To mock the giant swain that woo’s
The sea-nymph in the sunny deep,
Apollo left the golden Muse.
Afield he drove his lambs and ewes,
Where Milon and where Battus reap,
Theocritus of Syracuse!
To watch thy tunny-fishers cruise
Below the dim Sicilian steep
Apollo left the golden Muse.
Ye twain did loiter in the dews,
Ye slept the swain’s unfever’d sleep,
Theocritus of Syracuse!
That Time might half with his confuse
Thy songs,—like his, that laugh and leap,—
Theocritus of Syracuse,
Apollo left the golden Muse!
THE MYSTERY OF QUEEN PERSEPHONE.
St. Paul and the Devil disputing about the Immortality of Man’s Soul, and St. Paul maintaining the same, (from the similitude of the corn-seed sown, which again sprouteth,) the Devil refutes him by his atheistic subtlety, but is put to shame by the evidence of three witnesses, namely, Persephone, Hela, and St. Lucy.
The Scene is Mount Gerizim.
Intrabunt Sanctus Paulus, et Diabolus, inter
se de immortalitate Animae disputantes.SANCTUS PAULUS.
Ye say that when a man is dead
He never more shall lift his head,
As doth the flower perishèd,
Nor break ne sweet ne bitter bread.
I hold you much in scorn!
Lo, if you cast in earth a seed
That seemeth to be dead indeed,
I wot ye shall have corn;
And all men shall rejoice and reap:
And so it fares with them that sleep,
The narrow house doth them but keep
Until the judgment morn.