Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. II. The Seventeenth Century: Ben Jonson to Dryden
William Browne (c. 1590c. 1645)Extracts from Britannias Pastorals: The Poets Ambition
A
Nor happier names e’er graced a golden tongue:
O! they are better fitting his sweet stripe,
Who on the banks of Ancor tuned his pipe:
Or rather for that learned swain, whose lays
Divinest Homer crowned with deathless bays;
Or any one sent from the sacred well
Inheriting the soul of Astrophell:
These, these in golden lines might write this story,
And make these loves their own eternal glory:
Whilst I, a swain, as weak in years as skill,
Should in the valley hear them on the hill.
Yet when my sheep have at the cistern been
And I have brought them back to shear the green,
To miss an idle hour, and not for meed,
With choicest relish shall mine oaten reed
Record their worths: and though in accents rare
I miss the glory of a charming air,
My Muse may one day make the courtly swains
Enamoured on the music of the plains,
And as upon a hill she bravely sings
Teach humble dales to weep in crystal springs.