William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Elizabethan Verse. 1907.
The Satyr and ClorinJohn Fletcher (1579–1625)
T
That flings his arms down to the main;
And through these thick woods have I run,
Whose bottom never kissed the sun
Since the lusty spring began.
All to please my Master Pan,
Have I trotted without rest
To get him fruit; for at a feast
He entertains, this coming night,
His paramour, the Syrinx bright.
But, behold a fairer sight!
By that heavenly form of thine,
Brightest fair, thou art divine,
Sprung from great immortal race
Of the gods; for in thy face
Shines more awful majesty,
Than dull weak mortality
Dare with misty eyes behold,
And live: therefore on this mould
Lowly do I bend my knee
In worship of thy deity.
Deign it, goddess, from my hand,
To receive whate’er this land
From her fertile womb doth send
Of her choice fruits; and but lend
Belief to that the Satyr tells:
Fairer by the famous wells
To this present day ne’er grew,
Never better, nor more true.
Here be grapes, whose lusty blood
Is the learned poet’s good,
Sweeter yet did never crown
The head of Bacchus; nuts more brown
Than the squirrel’s teeth that crack them;
Deign, oh fairest fair, to take them!
For these black-eyed Dryope
Hath often-times commanded me
With my claspèd knee to climb:
See how well the lusty time
Hath decked their rising cheeks in red,
Such as on your lips is spread!
Here be berries for a queen,
Some be red, some be green;
These are of that luscious meat,
The great god Pan himself doth eat:
All these, and what the woods can yield,
The hanging mountain, or the field,
I freely offer, and ere long
Will bring you more, more sweet and strong;
Till when, humbly leave I take,
Lest the great Pan do awake,
That sleeping lies in a deep glade,
Under a broad beech’s shade.
I must go, I must run
Swifter than the fiery sun.