LINES
FROM “THE POLYOLBION.”
When Phœbus lifts his head out of the winter’s wave,
No sooner doth the earth her flowery bosom brave;
At such time as the year brings on the pleasant spring,
But hunts-up to the morn the feather’d sylvans sing;
And in the lower grove, as on the rising knole,
Upon the highest spray of every mounting pole
Those choristers are perch’d, with many a speckled breast;
Then from her burnish’d gate the goodly glittering East
Gilds every lofty top, which late the humorous night
Bespangled had with pearl, to please the morning’s sight;
On which the mirthful choirs, 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.
Michael Drayton, 1563–1631.