theft full slily rushes
Through sharp-hook'd brambles, thorns, and tangling bushes,
Whose tenters sticking in her garments sought,
Poor shrubs, to help her, but availing nought,
As angry (best intents miss'd best proceeding)
They scratch'd his face and legs, clear water bleeding.
Not greater haste a fearful school-boy makes
Out of an orchard whence by stealth he takes
A churlish farmer's plums, sweet pears or grapes,
Than Limos did, as from the thick he 'scapes
Down to the shore. Where resting him a space,
Restless Marina 'gan entreat for grace
Of one whose knowing it as desp'rate stood,
As where each day to get supply of food.
O! had she thirsty such entreaty made
At some high rock, proud of his evening shade,
He would have burst in two, and from his veins,
For her avail, upon the under plains
A hundred springs a hundred ways should swim,
To show her tears enforced floods from him.
Had such an oratress been heard to plead
For fair Polyxena, the murth'rer's head
Had been her pardon, and so 'scap'd that shock,
Which made her lover's tomb her dying block.
Not an enraged lion, surly, wood;
No tiger rest her young, nor savage brood;
No, not the foaming boar, that durst approve
Loveless to leave the mighty Queen of Love,
But her sad plaints their uncouth walks among
Spent in sweet numbers from her golden tongue,
So much their great hearts would in softness steep,
They at her foot would grovelling lie and weep,
Yet now (alas!) nor words, nor floods of tears
Did ought avail. The belly hath no ears.
As I have known a man loath meet with gain
That carrieth in his front least show of pain,
Who for his victuals all his raiment pledges,
Whose stacks for firing are his neighbours' hedges,
From whence returning with a burden great,
Wearied, on some green bank he takes his seat,
But fearful (as still theft is in his stay)
Gets quickly up, and hasteth fast away:
So Limos sooner eased than yrested
Was up and through the reeds (as much molested
As in the brakes) who lovingly combine,
And for her aid together twist and twine;
Now manacling his hands, then on his legs
Like fetters hang the under-growing segs:
And had his teeth not been of strongest hold,
He there had left his prey. Fates uncontroll'd
Denied so great a bliss to plants or men,
And lent him strength to bring her to his den.
West, in Apollo's course to Tagus' stream,
Crown'd with a silver-circling diadem
Of wet exhaled mists, there stood a pile
Of aged rocks (torn from the neighbour isle
And girt with waves) against whose naked breast
The surges tilted, on his snowy crest.
The tow'ring falcon whilom built, and kings
Strove for that aerie, on whose scaling wings
Monarchs in gold refin'd as much would lay
As might a month their army royal pay.
Brave birds they were, whose quick, self-less'ning kin
Still won the girlonds from the peregrine.
Not Cerna Isle in Afric's silver main,
Nor lustful-bloody-Tereus' Thracian strain,
Nor any other lording of the air,
Durst with this aerie for their wing compare.
About his sides a thousand sea-gulls bred,
The mevy and the halcyon famosed
For colours rare, and for the peaceful seas.
Round the Sicilian coast, her brooding days.
Puffins (as thick as starlings in a fen)
Were fetch'd from thence: there sat the pewet hen,
And in the clefts the martin built his nest.
But those by this curs'd caitiff dispossess'd
Of roost and nest, the least; of life, the most:
All left that place, and sought a safer coast.
Instead of them the caterpillar haunts,
And cankerworm among the tender plants,
That here and there in nooks and corners grew
Of cormorants and locusts not a few;
The cramming raven, and a hundred more
Devouring creatures; yet when from the shore
Limos came wading (as he easily might
Except at high tides) all would take their flight,
Or hide themselves in some deep hole or other,
Lest one devourer should devour another.