Say, ye bright brothers,175
The fugitiue sons of those fair eyes,
Your fruitfull mothers!
What make you here? what hopes can 'tice
You to be born? what cause can borrow
You from those nests of noble sorrow?180
XXXI.
Whither away so fast?
For sure the sluttish earth
Your sweetnes cannot tast,
Nor does the dust deserve your birth.
Sweet, whither hast you then? O say185
Why you trip so fast away?
XXXII.
We goe not to seek
The darlings of Aurora's bed,
The rose's modest cheek,
Nor the violet's humble head.190
Though the feild's eyes too Weepers be,
Because they want such teares as we.
XXXIII.
Much lesse mean we to trace
The fortune of inferior gemmes,
Preferr'd to some proud face,195
Or pertch't vpon fear'd diadems:
Crown'd heads are toyes. We goe to meet
A worthy object, our Lord's feet.
NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.
With some shortcomings—superficial rather than substantive—'The Weeper' is a lovely poem, and well deserves its place of honour at the commencement of the 'Steps to the Temple,' as in editions of 1646, 1648, and 1670. Accordingly we have spent the utmost pains on our text of it, taking for basis that of 1652. The various readings of the different editions and of the Sancroft ms. are given below for the capable student of the ultimate perfected form. I have not hesitated to correct several misprints of the text of 1652 from the earlier editions.
The present poem appears very imperfectly in the first edition (1646), consisting there of only twenty-three stanzas instead of thirty-three (and so too in 1670 edition). The stanzas that are not given therein are xvi. to xxix. (on the last see onward). But on the other hand, exclusive of interesting variations, the text of 1646 supplies two entire stanzas (xi. and xxvii.) dropped out in the editions of 1648 and 1652, though both are in 1670 edition and in the Sancroft ms. Moreover I accept the succession of the stanzas in 1646, so far as it goes, confirmed as it is by the Sancroft ms. A third stanza in 1652 edition (st. xi. there) as also in 1648 edition, I omit, as it belongs self-revealingly to 'The Teare,' and interrupts the metaphor in 'The Weeper.' Another stanza (xxix.) might seem to demand excision also, as it is in part repeated in 'The Teare;' but the new lines are dainty and would be a loss to 'The Weeper.' Our text therefore is that of 1652, as before, with restorations from 1646.