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SAMUEL DANIEL
AND
MICHAEL DRAYTON
THE CIVILE WARE
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INI AT LONDON
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Samuel Daniel.
A SELECTION ROM THE POETRY OF
SAMUEL DANIEL
W MICHAEL DP TON
With an Intr* s by
The Rev. B 1A.
^<^?
•>*§c/*
v^*
LONDON
J. M. DENT & CO.
19 AND 30 BEDFORD STREET 1899
A SELECTION FROM THE POETRY OF
SAMUEL DANIEL
fcf MICHAEL DRAYTON
With an Introduction, and Notes by The Rev. Hf "breeching, M.A.
LONDON
J. M. DENT & CO.
29 AND 30 BEDFORD STREET 1899
PR
•22 •fll7
TO MY OXFORD PUPILS
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
A SELECTION FROM THE POEMS OF SAMUEL DANIEL
Sonnets to Delia ....
From the Complaint of Rosamond . .16
From the Tragedy of Cleopatra . 20
From the Civil Wars ... .27 Epistle to the Lady Margaret, Countess of Cumberland 33
From Musophilus . . . . .38
From the Epistle to Sir Thomas Egerton . . 41 From the Tragedy of Philotas ... 44
Ulysses and the Siren . 46
From the Queen's Arcadia . . . .49
From Tethys' Festival . . . .50
From Hymen's Triumph . . .51
An Ode . . . . . .55
A SELECTION FROM THE POEMS OF MICHAEL DRAYTON
Daffadill 57
From Endymion and Phoebe . .60
vii
viii Contents
PAGK
From England's Heroical Epistles . . 62
The Tower of Mortimer— From the Baron's Wars . 69 Idea (Sonnets) ... .77
To the New Year ..... 88
To His Valentine ... .92
The Heart . .95
To Master John Savage . . . .97
The Crier ...... 99
To his Coy Love . . 100
To his Rival . . . . . .101
Ballad of Agincourt . . . . .103
To the Virginian Voyage . . . .107
An Ode Written in the Peak . .110
From Poly-Olbion (Milford Haven) . . .112
(Guy of Warwick) . . 114
An Elegy ...... 118
Nymphidia— The Court of Fairy . . .125
The Shepherd's Sirena . .148
From the Muses' Elysium .... 160
,, The Second Nymphal . 165
The Sixth Nymphal . 176
INTRODUCTION
IF any apology be required for bringing within the covers of a single volume a selection from both Daniel and Dray ton, it must be offered in the circumstance that occasioned it. Having to lecture for the Oxford School of Literature upon the minor Elizabethan poets, I could find no text of either Daniel or Drayton to put into my pupils' hands. Of Drayton indeed Mr A. H. Bullen issued an excellent selection in 1883, but his book is now as scarce as the early copies, and almost as expensive. The only other modern texts I know are Hooper's reprint of the Poly- Olbion, and Morley's of the Barons' Wars and a few other pieces, a useful book, but neither re presentative nor discriminating enough for my purpose. Of Daniel there has been no edition1 since the two little volumes of 1718, and no selection but that of Mr John Morris in 1855 issued to subscribers at Bath. Under these cir cumstances, Mr Dent generously came to my help, and consented to publish a small book containing the choice poems of both writers.
The association of the two is thus avowedly fortuitous, but it will not, I venture to think, be
i Dr Grosart in 1 885 issued an edition of 150 copies for private circulation, in which an attempt was made to collate texts. But the notes at the end of this volume will make clear that a satisfactory collation is still wanting.
6 is
x Introduction
found unreasonable or without a special interest. They were contemporaries, born within a year of each other, and both reflect, with characteristic peculiarities, the influences to which poetry was subject at the end of the sixteenth century. A glance at the table which follows this introduction will show that in 1592-3 they were both writing sonnets ; a little later they were both writing "Legends," on the model set by the Mirror for Magistrates, Daniel taking the story of Fair Rosamond, and Drayton those of Piers Gaveston and Matilda the Chaste. Later again both suc cumbed to the impulse to write Chronicle History, Daniel choosing the Wars of the Roses, and Drayton the Wars of the Barons under Edward II. After this the parallel, though it continues, is less close. Both wrote plays, but while Drayton, in an unexplained period of poverty at the end of Elizabeth's reign, became a stage hack, Daniel, under the patronage of the Herberts, wrote classical tragedies, with chorus, in the manner of Seneca. Both again had a taste for pastoral ; but Daniel, who held a post at Court, wrote stately masks for the Queen ; while Drayton, after experimenting in the style of the Shepheards Calender, broke away from convention altogether and wrote what are perhaps the only genuine pastorals in the language. Finally we may note that both wrote verse epistles to their contemporaries ; and if Daniel compiled a History of England in prose, Drayton wrote a Geography of England — the Poly-Olbion — in what cannot, without stretch ing the term, be called poetry.
To the general reader, Daniel, if he is known
Introduction xi
at all, is known by his Sonnets. But his Sonnets are not his most distinguishing productions. They are written in good language and correct metre, and the sonnet rhythm — as the Eliza bethans understood it — is well preserved. Also they usually open well, e.g. " Still in the trace of one perplexed thought," and it is perhaps due to this fact that they are occasionally mentioned in the same sentence with Shakespeare's. Perhaps a few like " And yet I cannot jreprehend the flight," or " Looj^JPelja^ how we esteem the haifjjlown rose," or, " Let others sing_of knights and^paladins," might indeed pass muster in the second~Shakespearean rank. But for the most part the thought is commonplace — a criticism that cannot be made on anything Daniel wrote later, and the excellence is the excellence of single lines, like the address to Apollo :
" 0 clear-eyed Rector of the holy hill ! " or the description of Delia as
"A modest maid decked with a blush of honour, Whose feet do tread green paths of youth and love " ;
or the forecast of old age as a time
"When thou, surcharged with burden of thy years, Shall bend thy wrinkles homewrard to the earth."
When Daniel published in the same volume his Sonnets to Delia and his Complaint of Rosamond, Spenser gave the book a warm welcome, but hinted that the new poet's strength lay in the " tragical " rather than the amatory poems.1 The modern reader, even if he must judge from the few extracts here given, is likely to agree with
i See the passage in Colin Clout's come home again.
xii Introduction
Spenser. The poet seems to have had no love affair of his own to draw upon in the sonnets, while in the Rosamond there was at any rate a real experience to rouse his passion.
When we turn from Daniel's sonnets to Dray- ton's, two points at once strike us. Dray ton's are less finished, and the images he employs are apt to be more conventional; but, on the other hand, there is evident in many of them the warmth of a real affection. The splendid sonnet that some critics would fain steal for Shakespeare, " Since there's no help, come, let us kiss and part," reads like all Drayton's later work, as though struck out at a heat. It is as admirable as it is, not from any subtlety of thought or expression, but because it is the simple and passionate render ing of a sincere and passionate mood. It is inter esting to know that Drayton began sonneteering as a disciple of Daniel, and then broke away into his freer style, suppressing in 1605 the greater number of the sonnets he had published in 1594. The contrast between the two styles will be plain if the reader will compare in this collection the preciosity of the first and eighth sonnets,
' ' Where nightingales in Arden sit and sing Among the dainty dew-empearled flowers,"
with the almost blunt simplicity of the rest. These later sonnets usually treat with great freedom and vigour a single idea.1 More than usually successful
i In printing the sonnets in this volume I have followed the form of the early copies. Daniel prints in quatrains, Drayton marks no division till the final couplet. The arrangement in each case seems characteristic ; or at least it may be regarded as symbolical.
Introduction xiii
examples are those to Humour (p. 81} and to Proverb ^p. 86). But it is onljTon the rare occasions when the idea is itself passionate that they give the reader much delight. Then the passion is certainly heightened by the apparent spontaneity and lack of fastidiousness in the ex pression; as in the "Dear, wh^ishould you com mand me to my rest," and the unequalled, "Since there's no _help~" Critics are undoubtedly right in recognising that this latter sonnet touches Drayton's high- water mark ; but it is blindness not to see that it is as certainly in Drayton's own characteristic manner as its less happy fellows. Whether Dray ton had read Shake speare's sonnets is a question that would be worth discussing. He had undoubtedly read Sidney's, and read them with care.1
To pass to the second phase of our poets' literary activity. Daniel's Complaint of Rosamond was published in 1592, and his First four books of the Civil Wars in 1595 ; the first was written in seven-line, the latter in eight-line stanzas. Dray ton in 1596 issued his Mortimeriados in seven-line stanzas, and in 1603 re-issued it in eight-line as The Barons' Wars. The connexion of which events would seem to be this, that Drayton was stimulated by the success of Daniel's Rosamond to attempt a similar " tragical " theme, and chose the fall of Mortimer, which he wrote in the same metre ; a perfectly familiar
1 In a sonnet prefixed to the edition of 1605 he mentions Sidney, Constable, and Daniel as the masters in the art. See quotation in note to page 122. Collier pointed out that the
line in which Drayton professed his own originality, " I pickpurse of another's wit," was borrowed from Sidney.
I am no ney.
xiv Introduction
metre known as rime-royal, and admirably adapted for pathetic monologue. When, however, Daniel's historical poem appeared, Drayton, who though less of an original artist than Daniel was an apt scholar, saw at once how much more suitable the eight-line stanza was for historical narrative ; and as his Mortimeriados inevitably contained a good deal of narrative, he re-wrote it, simplifying the expression throughout and purging it of much of the poetry. It was perhaps not to be expected that in the preface he wrote to account for the change he should refer to Daniel. The passages here selected from the two poems are such as shew each writer at his best. Neither is a good story teller ; Daniel excels_in reflective, Drayton in descriptive~passa^es..; even when Daniel is most descriptive" there is an undertone of reflection, as when by way of describing the pageants in the London streets to grace Bolingbroke's entry, he
" Approaching near the city he was met With all the sumptuous shows joy could devise, Where new desire to please did not forget To pass the usual pomp of former guise"
Drayton is more directly narrative, and his purple patches are frankly purple patches, such as the fine description of Mortimer's Tower (p. 69).
It may be interesting to compare their handling of a similar theme. Take for this purpose the passages where each poet describes the night his dethroned monarch spends after his fall. Thus Daniel upon Richard :
" To Flint from thence unto a restless bed That miserable night he comes conveyed ;
Introduction xv
Poorly provided, poorly followed, Uncourted, unrespected, unobeyed : Where if uncertain sleep but hovered Over the drooping cares that heavy weighed, Millions of figures fantasy presents Unto that sorrow wakened grief augments. " His new misfortune makes deluding sleep Say 'twas not so, false dreams the truth deny : Wherewith he starts ; feels waking cares do creep Upon his soul, and give his dream the lie : Then sleeps again, and then again as deep Deceits of darkness mock his misery : So hard believed was sorrow in her youth, That he thinks truth was dreams and dreams were truth."
With this compare Drayton upon Edward :
" By night affrighted in his fearful dreams Of raging fiends and goblins that he meets, Of falling down from steep rocks into streams, Of death, of burials, and of winding-sheets, Of wandering helpless in far foreign rea[l]ms. Of strong temptations by seducing sprights, Wherewith awaked, and calling out for aid, His hollow voice doth make himself afraid.
Then came the vision of his bloody reign : — Marching along with Lancaster's stern ghost, Twenty-eight Barons, either hanged or slain," etc.
The passage from Drayton is the more picturesque and clearly defined ; and the italicised lines in the first stanza are finely descriptive ; then with the procession of twenty-eight barons the dream be comes too realistic. Daniel leaves the dreams to the reader's imagination, but produces far more effect by the pendulous movement of the stanza to and fro between sleep and waking, and by the char acteristic touch of reflection with which he closes.
Drayton had displayed the fertility, which was one of his most marked characteristics, by follow-
xvi Introduction
ing up his Mortimeriados1 by two other tragical legends in the same manner and metre. Then he struck out a new line of his own. Taking a hint from Ovid, he put together a series of England's Heroical Epistles,2 all written with great rhetorical skill and with occasional flashes of poetical imagination and feeling. They were long popular, and editions were frequent down to the end of the last century. Mr Elton well parallels them, both as to their conspicuous merits and their defects, with Macaulay's Lays.3 The Heroical Epistles were not Drayton's first attempt in the heroic metre; already in 1595, before writing Mortimeriados, he had written a poem in couplets, after the manner of Marlowe, on the subject of Endymion and Phrebe. A short passage from the opening of this poem is given on page 60.
After the publication of the historical poems the paths of the two poets diverge. Each had now developed his own peculiar powers, and they were strikingly different. Daniel's tendency was to meditation. He was an original and subtle thinker, and he exercised himself on great matters. But abstract thought is a dangerous occupation for a poet, because he is apt to speak with his tongue before the fire of his imagination is kindled. Everyone must admire the thought
1 Drayton's title proves him to have been no Greek scholar, and all his virtues and vices are unclassical. Daniel, on the other hand, is the most Greek of our elder poets.
2 In this case it would seem that Daniel imitated Drayton. Englands Heroicall Epistles were published in 1597. In 1599 appeared Daniel's A Letter sent from Octavia to her husband Marcus Antonius into Aegypt.
3 See his indispensable "Introduction to Michael Drayton," p. 23.
Introduction xvii
of Musophilus, but its greatest admirer must admit that the passages where the thought takes flame are short and far between. There is more sustained vitality in the Epistles, especially in that to the Countess of Cumberland, which was a favourite poem with Wordsworth.1 But we feel, as we read and admire, that poetry of this sort approaches very near the confines of prose ; and lovers of Daniel may also feel that it was not the work to which the Muses had called him. We are inclined to quote to him the lines of Matthew Arnold, whom he not a little resembles, lines that have been quoted against that very unequal poet himself upon his excursions into criticism :
"Not here, O Apollo, Are haunts meet for thee, But where Helicon breaks down In cliff to the sea."
