Page:An English Garner Ingatherings from Our History and Literature (Volume 1 1877).pdf/273

 'Gan dight themselves t'express their inward woe With doleful lays unto the tune addrest. The which I here in order will rehearse, As fittest flowers to deck his mournful hearse.

The mourning Muse of THESTYLIS.

Come forth ye nymphs! come forth! forsake your watery bowers! Forsake your mossy caves; and help me to lament. Help me to tune my doleful notes to gurgling sound Of Liffey's tumbling streams. Come let salt tears of ours, Mix with his waters fresh. O come let one consent Join us to mourn with wailful plaints the deadly wound Which fatal clap hath made, decreed by higher powers; The dreary day in which they have from us yrent The noblest plant that might from East to West be found. Mourn! mourn great Philip's fall! mourn we his woeful end, Whom spiteful death hath plucked untimely from the tree; While yet his years in flower did promise worthy fruit. Ah, dreadful Mars! why didst thou not thy knight defend? What wrathful mood, what fault of ours hath moved thee, Of such a shining light to leave us destitute? Thou with benign aspect sometime didst us behold. Thou hast in Britons' valour ta'en delight of old,