The Home Book of Verse Volume Ii Part 172

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 dressed!

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 humors sportively I range!

My Muse is rightly of the English strain, That cannot long one fas.h.i.+on entertain.

IV Bright Star of Beauty! on whose eyelids sit A thousand nymph-like and enamored Graces, The G.o.ddesses 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 blessed paradise did prove; And leaves his mother's lap, to sport him there.

Let others strive to entertain with words!

My soul is of a braver mettle made: I hold that vile, which vulgar wit affords, In me's that faith which Time cannot invade!

Let what I praise be still made good by you!

Be you most worthy, whilst I am most true!

XX An evil Spirit (your Beauty) haunts me still, Wherewith, alas, I have been long possessed; 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.

x.x.xVII 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 doth 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!

XL My heart the Anvil where my thoughts do beat; My words the Hammers fas.h.i.+oning my Desire; My breast the Forge including all the heat, Love is the Fuel which maintains the fire.

My sighs the Bellows which the flame increaseth, Filling mine ears with noise and nightly groaning.

Toiling with pain, my labor never ceaseth; In grievous Pa.s.sions, my woes still bemoaning.

My eyes with tears against the fire striving, Whose scorching glede my heart to cinders turneth: But with those drops, the flame again reviving Still more and more it to my torment burneth.

With Sisyphus thus do I roll the stone, And turn the wheel with d.a.m.ned Ixion.

XLII 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?

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 s.e.x's only glory: So shalt thou fly above the vulgar throng, Still to survive in my immortal song.

LXI 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, Pa.s.sion speechless lies, 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!

Michael Drayton [1563-1631]

SONNETS From "Diana"

IX My Lady's presence makes the Roses red, Because to see her lips they blush for shame.

The Lily's leaves, for envy pale became; And her white hands in them this envy bred.

The Marigold the leaves abroad doth spread, Because the sun's and her power is the same.

The Violet of purple color came, Dyed in the blood she made my heart to shed.

In brief, all flowers from her their virtue take; From her sweet breath, their sweet smells do proceed; The living heat which her eyebeams doth make Warmeth the ground, and quickeneth the seed.

The rain, wherewith she watereth the flowers, Falls from mine eyes, which she dissolves in showers.

LXII To live in h.e.l.l, and heaven to behold; To welcome life, and die a living death; To sweat with heat, and yet be freezing cold; To grasp at stars, and lie the earth beneath; To tread a maze that never shall have end; To burn in sighs, and starve in daily tears; To climb a hill, and never to descend; Giants to kill, and quake at childish fears; To pine for food, and watch the Hesperian tree; To thirst for drink, and nectar still to draw; To live accurst, whom men hold blest to be; And weep those wrongs which never creature saw; If this be love, if love in these be founded, My heart is love, for these in it are grounded.

Henry Constable (?) [1562-1613]

SONNETS

XVIII Shall I compare thee to a Summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And Summer's lease hath all too short a date: Sometime too hot the eye of heaven s.h.i.+nes, And often is his gold complexion dimmed; And every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance or nature's changing course untrimmed: But thy eternal Summer shall not fade Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest; Nor shall Death brag thou wanderest in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou growest: So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

XXIII As an unperfect actor on the stage, Who with his fear is put besides his part, Or some fierce thing replete with too much rage, Whose strength's abundance weakens his own heart; So I, for fear of trust, forget to say The perfect ceremony of love's rite, And in mine own love's strength seem to decay, O'ercharged with burden of mine own love's might.

O, let my books be then the eloquence And dumb presagers of my speaking breast; Who plead for love, and look for recompense, More than that tongue that more hath more expressed.

O, learn to read what silent love hath writ: To hear with eyes belongs to love's fine wit.