When Daniel can keep near the springs of Helicon, and forget criticism, his style at once becomes limpid, and his imagination warm and clear. Hymen's Triumph — which is Daniel's triumph — is full from first to last of beautiful thought and beautiful writing. In a copy of Daniel's poems in my possession, that once belonged to Wordsworth, I find the following note in his hand :
" This poem of Hymen's Triumph is far superior to the Queen's Arcadia. The story, it is true, is grossly improbable, but the piece, although sadly injured by the underplot of Montanus, has sufficient unity of interest, and is everywhere scattered over with beautiful touches of passion
1 See passages quoted in notes, p. 188.
xviii Introduction
and description written with true simplicity. The language is throughout admirable, though not altogether without conceits, and the senti ments, where they are pleasing themselves, are sometimes unsuited to the characters."
To the passages which will be found quoted in the sequel, one or two shorter pieces may be added here, as the play is not easily procurable. Here are two beautiful expressions, one of anticipated joy, one of the inexpressible secret of loveliness :
" ' Methought the Sun Arose this day with far more cheerful rays, With brighter beams, than usually it did ; As if it would bring something of release Unto my cares ; or else my spirit hath had Some manner of intelligence with Hope Wherewith my Heart is unacquainted yet.' (iii. 3.)
" * Think not it was those colours, white and red, Laid but on flesh, that could affect me so, But something else, which thought holds under lock, And hath no key of words to open it. They are the smallest pieces of the mind That pass this narrow organ of the voice ; The great remain behind in that vast orb Of th' apprehension, and are never born.' (iii. 5.) "
Coleridge 1 was at one with Wordsworth in praising Daniel's "natural language," and they do but echo the judgment of the poet's contem poraries, who spoke of him as " well-languaged," " choice in word," " in English very pure and
1 "Read Daniel — the admirable Daniel — inbis Civil War sand. Triumphs of Hymen. The style and language are just such as any very pure and manly writer of the present day — Words worth, for example— would use." And again, " His diction is pre-eminently pure " (Table Talk). See also the passage quoted in the notes to page 51.
Introduction xix
copious." And the praise is richly deserved. But it needs qualifying in two ways. The praise of Daniel's language must not be allowed to disguise the fact that the thought, which it clothes so fitly, is no less choice, or that there are frequent flashes of illuminating imagination.
"And even now at this instant I confess, Palsemon, I do feel a certain touch Of comfort, which I fear to entertain, Lest it should be some spy sent as a train To make discovery of what strength I am."
(H. r.,iii. 4.)
" And then to see how soon example will Disperse itself, being met with our desire ; How soon it will enkindle others' ill, Like naphtha that takes fire by sight of fire."
(Q. A., ii. 4.)
" For Honour never brought Un worthiness Further than to the grave." (Funeral Poem.}
Of Daniel's tragedies and their relation to the contemporary drama it would be out of place to speak here, as the plays themselves are not in evidence ; it must be sufficient to point in passing to the peculiar solemnity and weight given to the speeches by Daniel's practice of writing in quatrains (see p. 23). But a word may be said upon the lyrical choruses in Cleopatra, one of which is given at length on pp. 20-22. Most cultivated readers will feel their charm, though they will possibly find it difficult to explain where precisely the charm lies. Partly, no doubt, it may be due to the unusual and effective six-syllable metre, partly to the unusual and no less effective arrange ment of rhymes, but beyond that there is little to
xx Introduction
which attention can be called unless it be the simple dignity of the thought and the simple dignity of the language in which it is clothed.
Entirely unlike the delicate finish of Daniel's work is the broad and free sweep of Drayton's mature style. It is no question with him of nuances whether of idea or expression. His Muse has no pallor of thought. His sentiments are those of the average healthy Englishman, and the form into which they are cast impresses by the vigour and raciness of the whole rather than by any peculiar felicity of individual parts. The spirit and movement of the Ballad of Agincourt, and, in less degree, of the Virginia Voyage, have long been recognised, and his love poems, though more loosely put together, have not a little of the rollicking ease that we associate with the Cavalier poets. This is one of Drayton's claims to recognition. Another is his fairy-poem, Nymphidia, which has many of the qualities necessary for success in so perilous a following of the great master — invention, grace, and humour. Finally, he deserves high praise for daring to turn his back on the Spenserian con vention, and to write, in the Muses' Elysium, pastoral poems which, like those of Theocritus, deal with the lives and pursuits of simple country folk. Of the Poly-Olbion I would speak with respect, for it was admired by Charles Lamb. And I would admit that it is much easier reading than might be thought before attempting it. It has buoyancy and a fine flowing line, and the reader soon covers the ground. But the exercise is pretty much its own
Introduction xxi
reward ; there are few beauties on the road to justify one in taking that particular journey.
A word may be added as to the Editor's share in the following pages. Very great pains have been spent to make the text as accurate as possible. For the most part it has been tran scribed from the best of the early copies ; and as the spelling had to be modernised, and the punctuation adapted to the sense, the labour has not been light; and it can hardly be hoped that all inconsistency has been avoided. A re ference to the notes will show that to several passages in Daniel the Editor has been fortunate in restoring the long-lost sense. The portrait of Daniel is from that by Cockson, prefixed to the 1609 edition of the Civile Wars. The woodcut of Drayton is from Hole's engraving in the Poems of 1613 ; the mezzotint is, by permis sion, from that prefixed to Dr Garnett's reprint of the Battaile of Aqincourt.
J J
YATTENDON RECTORY, January 1899.
A COMPARA DANIEL.
1562. Samuel Daniel, born near Taunton, the son of John
Daniel, a music-master. 1579. Goes as a commoner to Magdalen Hall, but leaves
Oxford without a degree. 1585. Publishes a translation of fmprese, i.e. emblems, by
Paulus Jovius, Bishop of Nocera.
1591. Twenty-seven of his sonnets printed at the end of
Nash's edition of Astrophel and Stella.
1592. Delia, contayning certaine sonnets [50]. Dedi
cated to Mary, Countess of Pembroke, "Sidney's sister," at whose house at Wilton he was staying as tutor to William Herbert. The book was reprinted the same year with four additional sonnets, and The Complaynt of Rosamond.
1594. Cleopatra, added to an augmented reprint of Delia
and Rosamond.
1595. The Civile Wars between the two Houses of Lancaster
and Yorke ; first four books, and then five.
1599. Musophilus, or a General Defence of Learning. A
Letter from Octavia to Marcus Antonius.
1600. Becomes tutor to Lady Anne Clifford, daughter of the
Countess of Cumberland. ^"1602. The Defence of Ryme.
1603. A PanegyricJce Congratulatorie. Poetical Epistles
(to Sir Thomas Egerton, Lord Henry Howard, the Countess of Cumberland, the Countess of Bedford, Lady Anne Clifford, the Earl of Southampton).
1604. Made censor of plays to the Queen's "children of
the revels." The Vision of the Twelve Goddesses, a mask. The Queens Arcadia, a pastoral play.
1605. The Tragedy of Philotas, Ulisses and the Syren. 1607. Made one of the grooms of the Queen's privy chamber.
1609. Eight books of the Civill Warres.
1610. Tethys Festival, a mask.
1612-1617. Collection of the Historic of England, in prose.
1615. Hymens Triumph, a pastoral play.
1619. Oct. , Daniel died at Beckington, where he had retired
to farm. 1623. His brother published The Whole Works of Samuel
Daniel, Esquire, in poetrie.
TIVE TABLE.
DRAYTON.
1563. Michael Drayton, born at Hartshill, near Ather- stone, Warwickshire ; of uncertain parentage ; patronised in early boyhood by Sir Henry Goodere of Polesworth Hall, on the river Ancor, whose daughter Anne is certainly his "Idea." She married Sir Henry Rainsford.
1591. The Harmonic of the Church, paraphrases of Biblical songs. The edition was seized and burnt ; why is not known. D. reprinted it in 1610.
1593. . Idea, the Shepherds Garland fashioned in nine Eglogs. [The finest, containing the daffodil song, was added in 1606.] Legend of Piers Gaveston.
1594. The Legend of Matilda. Ideas Mirrour : Amours in
Quatorzains. (53 Sonnets.)
1595. Endimion and Pluebe, Ideas Latmus.
1596. Mortimeriados, The lamentable Civell Warres of
Edward the Second and the Barrons, written in rime-royal. The Tragicall Legend of Robert, Duke of Normandy.
1597. Englands Heroicall Epistles.
1600. The History of Sir John Oldcastle, a play in which D. collaborated.
1603. To the Majestic of King James, a gratulatorie poem.
The Barrens Wars in the Raigne of Edward the Second, a re-written version of Mortimeriados in ottava rima.
1604. The Owl.
1606. Poemes Lyrick and Pastorall ; Odes and Eglogs. Seven more odes were added in the collected volume of 1619.
1612. First eighteen songs of the Poly-Olbion.
1622. Poly-Olbion complete.
1627. A volume containing The Battaile of Agincourt, The Miseries of Queene Margarete, Nimphidia, the Court of Fayrie, The Quest of Cynthia, The Shepheards Sirena, The Moonecalf, and Elegies.
1630. The Muses Elizium, in ten " nimphalls, " in a volume
with Noahs Floud, Moses his Birth and Miracles, and David and Goliah.
1631. Dec. 23 [?], Dray ton died.
A SELECTION FROM THE POEMS OF SAMUEL DANIEL
SONNETS
TO DELIA
\
NTO the boundless ocean of thy beauty Kuns this poor river, charged with streams of
zeal,
Eeturning thee the tribute of my duty, Which here my love, my youth, my plaints
reveal. Here I unclasp the book of my charged soul,
Where I have cast th' accounts of all my
care ;
Here have I summed my sighs ; here I enroll How they were spent for thee ; look what they
are. Look on the dear expences of my youth,
And see how just I reckon with thine eyes ; Examine well thy beauty with my truth, And cross my cares, ere greater sums arise. Eead it, sweet maid, though it be done but slightly ; Who can show all his love, doth love but lightly.
Sonnets to Delia
If so it hap this offspring of my care,
These fatal anthems, lamentable songs, Come to their view who like afflicted are, Let them sigh for their own, and moan my wrongs.
But untouched hearts, with unaffected eye, Approach not to behold my heaviness : Clear-sighted you soon note what is awry, While blinded souls mine errors never guess.
You blinded souls whom Youth and Error lead ! You out-cast Eaglets, dazzled with your sun ! Do you, and none but you, my sorrows read ; You best can judge the wrongs that she hath done.
That she hath done ! — the motive of my pain :
Who, whilst I love, doth kill me with disdain.
T
'hese plaintive verse, the posts of my desire, Which haste for succour to her slow regard, Bear not report of any slender fire, Forging a grief to win a fame's reward.
Nor are my passions limned for outward hue, For that no colours can depaint my sorrows ; DELIA herself, and all the world, may view Best in my face where cares have till'd deep furrows.
No bays I seek to deck my mourning brow, O clear-eyed Kector of the holy hill ! , My humble accents bear the olive bough Of intercession, but to move her will.
These lines I use to unburden mine own heart ;
My love affects no fame, nor steams of art.
Sonnets to Delia 3
•
Whilst Youth and Error led my wandering mind, And set my thoughts in heedless ways to range, All unawares a goddess chaste I find, Diana-like, to work my sudden change.
For her no sooner had mine eyes bewrayed, But with disdain to see me in that place With fairest hand the sweet unkindest maid Cast water-cold disdain upon my face.
Which turned my sport into a heart's despair, Which still is chaced, while I have any breath, By mine own thoughts set on me by my fair : My thoughts, like hounds, pursue me to my death.
Those that I fostered of mine own accord
Are made by her to murder thus their lord.
Fair is my love, and cruel as she 's fair ;
Her brow-shades frown, although her eyes are
sunny ; Her smiles are lightning though her pride
despair ;
f And her disdains are gall, her favours honey. .' A modest maid, decked with a blush of honour, Whose feet do tread green paths of youth and
love!
The wonder of all eyes that look upon her ; Sacred on earth, designed a saint above ! Chastity and Beauty, which were deadly foes, Live reconciled friends within her brow ; And had she Pity to conjoin with those Then who had heard the plaints I utter now ? For had she not been fair, and thus unkind, My Muse had slept, and none had known my mind.
4 Sonnets to Delia
If this be love, to draw a weary breath,
Paint on floods til] the shore cry to the air ; With downward looks, still reading on the earth The sad memorials of my love's despair :
If this be love, to war against my soul,
Lie down to wail, rise up to sigh and grieve,
This never-resting stone of care to roll,
Still to complain my griefs whilst none relieve.
If this be love to clothe me with dark thoughts, Haunting untrodden paths to wail apart ; My pleasures horror, music tragic notes, Tears in mine eyes and sorrow at my heart.
If this be love, to live a living death : —
Then do I love and draw this weary breath.
\
y My spotless love hovers with purest wings About the temple of the proudest frame, Where blaze those lights, fairest of earthly
things,
Which clear our clouded world with brightest flame.
My ambitious thoughts, confined in her face, Affect no honour but what she can give : My hopes do rest in limits of her grace ; I weigh no comfort, unless she relieve.
For she, that can my heart jmparadise,
Holds in her fairest hand what dearest is ; My fortune's-wheel's the circle of her eyes, Whose rolling grace deign once a turn of bliss !
All my life's sweet consists in her alone,
So much I love the most unloving one.
Sonnets to Delia
hold what hap Pygmalion had to frame And carve his proper grief upon a stone ! My heavy fortune is much like the same ; I work on flint, and that's the cause I moan.
For hapless, lo ! even with mine own desires I figured on the table of mine heart The fairest form that all the world admires ; And so did perish by my proper art.
