Page images
PDF
EPUB

No April can revive thy withered flowers
Whose springing grace adorns thy glory now;
Swift, speedy Time, feathered with flying hours,
Dissolves the beauty of the fairest brow.
Then do not thou such treasure waste in vain,
But love now, whilst thou mayst be loved again.

LIV

Care-charmer Sleep, son of the sable Night, Brother to Death, in silent darkness born: Relieve my languish, and restore the light; With dark forgetting of my care, return! And let the day be time enough to mourn

The shipwreck of my ill-adventured youth: Let waking eyes suffice to wail their scorn, Without the torment of the night's untruth. Cease, dreams, the images of day-desires,

To model forth the passions of the morrow; Never let rising sun approve you liars, To add more grief to aggravate my sorrow. Still let me sleep, embracing clouds in vain; And never wake to feel the day's disdain.

LV

Let others sing of Knights and Paladins In aged accents and untimely words; Paint shadows in imaginary lines

12

II

Which well the reach of their high wits records: But I must sing of thee, and those fair eyes

Authentic shall my verse in time to come; When yet th' unborn shall say, "Lo where she lies

Whose beauty made him speak that else was dumb."

These are the arcs, the trophies I erect,

ΙΟ

That fortify thy name against old age; And these thy sacred virtues must protect Against the dark, and Time's consuming rage. Though the error of my youth in them appear, Suffice they shew I lived and loved thee dear.

FROM THE COMPLAINT OF

ROSAMOND

Amazed he stands, nor voice nor body stirs; Words had no passage, tears no issue found; For sorrow shut up words, wrath kept in tears; Confused affects each other do confound; Opprest with grief, his passions had no bound.

Striving to tell his woes, words would not come; For light cares speak when mighty griefs are dumb.

[blocks in formation]

830

Thus, as these passions do him overwhelm,
He draws him near the body to behold it:
And as the vine married unto the elm
With strict embraces, so doth he enfold it;
And as he in his careful arms doth hold it,
Viewing the face that even Death commends,
On senseless lips millions of kisses spends.
"Pitiful mouth," saith he, "that living gavest
The sweetest comfort that my soul could wish;
O be it lawful now that dead thou havest
This sorrowing farewell of a dying kiss.
And you fair eyes, containers of my bliss,

Motives of love, born to be matched never,
Entombed in your sweet circles sleep forever.

"Ah, how methinks I see Death dallying seeks
To entertain itself in Love's sweet place;
Decayed roses of discoloured cheeks
Do yet retain dear notes of former grace;
And ugly Death sits fair within her face;

842

[blocks in formation]

20

He looks upon the mightiest monarchs' wars
But only as on stately robberies;
Where evermore the fortune that prevails
Must be the right: the ill-succeeding mars
The fairest and the best-fac'd enterprise.
Great pirate Pompey lesser pirates quails:
Justice, he sees (as if seducèd), still
Conspires with pow'r, whose cause must not be ill.
He sees the face of Right t' appear as manifold
As are the passions of uncertain man;
Who puts it in all colours, all attires,

To serve his ends, and make his courses hold.
He sees, that let deceit work what it can,
Plot and contrive base ways to high desires,
That the all-guiding Providence doth yet
All disappoint, and mocks this smoke of wit.
Nor is he mov'd with all the thunder-cracks

30

Of tyrants' threats, or with the surly brow
Of Pow'r, that proudly sits on others' crimes;
Charg'd with more crying sins than those he
checks.

The storms of sad confusion, that may grow

Up in the present for the coming times,
Appal not him; that hath no side at all,
But himself, and knows the worst can fall.
Altho' his heart, so near allied to earth,
Cannot but pity the perplexed state
Of troublous and distress'd mortality,
That thus make way unto the ugly birth
Of their own sorrows, and do still beget
Affliction upon imbecility:

40

[blocks in formation]

And for the few that only lend their ear,
That few is all the world; which with a few
Do ever live, and move, and work, and stir.
This is the heart doth feel and only know.
The rest of all, that only bodies bear,
Roll up and down, and fill up but the row, 560
And serve as others members, not their own,
The instruments of those that do direct.
Then what disgrace is this, not to be known
To those know not to give themselves respect?
And though they swell with pomp of folly
blown,

They live ungrac'd, and die but in Neglect.
And for my part, if only one allow
The care my labouring spirits take in this,

[blocks in formation]

But what if none? It cannot yet undo
The love I bear unto this holy skill.
This is the thing that I was born to do,
This is my Scene, this Part must I fulfil.
Let those that know not breath, esteem of wind,
And set t'a vulgar air their servile song; 580
Rating their goodness by the praise they find,
Making their worth on others' fits belong;
As Virtue were the hireling of the mind,
And could not live if Fame had ne'er a tongue.
Hath that all-knowing power that holds within
The goodly prospective of all this frame,
(Where, whatsoever is, or what hath been,
Reflects a certain image of the same)
No inward pleasures to delight her in,
But she must gad to seek an alms of Fame?

JOSHUA SYLVESTER (1563-1618) SONNET

Were I as base as is the lowly plain,

589

[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small]
[blocks in formation]

TO THE READER OF THESE SONNETS
Into these Loves, who but for Passion looks;
At this first sight, here let him lay them by,
And seek elsewhere in turning other books,
Which better may his labour satisfy.
No far-fetched sigh shall ever wound my breast;
Love from mine eye a tear shall never wring;
Nor in "Ah me's!" my whining sonnets drest!
A libertine! fantasticly I sing!

My verse is the true image of my mind,
Ever in motion, still desiring change;
And as thus, to variety inclined,

So in all humours sportively I range!

My Muse is rightly of the English strain,
That cannot long one fashion entertain.

IV

Bright Star of Beauty! on whose eyelids sit
A thousand nymph-like and enamoured Graces,
The Goddesses of Memory and Wit,
Which there in order take their several places.
In whose dear bosom, sweet delicious Love
Lays down his quiver, which he once did bear,
Since he that blessèd paradise did prove;
And leaves his mother's lap, to

there.

8

sport him

[blocks in formation]

XX

An evil Spirit (your Beauty) haunts me still, Wherewith, alas, I have been long possest; Which ceaseth not to attempt me to each ill, Nor give me once, but one poor minute's rest. In me it speaks, whether I sleep or wake; And when by means to drive it out I try, With greater torments then it me doth take, And tortures me in most extremity.

Before my face, it lays down my despairs, And hastes me on unto a sudden death; Now tempting me, to drown myself in tears, And then in sighing to give up my breath. Thus am I still provoked to every evil, By this good-wicked Spirit, sweet Angel-Devil.

XXIV

10

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

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 myself can free.

Shake hands for ever! Cancel all our vows! And when we meet at any time again, 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 speechless lies; 10 When Faith is kneeling by his bed of death, And Innocence is closing up his eyes,

Now, if thou wouldst, when all have given him

over,

From death to life thou might'st him yet recover!

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]
« PreviousContinue »