Wither becomes quite delightful again, when cheerfulness breaks
through this satirical philosophy, and when he tells us:

_But though that all the world's delight forsake me,
I have a Muse, and she shall music make me;
Whose aery notes, in spite of closest cages,
Shall give content to me and after ages_.

They all felt certain of immortality, these cheerful poets of
Elizabeth and James, and Prince Posterity has seen proper to admit the
claim in more instances than might well have been expected.

But the delightful part of _The Shepherd's Hunting_ has yet to come.
With the fourth "eglogue" the caged bird begins to sing like a lark at
Heaven's gate, and it is the prisoned man--who ought to be in doleful
dumps--that rallies his free friend Browne on his low spirits. It is
time, he says, to be merry:

_Coridon, with his bold rout,
Hath already been about,
For the elder shepherds' dole,
And fetched in the summer pole;
Whilst the rest have built a bower
To defend them from a shower,
Sealed so close, with boughs all green,
Titan cannot pry between;
Now the dairy-wenches dream
Of their strawberries and cream,
And each doth herself advance,
To be taken in to dance_.