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And with thy presence oft vouchsafed to attribute
Fame and renown to us, for glorious martial deeds:
But now their ireful beams have chilled our hearts with cold.
Thou hast estranged thyself and deignest not our land:
Far off to others now, thy favour, honour breeds;
And high disdain doth cause thee shun our clime, I fear.
For hadst thou not been wroth, or that time near at hand;
Thou wouldst have heard the cry that woeful England made:
Eke Zealand's piteous plaints, and Holland's toren hair
Would haply have appeased thy divine angry mind.
Thou shouldst have seen the trees refuse to yield their shad
And wailing to let fall the honour of their head,
And birds in mournful tunes lamenting in their kind.
Up from his tomb, the mighty CORINEUS rose,
Who cursing oft the fates that this mishap had bred,
His hoary locks he tare, calling the heavens unkind.
The Thames was heard to roar, the Rhine, and eke the Meuse,
The Scheldt, the Danow self this great mischance did rue:
With torment and with grief, their fountains pure and clear
Were troubled; and with swelling floods declared their woes.
The Muses comfortless, the nymphs with pallid hue;
The sylvan gods likewise came running far and near;
And all, with hearts bedewed, and eyes cast up on high,
"O help! O help, ye gods!" they ghastly 'gan to cry,
"O change the cruel fate of this so rare a wight
And grant that nature's course may measure out his age!"
The beasts their food forsook, and trembling fearfully,