SONNETS. WITH how sad steps, O Moon, thou climb'st the skies, How silently, and with how wan a face! What! may it be, that even in heavenly place That busy archer his sharp arrows tries? Sure, if that long-with-love-acquainted eyes Can judge of love, thou feel'st a lover's case; I read it in thy looks; thy languished grace, To me that feel the like, thy state descries. Then even of fellowship, O Moon, tell me: Is constant love deemed there but want of wit? Are beauties there as proud as here they be? Do they above love to be loved, and yet Those lovers scorn whom that love doth possess? Do they call virtue there ungratefulness? SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. I give Thee Eternity. How many paltry, foolish, painted things, Shall be forgotten, whom no poet sings, Ere they be well wrapped in their windingsheet, Where 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 rhymes, Shall be so much delighted with thy story, That they shall grieve they lived not in these times, To have seen thee, their sex's only glory: So shalt thou fly above the vulgar throng, Still to survive in my immortal song. Sonnet. MICHAEL DRAYTON. I KNOW that all beneath the moon decays; With toil of sprite which are so dearly bought, As idle sounds, of few or none are sought; That there is nothing lighter than vain praise. I know frail beauty's like the purple flower To which one morn oft birth and death affords, That love a jarring is of mind's accords. 245 If it be true that any beauteous thing Repose upon the eyes which it resembleth, For who adores the Maker needs must love His work. Translation of J. E. TAYLOR. MICHEL ANGELO. (Italian.) To Vittoria Colonna. YES! hope may with my strong desire keep pace, And I be undeluded, unbetrayed; For if of our affections none find grace In sight of heaven, then wherefore hath God made The world which we inhabit? Better plea Love cannot have, than that in loving thee Glory to that Eternal Peace is paid, Who such divinity to thee imparts As hallows and makes pure all gentle hearts. His hope is treacherous only whose love dies With beauty, which is varying every hour: But in chaste hearts, uninfluenced by the power Of outward change, there blooms a deathless flower, That breathes on earth the air of paradise. MICHEL ANGELO. (Italian.) Translation of WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. I NEVER gave a lock of hair away To a man, dearest, except this to thee, My hair no longer bounds to my foot's glee, Through sorrow's trick. I thought the funeral Would take this first, but love is justified,— Take it thou,-finding pure, from all those years, The kiss my mother left there when she died. SAY over again, and yet once over again, That thou dost love me. Though the word re- treat it, 66 Cry: "Speak once more-thou lovest!" Who can fear Too many stars, though each in heaven shall roll Too many flowers, though each shall crown the Say thou dost love me, love me, love me- -toll IF I leave all for thee, wilt thou exchange Of walls and floors- - another home than this? To conquer Grief tries more, as all things prove; Alas, I have grieved so, I am hard to love. FIRST time he kissed me, he but only kissed The first, and sought the forehead, and half missed, That was the chrism of love, which love's own With sanctifying sweetness, did precede. a cuckoo-song," as thou dost In perfect, purple state; since when, indeed, Remember, never to the hill or plain, Valley and wood, without her cuckoo-strain, Comes the fresh Spring in all her green completed. Beloved, I, amid the darkness greeted By a doubtful spirit-voice, in that doubt's pain I have been proud, and said, "My love, my own!" How do I love thee? Let me count the ways: I love thee to the depth, and breadth, and height My soul can reach, when feeling, out of sight, For the ends of being and ideal grace. A LECTURE UPON THE SHADOW. 247 I love thee to the level of every day's Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight. I love thee freely as men strive for right; I love thee purely, as they turn from praise. I love thee with the passion put to use In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith. I love thee with a love I seemed to lose With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears, of all my life!—and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death. ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. To One who would make a Confession. OH! leave the past to bury its own dead. The past is naught to us, the present all. A Lecture upon the Shadow. Along with us, which we ourselves produced: And to brave clearness all things are reduced. That love hath not attained the high'st degree, What need of last year's leaves to strew Love's bed? We shall new shadows make the other way. As the first were made to blind Others, these which come behind Will work upon ourselves, and blind our eyes, And I to thee mine actions shall disguise. Love is a growing or full constant light, JOHN DONNE. To One Excusing his Poverty. AH! love, impute it not to me a sin I give thee nothing who my all would give. Bare to my death, unless with thee I live. Phillida and Corydon. In the merrie moneth of Maye, Where anon by a wood side, Much adoe there was, God wot; DISCOURSE WITH CUPID. Tell Me, my Heart. WHEN Delia on the plain appears, Whene'er she speaks, my ravished ear If she some other youth commend, When she is absent, I no more When, fond of power, of beauty vain, LORD LYTTELTON. Discourse with Cupid. NOBLEST Charis, you that are Hear what late discourse of you Which you call my shafts. And see! 249 And above her even chin, 66 And the glass hangs by her side, Of her sex; but couldst thou, Love, But she's Juno when she walks, To Celia. BEN JONSON. DRINK to me only with thine eyes, And I'll not look for wine. The thirst that from the soul doth rise Doth ask a drink divine; But might I of Jove's nectar sup, I would not change for thine. |