"And when the moon doth once appear, We'll trace the lower grounds, When fairies in their ringlets there Do dance their nightly rounds. "And have a flock of turtle-doves, A guard on us to keep, As witness of our honest loves To watch us till we sleep." Which spoke, I felt such holy fires On earth heaven's only pride; BALLAD OF DOWSABEL. FAR in the country of Arden, There won'd a knight, hight Cassamen, As bold as Isenbras: Fell was he and eager bent, In battle and in tournament, As was the good Sir Topas. And for she was her father's heir, Of mickle courtesy. The silk well couth she twist and twine, And with the needle work: And sing a psalm in kirk. A hood to that so neat and fine, Iwrought full featously. Her features all as fresh above, This maiden in a morn betime, The honey-suckle, the harlock, Thus as she wander'd here and there, A shepherd sitting on a bank, He learn'd his sheep, as he him list, Which held proud kings in awe: Whom his lewd brother slaw. The shepherd wore a sheep-gray cloak, That could be cut with sheer. His hood of miniveer. His awl and lingel in a thong, His breech of Cointree blue. And piping still he spent the day, So merry as the popinjay, Which liked Dowsabel; That would she ought, or would she nought, This lad would never from her thought, She in love-longing fell. At length she tucked up her frock, She drew the shepherd nigh: Thy sheep, quoth she, cannot be lean, The which can pipe so well: In love of Dowsabel. Of love, fond boy, take thou no keep, Come forth to gather May. With that she 'gan to veil her head, Saith she, I may not stay till night, My cote, saith he, nor yet my fold, Saith she, Yet lever I were dead, And all for love of men. And I to thee will be as kind Of courtesy the flower. Then will I be as true, quoth she, Unto her paramour. With that she bent her snow-white knee, Down by the shepherd kneeled she, And him she sweetly kist, With that the shepherd whoop'd for joy; Quoth he, There's never shepherd's boy That ever was so blest. TO HIS COY LOVE. FROM HIS ODES. I PRAY thee, love, love me no more, That can, but will not save me: Was ever man thus served? Amidst an ocean of delight, For pleasure to be starved. Show me no more those snowy breasts, By me thou art prevented; But thus in heaven tormented. Nor thy life's comfort call me; SONNET TO HIS FAIR IDEA. IN pride of wit, when high desire of fame Gilds every lofty top, which late the humorous night Bespangled had with pearl, to please the morning's sight: On which the mirthful quires, with their clear open throats, Unto the joyful morn so strain their warbling notes, That hills and valleys ring, and even the echoing air Seems all composed of sounds, about them everywhere. The throstel, with shrill sharps; as purposely he sung T' awake the lustless sun; or chiding, that so long He was in coming forth, that should the thickets thrill; The woosel near at hand, that hath a golden bill; As nature him had markt of purpose, t' let us see That from all other birds his tunes should different be: For, with their vocal sounds, they sing to pleasant May; Upon his dulcet pipe the merle doth only play. When in the lower brake, the nightingale hard by, In such lamenting strains the joyful hours doth ply, As though the other birds she to her tunes would draw And, but that nature (by her all-constraining law) Each bird to her own kind this season doth invite, They else, alone to hear that charmer of the night, (The more to use their ears) their voices sure would spare, That moduleth her tunes so admirably rare, The red-sparrow, the nope, the red-breast, and the wren. The yellow-plate; which though she hurt the blooming tree, Yet scarce hath any bird a finer pipe than she. And of these chaunting fowls, the goldfinch not behind, That hath so many sorts descending from her kind. Some in the taller trees, some in the lower greaves) Through thick exhaled fogs his golden head hath run, And through the twisted tops of our close covert creeps To kiss the gentle shade, this while that sweetly sleeps. And near to these our thicks, the wild and frightful herds, Not hearing other noise but this of chattering birds, Feed fairly on the lawns; both sorts of season'd deer: Here walk the stately red, the freckled fallow there: The bucks and lusty stags amongst the rascals strew'd, As sometime gallant spirits amongst the multitude. Of all the beasts which we for our venerial name, The hart among the rest, the hunter's noblest game: Of which most princely chase sith none did e'er report, Or by description touch, t' express that wondrous sport (Yet might have well beseem'd th' ancients nobler songs) To our old Arden here, most fitly it belongs: Which oft hast borne thy bow (great huntress, used to rove) At many a cruel beast, and with thy darts to pierce The lion, panther, ounce, the bear, and tiger fierce; And following thy fleet game, chaste mighty forest's Save those the best of chase, the tall and lusty red, The stag for goodly shape, and stateliness of head, Is fitt'st to hunt at force. For whom, when with his hounds The labouring hunter tufts the thick unbarbed grounds Where harbour'd is the hart; there often from his feed The dogs of him do find; or thorough skilful heed, The huntsman by his slot, or breaking earth, perceives, On ent'ring of the thick by pressing of the greaves, Where he had gone to lodge. Now when the hart doth hear The often-bellowing hounds to vent his secret leir, He rousing rusheth out, and through the brakes doth drive, As though up by the roots the bushes he would rive. And