XXIX When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state, And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries, And look upon myself, and curse my fate, Wis.h.i.+ng me like to one more rich in hope, Featured like him, like him with friends possessed, Desiring this man's art and that man's scope, With what I most enjoy contented least; Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising, Haply I think on thee: and then my state, Like to the lark at break of day arising From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate: For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

x.x.x When to the sessions of sweet silent thought I summon up remembrance of things past, I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought, And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste: Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow, For precious friends hid in death's dateless night, And weep afresh love's long-since cancelled woe, And moan the expense of many a vanished sight: Then can I grieve at grievances foregone, And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan, Which I new pay as if not paid before: But if the while I think on thee, dear friend, All losses are restored, and sorrows end.

x.x.xII If thou survive my well-contented day When that churl Death my bones with dust shall cover, And shalt by fortune once more re-survey These poor rude lines of thy deceased lover, Compare them with the bettering of the time, And though they be outstripped by every pen, Reserve them for my love, not for their rhyme, Exceeded by the height of happier men.

O, then vouchsafe me but this loving thought: "Had my friend's Muse grown with this growing age, A dearer birth than this his love had brought, To march in ranks of better equipage: But since he died, and poets better prove, Theirs for their style I'll read, his for his love."

x.x.xIII Full many a glorious morning have I seen Flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye, Kissing with golden lace the meadows green, Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy.

Anon permit the basest clouds to ride With ugly rack on his celestial face, And from the forlorn world his visage hide, Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace: Even so my sun one early morn did s.h.i.+ne With all-triumphant splendor on my brow; But out, alack! he was but one hour mine, The region cloud hath masked him from me now.

Yet him for this my love no whit disdaineth; Suns of the world may stain when heaven's sun staineth.

LX Like as the waves make towards the pebbled sh.o.r.e, So do our minutes hasten to their end; Each changing place with that which goes before, In sequent toil all forwards do contend.

Nativity, once in the main of light, Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crowned, Crooked eclipses 'gainst his glory fight, And Time that gave, doth now his gift confound.

Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth, And delves the parallels in beauty's brow; Feeds on the rarities of nature's truth, And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow: And yet, to times in hope, my verse shall stand Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand.

LXXI No longer mourn for me when I am dead, Than you shall hear the surly, sullen bell Give warning to the world that I am fled From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell: Nay, if you read this line, remember not The hand that writ it; for I love you so, That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot, If thinking on me then should make you woe.

O, if (I say) you look upon this verse, When I perhaps compounded am with clay, Do not so much as my poor name rehea.r.s.e, But let your love even with my life decay; Lest the wise world should look into your moan, And mock you with me after I am gone.

LXXIII That time of year thou may'st in me behold When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.

In me thou see'st the twilight of such day As after sunset fadeth in the west, Which by and by black night doth take away, Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.

In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire That on the ashes of his youth doth lie, As the death-bed whereon it must expire, Consumed with that which it was nourished by.

This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

CIV To me, fair friend, you never can be old; For as you were when first your eye I eyed, Such seems your beauty still. Three Winters cold Have from the forests shook three Summers' pride; Three beauteous Springs to yellow Autumn turned In process of the seasons have I seen, Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burned, Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are green.

Ah! yet doth beauty, like a dial-hand, Steal from his figure, and no pace perceived; So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand, Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceived: For fear of which, hear this, thou age unbred: Ere you were born was beauty's Summer dead.

CVI When in the chronicle of wasted time I see descriptions of the fairest wights, And beauty making beautiful old rhyme In praise of ladies dead, and lovely knights; Then in the blazon of sweet beauty's best Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow, I see their antique pen would have expressed Even such a beauty as you master now.

So all their praises are but prophecies Of this our time, all, you prefiguring; And, for they looked but with divining eyes, They had not skill enough your worth to sing: For we, which now behold these present days, Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise.

CIX O, never say that I was false of heart Though absence seemed my flame to qualify: As easy might I from myself depart As from my soul, which in thy breast doth lie; That is my home of love; if I have ranged, Like him that travels, I return again, Just to the time, not with the time exchanged, So that myself bring water for my stain.