And still I toil, to change the marble breast Of her, whose sweetest grace I do adore ; Yet cannot find her breathe unto my rest : Hard is her heart, and woe is me therefore !
But happy he that joyed his stone and art :
Unhappy I, to love a stony heart.
hy should I sing in verse, why should I frame
These sad neglected notes for her dear sake ?
Why should I offer up unto her name
The sweetest sacrifice my youth can make 1 Why should I strive to make her live for ever
That never deigns to give me joy to live ?
Why should my afflicted Muse so much en deavour
Such honour unto cruelty to give 1 If her defects have purchased her this fame
What should her virtues do, her smiles, her love?
If this her worst, how should her best inflame ?
What passions would her milder favours move 1 Favours, I think, would sense quite overcome, And that makes happy lovers ever dumb.
Sonnets to Delia
Since the first look that led me to this error,
To this thoughts' maze, to my confusion tending, Still have I lived in grief, in hope, in terror, The circle of my sorrows never ending.
Yet cannot leave her love that holds me hateful ; Her eyes exact it, though her heart disdains me : See what reward he hath that serves the un grateful ! So true and loyal love no favour gains me.
Still must I whet my young desires abated Upon the flint of such a heart rebelling, And all in vain ; her pride is so innated, She yields no place at all for Pity's dwelling.
Oft have I told her that my soul did love her,
And that with tears, yet all this will not move her.
Eestore thy tresses to the golden ore ; Yield Cytherea's son those arcs of love : Bequeath the heavens the stars that I adore ; And to the orient do thy pearls remove.
Yield thy hands' pride unto the ivory white j To Arabian odours give thy breathing sweet ', Eestore thy blush unto Aurora bright ; To Thetis give the honour of thy feet.
Let Venus have thy graces her resigned ;
And thy sweet voice give back unto the spheres : But yet restore thy fierce and cruel mind To Hyrcan tigers and to ruthless bears.
Yield to the marble thy hard heart again ;
So shalt thou cease to plague and I to pain.
Sonnets to Delia
Time, cruel Time, come and subdue that brow, Which conquers all but thee ; and thee too stays As if she were exempt from Scythe or Bow, From Love or Years, unsubject to decays.
Or art thou grown in league with those fair eyes, That they may help thee to consume our days? Or dost thou spare her for her cruelties, Being merciless like thee, that no man weighs ?
And yet thou see'st thy power she disobeys ; Cares not for thee but lets thee waste in vain ; And prodigal of hours and years, betrays Beauty and Youth to Opinion and Disdain.
Yet spare her, Time ; let her exempted be ;
She may become more kind to thee or me.
Reign in my thoughts, fair hand, sweet eye, rare
voice,
Possess me whole, my heart's triumvirate : Yet heavy heart to make so hard a choice, Of such as spoil thy poor, afflicted state.
For whilst they strive which shall be lord of all, All my poor life by them is trodden down ; They all erect their trophies on my fall, And yield me nought, that gives them their renown.
When back I look I sigh my freedom past, And wail the state wherein I present stand, And see my fortune ever like to last, Finding me reined with such a heavy hand.
What can I do but yield 1— And yield I do,
And serve all three ; and yet they spoil me too.
Sonnets to Delia
Still in the trace of one perplexed thought, My ceaseless cares continually run on • Seeking in vain, what I have ever sought,
r One in my love and her hard heart still one.
I who did never joy in other sun,
And have no stars but those that must fulfil The work of rigour, fatally begun Upon this heart, whom cruelty will kill.
Injurious DELIA, yet I love thee still ;
And will, whilst I shall draw this breath of mine: I'll tell the world, that I deserved but ill, And blame myself to excuse that heart of thine.
See then who sins the greater of us twain ;
I in my love, or thou in thy disdain.
And yet I cannot reprehend the flight,
Or blame the attempt presuming so to soar ; The mounting venture for a high delight Did make the honour of the fall the more.
For who gets wealth that puts not from the shore ? Danger hath honour, great designs their fame ; Glory doth follow, courage goes before. And though the event oft answers not the same, Suffice that high attempts have never shame.
The mean observer, whom base safety keeps, Lives without honour, dies without a name, And in eternal darkness ever sleeps.
And therefore, DELIA, 'tis to me no blot
To have attempted though attained thee not.
Sonnets to Delia 9
Look, DELIA, how we esteem the half-blown rose The image of thy blush, and summer's honour ! Whilst yet her tender bud doth undisclose That full of beauty Time bestows upon her.
No sooner spreads her glory in the air
But strait her wide-blown pomp comes to
decline ;
She then is scorn'd that late adorned the fair j So fade the roses of those cheeks of thine.
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.
But love whilst that thou mayst be lov'd again, Now whilst thy May hath filled thy lap with
flowers ;
Now whilst thy beauty bears without a stain Now use the summer smiles ere winter lowers.
And whilst thou spread'st unto the rising sun The fairest flower that ever saw the light, Now joy thy time before thy sweet be done ; And, DELIA, think thy morning must have night,
And that thy brightness sets at length to west When thou wilt close up that which now thou
show'st,
And think the same becomes thy fading best, Which then shall most enveil and shadow most.
Men do not weigh the stalk for that it was,
When once they find her flower, her glory, pass.
10 Sonnets to Delia
When men shall find thy flower, thy glory, pass, And thou with careful brow sitting alone Received hast this message from thy glass That tells the truth and says that all is gone ;
Fresh shalt thou see in me the wounds thou mad'st, Though spent thy flame, in me the heat remain ing;
I that have loved thee thus before thou fad'st My faith shall wax, when thou art in thy waning.
The world shall find this miracle in me,
That fire can burn when all the matter's spent : Then what my faith hath been thy self shalt see, And that thou wast unkind thou mayst repent.
Thou mayst repent that thou hast scorned my tears
When winter snows upon thy sable hairs.
When winter snows upon thy sable hairs,
And frost of age hath nipt thy beauties near ;
When dark shall seem thy day that never clears,
And all lies withered that was held so dear ; Then take this picture which I here present thee
Limned with a pencil not all unworthy ;
Here see the gifts that God and Nature lent thee;
Here read thyself and what I suffered for thee. This may remain thy lasting monument,
Which happily posterity may cherish ;
These colours with thy fading are not spent ;
These may remain when thou and I shall perish If they remain, then thou shalt live thereby ; They will remain, and so thou canst not die.
Sonnets to Delia 11
,! Care-charmer Sleep, son of the sable Night,
{Brother to Death, in silent darkness born : Eelieve 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.
Most fair and lovely maid, look from the shore, See thy Leander striving in these waves ! Poor soul quite spent whose force can do no
more !
Now send forth hope, for now calm pity saves. ' And waft him to thee with those lovely eyes, A happy convoy to a holy land : Now show thy power, and where thy virtue lies ; To save thine own, stretch out the fairest hand. Stretch out the fairest hand, a pledge of peace, That hand that darts so right and never misses. I shall forget old wrongs, my griefs shall cease, And that which gave me wounds, I'll give it
kisses.
j Once let the Ocean of my cares find shore, That thou be pleased, and I may sigh no more.
12 Sonnets to Delia
Kead in my face a volume of despairs, The wailing Iliads of my tragic woe, Drawn with my blood and painted with my
cares, Wrought by her hand that I have honoured so.
Who whilst I burn, she sings at my soul's wrack, Looking aloft from turret of her pride j There my soul's tyrant joys her in the sack Of her own seat, whereof I made her guide.
There do these smokes that from affliction rise Serve as an incense to a cruel dame, A sacrifice thrice grateful to her eyes, Because their power serve to exact the same.
Thus ruins she, to satisfy her will,
The temple where her name was honoured still.
I must not grieve my Love, whose eyes would read Lines of delight, whereon her youth might
smile ;
Flowers have a time before they come to seed And she is young, and now must sport the while.
And sport, sweet maid, in season of these years And learn to gather flowers before they wither ; And where the sweetest blossom first appears Let Love and Youth conduct thy pleasures thither.
Lighten forth smiles to clear the clouded air
And calm the tempest which my sighs do raise : Pity and smiles do best become the fair ; Pity and smiles must only yield thee praise.
Make me to say, when all my griefs are gone,
Happy the heart that sighed for such a one.
Sonnets to Delia 13
Beauty, sweet love, is like the morning dew, Whose short refresh upon the tender green Cheers for a time, but till the sun doth shew, And straight 'tis gone as it had never been. Soon doth it fade that makes the fairest flourish ; I Short is the glory of the blushing rose : The hue which thou so carefully dost nourish, Yet which at length thou must be forced to
lose.
\When thou, surcharged with burden of thy years, Shalt bend thy wrinkles homeward to the
earth,
And that in beauty's lease expired appears The date of age, the calends of our death ; — But ah ! no more ; this must not be foretold : For women grieve to think they must be old.
AT THE AUTHOR'S GOING INTO ITALY
And whither, poor forsaken, wilt thou go, To go from sorrow and thine own distress, When every place presents like face of woe And no remove can make thy sorrows less 1
Yet go, forsaken ; leave these woods, these plains, Leave her and all, and all for her, that leaves Thee and thy love forlorn, and both disdains ; And of both wrongful deems and ill conceives.
Seek out some place \ and see if any place Can give the least release unto thy grief, Convey thee from the thought of thy disgrace, Steal from thyself, and be thy care's own thief.
But yet what comforts shall I hereby gain ?
Bearing the wound, I needs must feel the pain.
14 Sonnets to Delia
AT THE AUTHOR'S BEING IN ITALY.
Drawn with the attractive virtue of her eyes, My touched heart turns it to that happy coast — My joyful North, where all my fortune lies, The level of my hopes desired most :
There where my DELIA fairer than the sun,
Decked with her youth whereon the world doth
smile,
Joys in that honour which her eyes have won, The eternal wonder of our happy isle !
Flourish, fair Albion, glory of the North !
Neptune's best darling, held between his arms : Divided from the world as better worth ; Kept for himself, defended from all harms.
Still let disarmed Peace deck her and thee ;
And Muse-foe Mars abroad far fostered be.
others sing of Knights and Paladins In aged accents and untimely words ; Paint shadows in imaginary lines 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, 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.
Sonnets to Delia 15
As to the Roman that would free his land His error was his honour and renown, And more the fame of his mistaking hand Than if he had the tyrant overthrown ;
So, DELIA, hath mine error made me known,
And my deceived attempt deserved more fame
Than if I had the victory mine own,
And thy hard heart had yielded up the same.
And so likewise renowned is thy blame ; Thy cruelty, thy glory. 0 strange case, That errors should be graced, that merit shame, And sin of frowns bring honour to the face !
Yet happy, DELIA, that thou wast unkind,
Though happier far, if thou wouldst change thy mind.
From THE COMPLAINT OF ROSAMOND
EOSAMOND COMPLAINS
I WOULD to God my foot had never moved From country-safety, from the fields of rest ; To know the danger to be highly loved, And live in pomp to brave among the best ; Happy for me, better had I been blest, If I unluckily had never strayed, But lived at home a happy country -maid ;
Whose unaffected innocency thinks
No guileful fraud as doth the courtly liver ;
She's decked with truth; the river where she drinks
Doth serve her for her glass, her counsel-giver ;
She loves sincerely and is loved ever.
Her days are peace, and so she ends her breath,-— True life that knows not what's to die till death.
KING HENRY MEETS THE BIER
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.
16
The Complaint of Rosamond 17
At length extremity breaks out a way
Through which th' imprisoned voice, with tears
attended,
Wails out a sound that sorrows do bewray; With arms across, and eyes to heaven bended, Vapouring out sighs that to the skies ascended ; Sighs (the poor ease calamity affords) Which serve for speech when sorrow wanteth words.
" 0 heavens," quoth he, " why do mine eyes behold The hateful rays of this unhappy sun 1 Why have I light to see my sins controlled With blood of mine own shame thus vildly done ! How can my sight endure to look thereon ? Why doth not black eternal darkness hide That from mine eyes my heart cannot abide ?
" What saw my life wherein my soul might joy ?
What had my days, whom troubles still afflicted,
But only this, to counterpoise annoy 1
This joy, this hope, which Death hath interdicted ;
This sweet, whose loss hath all distress inflicted ; This, that did season all my sour of life, Vexed still at home with broils, abroad in strife ?
" Vexed still at home with broils, abroad in strife, Dissension in my blood, jars in my bed ; Distrust at board, suspecting still my life, Spending the night in horror, days in dread, Such life hath Tyrants and this life I led ;
These miseries go masked in glittering shows, Which wise men see, the vulgar little knows." B
18 The Complaint of Rosamond
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 for ever.
" 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 ; Sweet remnants resting of vermilion red, That Death itself doubts whether she be dead.
" Wonder of beauty, oh, receive these plaints, These obsequies, the last that I shall make thee ; For lo, my soul that now already faints (That loved thee living, dead will not forsake thee) Hastens her speedy course to overtake thee.
I'll meet my death, and free myself thereby ;
For, ah, what can he do that cannot die 1
The Complaint of Rosamond 19
" Yet ere I die thus much my soul doth vow, Kevenge shall sweeten death with ease of mind ; And I will cause posterity shall know How fair fchou wert above all women-kind ; And after ages monuments shall find
Shewing thy beauty's title (not thy name) Rose of the world that sweetened so the same."
From THE TRAGEDY OF CLEOPATRA
CHORUS
THEN thus we have beheld Th' accomplishment of woes, The full of ruin and The worst of worst of ills : And seen all hope expelled, That ever sweet repose Shall repossess the land That Desolation fills ; And where Ambition spills With uncontrolled hand All th' issue of all those That so long rule have held : To make us no more us, But clean confound us thus.
