[303]: Nathan Drake, 310 Shakspeare and his Times. On ne compte pas, dans ces deux cent trente-trois poëtes, les auteurs de pièces isolées, mais ceux qui ont publié et recueilli leurs œuvres.
[304]: Tous ces mots sont pris dans Jonson, Spenser, Drayton, Shakspeare et Greene.
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 feath'red sylvans sing:
And in the lower grove, as on the rising knole,
Upon the highest spray of every mounting pole,
Those quiristers are perch't, with many a speckled breast;
Then from her burnisht gate the goodly glitt'ring east
Gilds every lofty top, which late the homorous night
Bespangled had with pearl, to please the morning's sight;
On which the mirthful quires, with their clear open throats,
Unto the joyful morn so strain their warbling notes,
That hills and vallies ring, and even the echoing air
Seems all composed of sounds, about them everywhere....
They sing away the morn, until the mounting sun,
Through thick exhaled fogs his golden head hath run,
And through the twisted tops of our close covert creeps
To kiss the gentle shade, this while that sweetly sleeps.
(Drayton, Polyolbion.)
Ceres, most bounteous lady, thy rich leas
Of wheat, rye, barley, vetches, oats and pease,
Thy turfy mountains, where live nibbling sheep,
And flat meads, thatch'd with stover them to keep,
Thy banks with peonied and lilied brims
Which spongy April at thy hest betrims
To make cold nymphs chaste crowns....
Hail many-colour'd messenger,
Who with thy saffron wings upon my flowers
Diffuseth honey-drops, refreshing showers,
And with each end of thy blue bow, doth crown
My bosky acres and my unshrubbed down.
(Shakspeare, Tempest, IV, 1.)
As Zephyrs blowing below the violet,
Not wagging his sweet head.
(Shakspeare, Cymbeline, IV, 2.)