Classic Poem

Marine the fair, hearing his wooing tale,
Perceived well what wall his thoughts did scale;
And answer'd thus: I pray, Sir Swain, what boot
Is it to me to pluck up by the root
My former love, and in his place to sow
As ill a seed, for anything I know?
Rather 'gainst thee I mortal hate retain,
That seek'st to plant in me new cares, new pain.
Alas! th'hast kept my soul from death's sweet bands
To give me over to a tyrant's hands,
Who on his racks will torture by his power
This weaken'd, harmless body, every hour.
Be you the judge, and see if reason's laws
Give recompense of favour for this cause.
You from the streams of death brought life on shore;
Releas'd one pain to give me ten times more.
For love's sake, let my thoughts in this be free;
Object no more your hapless saving me:
That obligation which you think should bind,
Doth still increase more hatred in my mind.
Yea, I do think more thanks to him were due
That would bereave my life than unto you.
The thunder-stricken swain lean'd to a tree,
As void of sense as weeping Niobe;
Making his tears the instruments to woo her,
The sea wherein his love should swim unto her:
And, could there flow from his two-headed font,
As great a flood as is the Hellespont,
Within that deep he would as willing wander
To meet his Hero, as did e'er Leander.
Meanwhile the nymph withdrew herself aside,
And to a grove at hand her steps applied,
With that sad sigh (O! had he never seen,
His heart in better case had ever been)
Against his heart, against the stream he went,
With this resolve, and with a full intent,
When of that stream he had discovered
The fount, the well-spring, or the bubbling head,
He there would sit, and with the well-drop vie,
That it before his eyes would first run dry.
But then he thought the god that haunts that lake,
The spoiling of his spring would not well take;
And therefore leaving soon the crystal flood,
Did take his way unto the nearest wood:
Seating himself within a darksome cave,
(Such places heavy Saturnists do crave,)
Where yet the gladsome day was never seen,
Nor Phaebus piercing beams had ever been,
Fit for the synod house of those fell legions,
That walk the mountains and Silvanus' regions;
Where Tragedy might have her full scope given,
From men['s] aspects, and from the view of heaven.
Within the same some cranmes did deliver
Into the midst thereof a pretty river;
The nymph whereof came by out of the veins
Of our first mother, having late ta'en pains
In scouring of her channel all the way,
From where it first began to leave the sea:
And in her labour thus far now had gone,
When coming through the cave, she heard that one
Spake thus: If I do in my death persever,
Pity may that effect which love could never.
By this she can conjecture 'twas some swain,
Who overladen by a maid's disdain,
Had here (as fittest) chosen out a place
Where he might give a period to the race
Of his loath'd life: which she (for pity's sake)
Minding to hinder, div'd into her lake,
And hasten'd where the ever-teeming Earth
Unto her current gives a wished birth;
And by her new-deliver'd river's side,
Upon a bank of flow'rs, had soon espied
Remond, young Remond, that full well could sing,
And tune his pipe at Pan's birth carolling;
Who for his nimble leaping, sweetest lays,
A laurel garland wore on holy-days;
In framing of whose hand Dame Nature swore
There never was his like, nor should be more;
Whose locks (ensnaring nets) were like the rays
Wherewith the sun doth diaper the seas,
Which, if they had been cut and hung upon
The snow-white cliffs of fertile Albion,
Would have allured more to be their winner,
Than all the diamonds that are hidden in her.
Him she accosted thus: Swain of the Wreath,
Thou art not placed only here to breathe;
But Nature in thy framing shows to me
Thou shouldst to others as she did to thee,
Do good; and surely I myself persuade,
Thou never wert for evil action made.
In heaven's consistory 'twas decreed
That choicest fruit should come from choicest seed;
In baser vessels we do ever put
Basest materials, do never shut
Those jewels most in estimation set,
But in some curious costly cabinet.
If I may judge by th' outward shape alone,
Within, all virtues have convention:
" For 't gives most lustre unto Virtue's feature,
When she appears cloth'd in a goodly creature. "