And can'st, 0 Nilus, thou Father of floods, endure That yellow Tiber should With sandy streams rule thee ? Wilt thou be pleased to bow To him those feet so pure, Whose unknown head we hold A power divine to be 1
The Tragedy of Cleopatra 21
Thou that did'st ever see Thy free banks uncontrolled, Live under thine own cure ; Ah, wilt thou bear it now 1 And now wilt yield thy streams A prey to other reams 1 l
Draw back thy waters' flow To thy concealed head ; Eocks strangle up thy waves, Stop cataracts thy fall, And turn thy courses so That sandy deserts dead (The world of dust that craves To swallow thee up all) May drinlj so much as shall Revive from vasty graves A living green, which spread Far flourishing may grow On that wide face of death, Where nothing now draws breath.
Fatten some people there, Even as thou us hast done, With plenty's wanton store, And feeble luxury ; And them as us prepare Fit for the day of moan, Respected not before. Leave levelled Egypt dry, A barren prey to lie, Wasted for evermore ;
1 i.e. realms.
22 The Tragedy of Cleopatra
Of plenties yielding none
To recompense the care
Of victor's greedy lust,
And bring forth nought but dust.
And so, 0 leave to be, Sith thou art what thou art ; Let not our race possess The inheritance of shame, The fee of sin, that we Have left them for their part. The yoke of whose distress Must still upbraid our blame, Telling from whom it came. Our weight of wantonness Lies heavy on their heart, Who nevermore shall see The glory of that worth They left, who brought us forth.
O then, all-seeing light, High President of heaven, You Magistrates, the stars, Of that eternal court Of Providence and Eight, — Are these the bounds ye have given Th' untranspassable bars That limit pride so short 1 Is greatness of this sort, That greatness greatness mars, And wracks itself, self-driven On rocks of her own might 1 Doth Order order so Disorder's overthrow 1
The Tragedy of Cleopatra 23
THE DEATH OF CLEOPATRA
Well, in I went, where brighter than the sun Glittering in all her pompous rich array Great Cleopatra sat, as if she had won Csesar, and all the world beside, this day : Even as she was when on thy crystal streams, Clear Cydnus, she did shew what earth could shew, When Asia all amazed in wonder deems Venus from heaven was come on earth below. Even as she went at first to meet her love, So goes she now [at last] again to find him ; But that first did her greatness only prove, This last her love that could not live behind him. Yet as she sat, the doubt of my good speed Detracts much from the sweetness of her look ; Cheer-marrer Care did then such passions breed That made her eye bewray the grief she took. But she no sooner sees me in the place, But straight her sorrow-clouded brow she clears, Lightening a smile from out a stormy face, Which all her tempest-beaten senses cheers. Look how a strayed perplexed traveller When chased by thieves, and even at point of
taking,
Descrying suddenly some town not far, Or some unlooked-for aid to him-ward making ; Cheers up his tired spirits, thrusts forth his strength, To meet that good that comes in so good hour : Such was her joy, perceiving now at length Her honour was to escape so proud a power. Forth from her seat she hastes to meet the present And as one over-joyed she caught it straight
24 The Tragedy of Cleopatra
And with a smiling cheer in action pleasant Looking among the figs, finds the deceit. And seeing there the ugly, venomous beast, Nothing dismayed, she stays and views it well ; At length the extremest of her passion ceased When she began with words her joy to tell :
"0 rarest beast," saith she, "that Afric breeds How dearly welcome art thou unto me ! The fairest creature that fair Nilus feeds Methinks I see, in now beholding thee. What though the ever-erring world doth deem That angered Nature framed thee but in spite, Little they know what they so light esteem, That never learned the wonder of thy might. Better than Death Death's office thou dischargest, That with one gentle touch canst free our breath, And in a pleasing sleep our soul enlarges!, Making ourselves not privy to our death. If Nature erred, 0 then how happy error ! Thinking to make thee worst, she made thee best ; Sith thou best free'st us from our live's worst terror, In sweetly brjngjpg grmla f0 q1T1>t,
Therefore c6iae~thou, of wonders wonder chief, That open canst with such an easy key The door of life, — come, gentle cunning thief, SjQ_ste_aPst ourselves away."
v With that she bares her arm, and offer makes To touch her death, yet at the touch withdraws, And, seeming more to speak, occasion takes, Willing to die, and,. willing too ta pause.
Look how a mother at her son's departing, For some far voyage bent to get him fame, Doth entertain him with an idle parling, And still doth speak, and still speaks but the same ;
The Tragedy of Cleopatra 25
Now bids farewell, and now recalls him back, Tells what was told, and bids again farewell, And yet again recalls ; for still doth lack Something that Love would fain, and cannot, tell. Pleased he should go, yet cannot let him go. — So she, although she knew there was no way But this, yet this she could not handle so But she must shew that life desired delay. Fain would she entertain the time as now, And now would fain that Death should seize upon
her
Whilst I might see presented in her brow The doubtful combat tried 'twixt Life and Honour. [Till] sharply blaming of her rebel powers,
"False Flesh," saith she, "and what! dost
thou conspire
With Caesar too, as thou wert none of ours, To work my shame, and hinder my desire ? Wilt thou retain in closure of thy veins That enemy base Life, to let my good ? No, know there is a greater power constrains Than can be counter-checked with fearful blood. For to the mind that's great nothing seems great : And seeing death to be the last of woes, And life lasting disgrace, which I shall get, What do I lose that have but life to lose ! "
This having said, strengthened in her own heart And union of herself, senses in one Charging together, she performs that part That hath so great a part of glory won ; And so receives the deadly poisoning touch,
her love pure j
_
And hatlT confirmed her honour to be sucB As must a wonder to all worlds endure.
26 The Tragedy of Cleopatra
CHORUS
The scene is broken down And all uncovered lies ; The purple actors known Scarce men, whom men despise.
The complots of the wise Prove imperfection's smoke : And all what wonder gave To pleasure-gazing eyes Lies scattered, dashed, all broke. Thus much beguiled have Poor unconsiderate wights These momentary pleasures, fugitive delights.
From THE CIVIL WARS
NG RICHARD II. LED TO LONDON
STRAIGHT towards London, in this heat of pride, They forward set, as they had fore-decreed ; With whom the captive King, constraint, must
ride,
Most meanly mounted on a simple steed : Degraded of all grace and ease beside, Thereby neglect of all respect to breed. For th; over-spreading pomp of prouder might Must darken weakness, and debase his sight.
Approaching near the city he was met -
With all the sumptuous shews joy could devise ;
Where new desire to please did not forget
To pass the usual pomp of former guise.
Striving applause, as out of prison let,
Runs on, beyond all bounds, to novelties ;
And voice, and hands, and knees, and all do now
A strange deformed form of welcome show.
And manifold confusion running greets,
Shouts, cries, claps hands, thrusts, strives, and
presses near :
Houses impov'rish'd were to enrich the streets, And streets left naked, that (unhappy) were Plac'd from the sight where joy with wonder meets; Where all of all degrees strive to appear ; Where divers-speaking zeal one murmur finds, In undistinguish'd voice to tell their minds.
27
The Civil Wars
He that in glory of his fortune sat, Admiring what he thought could never be, Did feel his blood within salute his state, And lift up his rejoicing soul, to see So many hands and hearts congratulate Th' advancement of his long-desir'd degree j When, prodigal of thanks, in passing by, He re-salutes them all with cheerful eye.
Behind him, all aloof, came pensive on The unregarded King ; that drooping went Alone, and (but for spite) scarce look'd upon : Judge, if he did more envy, or lament ! See what a wondrous work this day is done ! Which th' image of both fortunes doth present In th' one to shew the best of glory's face, In th' other worse than worst of all disgrace.
H
is FOREBODING or DEA.TH
Whether the soul receives intelligence By her near genius, of the body's end, And so imparts a sadness to the sense, Fore-going ruin, whereto it doth tend : Or whether nature else hath conference With profound sleep, and so doth warning send By prophetizing,.dreams, what hurt is near, And gives the heavy careful heart to fear ;
However, so it is the now sad King (Toss'd here and there, his quiet to confound) Feels a strange weight of sorrows gathering Upon his trembling heart, and sees no ground ;
The Civil Wars 29
Feels sudden terror bring cold shivering : Lists not to eat ; still muses ; sleeps unsound : His senses droop, his steady eyes unquick ; And much he ails, and yet he is not sick.
The morning of that day which was his last,
After a weary rest rising to pain,
Out at a little grate his eyes he cast
Upon those bord'ring hills, and open plain,
And views the town, and sees how people pass'd ;
Where others' liberty makes him complain
The more his own, and grieves his soul the more ;
Conferring captive crowns with freedom poor.
" 0 happy man," saith he, " that lo I see Grazing his cattle in those pleasant fields ! If he but knew his good, how blessed he, That feels not what affliction greatness yields ! Other than what he is he would not be, Nor change his state with him that sceptres wields. Thine, thine, is that true life . . . That is to live To rest secure, and not rise up to grieve.
" Thou sitt'st at home safe by thy quiet fire, And hear'st of others' harms, but feelest none ; And there thou tell'st of kings, and who aspire, Who fall, who rise, who triumphs, who do moan. Perhaps thou talk'st of me, and dost enquire Of my restraint ; why here I live alone ; \ And pitiest this my miserable fall : |For pity must have part ; envy not all.
" Thrice happy you, that look as from the shore, u And have no venture in the wreck you see ; No interest, no occasion to deplore Other men's travels, while yourselves sit free.
30 The Civil Wars
How much doth your sweet rest make us the more To see our misery, and what we be ! Whose blinded greatness ever in turmoil, Still seeking happy life, makes life a toil."
THE DEATH OF TALBOT
To whom th' aggrieved son (as if disgrac'd) —
" Ah ! Father, have you then selected me
To be the man, whom you would have displac'd
Out of the roll of immortality 1
What have I done this day, that hath defac'd
My worth ; that my hands' work despis'd should be ?
God shield I should bear home a coward's name :
He long enough hath liv'd, who dies with fame."
At which the father, touch'd with sorrowing joy, Turn'd him about (shaking his head) and says, " 0 my dear son, worthy a better day, To enter thy first youth in hard assays ! " And now hath wrath, impatient of delay, Begun the fight, and farther speeches stays. Fury thrusts on ; striving whose sword should be First warmed in the wounds of th' enemy.
Hotly these small (but mighty-minded) bands (As if ambitious now of death) do strain Against innumerable armed hands, And gloriously a wondrous fight maintain ; Rushing on all whatever strength withstands, Whetting their wrath on blood, and on disdain ; And so far thrust, that hard 'twere to descry, Whether they more desire to kill, or die.
The Civil Wars 31
Frank of their own, greedy of others' blood, No stroke they give but wounds, no wound but kills: Near to their hate, close to their work they stood ; Hit where they would, their hand obeys their wills ; Scorning the blow from far that doth no good, Loathing the crack, unless some blood it spills : No wounds could let out life that wrath held in, Till others' wounds reveng'd did first begin.
So much true resolution wrought in those Who had made covenant with death before, That their small number (scorning so great foes) Made France most happy, that there were no more; And fortune doubt to whom she might dispose That weary day ; or unto whom restore The glory of a conquest dearly bought, Which scarce the conqueror could think well got.
For as with equal rage, and equal might, Two adverse winds combat, with billows proud, And neither yield : seas, skies maintain like fight, Wave against wave oppos'd, and cloud to cloud : So war both sides with obstinate despite, With like revenge ; and neither party bow'd : Fronting each other with confounding blows, No wound one sword unto the other owes.
Whilst Talbot (whose fresh ardour having got A marvellous advantage of his years) Carries his unfelt age as if forgot, Whirling about where any need appears. His hand, his eye, his wits all present, wrought The function of the glorious part he bears : Now urging here, now cheering there, he flies ; Unlocks the thickest troops, where most force lies.
32 The Civil Wars
In midst of wrath, of wounds, of blood and death There is he most, where as he may do best ; And there the closest ranks he severeth, Drives back the stoutest pow'rs that forward press'd: There makes his sword his way — there laboureth Th' infatigable hand that never ceas'd ; Scorning unto his mortal wounds to yield, Till death became best master of the field.
Then like a sturdy oak, that having long Against the wars of fiercest winds made head, When with some forc'd tempestuous rage more
strong
His down-borne top comes over-mastered, All the near bord'ring trees, he stood among, Crush'd with his weighty fall, lie ruined : So lay his spoils, all round about him slain To adorn his death, that could not die in vain.
EPISTLE TO THE LADY MARGARET, COUNTESS OF CUMBERLAND
HE that of such a height hath built his mind, And rear'd the dwelling of his thoughts so strong, As neither fear nor hope can shake the frame Of his resolved pow'rs ; nor all the wind Of vanity or malice pierce to wrong His settled peace, or to disturb the same : What a fair seat hath he, from whence he may The boundless wastes and wilds of man survey ?
And with how free an eye doth he look down Upon these lower regions of turmoil ? Where all the storms of passions mainly beat On flesh and blood : where honour, pow'r, renown Are only gay afflictions, golden toil ; Where greatness stands upon as feeble feet As frailty doth ; and only great doth seem To little minds, who do it so esteem.
He looks upon the mightiest monarch s' 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 enterprize. Great pirate Pompey lesser pirates quails :
n 33
34 Epistle to Countess of Cumberland
Justice, he sees (as if seduced), 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 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 of 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 : 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, 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.
Epistle to Countess of Cumberland 35
Thus, Madam, fares the man that hath prepar'd A rest for his desires ; and sees all things Beneath him ; and hath learn'd this book of man, Full of the notes of frailty ; and compar'd The best of glory with her sufferings : By whom, I see, you labour all you can To plant your heart ; and set your thoughts as near His glorious mansion, as your pow'rs can bear.
Which, Madam, are so soundly fashioned By that clear judgment, that hath carried you Beyond the feeble limits of your kind, As they can stand against the strongest head Passion can make ; inur'd to any hue The world can cast ; that cannot cast that mind Out of her form of goodness, that doth see Both what the best and worst of earth can be.
