Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. II. The Seventeenth Century: Ben Jonson to Dryden

John Fletcher (1579–1625)

The Satyr, I (from The Faithful Shepherdess)

HERE be grapes whose lusty blood

Is the learned poet’s good;

Sweeter yet did never crown

The head of Bacchus; nuts more brown

Than the squirrel’s teeth that crack them;

Deign, O fairest fair, to take them!

For these black-eyed Dryope

Hath oftentimes commanded me

With my clasped knee to climb:

See how well the lusty time

Hath deck’d their rising cheeks in red,

Such as on your lips is spread.

Here be berries for a queen,

Some be red, some be green;

These are of that luscious meat

The great god Pan himself doth eat:

All these, and what the woods can yield,

The hanging mountain or the field,

I freely offer, and ere long

Will bring you more, more sweet and strong;

Till when, humbly leave I take,

Lest the great Pan do awake,

That sleeping lies in a deep glade,

Under a broad beech’s shade.

I must go, I must run

Swifter than the fiery sun.