Classic Poem

Now he that guides the chariot of the sun,
Upon th' ecliptic circle had so run,
That his brass-hoof'd fire-breathing horses wan
The stately height of the meridian:
And the day-lab'ring man (who all the morn
Had from the quarry with his pickaxe torn
A large well-squared stone, which he would cut
To serve his stile, or for some water-shut)
Seeing the sun preparing to decline,
Took out his bag, and sat him down to dine:
When by a sliding, yet not steep descent,
I gain'd a place, ne'er poet did invent
The like for sorrow; not in all this round
A fitter seat for passion can be found.
As when a dainty fount, and crystal spring,
Got newly from the earth's imprisoning,
And ready prest some channel clear to win,
Is round his rise by rocks immured in,
And from the thirsty earth would be withheld,
Till to the cistern top the waves have swell'd,
But that a careful hind the well hath found,
As he walks sadly through his parched ground;
Whose patience suff'ring not his land to stay
Until the water o'er the cistern play,
He gets a pickaxe, and with blows so stout
Digs on the rock, that all the groves about
Resound his stroke, and still the rock doth charge,
Till he hath made a hole both long and large,
Whereby the waters from their prison run
To close earth's gaping wounds made by the sun:
So through these high-rais'd hills, embracing round
This shady, sad, and solitary ground,
Some power (respecting one whose heavy moan
Requir'd a place to sit and weep alone)
Had cut a path, whereby the grieved wight
Might freely take the comfort of this site.
About the edges of whose roundly form
In order grew such trees as do adorn
The sable hearse, and sad forsaken mate,
And trees whose tears their loss commiserate.
Such are the cypress, and the weeping myrrh,
The dropping amber, and the refin'd fir,
The bleeding vine, the wat'ry sycamore,
And willow for the forlorn paramour;
In comely distance: underneath whose shade
Most neat in rudeness Nature arbours made:
Some had a light, some so obscure a seat,
Would entertain a suff'rance ne'er so great:
Where grieved wights sat (as I after found,
Whose heavy hearts the height of sorrow crown'd)
Wailing in saddest tunes the dooms of Fate
On men by virtue cleeped fortunate.
The first note that I heard I soon was won
To think the sighs of fair Endymion;
The subject of whose mournful heavy lay
Was his declining with fair Cynthia.
Next him a great man sat, in woe no less;
Tears were but barren shadows to express
The substance of his grief, and therefore stood
Distilling from his heart red streams of blood:
He was a swain whom all the Graces kiss'd,
A brave, heroic, worthy martialist:
Yet on the downs he oftentimes was seen
To draw the merry maidens of the green
With his sweet voice: once, as he sat alone,
He sung the outrage of the lazy drone
Upon the lab'ring bee, in strains so rare,
That all the flitting pinionists of air
Attentive sat, and in their kinds did long
To learn some note from his well-timed song.
Exiled Naso (from whose golden pen
The Muses did distil delights for men)
Thus sang of Cephalus (whose name was worn
Within the bosom of the blushing Morn:)
He had a dart was never set on wing,
But Death flew with it: he could never fling,
But life fled from the place where stuck the head.
A hunter's frolic life in woods he led
In separation from his yoked mate,
Whose beauty, once, he valued at a rate
Beyond Aurora's cheek, when she (in pride)
Promis'd their offspring should be deified;
Procris she hight; who (seeking to restore
Herself that happiness she had before)
Unto the green wood wends, omits no pain
Might bring her to her lord's embrace again:
But Fate thus cross'd her, coming where he lay
Wearied with hunting all a summer's day,
He somewhat heard within the thicket rush,
And deeming it some beast hid in a bush,
Raised himself, then set on wing a dart,
Which took a sad rest in the restless heart
Of his chaste wife; who with a bleeding breast
Left love and life and slept in endless rest.
With Procris' heavy fate this shepherd's wrong
Might be compar'd, and ask as sad a song.
In th' autumn of his youth and manhood's spring,
Desert (grown now a most dejected thing)
Won him the favour of a royal maid,
Who with Diana's nymphs in forests stray'd,
And liv'd a huntress' life, exempt from fear.
She once encounter'd with a surly bear,
Near to a crystal fountain's flowery brink:
Heat brought them thither both, and both would drink,
When from her golden quiver she took forth
A dart, above the rest esteem'd for worth,
And sent it to his side: the gaping wound
Gave purple streams to cool the parched ground.
Whereat he gnash'd his teeth, storm'd his hurt limb,
Yielded the earth what it denied him:
Yet sunk not there, but (wrapt in horror) hied
Unto his hellish cave, despair'd and died.