Tixall Poetry/Rusticatio Religiosi in Vacantiis

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Tixall Poetry
edited by Arthur Clifford
Rusticatio Religiosi in Vacantiis by unknown author
4307917Tixall PoetryRusticatio Religiosi in VacantiisArthur Cliffordunknown author

Rusticatio religiosi in vacantiis.


Quivering feares, heart-tearing cares,
Anxious sighes, untimely teares,
   Fly, fly to courts,
   Fly to find worldly harts;
Where strain'd sardonick smiles are glossing still,
And griefe is forc'd to laugh against his will;
   Where mirth is but mummery,
   And sorrows only reall be.

Fly from our country pastime, fly,
Sad troopes of humane misery.
   Come, serened lookes,
   Cleare as these cristall brookes,
Or the pure azure heaven, that smiles to see
The rich attendance of our poverty;
   Peace, and a secure mind,
   Which all men seeke, we only find.

Abused mortals, did you know,
Where joy, hart's ease, and comforts grow,
   You'd scorne proud towers,
   And seeke them in these bowers,
Where winds sometimes our woods perhaps may shake,
But blustering Care can never tempest make;
   Nor murmurs ere come nigh us,
   Saving of fountains which glide by us.

Here's no fantastike maske, or dance,
But of our kids that frisk and prance;
   Nor wars are seene,
   Unless upon the greene
Two harmles lambs are butting one the other,
Which done, both bleating run each to his mother:
   Nor wounds are ever found,
   Save what the ploughshare gives the ground.

Here are no false entrapping baites
To hasten too too hasty fates,
   Unies it be
   The fond credulity
Of silly fish, which worldlings like, still look
Upon the baite, and never on the hooke:
   Nor envy, unies among
   The birds, for praise of their sweet song.

Go, let the diving negro seeke
For gemmes in some forlorne creeke;
   We pearles do scorne,
   Save what the dewy morne
Congeals upon each spire of grass,
Which careles sheapheards beat downe as they passe:
   And gold nere here appeares
   But what the yellow Ceres beares.

Sweet silent groves, O may you be
For ever mirth's blest nursery.
   May pure contents
   For ever pitch their tents
Upon these meads, these downs, these rocks, these mountains;
And peace still slumber by these purling fountains;
   Which we may every yeare
   Find when we come to sojourne here.