Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.
Michael Drayton. 15631631120. To the Virginian Voyage
YOU brave heroic minds | |
Worthy your country’s name, | |
That honour still pursue; | |
Go and subdue! | |
Whilst loitering hinds | 5 |
Lurk here at home with shame. | |
Britons, you stay too long: | |
Quickly aboard bestow you, | |
And with a merry gale | |
Swell your stretch’d sail | 10 |
With vows as strong | |
As the winds that blow you. | |
Your course securely steer, | |
West and by south forth keep! | |
Rocks, lee-shores, nor shoals | 15 |
When Eolus scowls | |
You need not fear; | |
So absolute the deep. | |
And cheerfully at sea | |
Success you still entice | 20 |
To get the pearl and gold, | |
And ours to hold | |
Virginia, | |
Earth’s only paradise. | |
Where nature hath in store | 25 |
Fowl, venison, and fish, | |
And the fruitfull’st soil | |
Without your toil | |
Three harvests more, | |
All greater than your wish. | 30 |
And the ambitious vine | |
Crowns with his purple mass | |
The cedar reaching high | |
To kiss the sky, | |
The cypress, pine, | 35 |
And useful sassafras. | |
To whom the Golden Age | |
Still nature’s laws doth give, | |
No other cares attend, | |
But them to defend | 40 |
From winter’s rage, | |
That long there doth not live. | |
When as the luscious smell | |
Of that delicious land | |
Above the seas that flows | 45 |
The clear wind throws, | |
Your hearts to swell | |
Approaching the dear strand; | |
In kenning of the shore | |
(Thanks to God first given) | 50 |
O you the happiest men, | |
Be frolic then! | |
Let cannons roar, | |
Frighting the wide heaven. | |
And in regions far, | 55 |
Such heroes bring ye forth | |
As those from whom we came; | |
And plant our name | |
Under that star | |
Not known unto our North. | 60 |
And as there plenty grows | |
Of laurel everywhere— | |
Apollo’s sacred tree— | |
You it may see | |
A poet’s brows | 65 |
To crown, that may sing there. | |
Thy Voyages attend, | |
Industrious Hakluyt, | |
Whose reading shall inflame | |
Men to seek fame, | 70 |
And much commend | |
To after times thy wit. |