21.
To the Maidens:]
the]"And now y' have wept enough, depart; yon stars
Begin to pink, as weary that the wars
Know so long Treaties; beat the Drum
Aloft, and like two armies, come
And guild the field,
Fight bravely for the flame of mankind, yield
Not to this, or that assault,
For that would prove more Heresy than fault
In combatants to fly
'Fore this or that hath got the victory.
22 [15].
"But since it must be done, despatch and sew
Up in a sheet your Bride, and what if so
It be with rib of Rock and Brass,
ye]Yea tower her up, as Danae was,
Think you that this,
Or Hell itself, a powerful Bulwark is?
ye]I tell you no; but like a
Bold bolt of thunder he will make his way,
And rend the cloud, and throw
The sheet about, like flakes of snow.
23 [16].
"All now is hushed in silence: Midwife-moon
With all her Owl-ey'd issue begs a boon
Which you must grant; that's entrance with
Which extract, all we † call pith
And quintessence
Of Planetary bodies; so commence,
All fair constellations
Looking upon you that the Nations
Springing from to such Fires
May blaze the virtue of their Sires."
—R. Herrick.
The variants in this version are not very important; one of the most noteworthy, round for ground, in stanza 5 [4], was overlooked by Dr. Grosart in his collation. Of the seven stanzas subsequently omitted several are of great beauty. There are few happier images in Herrick than that of Time throned in a saffron evening in stanza 11. It is only when the earlier version is read as a whole that Herrick's taste in omitting is vindicated. Each stanza is good in itself, but in the MSS. the poem drags from excessive length, and the reduction of its twenty-three stanzas to sixteen greatly improves it.
[286]. Ever full of pensive fear. Ovid, Heroid. i. 12: Res est solliciti plena timoris amor.