TITYRUS. Were they not both yeaned by the self-same ewe? The gods are ignorant if they not foreknow, ALEXIS. Tityrus, with me contend, or Corydon; TITYRUS. Feed where you will, my lambs; what boots it us To watch and water, fold, and drive you thus: This on the barren mountains flesh can glean, That fed in flowery pastures will be lean. ALEXIS. Plough, sow, and compass, nothing boots at all, So labour, silly shepherds, what we can: TITYRUS. Ill thrive thy ewes, if thou these lies maintain. ALEXIS. And may thy goats miscarry, saucy swain. THYRSIS. Fie, shepherds, fie! while you these strifes begin, Here creeps the wolf, and there the fox gets in; To your vain piping on so deep a reed It gentle swains befits of love to sing, How Love left heaven, and heaven's immortal King, Love is a son as ancient as his sire; His mother was a virgin: how could come A birth so great, and from so chaste a womb? His cradle was a manger: shepherds, see, True faith delights in poor simplicity. He pressed no grapes, nor pruned the fruitful vine, Nor did He plough the earth, and to his barn Or myrtle, with the which Venus, they say, Girts her proud temples! Shepherds, none of them; Feet to the lame He gave; with which they ran To work their surgeon's last destruction: The blind from Him had eyes; but used that light Lastly, he was betrayed (oh! sing of this)- In his spread arms his spouse: so mild in show, He seemed to court the embraces of his foe. Through his pierced side, through which a spear was sent, A torrent of all-flowing balsam went. Run, Amaryllis, run: one drop from thence Cures thy sad soul, and drives all anguish hence. Go, sun-burnt Thessylis, go and repair Thy beauty lost, and be again made fair. Love-sick Amyntas, get a philtrum here, Good night to all: for the great night is come: Flocks, to your folds; and shepherds, hie you home; THOMAS HEYWOOD. THOMAS HEYWOOD wrote about the year 1635. He was the author of The Hierarchies of the Blessed Angels; a work rude in metre, yet abounding with powerful and even sublime passages. SEARCH AFTER GOD. 1 SOUGHT Thee round about, O Thou, my God! In thine abode. I said unto the Earth, "Speak, art thou He?" She answered me, "I am not."-I inquired of creatures all In general Contained therein;-they with one voice proclaim That none amongst them challenged such a name, I asked the seas, and all the deeps below, I asked the reptiles, and whatever is Even from the shrimp to the leviathan, Inquiry ran; But in those deserts, which no line can sound, I asked the air if that were He? but I, from the towering eagle to the wren, If any feathered fowl 'mongst them were such? Offended with my question, in full quire Answered-"To find thy, God thou must look higher." I asked the heavens, sun, moon, and stars, but they Said, "We obey The God thou seek'st."-I asked, what eye or ear Could see or hear; What in the world I might descry or know, Above, below: With an unanimous voice all these things said, I asked the world's great universal mass, Which, with a mighty and strong voice, replied, "I am not He, O man! for know that I By Him on high, Was fashioned first of nothing, thus instated And swayed by Him, by whom I was created." I sought the court; but smooth-tongued flattery there Deceived each ear; In the thronged city there was selling, buying Swearing and lying; I' the country, craft in simpleness arrayed: And then I said, "Vain is my search, although my pains be great, Where my God is, there can be no deceit." A scrutiny within myself I then, Even thus began: "O man, what art thou?"-What more could I say Than, Dust and clay? Frail, mortal, fading, a mere puff, a blast, That cannot last; Enthroned to-day, to-morrow in an urn; I asked myself what this great God might be I answered-The all-potent, solely immense, Unspeakable, inscrutable, eternal Lord over all. The only terrible, strong, just, and true, He is the well of life, for He doth give To all that live Both breath and being; He is the Creator Both of the water, Earth, air, and fire. Of all things that subsist He hath the list; Of all the heavenly host, or what earth claims, And now, my God, by thine illuming grace, Thy glorious face, (So far forth as it may discovered be,) Methinks I see; And, though invisible and infinite, To human sight, Thou in thy mercy, justice, truth, appearest ; In which to our weak senses Thou comest nearest. |