through the cumbrous thicks, as fearfully he makes, He with his branched head the tender saplings shakes, That sprinkling their moist pearl do seem for him to weep; When after goes the cry, with yellings loud and deep, That all the forest rings, and every neighbouring place: And there is not a hound but falleth to the chase. Rechating with his horn, which then the hunter cheers, Whilst still the lusty stag his high-palm'd head upbears, His body showing state, with unbent knees upright, Expressing from all beasts, his courage in his flight. But when th' approaching foes still following he perceives, That he his speed must trust, his usual walk he leaves: And o'er the champain flies: which when th' assembly find, Each follows, as his horse were footed with the wind. But being then imbost, the noble stately deer When he hath gotten ground (the kernel cast arrear) Doth beat the brooks and ponds for sweet refreshing soil: That serving not, then proves if he his scent can foil, And makes amongst the herds, and flocks of shagwool'd sheep, Them frighting from the guard of those who had their keep. But when as all his shifts his safety still denies, Put quite out of his walk, the ways and fallows tries. Whom when the ploughman meets, his team he letteth stand T'assail him with his goad: so with his hook in hand, The shepherd him pursues, and to his dog doth hallo: When, with tempestuous speed, the hounds and huntsmen follow; Until the noble deer through toil bereaved of strength, His long and sinewy legs then failing him at length, The villages attempts, enraged, not giving way To any thing he meets now at his sad decay. The cruel ravenous hounds and bloody hunters near, This noblest beast of chase, that vainly doth but fear, Some bank or quickset finds; to which his haunch opposed, He turns upon his foes, that soon have him enclosed. The churlish-throated hounds then holding him at bay, And as their cruel fangs on his harsh skin they lay, With his sharp-pointed head he dealeth deadly wounds. The hunter, coming in to help his wearied hounds, He desperately assails; until opprest by force, EDWARD FAIRFAX. [Died, 1632 ?] EDWARD FAIRFAX, the truly poetical translator of Tasso, was the second son of Sir Thomas Fairfax, of Denton, in Yorkshire. His family were all soldiers; but the poet, while his brothers were seeking military reputation abroad, preferred the quiet enjoyment of letters at home. He married and settled as a private gentleman at Fuyston, a place beautifully situated between the family seat at Denton and the forest of Knaresborough. Some of his time was devoted to the management of his brother Lord Fairfax's property, and to superintending the education of his lordship's children. The prose MSS. which he left in the library of Denton sufficiently attest his literary industry. They have never been published, and, as they relate chiefly to religious controversy, are not likely to be so; although his treatise on witchcraft, recording its supposed operation upon his own family, must form a curious relic of superstition. Of Fairfax it might, therefore, well be said "Prevailing poet, whose undoubting mind Believed the magic powers which he sung." Of his original works in verse, his History of Edward the Black Prince has never been pub FROM FAIRFAX'S TRANSLATION OF TASSO'S JERUSALEM DELIVERED, BOOK XVIII. STANZAS XII. TO XLI. RINALDO, after offering his devotions on Mount Olivet, This bright, that dark; that earthly, this divine: [The fourth eclogue alone is in print; nor is a MS. copy of the whole known to exist.-C.] lished; but Mr. A. Chalmers (Biog. Dict. art. Fairfax) is, I believe, as much mistaken in supposing that his Eclogues have never been collectively printed, as in pronouncing them entitled to high commendation for their poetry.* A more obscurely stupid allegory and fable can hardly be imagined than the fourth eclogue, preserved in Mrs. Cooper's Muse's Library: its being an imitation of some of the theological pastorals of Spenser is no apology for its absurdity. When a fox is described as seducing the chastity of a lamb, and when the eclogue writer tells us that "An hundred times her virgin lip he kiss'd, who could imagine that either poetry, or ecclesiastical history, or sense or meaning of any kind, was ever meant to be conveyed under such a conundrum? The time of Fairfax's death has not been discovered; it is known that he was alive in 1631; but his translation of the Jerusalem was published when he was a young man, was inscribed to Queen Elizabeth, and forms one of the glories of her reign. Thus prayed he; with purple wings up-flew pass; There did the nightingale her wrongs deplore, There sung the swan, and singing died, alas! There lute, harp, cittern, human voice, he heard, And all these sounds one sound right well declared, A dreadful thunder-clap at last he heard, Nor in his way his passage ought withstood, On the green banks, which that fair stream inbound, And so exchanged their moisture and their shade. The knight some way sought out the flood to pass, He turn'd, amazed to see it troubled so, And in that forest huge, and desert wide, The manna on each leaf did pearled lie; And far above all other plants was seen And from his fertile, hollow womb, forth ran, An hundred plants beside, even in his sight, And wantonly they cast them in a ring, As does its centre the circumference; This was their song; and after from it went To fair Armida; Rinald thinks he spies Nor open'd flowers and fountains, as you came, But yet the knight, wise, wary, not unkind, |