An English Garner: Ingatherings from Our History and Literature (8 of 8)
History
An English Garner: Ingatherings from Our History and Literature (8 of 8)
English literature
For which, this remedy he found, that sitting oftentimes
Upon a rock and looking on the sea, he sang these rhymes:
"O GALATEA fair, why dost thou shun thy lover true?
More tender than a lamb, more white than cheese when it is new,
More wanton than a calf, more sharp than grapes unripe, I find.
You use to come when pleasant sleep, my senses all do bind:
But you are gone again when pleasant sleep doth leave mine eye;
And as a sheep you run, that on the plain a wolf doth spy.
"I then began to love thee, GALATE, when first of all
You, with my mother, came to gather leaves of crowtoe [_hyacinth_]
small
Upon our hill; when I, as Usher, squired you all the way.
Nor when I saw thee first, nor afterwards, nor at this day,
Since then could I refrain: but you, by Jove! nought set thereby!
"But well I know, fair Nymph, the very cause why thus you fly.
Because upon my front, one only brow, with bristles strong
From one ear to the other ear is stretchèd all along:
'Neath which, one eye; and on my lips, a hugy nose, there stands.
Yet I, this such a one, a thousand sheep feed on these lands;
And pleasant milk I drink, which from the strouting bags is presst.
Nor want I cheese in summer, nor in autumn of the best,
Nor yet in winter time. My cheese racks ever laden are;
And better can I pipe than any CYCLOPS may compare.
O apple sweet! of thee, and of myself I use to sing,
And that at midnight oft. For thee! eleven fawns up I bring,
All great with young: and four bears' whelps, I nourish up for thee!
But come thou hither first, and thou shalt have them all of me.
And let the bluish coloured sea beat on the shore so nigh,
The night with me in cave, thou shalt consume more pleasantly!
There are the shady bays, and there tall cypress trees do sprout:
And there is ivy black, and fertile vines are all about.
Cool water there I have, distilled of the whitest snow,
A drink divine, which out of woody Etna mount doth flow.
In these respects, who in the sea and waves would rather be?
"But if I seem as yet too rough and savage unto thee,
Great store of oaken wood I have, and never-quenchèd fire;
And I can well endure my soul to burn with thy desire,
With this my only eye, than which I nothing think more trim:
Now woe is me, my mother bore me not with fins to swim!
That I might dive to thee; that I thy dainty hand might kiss,
If lips thou wouldst not let. Then would I lilies bring iwis,
And tender poppy-toe that bears a top like rattles red,
And these in summer time: but others are in winter bred,
So that I cannot bring them all at once. Now certainly
I'll learn to swim of some or other stranger passing by,
That I may know what pleasure 'tis in waters deep to dwell.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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