Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, IDEM AND EUNDEM; AN ODE, by NICHOLAS DOWNEY


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

IDEM AND EUNDEM; AN ODE, by                    
First Line: I heard the mountain gods complain
Last Line: And shun our plains?
Subject(s): Browne, William (1591-1645)


I HEARD the mountain gods complain,
Sweet Willy, thou neglects thy strain,
And that thou wouldst not bless again
Thy fellow swain.

The sisters did bewail,
That he whose notes did oft assail
Apollo's skill, yea, did prevail,
Their art disdains.

What if some forward stub-chinn'd boy
Takes up a reed, and does employ
His artless lips, can this annoy
Thy sweeter song?

Could thy exactness brook a foil,
Without disparagement; their soil
Commends thy tongue more smooth than oil,
Our sports among.

Great Pan e'er since thou went'st away
Has miss'd the glories of his day;
No shepherd dares begin a lay
To honour him.

Behold how all our joys do turn
To sadness, see hot sighs which burn
Our breasts, look how our swoll'n eyes mourn
And weep till dry.

Our crooks are trail'd along the ground,
Our pipes grow dumb, or sadly sound;
No flow'ry chaplets e'er hath crown'd
Since thine a brow.

Each shepherdess, as in despair,
Mean more to be proclaimed fair,
Th' fit time to trim her fluent hair
Doth scarce allow.

Our lambs do leave to skip about,
And ape their dams' sad pace throughout
The hills with woes, as if they doubt
Security.

Now thou art absent, whose smooth reed
Did in the wolves and tigers breed
A nature tame, and thus them freed
From cruelty.

Each Muse, god, sheep, and shepherds all,
Join in the art thy madrigal;
For Pan's sake at thy festival
Renew thy strains.

Why should that spright which soar'd so high
Above the ken of emulous eye,
Ere Doridon be finish'd, die,
And shun our plains?





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