From the introduction to a sharp Elizabethan satire,these lines still near about as close to music as words can getSlow, unhurried, and fresh fount,withhold time with my salt tears;
Yet slower, yet, or O faintly,gentle springs:
List to the heavy part the music bears,
Woe weeps out her division, or when she sings.
Droop,herbs and flowers,
topple grief in showers;
Our beauties are not ours: [br] O, and I could still,
Like melting snow upon some craggy hill, [br] Drop, and drop,drop, drop, or
Since nature’s pride is,now, a withered daffodil.
This week’s poem, or sometimes anthologised as Echo’s Song,is from Act I, Scene 2 of Ben Jonson’s “comical satyr” Cynthia’s Revels, or,The Fountain of Self-Love.
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Source: theguardian.com