IN PRAISE OF THE FAIR GERALDINE.
FROM Tuscane came my Ladye's worthy race;
Fair Florence was sometime her ancient seate.
The western isle whose pleasant shore dothe face
Wild Camber's cliffes, did give her liveley heat.
Fostered she was with milk of Irish breaste;
Her sire an Earl; her dame of Prince's blood.
From tender years, in Britaine did she rest
With Kinges childe; where she tasted costly foode.
Hunsdon did first present her to mine eyen :
Bright is her hue, and Geraldine she highte.
Hampton me taughte to wish her first for mine,
And Windsor, alas! dothe chase me from her sighte.
Her beautie of kind; her virtues from above;
Happy is he that can obtaine her love!
BRITTLE beautie, that Nature made so fraile, Whereof the gifte is smalle, and shorte is the season; Flouring to-day, to-morrow apt to faile;
Fickle treasure, abhorred of reason:
Dangerous to deal with,—vain,—of none avail;
Costlie in keeping, past—not worthe two peason;
Slipper and sliding, as is an eel's tail;
Hard to obtain, once gotten, not geason:
Jewell of jeopardy, that peril dothe assail;
False and untrue, enticeth oft to treason;
Enemie to youth, that most may I bewaile;
Ah! bitter sweet, infecting as the poison,
Thou farest as fruit that with the frost is taken :
To-day ready ripe, to-morrow all too shaken.
ALAS! So all things now doe hold their peace!
Heaven and earthe disturbed in no thing;
The beasts, the air, the birdes their song doe cease,
The nighte's car the stars about dothe bringe.
Calm is the sea; the waves worke less and less :
So am not I, whom love, alas! dothe wringe,
Bringing before my face the great increase
Of my desires, whereat I weep and sing,
In joye and woe, as in a doubtful case.
For my sweet thoughts sometime doe pleasure bring;
But bie and bie, the cause of my disease
Gives me a pang that inwardly dothe sting,
When that I thinke what griefe it is againe
To live and lack the thing should ridd my paine.
WHEN Windsor's walls sustained my wearied arme;
My hand my chin, to ease my restless head;
The pleasant spot re-vested green with warm;
The blossomed boughs, with lusty Ver y-spread;
The flour'd meades, the wedded birdes so late
Mine eyes discover; and to my minde resort
The jollie woes, the hateless, short debate,
The careless life, that 'longs to love's disport.
Wherewith, alas! the heavy charge of care
Heaped in my breast breaks forth against my will
In smokie sighs, that overcast the air.
My vapoured eyes such dreary tears distill,
The tender spring which quicken where they fall; And I half bend to throw me down withal.
A VOW TO LOVE FAITHFULLY.
SET me whereas the sun dothe parch the green,
Or where his beames doe not dissolve the ice;
In temperate heats, where he is felt and seen;
In presence press of people, mad, or wise;
Set me in high, or yet in low degree;
In longest night, or in the shortest day;
In clearest skie, or where clouds thickest be;
In lustie youth, or when my hairs are gray :
Set me in heaven, in earth, or else in hell,
In hill, or dale, or in the foaming flood;
Thrall, or at large, alive wheresoe'er I dwell,
Sick, or in health, in evil fame or good,
Hers will I bee; and only with this thought
Content myselfe, although my chaunce bee nought.
COMPLAINT THAT HIS LADYE, AFTER SHE KNEW HIS LOVE, KEPT HER FACE ALWAYS HIDDEN FROM HIM.
I NEVER SAW my Ladye lay apart
Her cornet black; in cold or yet in heat,
Sith first she knew my grief was grown so greate;
Which other fancies driveth from my heart,
That to myself I doe the thought reserve,
The which unwares did wound my woeful breast;
But on her face mine eyen might never rest.
Yet sith she knew I did her love, and serve,
Her golden tresses clad alway with black,
Her smiling looks that hid thus evermore,
And that restrains which I desire so sore.
So dothe this cornet govern me alack!
In somer sun, in winter's breath, a frost;
Whereby the light of her fair looks I lost.
A REQUEST TO JOIN BOUNTIE WITH BEAUTIE.
THE golden gifte that Nature did thee give,
To fasten friends and feed them at thy will,
With form and favour, taught me to believe,
How thou art made to shew her greatest skill.
Whose hidden virtues are not so unknown,
But lively dooms might gather at the first,
Where beautie so her perfect seed hath sown,
Of other graces follow needs there must.
Now, certes, Garret,* since all this is true,
That from above thy gifts are thus elect,
Do not deface them then with fancies new;
Nor change of mind, let not the mind infect:
But mercie on thy friend that dothe thee serve;
Who seeks alway thine honour to preserve.
* Dr. Nott observes that the Fitz-Gerald family almost always wrote their name Garret. The fair Geraldine, when attending on the Princess Mary, was always called Garret.
SIR WALTER RALEIGH,
was born at Hayes Farm, near East Budleigh, Devon, in 1552. In 1568, he entered at Oriel College, Oxford, and afterwards at the Middle Temple. The study of the law appears to have had no attraction for him, as we quickly hear of his serving as a volunteer under the Protestant banner, in France. He won the favour of Queen Elizabeth by a piece of gallantry; and was afterwards sent to the Tower, with Elizabeth Throckmorton, upon whom he had bestowed that admiration and affection, which the insatiate vanity of this heartless queen was desirous of appropriating entirely to herself. He was a man of indomitable energy, courage, and perseverance; and alike fitted to shine in camp, or court. It would be vain to attempt here, even an outline of his eventful career. His unjust execution, which took place on the 29th of October 1618, deprived the English court of one of its brightest ornaments. The poems of Sir Walter Raleigh are few, but sufficiently beautiful to make us regret there are no more. His personal friend, Spenser, speaking of his poetry, styles him "the summer's nightingale."
A VISION UFON THE FAIRY QUEEN.
METHOUGHT I saw the grave, where Laura lay
Within that temple, where the vestal flame
Was wont to burn; and, passing by that way,
To see that buried dust of living fame,
Whose tomb fair Love, and fairer Virtue kept:
All suddenly I saw the Fairy Queen ;
At whose approach the soul of Petrarch wept,
And, from thenceforth, those Graces were not seen;
For they this Queen attended; in whose stead,
Oblivion laid him down on Laura's hearse:
Hereat the hardest stones were seen to bleed,
And groans of buried ghosts the heavens did pierce :
Where Homer's spright did tremble all for grief,
And cursed the access of that celestial thief!
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