Which makes, that whatsoever here befals, You in the region of yourself remain : Where no vain breath of th' impudent molests, That hath secur'd within the brazen walls Of a clear conscience, that without all stain Rises in peace, in innocency rests ; Whilst all what malice from without procures, Shews her own ugly heart, but hurts not yours.
And whereas none rejoice more in revenge Than women use to do ; yet you well know, That wrong is better check'd by being contemn'd, Than being pursu'd ; leaving to him to avenge, To whom it appertains. Wherein you show, How worthily your clearness hath condemn'd Base malediction, living in the dark, That at the rays of goodness still doth bark.
Knowing the heart of man is set to be The centre of his world, about the which
36 Epistle to Countess of Cumberland
These revolutions of disturbances Still roll j where all th' aspects of misery Predominate ; whose strong effects are such, As he must bear, being powerless to redress : And that unless above himself he can Erect himself, how poor a thing is man !
And how turmoil'd they are that level lie With earth, and cannot lift themselves from thence ; That never are at peace with their desires, But work beyond their years ; and ev'n deny Dotage her rest, and hardly will dispense With death. That when ability expires, Desire lives still — so much delight they have, To carry toil and travail to the grave.
Whose ends you see ; and what can be the best They reach unto, when they have cast the sum And reck'nings of their glory. And you know, This floating life hath but this port of rest, A heart prepared, that fears no ill to come. And that man's greatness rests but in his show, The best of all whose days consumed are, Either in war, or peace conceiving war.
This concord, Madam, of a well-tun'd mind Hath been so set by that all-working hand Of heav'n, that tho' the world hath done his
worst
To put it out by discords most unkind ; Yet doth it still in perfect union stand With God and man ; nor ever will be f orc'd From that most sweet accord ; but still agree, Equal in fortune's inequality.
And this note, Madam, of your worthiness Kemains recorded in so many hearts, As time nor malice cannot wrong your right,
Epistle to Countess of Cumberland 37
In th' inheritance of fame you must possess : You that have built you by your great deserts, Out of small means, a far more exquisite And glorious dwelling for your honour'd name, Than all the gold of leaden minds can frame.
From MUSOPHILUS
NON OMNIS MORIAR
SHORT-BREATHED Mortality would yet extend That span of life so far forth as it may ; And rob her fate, seek to beguile her end Of some few lingering days of after-stay ; That all this Little-all might not descend Into the dark an universal prey : A.nd give our labours yet this poor delight That when our days do end, they are not done ; And though we die, we shall not perish quite, But live two lives where others have but one.
LITERATURE
? O blessed Letters, that combine in one • All ages past, and make one live with all ! j By you we do confer with who are gone, ? And the dead-living unto council call : By you the unborn shall have communion Of what we feel and what doth us befall.
Soul of the World, Knowledge, without thee What hath the earth that truly glorious is ] Why should our pride make such a stir to be, To be forgot 1 What good is like to this, To do worthy the writing, and to write Worthy the reading, and the world's delight ! 38
Musophilus 39
RELIGION
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 !
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 but up the row ;
And serves 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 ungraced, and die but in neglect.
And for my part, if only one allow The care my labouring spirits take in this ; He is to me a theatre large enow, And his applause only sufficient is ; All my respect is bent but to his brow ; That is my all, and all I am is his.
40 Musophilus
ENGLISH POETRY
Power above Powers ! 0 heavenly Eloquence ! That with the strong rein of commanding words Dost manage, guide, and master the eminence Of men's affections, more than all their swords ! Shall we not offer to thy excellence The richest treasure that our wit affords ?
Thou that can'st do much more with one poor pen, Than all the powers of Princes can effect, And draw, divert, dispose, and fashion men, Better than force or rigour can direct ! Should we this ornament of glory, then, As the unmaterial fruits of shades, neglect 1
Or should we careless come behind the rest In power of words, that go before in worth ; Whenas our accent's equal to the best, Is able greater wonders to bring forth 1 When all that ever hotter spirits exprest Comes bettered by the patience of the North.
From THE EPISTLE TO SIR THOMAS EGERTON
LAW
Now when we see the most combining band, The strongest fastening of Society, Law, whereon all this frame of men doth stand, Eemain concussed with uncertainty ; And seem to foster, rather than withstand, Contention, and embrace obscurity, Only to afflict, and not to fashion us, Making her cure far worse than the disease :
As if she had made covenant with wrong To part the prey made on our weaknesses ; And suffered falsehood to be armed as strong Unto the combat as is righteousness ; Or suited her, as if she did belong Unto our passions, and did even profess Contention, as her only mystery, Which she restrains not, but doth multiply ; —
Was she the same she is now in ages past,
Or was she less when she was used less ?
And grows as malice grows, and so comes cast
Just to the form of our unquietness 1
Or made more slow the more that strife runs fast,
Staying to undo us ere she will redress ?
42 Epistle to Sir Thomas Egerton
That the ill she checks seems suffered to be ill, When it yields greater gain than goodness will.
Must there be still some discord mixt among The harmony of men whose mood accords Best with contention, tuned to a note of wrong, That when war fails, peace must make war with
words,
And be armed unto destruction even as strong As were in ages past our civil swords ; Making as deep although unbleeding wounds That whenas fury fails, wisdom confounds.
If it be wisdom and not cunning this
"Which so embroils the state of Truth with brawls,
And wraps it up in strange confusedness
As if it lived immured within the walls
Of hideous terms, framed out of barbarousness
And foreign customs, the memorials
Of our subjection, and could never be
Delivered but by wrangling subtilty.
Whereas it dwells free in the open plain
Uncurious, gentle, easy of access :
Certain unto itself ; of equal vein ;
One face, one colour, one assuredness.
It's falsehood that is intricate and vain,
And needs these labyrinths of subtleness :
For where the cunning' st coverings most appear,
It argues still that all is not sincere.
Epistle to Sir Thomas Egerton 43
JUSTICE
All glory else besides ends with our breath, And men's respects scarce brings us to our grave : But this of doing good must outlive death And have a right out of the right it gave. Though th' act but few, th' example profiteth Thousands that shall thereby a blessing have. The world's respect grows not but on deserts ; Power may have knees, but Justice hath our hearts.
From THE TRAGEDY OF PHILOTAS
How dost thou wear and weary out thy days, v^ Eestless ambition, never at an end ! Whose travels no Herculean pillar stays, But still beyond thy rest thy labours tend ; Above good fortune thou thy hopes dost raise, Still climbing, and yet never canst ascend : For when thou hast attained unto the top Of thy desires, thou hast not yet got up.
That height of fortune either is controlled By some more powerful overlooking eye, That doth the fulness of thy grace withhold, Or counter-checked with some concurrency ; That it doth cost far more ado to hold The height attained, than was to get so high ; Where stand thou canst not but with careful toil, Nor loose thy hold without thy utter spoil.
There dost thou struggle with thine own distrust And others' jealousies ; there counterplot Against some underworking pride, that must Supplanted be, or else thou standest not ; There wrong is played with wrong, and he that
thrust
Down others comes himself to have that lot. The same concussion doth afflict his breast That others shook ; oppression is oppressed.
The Tragedy of Philotas 45
That either Happiness dwells not so high, Or else above, whereto Pride cannot rise : And that the highest of man's felicity But in the region of Affliction lies : And that we climb but up to misery. High fortunes are but high calamities !
It is not in that sphere where Peace doth move ;
Eest dwells below it, Happiness above.
ULYSSES AND THE SIREN
SIREN
COME, worthy Greek ! Ulysses, come ; Possess these shores with me ! The winds and seas are troublesome And here we may be free !
Here may we sit and view their toil That travail on the deep, And joy the day in mirth the while And spend the night in sleep.
ULYSSES
Fair nymph, if fame or honour were To be attained with ease, Then would I come and rest [me there] And leave such toils as these.
But here it dwells, and here must I With danger seek it forth : To spend the time luxuriously Becomes not men of worth.
SIREN
Ulysses, O be not deceived
With that unreal name ;
This honour is a thing conceived
And rests on others' fame ;
46
Ulysses and the Siren 47
Begotten only to molest Our peace, and to beguile The best thing of our life— our rest, And give us up to toil.
ULYSSES
Delicious nymph, suppose there were Nor honour nor report, Yet manliness would scorn to wear The time in idle sport ;
For toil doth give a better touch To make us feel our joy, And ease finds tediousness as much As labour yields annoy.
SIREN
Then pleasure likewise seems the shore Whereto tends all your toil, Which you forgo to make it more, And perish oft the while.
Who may disport them diversely Find never tedious day, And ease may have variety As well as action may.
ULYSSES
But natures of the noblest frame These toils and dangers please ; And they take comfort in the same As much as you in ease ;
And with the thought of actions past Are recreated still ; 'When Pleasure leaves a touch at last To shew that it was ill.
48 Ulysses and the Siren
SIREN
That doth Opinion only cause That's out of Custom bred, Which makes us many other laws Than ever Nature did.
No widows wail for our delights, Our sports are without blood ; The world we see by warlike wights Eeceives more hurt than good.
ULYSSES
But yet the state of things require These motions of unrest ; And these great spirits of high desire Seem born to turn them best ;
To purge the mischiefs that increase And all good order mar, For oft we see a wicked peace To be well changed for war.
SIREN
Well, well, Ulysses, then I see
I shall not have thee here ;
And therefore I will come to thee
And take my fortune there.
I must be won that cannot win ( Yet lost were I not won, / For beauty hath created been
To undo, or be undone,
K ititm
From THE QUEEN'S ARCADIA v BEAUTY
SOMETHING there is peculiar and alone \> every beauty, that doth give an edge \> our desires, and more we will conceive ^n that we have not, than in that we have. And I have heard abroad, where best experience And wit is learned, that all the fairest choice Of women in the world serve but to make One perfect beauty, whereof each brings part. One hath a pleasing smile, and nothing else : Another but some silly mole to grace The area of a disproportioned face ; Another pleases not but when she speaks, And some in silence only graceful are : Some till they laugh, we see, seem to be fair ; Some have their bodies good, their gestures ill, Some please in motion, some in sitting still ; Some are thought lovely that have nothing fair, Some again fair that nothing lovely are. So that we see how beauty doth consist Of divers pieces, and yet all attract.
(ACT ii. SCENE in.)
49
From TETHYS' FESTIVAL
PLEASURE AND IMAGINATION
ARE they shadows that we see ] And can shadows pleasure give 1 Pleasures only shadows be, Cast by bodies we conceive, And are made the things we deem In those figures which they seem.
But these pleasures vanish fast, Which by shadows are exprest ; Pleasures are not, if they last ;
i In their passing is their best.
j Glory is most bright and gay
1 In a flash and so away.
Feed apace, then, greedy eyes On the wonder you behold ; Take it sudden as it flies, Though you take it not to hold. When your eyes have done their part, Thought must length it in the heart.
From HYMEN'S TRIUMPH
THIRSIS DESCRIBES His FIRST LOVE FOR SILVIA
AH, I remember well (and how can I But evermore remember well) when first Our flame began, when scarce we knew what was The flame we felt ; when as we sat and sighed And looked upon each other, and conceived Not what we ailed, yet something we did ail ; And yet were well, and yet we were not well ; And what was our disease we could not tell. Then would we kiss, then sigh, then look : And thus In that first garden of our simpleness We spent our childhood : but when years began To reap the fruit of knowledge, ah, how then Would she with graver looks, with sweet stern brow, Check my presumption and my forwardness j Yet still would give me flowers, still would me show What she would have me, yet not have me, know.
THIRSIS' SONG
Eyes hide my love and do not show
To any but to her my notes, Who only doth that cipher know,
Wherewith we pass our secret thoughts : Bely your looks in others' sight ;
And wrong yourselves to do her right.
51
52 Hymen's Triumph
Chorus.
Love is a sickness full of woes
All remedies refusing : A plant that with most cutting grows, Most barren with best using.
Why so ?
More we enjoy it, more it dies ; If not enjoyed, it sighing cries Heyho.
Love is a torment of the mind,
A tempest everlasting : And Jove hath made it of a kind, Not well, nor full, nor fasting.
Why so 1
More we enjoy it, more it dies, If not enjoyed, it sighing cries Heyho.
THE EECOVERY OF THIRSIS AND SILVIA
Good news, my friends, and I will tell it you ! Silvia and Thirsis being to my cottage brought, The skilful Lamia comes and searched the wound Which Silvia had received of this rude swain. And finding it not deadly, she applied Those remedies she knew of best effect. And binds it up and pours into her mouth Such cordial waters as revive the spirits : And so much wrought, as she at length perceived Life was not quite gone out, but lay oppressed.
With like endeavours we on Thirsis work, And ministered like cordials unto him : At length we might hear Silvia fetch a groan, And therewithal Thirsis perceived to move ;
Hymen's Triumph 53
Then Thirsis fetched a groan, and Silvia moved, As if their lives were made both of one piece. Whereat we joyed and then removed, and set Each before other, and held up their heads, And chafed their temples, rubbed and stroked their cheeks.
Wherewith first Silvia cast up her dim eyes And presently did Thirsis lift up his. And then again they both together sighed And each on other fixed an unseeing eye : For yet 'twas scarce the twilight of their new Returning day, out of the night of death. And though they saw, they did not yet perceive Each other, and yet both turned to one point, As touched alike, and held their looks direct. At length we might perceive, as life began To appear, and make the morning in their eyes ; Their beams were clearer, and their opener looks Did shew as if they took some little note Of each the other : yet not so as they Could thoroughly discern who themselves were.
And then we took and joined their hands in one, And held them so a while, until we felt How ev'n each other's touch the motion gave Unto their feeling, and they trembling wrung Their hands together, and so held them locked, Looked still upon each other, but no words at all.
