Politics & government > Life of Sir Walter Raleigh

TO THE FALL OF ESSEX.
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You’d scorn proud towers,
And seek them in these bowers;
Where winds sometimes our woods perhaps may shake,
But blustering care could never tempest make.
Nor murmurs e’er come nigh us,
Saving of fountains that glide by us.”
The following comparison, between the masques and
tournaments of the court and the harmless gambols of
the sheepfold, presents a pastoral scene worthy of the
pencil of Berghem :—
“ Here’s no fantastic masque, nor dance,
But of our kids that frisk and prance:
Nor wars are seen.
Unless upon the green
Two harmless lambs are butting one another.
Which done, both bleating run, each to his mother ;
And wounds are never found.
Save what the ploughshare gives the ground.
“ Here are no false entrapping baits.
To hasten too too hasty fates ;
Unless it be
The fond credulity
Of silly fish, which, worldling-like, still look
Upon the bait, hut never on the hook ;
Nor envy, unless among
The birds, for prize of their sweet song.”
The transition from this description, which brings before
us the contemplative angler plying his patient occupation
and listening to the free birds carolling in their leafy
chambers, to the transatlantic picture of the poor negro
condemned to dive for gems and pearls, is conceived in
the true spirit of poetry.
“ Go ! let the diving negro seek
For gems hid in some forlorn creek:
We all pearls scorn.
Save what the dewy morn
Congeals upon each little spire of grass,
Which careless shepherds beat down as they pass ;
And gold ne’er here appears
Save what the yellow Ceres bears.”
And then let us listen to the serenity which breathes in
the concluding stanza.
“ Blest silent groves ! 0 may ye be
For ever mirth’s best nursery !
May pure contents
For ever pitch their tents