History & Politics

Ceres' Song in Emulation of Cynthia

by Anonymous (Elizabethan miscellanies) c. 1575–1602

From England's Helicon (1600), ed. A. H. Bullen (1887)

History & Politics

Swell Ceres now, for other gods are shrinking!
Pomona pineth.
Fruitless her tree;
Fair Phoebus shineth
Only on me.
Conceit doth make me smile whilst I am thinking
How everyone doth read my story;
How every bough on Ceres low'reth.
Cause heaven plenty on me poureth;
And they in leaves do only glory,
All other gods of power bereaven,
Ceres only queen of heaven.

With robes and flowers let me be dress'd,
Cynthia that shineth
Is not so clear;
Cynthia declineth
When I appear;
Yet in this isle she reigns as blessed,
And everyone at her doth wonder;
And in my ears still fond fame whispers,
" Cynthia shall be Ceres' mistress; "
But first my car shall rive in sunder.
Help, Phoebus, help! my fall is sudden;
Cynthia, Cynthia I must be sovereign!

✦ ✦ ✦

Signed "Ignoto" in England's Helicon. Printed in the original with the rubric that the song was sung before her Majesty at Bissam, the Lady Russell's, in progress; the author is not named.

MLA

Anonymous (Elizabethan miscellanies). “Ceres' Song in Emulation of Cynthia.” Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/anonymous-elizabethan-miscellanies/14/.

Chicago

Anonymous (Elizabethan miscellanies). “Ceres' Song in Emulation of Cynthia.” Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/anonymous-elizabethan-miscellanies/14/.

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