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

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.

119

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

Yet seeing thus the course of things must run,
He looks thereon not strange, but as fore-done.
And whilst distraught ambition compasses,
And is encompass'd; whilst as craft deceives, 50
And is deceiv'd; whilst man doth ransack man,
And builds on blood, and rises by distress;
And th' inheritance of desolation leaves
To great-expecting hopes: he looks thereon,
As from the shore of peace, with unwet eye,
And bears no venture in impiety.

FROM MUSOPHILUS

Sacred Religion! Mother of Form and Fear! How gorgeously sometimes dost thou sit decked! What pompous vestures do we make thee wear, What stately piles we prodigal erect, How sweet perfumed thou art, how shining clear, How solemnly observed, with what respect! 300 Another time all plain, all quite thread-bare; Thou must have all within, and nought without; Sit poorly without light, disrobed, - no care Of outward grace, to amuse the poor devout; Powerless, unfollowed; scarcely men can spare The necessary rites to set thee out!

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,

580

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;
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

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.

8

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

ΙΟ

I hear some say, "This man is not in love!" "Who! can he love? a likely thing!" they say. "Read but his verse, and it will easily prove!" O, judge not rashly, gentle Sir, I pray!

Because I loosely trifle in this sort,

As one that fain his sorrows would beguile,
You now suppose me, all this time, in sport,
And please yourself with this conceit the while.
Ye shallow Censures! sometimes, see ye not,
In greatest perils some men pleasant be?
Where Fame by death is only to be got,
They resolute! So stands the case with me.
Where other men in depth of passion cry,
I laugh at Fortune, as in jest to die!

ΤΟ

121

Since there's no help, come, let us kiss 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 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!

XXXVII

Dear! why should you command me to my rest,
When now the night doth summon all to sleep?
Methinks this time becometh lovers best!

Night was ordained together friends to keep.
How happy are all other living things,

Which, through the day, disjoined by several flight,

The quiet evening yet together brings,

And each returns unto his Love at night!

O thou that art so courteous else to all, Why shouldst thou, Night, abuse me only thus? That every creature to his kind dost call, And yet 'tis thou dost only sever us!

Well could I wish it would be ever day;
If, when night comes, you bid me go away!

XLIV

Whilst thus my pen strives to eternize thee,
Age rules my lines with wrinkles in my face,
Where, in the map of all my misery,
Is modelled out the world of my disgrace.

II