And learn suspect the court's proud blandishment, Here might we safe, here might we sweetly dwell. Live Pallas in her towers and marble tent, But ah! the country bowers please me as well. There with my Thomalin I safe would sing, And frame sweet ditties to thy sweeter string; There would we laugh at spite and Fortune's thundering. No Flattery, Hate, or Envy lodgeth there; Pride is not there; no tyrant there we feel. They know no change, nor wanton Fortune's wheel: Thousand fresh sports grow in those dainty places, Light Fawns and Nymphs dance in the woody spaces, And little Love himself plays with the naked Graces. But seeing fate my happy wish refuses, GILES FLETCHER, BROTHER of the preceding, was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he took the degree of B.D., and died at Alderton in Suffolk, 1623, "equally beloved," says Wood, "of the Muses and Graces." He published "Christ's Victorie and Triumph in Heaven and Earth over and after Death," Cambridge, 1610, 4to, in four parts, written in stanzas of eight lines. Mr. Headley calls it 66 a poem rich and picturesque, and on a happier subject than that of his brother." See his "Select Beauties of Ancient English Poetry." Another edition appeared in 1632, which in 1640 was furnished with a new title, and decorated with engravings. This is reprinted in Dr. Anderson's Poets with a Life. The latter of the two following extracts, taken from the conclusion of the poem, is an elegant tribute to the talents of his brother, from which it appears that in 1610 The Purple Island" was already written: indeed Phineas himself, in the dedication prefixed to his volume, describes its contents as the raw essays of his very unripe years and almost childhood. [Panglory's Wooing-song.] LOVE is the blossom where there blows Every thing that lives or grows; Love doth make the heavens to move, And the sun doth burn in love: Love the strong and weak doth yoke, And makes the ivy climb the oak, Under whose shadows lions wild, Soften'd by Love, grow tame and mild. Love no med'cine can appease; He burns the fishes in the seas: Not all the skill his wounds can stanch, Not all the sea his fire can quench. Love did make the bloody spear Once a leavy coat to wear, While in his leaves there shrouded lay Sweet birds, for love that sing and play; And of all Love's joyful flame I the bud and blossom am. Only bend thy knee to me, Thy wooing shall thy winning be! See, see the flowers that below And of all the virgin rose, Losing their virginity: Like unto a summer shade, But now born and now they fade. Every thing doth pass away; There is danger in delay. Come, come gather then the rose ; Gather it, or it you lose. All the sand of Tagus' shore In my bosom casts his ore : All the valleys swimming corn Is gladly bruis'd to make me wine; In my chambers to attend me: PART IV. ST. XLVIII. BUT let the Kentish lad that lately taught Eclecta's hymen with ten thousand flowers Of choicest praise, and hung her heavenly bowers With saffron garlands, drest for nuptial paramours, Let his shrill trumpet, with her silver blast, VOL. III. E |