Upon the Kerne, and wildest Irishry

Than time hath done, Whose strength is above strength, And conquers all things; yea itself, at length.

VIII.

Who ever sipped at Bathyre river,

That heard but spite deliver
His far-admired acts,

And is not rapt
With entheate rage to publish their bright tracts?

But this more apt When him alone we sing; Now must we fly our aim, our swan's on wing.

IX.

Who (see) already hath o'erflown

The Hebrid Isles, and known
The scattered Orcades;

From thence is gone
To utmost Thule; whence he backs the seas

To Caledon,
And over Grampius mountain
To Loumond lake, and Tweed's black-springing

fountain.

X.

Haste, haste, sweet singer! nor to Tine,

Humber, or Ouse decline;
But overland to Trent:

There cool thy plumes,

And up again, in skies and air to vent

Their reeking fumes;

Till thou at Thames alight, From whose proud bosom thou began'st thy

flight.

XI.

Thames, proud of thee and of his fate

In entertaining late
The choice of Europe's pride,

The nimble French,
The Dutch, whom wealth (not hatred) doth

divide,

The Danes that drench
Their cares in wine: with sure
Though slower Spain, and Italy mature.

XII.

All which, when they but hear a strain

Of thine, shall think the Maine
Hath sent her mermaids in,

To hold them here;
Yet, looking in thy face, they shall begin

To lose that fear;
And in the place) envý
So black a bird so bright a quality.

XIII.

But should they know (as I) that this

Who warbleth Pancharis
Were Cycnus, once high flying

With Cupid's wing;

Though now, by Love transformed and daily

dying,

(Which makes him sing With more delight and grace); Or thought they Leda's white adult'rer's place.

XIV.

Among the stars should be resigned

To him, and he there shrined;
Or Thames be rapt from us

To dim and drown
In heaven the sign of old Eridanus :

How they would frown !
But these are mysteries
Concealed from all but clear prophetic eyes.

XV.

It is enough, their grief shall know

At their return, nor Po
Iberus, Tagus, Rhine

Scheldt, nor the Maas
Slow Arar, nor swift Rhone, the Loire, nor Seine,

With all the race
Of Europe's waters can
Set out a like, or second to our Swan.

SONGS

FROM THE DRAMAS AND MASQUES.