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160 BYGONE SUSSEX. |
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The poet held that the mouth of the Rother, where the river falls into Rye Harbour, was the ancient Limen, on which theory Selden comments adversely in the notes.
" Ovr Argas scarcely yet deliuered of her sonne, When as the Riuer downe, through Andredsweald dooth run, Nor can the aged Hill haue comfort of her childe. For, liuing in the Woods, her Rother waxed wilde ; His Banks with aged Okes, and Rushes ouer-growne, That from the Syluans kinde, he hardly could be knowne :* Yea, many a time the Nymphes, which hapt this Flood to
see, Fled from him, whom they sure a Satyre thought to be; As Satyre-like he held all pleasures in disdaine, And would not once vouchsafe, to look upon a Plaine; Till chancing in his course he to view a goodly plot, Which Albion in his youth, upon a Sea Nymph got, For Oxney's loue he pines : who being wildly chaste, And neuer woo'd before, was coy to be imbrac't. But, what obdurate heart, was euer so peruerse, Whom yet a louers plaints, with patience could not pearce? For, in this conflict she being lastly ouerthrowne, In-Iled in his Amies, he clips her for his owne. Who being grosse and black, she lik't the Riuer well. Of Rothers happy match, when Rumney Marsh heard tell,
* Out of Sussex, into its Eastern neighbour, Kent, this Canto leads you. It begins with Rother, whose running through the woods, inisling Oxney, and such like, poetically here described, is plain enough to any apprehending conceit ; and upon Medway's Song of our Martial and Heroic spirits, because a large volume might be written to explain their glory in particular action, and in less comprehension without wrong to many worthies it's not performable, I have omitted all Illustration of that kind, and left you to the Muse herself. |
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