Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. II. The Seventeenth Century: Ben Jonson to Dryden

William Browne (c. 1590–c. 1645)

Extracts from Britannia’s Pastorals: The Song of Celadyne

MARINA’S gone and now sit I

As Philomela on a thorn,

Turned out of nature’s livery,

Mirthless, alone, and all forlorn:

Only she sings not, while my sorrows can

Breathe forth such notes as suit a dying swan.

So shuts the marigold her leaves

At the departure of the sun;

So from the honey-suckle sheaves

The bee goes when the day is done;

So sits the turtle when she is but one,

And so all woe, as I, since she is gone.

To some few birds kind Nature hath

Made all the summer as one day;

Which once enjoy’d, cold winter’s wrath,

As night, they sleeping pass away.

Those happy creatures are, they know not yet

The pain to be deprived, or to forget.

I oft have heard men say there be

Some, that with confidence profess

The helpful Art of Memory;

But could they teach forgetfulness,

I ’d learn, and try what further art could do

To make me love her and forget her too.

Sad melancholy, that persuades

Men from themselves, to think they be

Headless, or other body’s shades,

Hath long and bootless dwelt with me.

For could I think she some idea were

I still might love, forget, and have her here.

But such she is not; nor would I

For twice as many torments more,

As her bereaved company

Hath brought to those I felt before;

For then no future time might hap to know

That she deserv’d, or I did love her so.

Ye hours then, but as minutes be!

Though so I shall be sooner old,

Till I those lovely graces see,

Which, but in her, can none behold.

Then be an age! that we may never try

More grief in parting, but grow old and die.