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THE PROCESSION OF RIVERS.

(From SPENCER'S Faerie Queen.

Book iv. c. xi.)

AND afterwards the famous Rivers came,
Which doe the earth enrich and beautifie;

The fertile Nile, which creatures new doth frane :
Long Rhodanus, whose source springs from the skie;
Faire Ister, flowing from the mountains hie;

Divine Scamander, purpled yet with blood

Of Greeks and Trojans, which therein did die;
Pactolus glistring with his golden flood;

And Tigris fierce whose streames of none may be withstood;

Great Ganges, and immortall Euphrates,

Deepe Indus, and Mæander intricate;
Slow Peneus, and tempestuous Phasides,
Swift Rhine, and Alpheus, still immaculate ;
Araxes feared for great Cyrus' fate,

Tibris renowned for the Romaines fame;
Rich Orinoko though but knowen late;

And that huge river which doth beare the name
Of warlike Amazons which doe possesse the same;

The noble Thames, with all his goodly train;
The Ouse, whom men do Isis rightly name;
The bounteous Trent that in himselfe enseames
Both thirty sorts of fish and thirty streames;
The chalky Kennet, and the Thetis grey,
The morish Colne, and the soft-sliding Breane,
The wanton Leá that oft doth lose his way,
And the still Darent, in whose waters cleane

Ten thousand fishes play, and deck his pleasant streame.

IDEM LATINE REDDITUM.

Post hunc insignes Fluvü venere frequentes

Qui terram exornant fecundis fluctibus; uber
Qui nova monstra parit, Nilus; quique æthere ab ipso
Immensos gestit Rhodanus deducere rivos;

Tum pulcher celsis decurrens montibus Ister,

Diisque sacer Simois, vel nunc quoque sanguine Teucrûm
Graiorumque rubens mersorum in flumine; post hunc
Effulgens aureis Pactolus dives arenis,
Impatiensque simul freni fera Tigridis unda.

Ingens tum Ganges, cœlo et gratissimus amnis
Euphrates sequitur, tumque alti fluminis Indus,
Mæanderque errans sinuosis flexibus; et tu
Lenè fluens, Penee, et vasto turbine Phasis.
Tum Rhenus celer, et miscerier æquore nolens
Alpheus, magnique ob Cyri funus Araxes
Horrendus; necnon tu, Romanâ inclyte famâ
Tibri pater, divesque, at seris cognitus annis,
Orinocos; post hunc vasto tu volveris alveo,
Cui bellatrices fama est posuisse puellas
Nomen Amazonidas fluvü vicina colentes.

Dein sequitur Tamesis clarâ comitante catervâ
Ousaque mortales quem rectius Isida dicunt;
Et genera includit qui in se ter dena natantûm
Cum totidem rivis Trivona; lutosaque cretâ
Kenneta cum glaucâ Thetidos devolvitur undâ :
Nec vos transierim per aquosos Colnia campos
Devecta, aut leni prolabens Brænia cursu,
Te neque, Leva procax, toties qui devius erras,
Darentamque pigrum, nitidis ubi ludere pisces
Mille juvat lymphis, et amæna ornare fluenta.

There was the speedy Tamar, which divides
The Cornish and Devonish confines;

Through both whose borders swiftly downe it glides,
And, meeting Plim, to Plimmouth thence declines;
And Dart, nigh chockt with sands of tinny mines;
But Avon marched in more stately path,

Proud of his adamants with which he shines

And glisters wide, as als of wondrous Bath

And Bristow faire, which on his waves he builded hath.

Next these the plenteous Ouse came far from land,
By many a city and many a towne,
And many rivers taking underhand

Into his waters, as he passeth downe

The Cle, the Were, the Gaunt, the Sture, the Rowne;
Thence does by Huntingdon and Cambridge flit,
My mother Cambridge, whom as with a crowne
He doth adorne, and is adorned of it

With many a gentle Muse, and many a learned Wit.

Next these came Tyne, along whose stony bancke
That Romaine monarch built a brasen wall,
Which mote the feebled Britons strongly flancke
Against the Picts, that swarmed over all,
Which yet thereof Gualsever they doe call;
And Twede, the limit betwixt Logris land
And Albany; and Eden, though but small,
Yet often stainde with bloud of many a band
Of Scots and English both, that tyned on his strand.

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