Adieu, Fair shepherdesses! Let garlands of sad yew Adorn your dainty golden tresses. I, that lov'd you, and often with my quill Made music that delighted fountain, grove, and hill, I, whom you loved so, and with a sweet and chaste embrace, Yea, with a thousand rarer favours would vouchsafe to grace, I now must leave you all alone of love to plain; And never pipe, nor never sing again. I must, for evermore, be gone, And therefore bid I you, And every one Adieu! I die! For, oh! I feel Death's horrors drawing nigh, And all this frame of nature reel. My hopeless heart, despairing of relief, Sinks underneath the heavy weight of saddest grief, Which hath so ruthless torn, so rack'd, so tortur'd every vein ; All comfort comes too late to have it ever cur'd again. My swimming head begins to dance death's giddy round; A shuddering chillness doth each sense confound; Benumb'd is my cold-sweating brow; A dimness shuts my eye; And now, oh now, I die! RICHARD BRATHWAIT, AUTHOR of" The English Gentleman and Gentlewoman," born in Westmoreland, 1588, entered at Oriel College, Oxford, 1604, where he continued about three years. He then removed to Cambridge, and retiring into his native country, afterwards became a trained-band captain, a deputy-lieutenant, a justice of peace, and a noted wit and poet. He died in 1673 at Appleton, in Yorkshire, where he went to reside after his second marriage, leaving behind him, says Wood, the character of a well-bred gentleman and a good neighbour. His publications were numerous. Vide Athen. Oxon. vol. ii. p. 516. The latter of the following pieces was selected from a work not enumerated by Wood. SONG. From "The Shepherd's Tales," annexed to "Nature's Embassie," 1621, 8vo.] IF marriage life yields such content, What heavy hap have I! Whose life with grief and sorrow spent, Wish death, yet cannot die. She's bent to smile when I do storm, When I am cheerful too She seems to lower: then, who can cure Or counterpoise my wo? My marriage-day chac'd you' away, For I have found it true, That bed which did all joys display Became a bed of rue; Where asps do browse on fancy's flower, And beauty's blossom too: Then where's that power on earth, may cure Or counterpoise my wo? I thought love was the lamp of life, No love like to a faithful wife; Which when I sought to prove, I found her birth was not on earth, My board no dishes can afford ** Where self-will domineers as lord To keep poor me in thrall. My friend she vows her foe: How should I then my sorrows vent, Or cure my endless wo! No cure to care; farewell all joy ; That thou may'st mount the sky; Where thou may move commanding Jove To wed thy wife, who end't thy life; Care's Cure, or a Fig for Care 1. [From "Panedone, or Health from Helicon," 1621, 8vo.] HAPPY is that state of his, Take the world as it is. Lose he honour, friendship, wealth; Lose he liberty or health; Lose he all that earth can give, So prepar'd a mind's in him, Should I ought dejected be, 'Cause blind Fortune frowns on me? Or put finger in the eye When I see my Damon die? 1 Much of this poem seems to be an imitation of Wither's cele Or repine such should inherit More of honours than of merit? To see virtue in disgrace? Should I weep, when I do try They had wealth unto their wit? Should I spend the morn in tears, Or to see his wife at once Branch his brow and break his sconce, Or to hear her in her spleen Callet like a butter-quean? Should I sigh, because I see VOL. III. H |