Classic Poem

But th' other fearing lest her noise might show
What path she took, which way her streams did flow:
As some wayfaring man strays thro' a wood,
Where beasts of prey, thirsting for human blood,
Lurk in their dens, he softly list'ning goes,
Not trusting to his heels, treads on his toes;
Dreads every noise he hears, thinks each small bush
To be a beast that would upon him rush;
Feareth to die, and yet his wind doth smother;
Now leaves this path, takes that, then to another:
Such was her course. This feared to be found,
The other not to find, swells o'er each mound,
Roars, rages, foams, against a mountain dashes,
And in recoil makes meadows standing plashes:
Yet finds not what he seeks in all his way,
But in despair runs headlong to the sea.
This was the cause them by tradition taught,
Why one flood ran so fast, th' other so soft,
Both from one head, Unto the rougher stream,
(Crown'd by that meadow's flow'ry diadem,
Where Doridon lay hurt) the cruel swain
Hurries the shepherdess, where having lain
Her in a boat like the cannows of Inde,
Some silly trough of wood, or some tree's rind,
Puts from the shore, and leaves the weeping strand,
Intends an act by water, which the land
Abhorr'd to bolster; yea, the guiltless earth
Loath'd to be midwife to so vile a birth:
Which to relate I am enforc'd to wrong
The modest blushes of my maiden-song.
Then each fair nymph whom Nature doth endow
With beauty's cheek, crown'd with a shamefast brow;
Whose well-tun'd ears, chaste-object-loving eyne
Ne'er heard nor saw the works of Aretine;
Who ne'er came on the Cytherean shelf,
But is as true as Chastity itself;
Where hated Impudence ne'er set her seed;
Where lust lies not veil'd in a virgin's weed:
Let her withdraw. Let each young shepherdling
Walk by, or stop his ear, the whilst I sing.
But ye, whose blood, like kids upon a plain,
Doth skip and dance lavoltas in each vein;
Whose breasts are swoll'n with the venerean game,
And warm yourselves at lust's alluring flame;
Who dare to act as much as men dare think,
And wallowing lie within a sensual sink;
Whose feigned gestures do entrap our youth
With an apparency of simple truth;
Insatiate gulfs, in your defective part
By Art help Nature, and by Nature, Art:
Lend me your ears, and I will touch a string
Shall lull your sense asleep the while I sing.
But stay: methinks I hear something in me
That bids me keep the bounds of modesty;
Says, " Each man's voice to that is quickly mov'd
Which of himself is best of all belov'd;
By utt'ring what thou know'st less glory's got,
Than by concealing what thou knowest not. "
If so, I yield to it, and set my rest
Rather to lose the bad than wrong the best.
My maiden-Muse flies the lascivious swains,
And scorns to soil her lines with lustful strains;
Will not dilate (nor on her forehead bear
Immodesty's abhorred character)
His shameless pryings, his undecent doings,
His curious searches, his respectless wooings;
How that he saw — But what? I dare not break it,
You safer may conceive than I dare speak it.
Yet verily had he not thought her dead,
Sh'ad lost, ne'er to be found, her maidenhead.
The rougher stream, loathing a thing compacted
Of so great shame should on his flood be acted,
(According to our times not well allow'd
In others what he in himself avow'd)
Bent hard his forehead, furrow'd up his face,
And danger led the way the boat did trace.
And as within a landskip that doth stand
Wrought by the pencil of some curious hand,
We may descry, here meadow, there a wood;
Here standing ponds, and there a running flood;
Here on some mount a house of pleasure vanted,
Where once the roaring cannon had been planted;
There on a hill a swain pipes out the day,
Out-braving all the quiristers of May;
A huntsman here follows his cry of hounds,
Driving the hare along the fallow grounds,
Whilst one at hand seeming the sport t' allow,
Follows the hounds and careless leaves the plough;
There in another place some high-rais'd land,
In pride bears out her breasts unto the strand;
Here stands a bridge, and there a conduit head;
Here round a Maypole some the measures tread;
There boys the truant play and leave their book;
Here stands an angler with a barted hook;
There for a stag one lurks within a bough;
Here sits a maiden milking of her cow;
There on a goodly plain (by time thrown down)
Lies buried in his dust some ancient town),
Who now invillaged there's only seen
In his vast ruins what his state had been;
And of all these in shadows so express'd
Make the beholders' eyes to take no rest:
So for the swain the flood did mean to him,
To show in Nature (not by Art to limn)
A tempest's rage: his furious waters threat,
Some on this shore, some on the other beat.
Here stands a mountain where was once a date;
There where a mountain stood is now a vale.
Here flows a billow, there another meets;
Each, on each side the skiff, unkindly greets.
The waters underneath 'gan upward move,
Wond'ring what stratagems were wrought above:
Billows that miss'd the boat still onward thrust,
And on the cliffs, as swoll'n with anger, burst.
All these, and more, in substance so express'd,
Made the beholder's thoughts to take no rest.
Horror in triumph rid upon the waves;
And all the Furies from their gloomy caves
Came hovering o'er the boat, summon'd each sense
Before the fearful bar of conscience;
Were guilty all, and all condemned were
To undergo their horrors with despair.
What Muse? what Power? or what thrice sacred herse,
That lives immortal in a well-tun'd verse,
Can lend me such a sight that I might see
A guilty conscience' true anatomy;
That well-kept register wherein is writ
All ills men do, all goodness they omit?
His pallid fears, his sorrows, his affrightings;
His late-wish'd had-I-wists, remorseful bitings;
His many tortures, his heartrending pain;
How were his griefs composed in one chain,
And he by it let down into the seas,
Or through the centre to th' Antipodes?
He might change climates, or be barr'd Heaven's face;
Yet find no salve, nor ever change his case.
Fears, sorrows, tortures, sad affrights, nor any,
Like to the conscience sting, though thrice as many;
Yet all these torments by the swain were borne,
Whilst Death's grim visage lay upon the storm.
But as when some kind nurse doth long time keep
Her pretty baby at suck, whom fall'n asleep
She lays down in his cradle, stints his cry
With many a sweet and pleasing lullaby;
Whilst the sweet child, not troubled with the shock,
As sweetly slumbers, as his nurse doth rock:
So lay the maid, th' amazed swain sat weeping,
And Death in her was dispossess'd by sleeping.
The roaring voice of winds, the billows' raves,
Nor all the mutt'ring of the sullen waves
Could once disquiet, or her slumber stir;
But lull'd her more asleep than waken'd her.
Such are their states whose souls from foul offence
Enthroned sit in spotless innocence.
Where rest my Muse; till (jolly shepherds' swains)
Next morn with pearls of dew bedecks our plains
We'll fold our flocks, then in fit time go on
To tune mine oaten pipe for Doridon.