Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. I. Early Poetry: Chaucer to Donne

George Chapman (1559?–1634)

The Thames (from Ovid’s Banquet of Sense)

FORWARD and back and forward went he thus,

Like wanton Thamysis that hastes to greet

The brackish court of old Oceanus;

And as by London’s bosom she doth fleet,

Casts herself proudly through the bridge’s twists,

Where, as she takes again her crystal feet,

She curls her silver hair like amourists,

Smooths her bright cheeks, adorns her brow with ships,

And, empress-like, along the coast she trips.

Till coming near the sea, she hears him roar,

Tumbling her churlish billows in her face,

Then, more dismay’d than insolent before,

Charged to rough battle for his smooth embrace,

She croucheth close within her winding banks,

And creeps retreat into her peaceful palace;

Yet straight high-flowing in her female pranks

Again she will be wanton, and again,

By no means staid, nor able to contain.