Classic Poem

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,
Be follow'd where he stuck, his glittering slime
Not yet wip'd off. It was so early time,
The careful smith had in his sooty forge
Kindled no coal; nor did his hammers urge
His neighbours' patience: owls abroad did fly,
And day as then might plead his infancy.
Yet of fair Albion all the western swaines
Were long since up, attending on the plains
When Nereus' daughter with her mirthful host
Should summon them on their declining coast.
But since her stay was long, for fear the sun
Should find them idle, some of them begun
To leap and wrestle, others threw the bar;
Some from the company removed are
To meditate the songs they meant to play,
Or make a new round for next holiday.
Some tales of love their love-sick fellows told:
Others were seeking stakes to pitch their fold.
This, all alone was mending of his pipe:
That, for his lass sought fruits most sweet, most ripe.
Here from the rest a lovely shepherd's boy
Sits piping on a hill, as if his joy
Would still endure, or else that age's frost
Should never make him think what he had lost.
Yonder a shepherdess knits by the springs,
Her hands still keeping time to what she sings:
Or seeming, by her song, those fairest hands
Were comforted in working. Near the sands
Of some sweet river sits a musing lad.
That moans the loss of what he sometime had,
His love by death bereft: when fast by him
An aged swain takes place, as near the brim
Of's grave as of the river, showing how
That as those floods, which pass along right now,
Are follow'd still by others from their spring,
And in the sea have all their burying:
Right so our times are known, our ages found,
(Nothing is permanent within this round,)
One age is now, another that succeeds,
Extirping all things which the former breeds:
Another follows that, doth new times raise,
New years, new months, new weeks, new hours, new days.
Mankind thus goes like rivers from their spring,
And in the earth have all their burying.
Thus sat the old man counselling the young;
Whilst, underneath a tree which overhung
The silver stream (as some delight it took
To trim his thick boughs in the crystal brook)
Were set a jocund crew of youthful swains,
Wooing their sweetings with delicious strains,
Sportive Oreades the hills descended,
The Hamadryades their hunting ended,
And in the high woods left the long-liv'd harts
To feed in peace, free from their winged darts;
Floods, mountains, valleys, woods, each vacant lies
Of nymphs that by them danc'd their haydigyes:
For all those powers were ready to embrace
The present means to give our shepherds grace.
And underneath this tree (till Thetis came)
Many resorted, where a swain of name
Less than of worth: (and we do never own
Nor apprehend him best that most is known).
Fame is uncertain, who so swiftly flies
By th' unregarded shed where Virtue lies;
She, ill-inform'd of Virtue's worth, pursu'th
In haste Opinion for the simple truth,
True Fame is ever liken'd to our shade,
He soonest misseth her that most hath made
To overtake her; whose takes his wing,
Regardless of her, she'll be following:
Her true propriety she thus discovers,
“Loves her contemners, and contemns her lovers.”
Th' applause of common people never yet
Pursu'd this swain; he knew 't the counterfeit
Of settled praise, and therefore at his songs,
Though all the shepherds and the graceful throngs
Of semi-gods compar'd him with the best
That ever touch'd a reed, or was address'd
In shepherd's coat, he never would approve
Their attributes given in sincerest love;
Except he truly knew them as his merit.
Fame gives a second life to such a spirit.

This swain, entreated by the mirthful rout,
That with entwined arms lay round about
The tree gainst which he lean'd, (so have I seen
Tom Piper stand upon our village green,
Back'd with the May-pole, whilst a jocund crew
In gentle motion circularly threw
Themselves about him), to his fairest ring
Thus 'gan in numbers well according sing:
Venus by Adonis' side
Crying kiss'd, and kissing cried,
Wrung her hands and tore her hair
For Adonis dying there.
Stay (quoth she) O stay and live!
Nature surely doth not give
To the earth her sweetest flowers
To be seen but some few hours.
On his face, still as he bled
For each drop a tear she shed,
Which she kiss'd or wip'd away,
Else had drown'd him where he lay.
Fair Proserpina (quoth she)
Shall not have thee yet from me;
Nor thy soul to fly begin
While my lips can keep it in.
Here she clos'd again. And some
Say Apollo would have come
To have cur'd his wounded limb,
But that she had smother'd him.