76
Tixall Poetry.
Cause all was chang'd in every place,
I cry'd, and is this Englands face?
Say, if in yon soft christall brook,
Where thou thy softer self dost looke,
The nymph should keep her gliding face,
Still stedfast in the self same place,
Would she not loose a current's name,
Or could you iudge her still the same?
Or not a lake it rather say,
That was a river t' other day?
So you may be your daughter, true,
But never dreame that you are you.
Ah! more then rivers farre, we flow,
And to our sea of nothing goe!
Ten thousand windings turne our braine;
As many humours fill each veine;
Which, though they smoothly glide, and seeme
To kisse the channel of each limme,
In tyme, by an unseen decay,
Nibble the fay rest bankes a way.
Then be not pittylessly prowd
Of what kind heaven has thee alow'd.
I cry'd, and is this Englands face?
Say, if in yon soft christall brook,
Where thou thy softer self dost looke,
The nymph should keep her gliding face,
Still stedfast in the self same place,
Would she not loose a current's name,
Or could you iudge her still the same?
Or not a lake it rather say,
That was a river t' other day?
So you may be your daughter, true,
But never dreame that you are you.
Ah! more then rivers farre, we flow,
And to our sea of nothing goe!
Ten thousand windings turne our braine;
As many humours fill each veine;
Which, though they smoothly glide, and seeme
To kisse the channel of each limme,
In tyme, by an unseen decay,
Nibble the fay rest bankes a way.
Then be not pittylessly prowd
Of what kind heaven has thee alow'd.