Then we called out to Thirsis, " Thirsis, look, It is thy Silvia thou here hold'st, she is Returned, revived, and safe; Silvia, behold thou hast Thy Thirsis, and sbalt ever have him thine."
Then did we set them both upon their feet And there they stood in act, ev'n as before, Looking upon each other, hand in hand :
54 Hymen's Triumph
At last we saw a blushing red appear In both their cheeks, which sense set as a lamp To light their understanding. And forthwith The tears gushed forth their eyes, which hindered
them
A while from seeing each other, till they had Cleared them again. And then as if new waked From out a fearful dream, they stand and doubt Whether they were awake indeed, or else Still in a dream, distrusting their own eyes. Their long-endured miseries would not Let them believe their sudden happiness Although they saw it : till with much ado They had confirmed their credit, and had kissed Each other, and embraced, and kissed again, And yet still dumb ; their joy now seemed to be Too busy with their thoughts, to allow them words.
And then they walked a little, then stood still, Then walked again, and still held other fast, As if they feared they should be lost again.
And when at last they spake, it was but this, 0 Silvia and 0 Thirsis, and there stopped.
We, lest our sight and presence (being there So many) hinder might the passage of Their modest, simple and unpractised love, Came all our way, and only Lamia left, Whose spirit, and that sufficient skill she hath, Will serve, no doubt, to see they shall do well.
ODE
Now each creature joys the other Passing happy days and hours,
One bird reports unto another In the fall of silver showers,
Whilst the earth (our common mother) Hath her bosom decked with flowers.
Whilst the greatest torch of heaven, With bright rays warms Flora's lap,
Making nights and days both even, Cheering plants with fresher sap ;
My field, of flowers quite bereayen^ Wants refresh of better hap.
Echo, daughter of the Air,
Babbling guest of rocks and hills,
Knows the name of my fierce Fair, And sounds the accents of my ills.
Each thing pities my despair, Whilst that she her lover kills.
55
An Ode
Whilst that she, 0 cruel maid, Doth me and my l love despise,
My life's flourish is decayed That depended on her eyes :
But her will must be obeyed,
And well he ends for love who dies.
1 First edition reads my true love.
n: Sfdrt^huHa.Hfi (Warma^viffa. ttnctms. Tnte tws Qunas^ ofsf^&imdftttt. ,Qirv7jUtnert<>.Qatriam moimmmL aixh. & atria
A SELECTION FROM THE POEMS OF MICHAEL DRAYTON
From THE NINTH ECLOGUE
DAFFADILL
Batte. Gorbo as thou cam'st this way By yonder little hill, Or as thou through the fields didst stray Saw'st thou my Daffadill ?
She's in a frock of Lincoln green, Which colour likes her sight, And never hath her beauty seen ' But through a veil of white.
Than roses richer to behold That trim up lovers' bowers, The pansy and the marigold, Though Phoebus' paramours.
57
58 Daffadill
Gorbo. Thou well describ'st the daffadill ; Ifc is not full an hour Since by the spring near yonder hill I saw that lovely flower.
Batte. Yet my fair flower thou didst not meet Nor news of her didst bring, And yet my Daffadill's more sweet Than that by yonder spring.
Gorbo. I saw a shepherd, that doth keep In yonder field of lilies, Was making (as he fed his sheep) A wreath of daffadilies.
Batte. Yet, Gorbo, thou delud'st me still ; My flower thou didst not see, For, know, my pretty DafFadill Is worn of none but me.
I To show itself but near her feet i No lily is so bold, • Except to shade her from the heat 1 Or keep her from the cold.
Gorbo. Through yonder vale as I did pass, Descending from the hill, I met a smirking bonny lass ; They call her Daffadill.
Whose presence as along she went
The pretty flowers did greet
As though their heads they downward bent
With homage to her feet.
Daffadill 59
And all the shepherds that were nigh From top of every hill Unto the valleys loud did cry " There goes sweet Daffadill."
Batte. Ay, gentle shepherd, now with joy Thou all my flocks dost fill ; That's she alone, kind shepherd's boy ; Let us to Daffadill.
From ENDYMION AND PHCEBE
DIANA'S GROVE AT LATMOS
UPON this mount there stood a stately grove, Whose reaching arms to clip the welkin strove, Of tufted Cedars and the branching Pine Whose bushy tops themselves do so entwine As seemed when Nature first this work begun She then conspired against the piercing Sun : Under whose covert thus divinely made Phoebus' green Laurel flourished in the shade, Fair Venus' Myrtle, Mars' his warlike Fir, Minerva's Olive, and the weeping Myrrh, The patient Palm which thrives in spite of hate, The Poplar to Apollo consecrate. Which Nature in such order had disposed, And therewithal these goodly walks enclosed, As served for hangings and rich tapestry To beautify this stately gallery. Embroidring these in curious trailsLalong The clustred grapes, the golden citrons hung \ More glorious than the precious fruit were these Kept by the dragon in Hesperides,
r gorgeous arras in rich colours wrought ^With silk from Afric or from India brought. Out of this soil sweet bubbling fountains crept,
As though for joy the senseless stones had wept ; 60
Endymion and Phcebe 61
With straying channels dancing sundry ways, With often turns, like to a curious maze ; Which breaking forth the tender grass bedewed, Whose silver sand with orient pearl was strewed ; i Shadowed with roses and sweet eglantine (Dipping their sprays into tlnsjetysialliae. ; From which the birds the purple berries pruned And to their loves their small recorders tuned ; The nightingale, wood's herald of the spring, The whistling ousel, mavis carolling, Tuning their trebles to the water's fall ; — Which made the music more angelical. Whilst gentle zephyr, murmuring among, Kept time, and bare the burden to the song.
From ENGLAND'S HEROICAL EPISTLES
CHARLES BRANDON, DUKE OF SUFFOLK, TO MARY, THE FRENCH QUEEN
BUT that my faith commands me to forbear, The fault's your own if I impatient were j Were my despatch such as should be my speed, I should want time your loving lines to read. Here in the Court, chameleon-like I fare, And as that creature only feed on air. All day I wait and all the night I watch, And starve mine ears to hear of my despatch.
If Dover were th' Abydos of my rest, Or pleasant Calais were my Mary's Sest, You should not need, bright Queen, to blame me so, Did not the distance to desire say no ; No tedious night from travel should be free, Till through the seas, with swimming still to thee, A snowy path I made unto thy bay So bright as is that nectar-stained way The restless sun by travelling doth wear Passing his course to finish up the year. But Paris locks my love within the main, And London yet thy Brandon doth detain.
Of thy firm love thou put'st me still in mind, But of my faith not one word can I find.
62
England's Heroical Epistles 63
When Longaville to Mary was affied And thou by him wast made King Lewis' bride, Oft have I wished that thou a prize might'st be That I in arms might combat him for thee ! And in the madness of my love distraught A thousand times his murder have forethought But that th' all-seeing Powers, which sit above, Eegard not madmen's oaths, nor faults in love ; And have confirmed it by the grant of heaven That lovers' sins on earth should be forgiven. For never man is half so much distressed As he that loves, to see his love possessed.
Coming to Eichmond after thy depart, Eichmond where first thou stol'st away my heart, Methought it looked not as it did of late, But, wanting thee, forlorn and desolate ; In whose fair walks thou often hast been seen To sport with Kath'rine, Henry's beauteous queen, Astonishing sad winter with thy sight, So that for thee the day hath put back night ; And the small birds,, as in the pleasant spring, Forget themselves and have begun to sing.
So oft as I by Thames go and return Methinks for thee the river yet doth mourn ; Whom I have seen to let his stream at large Which, like an handmaid, waited on thy barge, And if thou hap'st against the flood to row, Which way it ebb'd it presently would flow, Weeping in drops upon the labouring oars For joy that it had got thee from the shores. The swans, with music that the rudders make, Euffling their plumes came gliding on the lake, As the swift dolphins by Arion's strings Were brought to land with siren ravishings.
64: England's Heroical Epistles
The flocks and herds that pasture near the flood To gaze on thee have oft forborne their food, And sat down sadly mourning by the brim That they by nature were not made to swim.
How should I joy of thy arrive to hear 1
But as a poor sea-faring passenger
After long travel, tempest-torn and wracked,
By some unpitying pirate that is sacked,
Hears the false robber that hath stol'n his wealth
Landed in some safe harbour, and in health,
Enriched with the invaluable store
For which he long had travelled before !
When Marquess Dorset and the valiant Grays To purchase fame first crossed the narrow seas, With all the knights that my associates went In honour of thy nuptial tournament, Think'st thou I joy'd not in thy beauty's pride When thou in triumph did'st through Paris ride, Where all the streets as thou did'st pass along With arras, biss, and tapestry was hung ? Ten thousand gallant citizens prepared In rich attire thy princely self to guard : Next them, three thousand choice religious men In golden vestments followed on agen, And in procession as they came along With Hymen sweetly sang the marriage song : Next these, five Dukes, as did their places fall, With each of them a princely Cardinal : Then thou, on thy imperial chariot set, Crowned with a rich impearled coronet ; Whilst the Parisian dames, as thy train past, Their precious incense in abundance cast.
England's Heroical Epistles 65
As Cynthia, from her wave-embattled shrouds, Opening the west, comes streaming through the
clouds,
With shining troops of silver- tressed stars Attending on her as her torch-bearers ; And all the lesser lights about her throne With admiration stand as lookers-on ; Whilst she alone in height of all her pride The Queen of Light along her sphere doth glide.
When on the tilt rny horse like thunder came No other signal had I but thy name ; Thy voice my trumpet and my guide thine eyes, And but thy beauty I esteemed no prize. That large-limbed Almain of the Giant's race, Which bare strength on his breast, fear in his
face,
Whose sinewed arms with his steel-tempered blade Through plate and mail such open passage made, Upon whose might the Frenchmen's glory lay, And all the hope of that victorious day ; Thou saw'st thy Brandon beat him on his knee, Offering his shield a conquered spoil to thee. But thou wilt say perhaps, I vainly boast And tell thee that which thou already know'st. No, sacred Queen, my valour I deny, It was thy beauty not my chivalry. One of thy tressed curls there falling down As loath to be imprisoned in thy crown, I saw the soft air sportively to take it, And into strange and sundry forms to make it ; Now parting it to four, to three, to twain, Now twisting it, then it untwist again ; mhen make the threads to dally with thine eye, A sunny candle for a golden fly. E
66 England's Heroical Epistles
At length from thence one little tear it got, Which falling down as though a star had shot, My up-turned eye pursued it with my sight, The which again redoubled all my might.
'Tis but in vain of my descent to boast ; When Heaven's lamp shines, all other lights be lost. iF.-ilcons seem poor, the eagle sitting by, \Whose brood surveys the sun with open eye. Else might my blood find issue from his force Who beat the tyrant Richard from his horse On Bosworth plain, whom Richmond chose to wield His glorious ensign in that conquering field ; And with his sword, in his dear sovereign's fight, To his last breath stood fast in Henry's right.
Then, beauteous Empress, think this safe delay Shall be the even to a joyful day. Foresight doth still on all advantage lie ; Wise men must give place to necessity ; To put back ill our good we must forbear ; Better first fear than after still to fear. 'Twere oversight in that, at which we aim, To put the hazard on an after-game ; With patience then let us our hopes attend ; And, till I come, receive these lines I send.
A PASSION or KING HENRY TO FAIR ROSAMOND
Fatal my birth, unfortunate my life, Unkind my children, most unkind my wife. Grief, cares, old age, suspicion, to torment me ; Nothing on earth to quiet or content me ; So many woes, so many plagues to find — Sickness of body, discontent of mind.
England's Heroical Epistles 67
Hopes left, helps reft, life wronged, joy interdicted, Banished, distressed, forsaken and afflicted. Of all relief hath Fortune quite bereft me ; Only my love yet to my comfort left me. And is one beauty thought so great a thing To mitigate the sorrows of a king ? Barred of that choice the vulgar often prove, Have we than they less privilege in love 1 "' I Is it a king the woful widow hears ? - [Is it a king dries up the orphan's tears ? Us it a king regards the client's cry ? Gives life to him by law condemned to die ? Is it his care the commonwealth that keeps, As doth the nurse her baby whilst it sleeps 1 — And that poor king of all those hopes prevented, Unheard, unhelped, unpitied, unlamented ! Yet let me be with poverty oppressed, Of earthly blessings robbed and dispossessed, Let me be scorned, rejected, and reviled, And from my kingdom let me live exiled ; Let the world's curse upon me still remain, And let the last bring on the first again, All miseries that wretched man may wound ; — Leave for my comfort only Rosamund. Thy presence hath repaired in one day What many years with sorrow did decay, And made fresh beauty in her flower to spring Out of the wrinkles of Time's ruining. Even as the hungry winter-starved earth When she by nature labours towards her birth, Still as the day upon the dark world creeps, One blossom forth after another peeps, Till the small flower, whose root at last unbound Gets from the frosty prison of the ground,
68 England's Heroical Epistles
Spreading the leaves unto the powerful noon, Decked in fresh colours smiles upon the sun.
PRINCES LIKE SUNS
Princes, like suns, be evermore in sight ; All see the clouds betwixt them and their light ; Yet they which lighten all, down from their skies, See not the clouds offending others' eyes. And deem their noontide is desired of all, When all expect clear changes from their fall.
