Most Illustrious and Most Hopeful
CHARLES,
PRINCE OF WALES.
WELL may my book come forth like public day,
When such a light as you are leads the way:
Who are my work's creator, and alone
The flame of it, and the expansion.
And look how all those heavenly lamps acquire
Light from the sun, that inexhausted fire :
So all my morn and evening stars from you
Have their existence, and their influence too.
Full is my book of glories; but all these
By you become immortal substances.
I. THE ARGUMENT OF HIS BOOK.
I SING of brooks, of blossoms, birds and bowers,
Of April, May, of June and July-flowers;
I sing of May-poles, hock-carts wassails, wakes,
Of bridegrooms, brides and of their bridal-cakes;
I write of youth, of love, and have access
By these to sing of cleanly wantonness;
I sing of dews, of rains, and piece by piece
Of balm, of oil, of spice and ambergris;
I sing of times trans-shifting, and I write
How roses first came red and lilies white;
I write of groves, of twilights, and I sing
The Court of Mab, and of the fairy king;
I write of hell; I sing (and ever shall)
Of heaven, and hope to have it after all.
Hock-cart, the last cart from the harvest-field.
Wakes, village festivals, properly in the dedicationday of a church.
Ambergris, gray amber,' much used in perfumery.
WHITHER, mad maiden, wilt thou roam?
Far safer 'twere to stay at home,
Where thou mayst sit and piping please
The poor and private cottages,
Since cotes and hamlets best agree
With this thy meaner minstrelsy.
There with the reed thou mayst express
The shepherd's fleecy happiness,
And with thy eclogues intermix
Some smooth and harmless bucolics.
There on a hillock thou mayst sing
Unto a handsome shepherdling,
Or to a girl (that keeps the neat)
With breath more sweet than violet.
There, there, perhaps, such lines as these
May take the simple villages;
But for the court, the country wit
Is despicable unto it.
Stay, then, at home, and do not go
Or fly abroad to seek for woe.
Contempts in courts and cities dwell,
No critic haunts the poor man's cell,
Where thou mayst hear thine own lines read
By no one tongue there censured.
That man's unwise will search for ill,
And may prevent it, sitting still.
WHILE thou didst keep thy candour undefil'd,
Dearly I lov'd thee as my first-born child,
But when I saw thee wantonly to roam
From house to house, and never stay at home,
I broke my bonds of love, and bade thee go,
Regardless whether well thou sped'st or no.
On with thy fortunes then, whate'er they be:
If good, I'll smile; if bad, I'll sigh for thee.
To read my book the virgin shy
May blush while Brutus standeth by,
But when he's gone, read through what's writ,
And never stain a cheek for it.
COME thou not near those men who are like bread O'er-leaven'd, or like cheese o'er-renneted.
8. WHEN HE WOULD HAVE HIS VERSES READ.
IN sober mornings, do not thou rehearse
The holy incantation of a verse;
But when that men have both well drunk and fed,
Let my enchantments then be sung or read.
Brutus, see Martial, xi. 16, quoted in Note at the end of the volume.
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