[326]: Publié en 1589; dédié à Philipp Sidney.
There in a meadow, by the river's side,
A flock of nymphes I chaunced to espy,
All lovely daughters of the Flood thereby,
With goodly greenish locks, all loose untyde,
As each had bene a bryde.
And each one had a little wicker basket,
Made of fine twigs, entrayled curiously,
In which they gathered flowers to fill their flasket,
And with fine fingers cropt full featously
The tender stalkes on hye.
Of every sort which in that meadow grew
They gathered some: the violet pallid blew,
The little dazie that at evening closes,
The virgin lilie, and the primrose trew,
With store of vermeil roses,
To deck their bridegroomes posies
Against the brydale-day, which was not long,
Sweet Themmes, runne softly till I end my song!
With that I saw two swannes of goodly hewe
Come softly swimming down along the lee.
Two fairer birds I yet did never see;
The snow which doth the top of Pindus strew
Did never whiter shew....
So purely white they were,
That even the gentle stream, the which them bare,
Seem'd foul to them, and bad his billowes spare
To wet their silken feathers, least they might
Soyle their fayre plumes with water not so fayre,
And marre their beauties bright,
That shone as heavens light,
Against their brydale day, which was not long.
Sweet Themmes! runne softly till I end my song.
(Prothalamion.)
The gods, which all things see, this same beheld,
And pittying this paire of lovers trew,
Transformed them there lying on the field,
Into one flower that is both red and blew.
It first growes red, and then to blew doth fade,
Like Astrophel, which there into was made.
And in the midst thereof a star appeares,
As fairly formed as any star in skyes;
Ressembling Stella in her freshest yeares,
Forth darting beames of beautie from her eyes;
And all the day it standeth full of deow,
Which is the teares that from her eyes did flow.
(Astrophel.)
[329]: C'est Lodowick Bryskett (Discourse of civil life, 1606) qui lui attribue ces paroles.
[330]: Surtout dans le Calendrier du Berger.