Her patience, witte and answer wrought When (kissing her a score of times) VII. DOWSABEL The following stanzas were written by Michael Drayton, a poet of some eminence in the reigns of Queen Elizabeth, James I. and Charles I. They are inserted in one of his Pastorals, the first edition of which bears this whimsical title. "Idea. The Shepheards Garland fashioned in nine Eglogs. Rowlands sacrifice to the nine Muses. Lond. 1593, 4to. They are inscribed with the author's name at length "To the noble and valerous gentleman master Robert Dudley, &c." It is very remarkable that when Drayton reprinted them in the first folio edit. of his works, 1619, he had given those eclogues so thorough a revisal, that there is hardly a line to be found the same as in the old edition. This poem had received the fewest corrections, and therefore is chiefly given from the ancient copy, where it is thus introduced by one of his shepherds: Listen to mee, my lovely shepheards joye, And thou shalt heare, with mirth and mickle glee, My toothles grandame oft hath told to me. The author has professedly imitated the style and metre of some of the old metrical romances, particularly that of" "2 Sir Isenbras, (alluded to in v. 3.) as the reader may judge from the following specimen : This ancient legend was printed in black-letter, 4to, by Myllyam Copland; no date. In the Cotton Library (Calig. A. 2.) is a manuscript copy of the same romance containing the greatest variations. They are probably two different translations of some French original. 1 He was born in 1563, and died, 1631. Biog. Brit. 2 As also Chaucer's Rhyme of Sir Topas, ver. 6. FARRE in the countrey of Arden, As bolde as Isenbras: The silke well couth she twist and twine, And with the needle werke: And she couth helpe the priest to say And sing a psalme in kirke. A hood to that so neat and fine, Her features all as fresh above, Her skin as soft as Lemster wooll, This mayden in a morne betime The honey-suckle, the harlocke, To deck her summer hall. Thus, as she wandred here and there, A shepheard sitting on a bancke, He lear'd his sheepe as he him list, In favour this same shepheards swayne Whom his lewd brother slaw. The shepheard ware a sheepe-gray cloke, That could he cut with sheere: His hood of meniveere. His aule and lingell in a thong, And pyping still he spent the day, Which liked Dowsabel: That would she ought, or would she nought, At length she tucked up her frocke, She drew the shepheard nye; But then the shepheard pyp'd a good, 1 Alluding to "Tamburlaine the great, or the Scythian Shepheard," 1590, 8vo., an old ranting play ascribed to Marlowe. 2 Sc. Abel. Thy sheepe, quoth she, cannot be leane, That have a jolly shepherds swayne, The which can pipe so well: Yea but, sayth he, their shepheard may, If pyping thus he pine away In love of Dowsabel. Of love, fond boy, take thou no keepe, With that she gan to vaile her head, With that the shepheard gan to frowne, My coate, sayth he, nor yet my foulde Sayth she, Yet lever were I dead, Sayth he, Yet are you too unkind, And I to thee will be as kinde, Of curtesie the flower. Then will I be as true, quoth she, As ever mayden yet might be Unto her paramour. With that she bent her snow-white knee, Down by the shepheard kneeled shee, And him she sweetely kist: With that the shepheard whoop'd for joy, Quoth he, Ther's never shepheards boy That ever was so blist. VIII. THE FAREWELL TO LOVE From Beaumont and Fletcher's play, entitled "The Lover's Progress," act iii. sc. I. ADIEU, fond love, farewell you wanton powers; Thou dull disease of bloud and idle hours, Fly to fools, that sigh away their time: My nobler love to heaven doth climb, That time can ne'er corrupt, nor death destroy, And honoured by eternity and joy: There lies my love, thither my hopes aspire, IX. ULYSSES AND THE SYREN This affords a pretty poetical contest between pleasure and honour. It is found at the end of "Hymen's triumph: a pastoral tragicomedie," written by Daniel, and printed among his works, 4to. 1623.1 Daniel, who was a contemporary of Drayton's, and is said to have been poet laureat to Queen Elizabeth, was born in 1562, and died in 1619. Anne Countess of Dorset, Pembroke, and Montgomery (to whom Daniel had been tutor), has inserted a small portrait of him in a full length picture of herself, preserved at Appleby Castle, in Cumberland. This little poem is the rather selected for a specimen of Daniel's poetic powers, as it is omitted in the later edition of his works, 2 vols. 12mo. 1718. SYREN COME, worthy Greeke, Ulysses come, Here may we sit and view their toyle, Enjoy the day in mirth the while, And spende the night in sleepe. 1 In this edition it is collated with a copy printed at the end of his "Tragedie of Cleopatra." London, 1607, 12mno. |