William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Elizabethan Verse. 1907.
A Summer DayAlexander Hume (1560?1609)
O
The darkness from the light,
And set a ruler o’er the day,
Another o’er the night—
More vively doth appear
Than at mid day unto our eyes
The shining sun is clear.
Removes and drawis by,
While in the East, when it is gone,
Appears a clearer sky.
The lapwing and the snipe,
And tune their songs, like Nature’s clerks,
O’er meadow, muir, and stripe.
And lighten’d more and more,
While everything is clearly seen
Which seemit dim before:
Which all the night were clear,
Offuskit with a greater light
No longer do appear.
Sets up his shining head,
And o’er the earth and firmament
Displays his beams abread
Against his visage sheen
Take up their kindly musick notes
In woods and gardens green.
Like pearlis white and round,
Or like to melted silver drops,
Refreshis all the ground.
From tops of mountains skails,
Clear are the highest hills and plain,
The vapours take the vales.
In cleanness does surpass
The crystal and the silver pure,
Or clearest polisht glass.
That nowhere shall ye find.
Save on a high and barren hill,
An air of peeping wind.
That balmy leaf do bear,
Than they were painted on a wall
No more they move or steir.
Yea, smoother than the sand;
The waves that weltering wont to be
Are stable like the land.
That every cry and call
The hills and dales and forest fair
Again repeats them all.
Through Phœbus’ fostering heat,
Refresht with dew and silver showers
Cast up an odour sweet.
That never think to drone,
On flowers and flourishes of trees
Collect their liquor brown.
With ardent course ascends;
The beauty of the heavenly host
Up to our zenith tends.
So fervently can beat,
That man and beast now seek a place
To save them from the heat.
Amidst the flowers they lie;
The stable ships upon the sea
Tend up their sails to dry.
The cock his courage shows;
With claps of joy his breast he dings,
And twenty times he crows.
The winds can fast collect;
Her purple pens turn many a hue
Against the sun direct.
The heat doth slake at last;
The sun descends down West away,
For three of clock is past.
Diminish in their strength;
The shade of every tower and tree
Extendit is in length.
The wind is setting down;
The reek throws right up in the air
From every tower and town.
The sun goes out of sight;
And painted is the occident
With purple sanguine bright.
From time the sun be set
Is all with rubies, as it were,
Or roses red o’erfret.
Endlong a river clear,
The perfect form of every tree
Within the deep appear.
While all is still and calm,
The praise of God to play and sing
With cornet and with shalm!
And can to other say,
Thanks to the gracious God of heaven,
Which sent this summer day.