JOHN FORD (fl. 1639)

SONG

FROM THE BROKEN HEART

Can you paint a thought? or number
Every fancy in a slumber?

Can you count soft minutes roving
From a dial's point by moving?
Can you grasp a sigh? or, lastly,
Rob a virgin's honour chastely?

No, O, no! yet you may
Sooner do both that and this,
This and that, and never miss,

Than by any praise display
Beauty's beauty; such a glory,
As beyond all fate, all story,
All arms, all arts,

All loves, all hearts,
Greater than those or they,
Do, shall, and must obey.

Glories, pleasures, pomps, delights, and ease,

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Must in his harvest or lose all again. Now must he pluck the rose lest other hands,

Or tempests, blemish what so fairly stands :
And therefore, as they had before decreed,
Our shepherd gets a boat, and with all speed,
In night, that doth on lovers' actions smile,
Arrived safe on Mona's fruitful isle.2
152
Between two rocks (immortal, without
mother,)

That stand as if out-facing one another,
There ran a creek up, intricate and blind, 155
As if the waters hid them from the wind;
Which never wash'd but at a higher tide
The frizzled coats which do the mountains
hide;

Where never gale was longer known to stay 159
Than from the smooth wave it had swept

How each field turns a street, each street a park

Made green and trimm'd with trees; see how

Devotion gives each house a bough

Or branch: each porch, each door ere this
An ark, a tabernacle is,

Made up of white-thorn, neatly interwove;
As if here were those cooler shades of love.
Can such delights be in the street
And open fields and we not see't?
Come, we'll abroad; and let's obey
The proclamation made for May:
And sin no more, as we have done, by staying;
But, my Corinna, come, let's go a-Maying.

40

CHAPTER I. PISCATOR, VENATOR, AUCEPS Piscator. You are well overtaken, Gentlemen! A good morning to you both! I have stretched my legs up Tottenham Hill to overtake you, hoping your business may occasion you towards Ware, whither I am going this fine fresh May morning.

Venator. Sir, I, for my part, shall almost answer your hopes; for my purpose is to drink my morning's draught at the Thatched House in Hoddesden; and I think not to rest till I come thither, where I have appointed a friend or two to meet me: but for this gentleman that you see with me, I know not how far he intends his journey; he came so lately into

1act as servant 2 angler 3 hunter + falconer