With reference to the long-accepted reading 'silver-forded,' the epithet is loosely used not for in the state of being forded, but for in a state to be forded, or fordable, and hence shallow. The thought is not quite the same as that intended to be conveyed by such a phrase as 'silver stream of Thames,' but pictures the bright, pellucid, silvery whiteness of a clear mountain rill. As silver-shallow—a meaning which, as has been said, cannot be fairly obtained from it—can it alone be taken as a double epithet. In any other sense the hyphen is only an attempt to connect two qualities which refuse to be connected. All difficulty and obscurity are removed by 'silver-footed.'
St. iii. line 1. The. 'we'' may be = wee, as printed in 1646, but in 1648 it is 'we are,' and in 1670 'we're,' and in the last, line 2, 'they're.' The Sancroft ms. in line 2, reads 'they are indeed' for 'indeed they are.'
St. iv. line 4, 1646 and 1670 have 'crawles' and 'crawls' respectively, for 'floates,' as in 1648 and our text. The Sancroft ms. also reads 'crawles.' In line 3, 1646 and 1670 'meet' is inadvertently substituted for 'creep.'
Lines 5 and 6, 1646 and 1670 read
'Heaven, of such faire floods as this,
Heaven the christall ocean is.'
So too the Sancroft ms., save that for 'this' it has 'these.'
St. v. line 2. 'Brisk' is = active, nimble. So—and something more—Shakespeare: 'he made me mad, to see him shine so brisk' (1 Henry IV. 3).
Line 3. 1646, 1670 and Sancroft ms. read 'soft' for 'sacred' of 1652 and 1648.
Line 6, 'Breakfast.' See our Essay on this and similar homely words, with parallels. 1648 reads 'his' for 'this breakfast.'