Seven Minor Epics of the English Renaissance (1596-1624)Barksted, William, active 1611
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Seven Minor Epics of the English Renaissance (1596-1624)
Barksted, William, active 1611
English poetry -- Early modern, 1500-1700; Epic poetry, English; Renaissance -- England
Looke how you see a pleasant field of Corne
Moue here & there by gentle-breathing wind,
Now vp and downe, as waues in sea are borne:
So doubtfull thoughts had motion in her mind:
Now shee'l surcease, and now to him repaire
Instable, like a feather in the aire.
O fye vpon this fowle incestious lust,
That very Nature greatly doth abhorre,
Some plague will fall vpon all such I trust,
If in this world there can be any more.
I hope this little world well free-ed is
Of Giants, and such monstrous beasts as this.
So God preserue it, if it be his will,
And let the Gospell euer flourish here,
Yet I do feare we haue some yet as ill,
The pleasing fooles do with their folly beare:
In Paradice I see wee cannot live,
But we shall finde some foule seducing _Eue_.
My tongue doth stagger to repeate her name,
So foule a blot a Christian cannot brooke,
Go seeke a glasse to see this filthy shame,
Upon _Gods holy Bible_ daily looke:
And there thou maist, as in a mirror see,
No _Alkeron_ can yeeld the like to thee.
There sucke the _Nectar_ of his _Holy Word_,
And begge thou pardon for thy foule abuse,
For euery _Sore_ it can a _Salue_ afford.
O _Atheist_! learne to make of it good use.
Thou Christians blot, to leaue off further talke,
Whilst thou hast light, endeuor there to walke.
And thou _Paenchaia_, rich in manys a thing,
In _Custus_, _Cynamon_ and _Incense_ sweete,
That out of trees aboundantly doth spring,
Of _Ammonie_, and things for vses meete.
Yet whilst thou yeeldest _Myrrh_, I wey thee not:
For thereunto hath _Myrha_ giuen a blot.
No measure in her filthy loue she found:
No ease, no rest, but death doth like her now.
Resolu'd on this she gets vp from the ground,
And mindes to hang her selfe, her loue to shew,
And then the noose about her necke she drawes,
And said, o _Cynaras!_ thou art the onely cause.
Farewell therfor, a thousand times farewell,
Deere _Cynaras_ thou mightst haue sau'd my life,
And thinke then, this to me alone befell,
Because I durst not loue thee as a wife.
Farewell againe. Oh welcome gentle death!
And then she went about to stop her breath.
A recompence fit for so foule a mind,
But yet by chance her aged Nurse did lye
Within a chamber that to hers adioyn'd,
Who ouer-hearing this, to her did hye;
And seeing her halfe murdered, so began
To shrieke & screeme, & straight vnto her ran.
Who first did snatch her girdle from her necke,
And powring teares vpon her plentuously,
Did hold her in her aged armes, though weake,
And kissing her did vrge the reason why
She went about away herselfe to make,
Or to her shame so base a course to take?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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