LOVE'S SEPTEMBER
MY breast Avhich once was mirth's imperial throne A vast and desert wilderness is grown : Like that cold region from the world remote, On whose breem seas the icy mountains float ; Where those poor creatures, banished from the light, Do live imprisoned in continual night. No object greets my soul's internal eyes But divinations of sad tragedies ; And care takes up her solitary inn Where youth and joy their court did once begin. As in September, when our year resigns The glorious sun to the cold watery signs Which through the clouds looks on the earth in
scorn,
The little bird yet to salute the morn Upon the naked branches sets her foot, The leaves then lying on the mossy root, And there a silly chirriping doth keep As though she fain would sing, yet fain would weep, Praising fair summer that too soon is gone, Or sad for Winter too fast coming on : In this strange plight I mourn for thy depart Because that weeping cannot ease my heart.
THE TOWER OF MORTIMER From the Barons' Wars
WITHIN the Castle had the Queen devised, Long about which she busied had her thought, A chamber, wherein she imparadised What shapes for her could anywhere be sought ; Which in the same were curiously comprised, By skilful painters excellently wrought : And in the place of greatest safety there, Which she had named the Tower of Mortimer.
A room prepared with pilasters she chose, That to the roof their slender points did rear, Arching the top, whereas they all did close, Which from below showed like an hemisphere ; In whose concavity she did compose The constellations that to us appear
In their corporeal shapes, with stars enchased, As by the old poets they on Heaven were placed.
About which lodging, towards the upper face, Ran a fine border, circularly led, As equal 'twixt the zenith and the base, Which as a zone the waist engirdled, That lent the sight a breathing, by the space 'Twixt things near hand and those far overhead, Upon the plain wall of which lower part Painting expressed the utmost of her art.
69
70 The Barons' Wars
There Phcebus clipping Hyacinthus stood, Whose life's last drops did the god's breast imbrue, His tears so mixed with the young boy's blood, That whether was the more no eye could view ; And though together lost as in a flood, Yet here and there the one from the other drew.: The pretty wood-nymphs chafing him with balm, Proving to wake him from his deadly qualm.
Apollo's quiver and far-killing bow, His gold-fringed mantle on the grassful ground, To express whose act Art even her best did show, The sledge so shadowed still as to rebound, As it had scarce done giving of the blow, Lending a lasting freshness to the wound ;
The purple flower from the boy's blood begun, That since ne'er spreads but to the rising sun.
There Mercury was like a shepherd's boy, Sporting with Hebe by a fountain brim, With many a sweet glance, many an amorous toy; He sprinkling drops at her, and she at him : Wherein the painter so explained their joy As he had meant the very life to limn :
For on their brows he made the drops so clear That through each drop their fair skins did appear.
By them in landscape rocky Cynthus reared, With the clouds leaning on his lofty crown, On his sides showing many a straggling herd. And from his top the clear springs creeping down By the old rocks, each with a hoary beard, With moss and climbing ivy overgrown :
The Tower of Mortimer 71
So done that the beholders with the skill Never enough their longing eyes could fill.
The half-naked nymphs, some climbing, some
descending,
The sundry flowers at one another flung, In postures strange their limber bodies bending ; Some cropping branches that seemed lately sprung, Upon the brakes their coloured mantles rending, Which on the mount grew here and there among ; Combing their hair some, some made garlands by : So strove the painter to content the eye.
In one part, Phaeton cast amongst the clouds By Phoebus' palfreys, that their reins had broke, His chariot tumbling from the welked shrouds, And the fierce steeds flew madding from their yoke ; The elements confusedly in crowds, And heaven and earth were nought but flame and
smoke ;
A piece so done that many did desire To warm themselves, some frighted with the fire.
And for the light to this brave lodging lent, The workman, who as wisely could direct, Did for the same the windows so invent That they should artificially reflect The day alike on every lineament To their proportion, and had such respect
As that the beams, condensated and grave,
To every figure a sure colour gave.
In part of which, under a golden vine, Which held a curious canopy through all,
72 The Barons' Wars
Stood a rich bed, quite covered with the twine, Shadowing the same in the redoubling fall, Whose clusters drew the branches to decline, 'Mongst which did many a naked Cupid sprawl : Some at the sundry-coloured birds did shoot, And some about to pluck the purple fruit.
On which a tissue counterpane was cast, -^-racnne's web did not the same surpass,_ Wn^eTeln~^e"^f6r)rbThis fortunes past In lively pictures neatly handled was, — How he escaped the Tower, in France how graced,— With stones embroidered of a wondrous mass j About the border, in a fine-wrought fret, Emblems, impresses, hieroglyphics set.
This flattering sunshine had begot the shower, And the black clouds with such abundance fed, That for a wind they waited but the hour With force to let their fury on his head ; Which when it came, it came with such a power As he could hardly have imagined :
But when men think they most in safety stand, Their greatest peril often is at hand.
For to that largeness they increased were, That Edward felt March heavy on his throne, Whose props no longer both of them could bear, Two for one seat that over-great were grown, Preposterously that moved in one sphere, And to the like predominancy prone,
That the young King down Mortimer must cast, If he himself would e'er hope to sit fast.
The Tower of Mortimer 73
Who finding the necessity was such That urged him still the assault to undertake, And yet his person it might nearly touch Should he too soon his sleeping power awake ; The attempt, wherein the danger was so much, Drove him at length a secret means to make Whereby he might the enterprise effect, And hurt him most where he did least suspect.
Without the castle, in the earth is found A cave, resembling sleepy Morpheus' cell, In strange meanders winding underground, Where darkness seeks continually to dwell, Which with such fear and horror doth abound As though it were an entrance into hell : By architects to serve the castle made Whenas the Danes this island did invade.
Now, on along the crankling path doth keep, Then by a rock turns up another way, Rising towards day, then falling towards the deep, On a smooth level then itself doth lay, Directly then, then obliquely doth creep, Nor in the course keeps any certain stay, Till in the castle, in an odd by-place, It casts the foul mask from its dusky face.
By which the King, with a selected crew Of such as he with his intent acquainted, Which he affected to the action knew, And in revenge of Edward had not fainted, That to their utmost would the cause pursue, And with those treasons that had not been tainted, Adventured the labyrinth to essay, To rouse the beast which kept them all at bay.
74 The Barons' Wars
Long after Phoebus took his labouring team To his pale sister and resigned his place, To wash his cauples in the ocean stream, And cool the fervour of his glowing face ; And Phoebe, scanted of her brother's beam, Into the West went after him apace,
Leaving black darkness to possess the sky, To fit the time of that black tragedy.
What time by torchlight they attempt the cave, Which at their entrance seemed in a fright With the reflection that their armour gave, As it till then had ne'er seen any light ; Which striving their pre-eminence to have, Darkness therewith so daringly doth fight That each confounding other, both appear As darkness light, and light but darkness were.
And by the lights as they along were led, Their shadows then them following at their back, I Were like to mourners carrying forth their~dead, And as the deed so were they ugly black, Or like the fiends that them had followed, Pricking them on to bloodshed and to wrack ; Whilst the light looked as it had been amazed At their deformed shapes whereon it gazed.
The night waxed old (not dreaming of these
things),
And to her chamber is the Queen withdrawn, To whom a choice musician plays and sings Whilst she sat under an estate of lawn, In night attire more godlike glittering Than any eye had seen the cheerful dawn,
The Tower of Mortimer 75
Leaning upon her most loved Mortimer, Whose voice, more than the music, pleased her ear.
Where her fair breasts at liberty were let, .j ?
Whose violet veins in branched riverets flow, And Venus' swans and milky doves were set Upon those swelling mounts of driven snow ; Whereon, whilst Love to sport himself doth get?, He lost his way, nor back again could go, But with those banks of beauty set about He wandered still, yet never could get out.
Her loose hair looked like gold (0 word too base !
Nay, more than sin but so to name her hair)
Declining, as to kiss her fairer face,
No word is fair enough for thing so fair,
Nor ever was there epithet could grace
That by much praising which we much impair ; And where the pen fails, pencils cannot show it, Only the soul may be supposed to know it.
She laid her fingers on his manly cheek, The god's pure sceptres and the darts of love, That with their touch might make a tiger meek Or might great Atlas from his seat remove ; So white, so soft, so delicate, so sleek, As she had worn a lily for a glove,
As might beget life where was never none, And put a spirit into the hardest stone.
The fire of precious wood, the light perfume, Which left a sweetness on each thing it shone, f«
76 The Barons' Wars
As everything did to itself assume The scent from them, and made the same their own : So that the painted flowers within the room Were sweet, as if they naturally had grown ; The light gave colours which upon them fell, And to the colours the perfume gave smell.
When on those sundry pictures they devise, And from one piece they to another run, Commend that face, that arm, that hand, those eyes, Show how that bird, how well that flower was done, How this part shadowed, and how that did rise, This top was clouded, how that trail was spun,
The landscape, mixture, and delineatings.
And in that art a thousand curious things.
Looking upon proud Phaeton wrapped in fire, The gentle Queen did much bewail his fall ; But Mortimer commended his desire To lose one poor life or to govern all : " What though," quoth he, " he madly did aspire, And his great mind made him proud Fortune's
thrall ?
Yet in despite, when she her worst had done, He perished in the chariot of the sun."
When by that time into the Castle hall Was rudely entered that well-armed rout, And they within suspecting nought at all, Had then no guard to watch for them without : See how mischances suddenly do fall, And steal upon us, being farth'st from doubt : Our life's uncertain and our death is sure, And towards most peril man is most secure.
IDEA
IF chaste and pure devotion of my youth, "'
Or glory of my April- springing years,
Unfeigned love in naked, simple truth,
A thousand vows, a thousand sighs and tears ;
Or if a world of faithful service done,
Words, thoughts, and deeds devoted to her honour,
Or eyes that have beheld her as their sun,
With admiration ever looking on her ;
A life that never joyed but in her love,
A soul that ever hath adored her name,
A faith that Time nor Fortune could not move,
A Muse that unto heaven hath raised her fame ;
Though these, nor these, deserve to be em braced,
Yet, fair unkind, too good to be disgraced.
My heart was slain, and none but you and I ; Who should I think the murder should commit Since but yourself there was no creature by, But only I, guiltless of murdering it. It slew itself ; the verdict on the view Do quit the dead, and me not accessory : Well, well, I fear it will be proved by you, The evidence so great a proof doth carry. But O, see, see, we need enquire no further, Upon your lips the scarlet drops are found,
77
78 Idea
And in your eye the boy that did the murder, Your cheeks yet pale, since first he gave the wound. By this I see, however things be past, Yet Heaven will still have murder out at last.
Nothing but No and I,1 and I and No : How falls it out so strangely you reply ? I tell you, fair, I'll not be answered so, With this affirming No, denying I. I say, I love, you slightly answer I : I say, you love, you pule me out a No : I say, I die, you echo me with I : Save me ! I cry, you sigh me out a No. Must woe and I have nought but No and 1 1 No, I am I, if I no more can have ; Answer no more, with silence make reply, And let me take myself what I do crave : Let No and I with I and you be so : Then answer No and I, and I and No.
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 sex's only glory : So shalt thou fly above the vulgar throng, Still to survive in my immortal song.
1 i.e., aye.
Idea 79
To nothing fitter can I thee compare
Than to the son of some rich penny-father,
Who having now brought on his end with care,
Leaves to his son all he had heaped together ;
This new rich novice, lavish of his chest,
To one man gives, doth on another spend,
Then here he riots, yet amongst the rest
Haps to lend some to one true honest friend.
Thy gifts thou in obscurity dost waste,
False friends thy kindness, born but to deceive
thee;
Thy love, that is on the unworthy placed ; Time hath thy beauty, which with age will leave
thee;
Only that little which to me was lent I give thee back when all the rest is spent.
If he from Heaven that filched that living fire Condemned by Jove to endless torment be, I greatly marvel how you still go free That far beyond Prometheus did aspire : The fire he stole, although of heavenly kind, Which from above he craftily did take, Of lifeless clods us living men to make, He did bestow in temper of the mind : But you broke into Heaven's immortal store, Where virtue, honour, wit, and beauty lay ; Which taking thence you have escaped away, Yet stand as free as e'er;you did before ;
Yet old Prometheus punished for his rape : Thus poor thieves suffer when the greater scape.
80 Idea
To TIME
Stay, speedy Time, behold before thou pass, From age to age what thou hast sought to see, One in whom all the excellences be, In whom Heaven looks itself as in a glass ; Time, look thou too in this translucent glass, And thy youth past in this pure mirror see, As the world's beauty in his infancy, What it was then, and thou before it was. Pass on, and to posterity tell this, Yet see thou tell but truly what hath been ; Say to our nephews that thou once hast seen In perfect human shape all heavenly bliss ;
And bid them mourn, nay more, despair with thee,
That she is gone, her like again to see.
The glorious Sun went blushing to his bed ; When my soul's sun from her fair cabinet Her golden beams had now discovered, Lightening the world eclipsed by his set. Some mused to see the earth envy the air, Which from her lips exhaled refined sweet ; A world to see, yet how he joyed to hear The dainty grass make music with her feet. But my most marvel was when from the skies So comet-like each star advanced her light, As though the heaven had now awaked her eyes, And summoned angels to this blessed sight. No cloud was seen, but crystalline the air, Laughing for joy upon my lovely fair.
Idea 81
To HUMOUR
You cannot love, my pretty heart, and why 1 There was a time you told me that you would : But now again you will the same deny, If it might please you, would to God you could. What, will you hate ? nay, that you will not neither ; Nor love, nor hate, how then ? what will you do ? What, will you keep a mean then betwixt either ? Or will you love me, and yet hate me too ? Yet serves not this : what next, what other shift ? You will and will not, what a coil is here ! I see your craft now I perceive your drift, And all this while I was mistaken there ;
Your love and hate is this, I now do prove you, You love in hate, by hate to make me love you.
Love, banished Heaven, in earth was held in scorn, Wandering abroad in need and beggary ; And wanting friends, though of a goddess born, Yet craved the alms of such as passed by : I, like a man devout and charitable, Clothed the naked, lodged this wandering guest, With sighs and tears still furnishing his table, With what might make the miserable blest ; But this ungrateful, for my good desert, Enticed my thoughts against me to conspire, Who gave consent to steal away my heart, And set my breast, his lodging, on a fire.
