George Wither: Verses about Water

Habak. iii.


Lord, thy answer I did heare,
And I grew therewith afear'd
When the times at fullest are,
Let thy work be then declar'd
When the time, Lord, full doth grow,
Then in anger mercy shew.

God Almightie, he came downe,
Downe he came from Theman-ward
And the matchlesse Holy One
From mount Paran forth appear'd ;
Heaven o'erspreading with his rayes,
And earth filling with his praise.

Sunne-like was his glorious light;
From his side there did appeare
Beaming rayes that shined bright,
And his pow'r he showed there;
Plagues before his face he sent:
At his feete hot coales there went.

Where he stood he measure tooke
Of the earth, and view'd it well;
Nations vanisht at his looke,
Auncient hils to powder fell;
Mountaines old cast lower were;
For his waies eternal are.

Cushan tents I saw diseas'd,
And the Midian curtaines quake.
Have the flouds, Lord, thee displeased ?
Did the flouds thee angry make ?
Was it else. the sea that hath
Thus prouoked thee to wrath ?

For thou rod'st thy horses there,
And thy saving charrets through;
Thou didst make thy bow appeare,
And thou didst performe thy vowe ;
Yea, thine oath and promise past,
To the tribes fulfilled hast.

Through the earth thou riftes didst make,
And the riuers there did flow;
Mountaines seeing thee did shake,
And away the flouds did goe.
From the deepe a voyce was heard,
And his hands on high he rear'd.

Both the sunne and moone made stay,
And remoud not in their spheares;
By thine arrowes' light went they,
By thy brightly shining speares:
Thou in wrath the lands did crush,
And in rage the nations thresh.

For thy people's safe releefe,
With thy Christ for ayd went'st thou ;
Thou hast also peirct their chiefe
Of the sinfull household through,
And display'd them till made bare
From the foote to necke they were.

Thou, with jauelines of their owne,
Didst their armies' leader strike;
For against me they came downe,
To deuoure me wherllwinde-like;
And they ioy in nothing more
Than vnseene to spoile the poore.

Through the sea thou mad'st a way,
And didst ride thy horses there,
Where great heapes of water lay ;
I the newes thereof did heare,
And the voyce my bowels shooke;
Yea, my lips a quiv'ring tooke.

Rottennesse my bones possest,
Trembling feare possessed me,
I that troublous day might rest;
For when his approches be
Onward to the people made,
His strong troups will them invade.

Bloomlesse shall the fig-tree bee,
And the vine no fruit shall yeeld;
Fade shall then the oliue-tree,
Meat shall none be in the field ;
Neither in the fold or stall
Flock or heard continue shall.

Yet the Lord my ioy shall be,
And in him I will delight,
In my God that saueth me,
God the Lord my only might;
Who my feet so guides, that I,
Hinde-like, pace my places high.

Two pretty rills do meet, and meeting make
Within one valley a large silver lake:
About whose banks the fertile mountains stood
In ages passèd bravely crowned with wood,
Which lending cold-sweet shadows gave it grace
To be accounted Cynthia's bathing-place;
And from her father Neptune's brackish court,
Fair Thetis thither often would resort,
Attended by the fishes of the sea,
Which in those sweeter waters came to plea.
There would the daughter of the Sea God dive,
And thither came the Land Nymphs every eve
To wait upon her: bringing for her brows
Rich garlands of sweet flowers and beechy boughs.
For pleasant was that pool, and near it then
Was neither rotten marsh nor boggy fen,
It was nor overgrown with boisterous sedge,
Nor grew there rudely then along the edge
A bending willow, nor a prickly bush,
Nor broad-leaved flag, nor reed, nor knotty rush.
But here well-ordered was a grove with bowers,
There grassy plots set round about with flowers.
Here you might through the water see the land
Appear, strowed o'er with white or yellow sand;
Yon deeper was it, and the wind by whiffs
Would make it rise and wash the little cliffs
On which, oft pluming, sat unfrighted than
The gaggling wild-goose and the snow-white swan,
With all those flocks of fowls which to this day,
Upon those quiet waters breed and play.
For though those excellences wanting be
Which once it had, it is the same that we
By transposition name the Ford of Arle,
And out of which, along a chalky marle,
That river trills whose waters wash the fort
In which brave Arthur kept his royal court.
North-east, not far from this great pool, there lies
A tract of beechy mountains, that arise,
With leisurely ascending, to such height
As from their tops the warlike Isle of Wight
You in the ocean's bosom may espy,
Though near two furlongs thence it lie.
The pleasant way, as up those hills you climb,
Is strewèd o'er with marjoram and thyme,
Which grows unset. The hedgerows do not want
The cowslip, violet, primrose, nor a plant
That freshly scents: as birch, both green and tall;
Low sallows, on whose blooming bees do fall;
Fair woodbines, which about the hedges twine;
Smooth privet, and the sharp-sweet eglantine,
With many moe whose leaves and blossoms fair
The earth adorn and oft perfume the air.

When you unto the highest do attain
An intermixture both of wood and plain
You shall behold, which, though aloft it lie,
Hath downs for sheep and fields for husbandry,
So much, at least, as little needeth more,
If not enough to merchandise their store.

In every row hath nature planted there
Some banquet for the hungry passenger.
For here the hazel-nut and filbert grows,
There bullice, and, a little farther, sloes.
On this hand standeth a fair weilding-tree,
On that large thickets of blackberries be.
The shrubby fields are raspice orchards there,
The new felled woods like strawberry gardens are,
And had the King of Rivers blessed those hills
With some small number of such pretty rills
As flow elsewhere, Arcadia had not seen
A sweeter plot of earth than this had been.