Horns in mellow flattering Parley with the cithern-string:-Hark!--the floating, long-drawn note Woos the throbbing cithern-string!
Their pretty, pretty prating those citherns sure upraise For homage unto Sylvia, her sweet, feat ways:
Those flutes do flute their vowelled lay, Their lovely languid language say, For lisping to Sylvia;Those viols' lissom bowings break the heart of May, And harps harp their burthen, For singing to Sylvia.
3.
Now at that music and that mirth Rose, as 'twere, veils from earth;And I spied How beside Bud, bell, bloom, an elf Stood, or was the flower itself 'Mid radiant air All the fair Frequence swayed in irised wavers.
Some against the gleaming rims Their bosoms prest Of the kingcups, to the brims Filled with sun, and their white limbs Bathed in those golden lavers;Some on the brown, glowing breast Of that Indian maid, the pansy, (Through its tenuous veils confest Of swathing light), in a quaint fancy Tied her knot of yellow favours;Others dared open draw Snapdragon's dreadful jaw:
Some, just sprung from out the soil, Sleeked and shook their rumpled fans Dropt with sheen Of moony green;Others, not yet extricate, On their hands leaned their weight, And writhed them free with mickle toil, Still folded in their veiny vans:
And all with an unsought accord Sang together from the sward;Whence had come, and from sprites Yet unseen, those delights, As of tempered musics blent, Which had given me such content.
For haply our best instrument, Pipe or cithern, stopped or strung, Mimics but some spirit tongue.
Their amiable voices, I bid them upraise To Sylvia, O Sylvia, her sweet, feat ways;Their lovesome labours laid away, To linger out this holiday In syllabling to Sylvia;While all the birds on branches lave their mouths with May, To bear with me this burthen, For singing to Sylvia.
4.
Next I saw, wonder-whist, How from the atmosphere a mist, So it seemed, slow uprist;And, looking from those elfin swarms, I was 'ware How the air Was all populous with forms Of the Hours, floating down, Like Nereids through a watery town.