Elizabethan Sonnet-Cycles Part 5

LVII

Lo here the impost of a faith entire, That love doth pay, and her disdain extorts; Behold the message of a chaste desire That tells the world how much my grief imports.

These tributary pa.s.sions, beauty's due, I send those eyes, the cabinets of love; That cruelty herself might grieve to view Th'affliction her unkind disdain doth move.

And how I live, cast down from off all mirth, Pensive, alone, only but with despair; My joys abortive perish in their birth, My griefs long-lived and care succeeding care.

This is my state, and Delia's heart is such; I say no more, I fear I said too much.

REJECTED SONNETS

[The following four sonnets were Numbers 3, 10, 12 and 16 in Newman's edition of 1591. They do not appear in any other editions.]

I

The only bird alone that nature frames, When weary of the tedious life she lives, By fire dies, yet finds new life in flames, Her ashes to her shape new essence gives.

When only I, the only wretched wight, Weary of life that breathes but sorrow's blast, Pursue the flame of such a beauty bright, That burns my heart, and yet my life still lasts.

O sovereign light, that with thy sacred flame Consumes my life, revive me after this!

And make me, with the happy bird, the same That dies to live, by favour of thy bliss!

This deed of thine will show a G.o.ddess' power, In so long death to grant one living hour.

II

The sly enchanter when to work his will And secret wrong on some forespoken wight, Frames wax in form to represent aright The poor unwitting wretch he means to kill, And p.r.i.c.ks the image framed by magic's skill, Whereby to vex the party day and night; Like hath she done, whose show bewitched my sight To beauty's charms, her lover's blood to spill.

For first, like wax she framed me by her eyes, Whose rays sharp-pointed set upon my breast Martyr my life and plague me in this wise With ling'ring pain to perish in unrest.

Nought could, save this, my sweetest fair suffice, To try her art on him that loves her best.

III

The tablet of my heavy fortunes here Upon thine altar, Paphian Power, I place.

The grievous s.h.i.+pwreck of my travels dear In bulged bark, all perished in disgrace.

That traitor Love was pilot to my woe; My sails were hope, spread with my sighs of grief; The twin lights which my hapless course did show Hard by th'inconstant sands of false relief, Were two bright stars which led my view apart.

A siren's voice allured me come so near To perish on the marble of her heart, A danger which my soul did never fear.

Lo, thus he fares that trusts a calm too much; And thus fare I whose credit hath been such!

IV

Weigh but the cause, and give me leave to plain me, For all my hurt, that my heart's queen hath wrought it; She whom I love so dear, the more to pain me, Withholds my right where I have dearly bought it.

Dearly I bought that was so slightly rated, Even with the price of blood and body's wasting; She would not yield that ought might be abated, For all she saw my love was pure and lasting, And yet now scorns performance of the pa.s.sion, And with her presence justice overruleth.

She tells me flat her beauty bears no action; And so my plea and process she excludeth.

What wrong she doth, the world may well perceive it, To accept my faith at first, and then to leave it.

[This sonnet was Number 8 in Newman's edition of 1591, is found in the editions of '92 and '94, but was omitted thereafter.]

V

Oft and in vain my rebel thoughts have ventured To stop the pa.s.sage of my vanquished heart; And shut those ways my friendly foe first entered, Hoping thereby to free my better part.

And whilst I guard the windows of this fort, Where my heart's thief to vex me made her choice, And thither all my forces do transport, Another pa.s.sage opens at her voice.

Her voice betrays me to her hand and eye, My freedom's tyrant, conquering all by art; But ah! what glory can she get thereby, With three such powers to plague one silly heart!

Yet my soul's sovereign, since I must resign, Reign in my thoughts, my love and life are thine!

[The following two sonnets appear for the first time in the second edition of 1592, where they are marked 31 and 30, the 30 being evidently a misprint for 32. They are not found in later editions.]

VI

Like as the spotless ermelin distressed Circ.u.mpa.s.sed round with filth and lothsome mud, Pines in her grief, imprisoned to her nest, And cannot issue forth to seek her good; So I invironed with a hatefull want, Look to the heavens; the heavens yield forth no grace; I search the earth, the earth I find as scant, I view myself, myself in wofull case.

Heaven nor earth will not, myself cannot make A way through want to free my soul from care; But I must pine, and in my pining lurk Lest my sad looks bewray me how I fare.

My fortune mantled with a cloud s'obscure, Thus shades my life so long as wants endure.

VII

My cares draw on mine everlasting night, In horror's sable clouds sets my life's sun; My life's sweet sun, my dearest comfort's light Shall rise no more to me whose day is done.

I'll go before unto the myrtle shades, T'attend the presence of my world's dear; And there prepare her flowers that never fades, And all things fit against her coming there.

If any ask me why so soon I came, I'll hide her sin and say it was my lot.

In life and death I'll tender her good name; My life nor death shall never be her blot.

Although this world may seem her deed to blame, The Elysian ghosts shall never know the same.

DIANA

BY

HENRY CONSTABLE

HENRY CONSTABLE

The sonnet-cycle in the hands of Henry Constable seems to have been in the first place rather a record of a succession of "moment's monuments"

than a single dramatic scheme, even an embryonic one. The quaint preface found in the Harleian transcript of the _Diana_ shows this, and at the same time tells what freedom was at that period allowed in the structure and dove-tailing of a sonnet-cycle. It is as follows:

"The Sonnets following are divided into 3 parts, each parte contayning 3 several arguments and every argument 7 sonets.

"The first parte is of variable affections of love: wherein the first 7 be of the beginning and byrth of his love; the second 7, of the prayse of his mistresse; the thyrd 7, of severall accidents hapning in the tyme of his love.

"The second is the prayse of perticulars: wherein the first 7 be of the generall honoure of this ile, through the prayses of the heads thereof, the Q. of England and K. of Scots; the second 7 celebrate the memory of perticular ladies whoe the author most honoureth: the thyrd 7 be to the honoure of perticulars, presented upon severall occasions.

"The thyrd parte is tragicall, conteyning only lamentations: wherein the first 7 be complaynts onlye of misfortunes in love, the second 7, funerall sonets of the death of perticulars; the last 7, of the end and death of his love."

The four sonnets to that distinguished "perticular," the King of Scotland, seem to have won for the author a great deal of fame, for Bolton mentions one of them as a witness to his opinion that "n.o.ble Henry Constable was a great master in English tongue, nor had any gentleman of our nation a more pure, quick, or higher delivery of conceit." The King himself the poet is said to have met personally when on his propagandist tours in Scotland; for Constable was an ardent Roman Catholic, and spent most of his life in plots for the re-establishment of that faith in England. Among the other "perticulars" addressed, the Queen is of course bounteously favoured, and a number of ladies of her Court are honoured; the series therefore lacks all pretense of unity. In fact, the t.i.tle of the 1594 edition declares that the "excellent conceitful sonnets of Henry Constable" are "augmented with divers quartorzains of honourable and learned personages;" and Sidney has been found to be one of the "honourable and learned personages" whose works were laid under contribution to make the book; but since the whole first and second decades are the same as in the earlier volume by "H.C." which contained also the King James sonnets attributed by numerous contemporaries to Henry Constable, and since as yet, beside the ten by Sidney, no more of the sonnets have by antiquarian research been traced to their sources in the mazes of Elizabethan common-place books, it seems but fair to leave the _Diana_ of 1594 in the hands of Constable.