My thoughts bred up with eagle-birds of love,
And for their virtues I desired to know,
Upon the nest I set them forth to prove
If they were of the eagle's-kind or no.
But they no sooner saw my sunne appeare,
But on her rayes with gazing eyes they stood,
Which proved my birds delighted in the ayre,
And that they came of this rare kingly brood.
But now their plumes full fumed with sweet desire,
To show their kind, began to climb the skies:
Doe what I could, my eaglets would aspire,
Straight mounting up to thy celestial eyes.
And thus (my Faire) my thoughts away be flowne,
And from my brest into thine eyes bee gone.
WHY should
with such sovereign grace
fair
your eyes
Disperse their rays on every vulgar spirit,
Whilst I in darkness, in the self-same place,
Yet not one glance to recompense my merit?
So doth the ploughman gaze the wandering star,
And only rests contented with the light,
That never learned what constellations are,
Beyond the bent of his unknowing sight.
O, why should Beautie (custom to obey),
To their gross sense apply herself so ill?
Would God I were as ignorant as they,
When I am made unhappy by my skill!
Only compelled on this poor good to boast,
Heavens are not kind to them that know them most.
You best discerned of my interior eyes,
And yet your graces outwardly divine,
Whose dear remembrance in my bosom lies,
Too rich a relique for so poor a shrine :
You, in whom Nature chose herself to view,
When she her own perfection would admire,
Bestowing all her excellence on you;
At whose pure eyes, Love lights his hallowed fire,
Even as a man that in some trance hath seene,
More than his wond'ring utterance can unfold,
That rapt in spirit in better worlds hath beene,
So must your prayse distractedly be told;
Most of all short, when I should shew you most,
In your perfections altogether lost.
SINCE there's no help, come let us kisse and part;
Nay, I have done; you get no more of me;
And I am glad, yea, glad with all my heart,
That thus so cleanly I myselfe can free:
Shake hands for ever, cancell all our vowes,
And when we meet at any time againe,
Be it not seen in either of our brows,
That we one jot of former love retain.
Now at the last gasp of Love's latest breath,
When, his pulse failing, Passion speechlesse lies,
When Faith is kneeling by his bed of death,
And Innocence is closing up his eyes,
Now, if thou would'st, when all have given him over,
From death to life thou might'st him yet recover.
THOSE priests which first the vestal fire begunne,
Which might be borrowed from no earthly flame,
Devised a vessell to receive the Sunne,
Being stedfastly opposed to the same,
Where with sweet wood, laid curiously by art,
On which the Sunne might by reflection beate,
Receiving strength from every secret part,
The fuell kindled with celestiall heate.
Thy blessed eyes the sunne which lights this fire,
My holy thoughts, they be the Vestal flame,
The precious odours be my chaste desires,
My brest the vessell which includes the same:
Thou art my Vesta, thou my Goddess art,
Thy hallowed Temple onely is my heart.
LOVE banished heaven, in earth was held in scorn,
Wandering abroad in need and beggary;
And wanting friends, though of a goddess borne,
Yet craved the almes of such as passed by:
I, like a man devout and charitable,
Clothed the naked, lodged this wandering guest,
With sighes and teares still furnishing his table,
With what might make the miserable blest;
But this ungratefull for my good desert,
Inticed my thoughts against me to conspire,
Who gave consent to steale away my heart,
And set my breast, his lodging, on a fire;
Well, well my friends, when beggars grow thus bold,
No marvell then, though charity grow cold.
How many paltry, foolish, painted things,
That now in coaches trouble every street,
Shall be forgotten, whom no poet sings,
Ere they be well wrapped in their winding-sheet;
While I to thee eternity shall give,
When nothing else remaineth of these days,
And queens hereafter shall be glad to live,
Upon the alms of thy superfluous praise;
Virgins and matrons reading these my rimes,
Shall be so much delighted with thy story,
That they shall grieve they lived not in these times,
To have seen thee, their sexe's only glory:
So thou shalt fly above the vulgar throng,
Still to survive in my immortal song.
CLEERE Anker, on whose silver-sanded shore,
My soul-shrined saint, my faire Idea* lies;
O, blessed brooke, whose milk-white swans adore
That crystall stream, refinèd by her eyes!
Where sweete myrrh breathing Zephyr in the spring,
Gently distils his nectar-dropping showers,
Where nightingales in Arden sit and sing
Amongst the dainty, dew-impearlèd flowers;
Say thus, faire Brooke, when thou shalt see thy queen,—
Lo, here thy shepherd spent his wandering yeares;
And in these shades, dear nymph, he oft hath been,
And here to thee he sacrificed his teares:
Faire Arden, thou my Tempè art alone,
And thou, sweet Anker, art my Helicon.
* This would seem to favour the supposition, that the poet's mistress was an ideal one, or that he celebrated her under that name, as his con temporary Daniel did his under the title of Delia, instead of that he gave his sonnets the title of Ideas, from their not being formed strictly upon the Italian model.
As Love and I late harboured in one inne,
With proverbs thus each other entertaine :
In love there is no lacke, thus I begin;
Faire wordes make fooles, replieth he again;
Who spares to speake, doth spare to speed, (quoth I);
As well (saith he) too forward as too slow:
Fortune assists the boldest, I reply;
A hasty man (quoth he) ne'er wanted woe;
Labour is light, where love (quoth I) doth pay;
(Saith he) Light burthens heavy, if far borne :
(Quoth I) The maine lost, cast the by away;
Y' have spun a faire thred, he replies in scorne.
And having thus awhile each other thwarted,
Fooles as we met, so fooles again we parted.
LOVE once would dance within my mistresse eye,
And wanting musicke fitting to the place,
Swore that I should the instrument supply,
And sodainely presents me with her face;
Straitwaies my pulse plaies lively in my veines,
My short-fetched breath doth keep a meaner time,
My quav'ring arteries be the tenours straines,
My trembling sinewes serve the counter chime,
My hollow sighes the deepest base do bear,
True diapason in distinctest sound;
My panting heart the treble makes the aire.
And deskants finely on the musick's ground.
Thus like a lute, or viol, did I lie,
Whilst he, proud slave, danced galliards in her eye.
|