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For maids take more delights, when they prepare,
And think of wives' states, than when wives they are.
Beneath all these she wrought a fisherman,
Drawing his nets from forth that ocean;
Who drew so hard, ye might discover well,
The toughen'd sinews in his neck did swell:
His inward strains drave^[1] out his blood-shot eyes,
And springs of sweat did in his forehead rise:
Yet was of nought but of a serpent sped,
That in his bosom flew, and stung him dead;
And this by Fate into her mind was sent,
Not wrought by mere instinct of her intent.
All the scarf's other end her hand did frame,
Near the fork'd point of the divided flame,
A country virgin keeping of a vine,
Who did of hollow bulrushes combine
Snares for the stubble-loving grasshopper,
And by her lay her scrip that nourish'd her.
Within a myrtle shade she sat and sung,
And tufts of waving^[2] reeds about her sprung;
Where lurk'd two foxes, that while she applied
Her trifling snares, their thieveries did divide;
One to the vine, another to her scrip,
That she did negligently overslip:

1. drew, edit. 1637.
2. wavering, edit. 1637.