Well, well, my friends, when beggars grow thus bold,
No marvel then though charity grow cold.
Idea
I hear some say, " This man is not in love : Who can he love 1 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 1 So stands the case with me ; Where other men in depth of passion cry, I laugh at Fortune, as in jest to die.
To THE SENSES
When conquering love did first my heart assail, Unto mine aid I summoned every sense, Doubting, if that proud tyrant should prevail, My heart should suffer for mine eyes' offence ; But he with beauty first corrupted sight, My hearing bribed with her tongue's harmony, My taste by her sweet lips drawn with delight, My smelling won with her breath's spicery : But when my touching came to play his part (The king of senses, greater than the rest), He yields love up the keys unto my heart, And tells the other how they should be blest : And thus by those of whom I hoped for aid, To cruel love my soul was first betrayed.
Idea 83
To MIRACLE
Some, misbelieving and profane in love, When I do speak of miracles by thee, May say that thou art flattered by me, Who only write my skill in verse to prove ; See miracles, ye unbelieving, see, A dumb-born Muse made to express the mind, A cripple hand to write, yet lame by kind, One by thy name, the other touching thee ; Blind were mine eyes till they were seen of thine, And mine ears deaf, by thy fame healed be, My vices cured by virtues sprung from thee, • My hopes revived, which long in grave had lain : All unclean thoughts, foul spirits, cast out in me, Only by virtue that proceeds from thee.
CUPID CONJURED
Thou purblind boy, since thou hast been so slack To wound her heart whose eyes have wounded me, And suffered her to glory in my wrack, Thus to my aid I lastly conjure thee ; By hellish Styx, by which the Thunderer swears, By thy fair mother's unavoided power, By Hecate's names, by Proserpine's sad tears When she was rapo to the infernal bower ; By thine own Iov6d Psyche, by the fires Spent on thine altars, flaming up to Heaven ; By all true lovers' sighs, vows, and desires, By all the wounds that ever thou hast given ; I conjure thee by all that I have named To make her love, or Cupid, be thou damned.
84 Idea
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 though the day disjoin by several flight, The quiet evening yet together brings, And each returns unto his love at night 1 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.
Why should your fair eyes with such sovereign grace Disperse their rays on every vulgar spirit, Whilst I in darkness in the self-same place Get not one glance to recompense my merit ? So doth the ploughman gaze the wandering star, And only rest contented with the light, That never learned what constellations are, Beyond the bent of his unknowing sight. O, why should beauty, custom to obey, To their gross sense apply herself so ill ! Would God I were as ignorant as they, When I am made unhappy by my skill ;
Only compelled on this poor good to boast, Heavens are not kind to them that know them most.
Plain-pathed Experience, the unlearned's guide, Her simple followers evidently shows
Idea 85
Sometimes what schoolmen scarcely can decide,
Nor yet wise reason absolutely knows :
In making trial of a murder wrought,
If the vile actors of the heinous deed
Near the dead body happily be brought,
Oft 't hath been proved the breathless corse will
bleed;
She coming near, that my poor heart hath slain, Long since departed, to the world no more, The ancient wounds no longer can contain, But fall to bleeding, as they did before :
But what of this ? Should she to death be led, It furthers justice, but helps not the dead.
Thou leaden brain, which censurest what I write, And sayst my lines be dull and do not move ; I marvel not thou feel'st not my delight, Which never felt'st my fiery touch of love, But thou, whose pen hath like a pack-horse served, Whose stomach unto gall hath turned thy food, Whose senses, like poor prisoners, hunger-starved, Whose grief hath parched thy body, dried thy blood ; Thou which hast scorned life and hated death, And in a moment mad, sober, glad, and sorry : Thou which hast banned thy thoughts, and cursed
thy birth
With thousand plagues more than in Purgatory : Thou, thus whose spirit Love in his fire refines, Come thou and read, admire, applaud my lines.
As in some countries far remote from hence, The wretched creature destined to die, Having the judgment due to his offence, By surgeons begged, their art on him to try,
86 Idea
Which on the living work without remorse, First make incision on each mastering vein, Then stanch the bleeding, then transpierce the corse, And with their balms recure the wounds again, Then poison and with physic him restore : Not that they fear the hopeless man to kill, But their experience to increase the more : Even so my mistress works upon my ill ; By curing me and killing me each hour, Only to show her beauty's sovereign power.
To PROVERB
As Love and I late harboured in one inn, With proverbs thus each other entertain • "In love there is no lack," thus I begin ; " Fair words make fools," replieth he again : " Who spares to speak doth spare to speed," quoth I ; "As well," saith he, "too forward as too slow" : " Fortune assists the boldest," I reply ; " A hasty man," quoth he, " ne'er wanted woe " : " Labour is light where love," quoth I, " doth pay " ; Saith he, "Light burthen's heavy, if far borne " : Quoth I, " The main lost, cast the bye away " ; "You have spun a fair thread," he replies in scorn. And having thus a while each other thwarted, Fools as we met, so fools again we parted.
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,
Idea 87
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, When Faith is kneeling by his bed of death, Arid 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.
88
ODES
TO THE NEW YEAR
EICH statue, double-fac'd, With marble temples grac'd,
To raise thy godhead higher In flames where altars shining, Before thy priests divining,
Do odorous fumes expire ;
Great Janus, I thy pleasure, With all the Thespian treasure,
Do seriously pursue ; To the pass'd year returning, As though the old adjourning,
Yet bringing in the new.
Thy ancient vigils yearly I have observed clearly,
Thy feasts yet smoking be ; Since all thy store abroad is, Give something to my goddess,
As hath been us'd by thee.
To the New Year 89
Give her th' Eoan brightness, Wing'd with that subtle lightness,
That doth transpierce the air ; The roses of the morning The rising heav'n adorning,
To mesh with flames of hair ;
Those ceaseless sounds, above all, Made by those orbs that move all,
And ever swelling there, Wrap'd up in numbers flowing, Them actually bestowing,
For jewels at her ear.
0 rapture great and holy, Do thou transport me wholly,
So well her form to vary ; That I aloft may bear her, Whereas I will insphere her
In regions high and starry.
And in my choice composures The soft and easy closures
So amorously shall meet ; That every lively ceasure Shall tread a perfect measure, Set on so equal feet.
That spray to fame so fertile, The lover-crowning myrtle,
In wreaths of mixed boughs, Within whose shades are dwelling Those beauties most excelling,
Inthron'd upon her brows.
90 To the New Year
Those parallels so even, Drawn on the face of heaven,
That curious art supposes Direct those gems, whose clearness Far off amaze by uearness ;
Each globe such fire encloses.
Her bosom full of blisses, By nature made for kisses,
So pure and wond'rous clear, Whereas a thousand Graces Behold their lovely faces,
As they are bathing there.
O, thou self-little blindness, The kindness of unkindness,
Yet one of those divine, — Thy brands to me were liever Thy fascia, and thy quiver,
And thou this quill of mine.
This heart so freshly bleeding, Upon its own self feeding,
Whose wounds still dropping be ; 0 Love, thy self confounding : Her coldness so abounding,
And yet such heat in me.
Yet if I be inspired,
I'll leave thee so admired
To all that shall succeed, That were they more than many, 'Mongst all there is not any
That Time so oft shall read.
To the New Year 91
Nor adamant engraved,
That hath been choiceliest saved,
Idea's name outwears ; So large a dower as this is, The greatest often misses,
The diadem that bears.
TO HIS VALENTINE
MUSE bid the morn awake, Sad winter now declines, Each bird doth choose a make, ^ This day's Saint Valentine's ; For that good bishop's sake Gret up, and let us see, What beauty it shall be That fortune us assigns,
But lo, in happy hour,
The place wherein she lies, In yonder climbing tow'r,
Gilt by the glitt'ring rise ; 0 Jove ! that in a show'r,
As once that thund'rer did, When he in drops lay hid, That I could her surprise !
Her canopy I'll draw,
With spangled plumes bedight, No mortal ever saw
So ravishing a sight ; That it the gods might awe,
And powerfully transpierce The globy universe, Out-shooting ev'ry light.
To his Valentine 93
My lips I'll softly lay
Upon her heavenly cheek, Dyed like the dawning day,
As polish'd ivory sleek : And in her ear I'll say :
0, thon bright morning star, Tis I that come so far, My Valentine to seek.
Each little bird, this tide,
Doth choose her loved pheer, Which constantly abide
In wedlock all the year, As nature is their guide : So may we two be true This year nor change for new, As turtles coupled were.
The sparrow, swan, the dove, Tho' Venus' birds they be, Yet are they not for love
So absolute as we : For reason us doth move ;
They but by billing woo :
Then try what we can do,
To whom each sense is free.
Which we have more than they,
By livelier organs sway'd, Our appetite each way
More by our sense obey'd : Our passions to display
This season us doth fit ; Then let us follow it, As nature us doth lead.
94 To his Valentine
One kiss in two let's break,
Confounded with the touch ; But half words let us speak,
Our lips employ'd so much, Until we both grow weak ;
With sweetness of thy breath, O smother me to death ; Long let our joys be such.
Let's laugh at them that choose
Their Valentines by lot ; To wear their names that use, Whom idly they have got : Such poor choice we refuse ; Saint Valentine befriend, We thus this morn may spend, Else, Muse, awake her not.
THE HEART
IF thus we needs must go, What shall our one heart do, This one made of our two 1
Madam, two hearts we brake And from them both did take The best, one heart to make.
Half this is of your heart, Mine in the other part, Join'd by our equal art.
Were it cemented, or sewn, By shreds or pieces known, We each might find our own.
But 'tis dissolved, and fix'd, And with such cunning mix'd, No diffrence that betwixt.
But how shall we agree, By whom it kept shall be, Whether by you, or me 1
It cannot two breasts fill, One must be heartless still, Until the other will.
95
96 The Heart
It came to me to-day, When I wilFd it to say, With whether it would stay ?
It told me : In your breast, Where it might hope to rest : For if it were my guest,
For certainty it knew, That I would still anew Be sending it to you.
Never, I think had two Such work, so much to do, A unity to woo.
Yours was so cold and chaste Whilst mine with zeal did waste, Like fire with water plac'd.
How did my heart intreat, How pant, how did it beat, Till it could give your's heat !
Till to that temper brought, Through our perfection wrought, That blessing cither's thought,
In such a height it lies,
From this base world's dull eyes,
That heaven it not envies.
All that this earth can show, Our heart shall not once know, For it too vile and low.
TO MY WORTHY FRIEND MASTER JOHN SAVAGE
OF THE INNER TEMPLE
UPON this sinful earth If man can happy be, And higher than his birth, Friend, take him thus from me.
Whom promise not deceives That he the breach should rue, Nor constant reason leaves Opinion to pursue.
To raise his mean estate That soothes no wanton's sin ; Doth that preferment hate That virtue doth not win.
Nor bravery doth admire, Nor doth more love profess To that he doth desire Than that he doth possess.
Loose humour nor to please That neither spares nor spends, But by discretion weighs What is to needful ends.
G 97
98 Master John Savage
To him, deserving not, Not yielding, nor doth hold What is not his, doing what He ought, not what he could.
Whom the base tyrants' will So much could never awe, As him for good or ill From honesty to draw.
Whose constancy doth rise 'Bove undeserved spite, Whose valour's to despise That most doth him delight.
That early leave doth take Of th' world, though to his pain, For virtue's only sake, And not till need constrain.
No man can be so free, Though in imperial seat, Nor eminent as he That deemeth nothing great.
THE CRIER
GOOD folk, for gold or hire,
But help me to a crier ;
For my poor heart is run astray
After two eyes, that pass'd this way.
0 yes, O yes, O yes,
If there be any man,
In town or country, can
Bring me my heart again,
I'll please him for his pain ; And by these marks I will you show, That only I this heart do owe.
It is a wounded heart, Wherein yet sticks the dart, Ev'ry piece sore hurt throughout it, Faith and troth writ round about it : It was a tame heart, and a dear,
And never us'd to roam ; But having got this haunt, I fear
'Twill hardly stay at home. For God's sake, walking by the way,
If you my heart do see, Either impound it for a stray,
Or send it back to me.
99
TO HIS COY LOVE
A CANZONET
I PRAY thee, leave, love me no more,
Call home the heart you gave me, I but in vain that saint adore,
That can, but will not save me : These poor half kisses kill me quite ;
Was ever man thus served 1 Amidst an ocean of delight,
For pleasure to be starved.
Shew me no more those snowy breasts
With azure riverets branched, Where whilst mine eye with plenty feasts,
Yet is my thirst not stanched. O Tantalus, thy pains ne'er tell,
By me thou art prevented ; 'Tis nothing to be plagu'd in hell,
But thus in heaven tormented.
Clip me no more in those dear arms,
Nor thy life's comfort call me ; 0, these are but too powerful charms,
And do but more enthrall me. But see how patient I am grown,
In all this coil about thee ; Come, nice thing, let thy heart alone ;
I cannot live without thee.
TO HIS RIVAL
HER lov'd I most,
By thee that's lost, Though she were won with leisure ;
She was my gain,
But to my pain Thou spoil'st me of my treasure.
The ship full fraught
With gold, far sought, Though ne'er so wisely helmed,
May suffer wrack
In sailing back By tempest overwhelmed.
But she, good sir,
Did not prefer You, for that I was ranging ;
But for that she
Found faith in me, And she lov'd to be changing.
Therefore boast not
Your happy lot, Be silent now you have her ;
The time I knew
She slighted you, When I was in her favour.
102 To his Rival
None stands so fast
But may be cast By fortune, and disgraced :
Once did I wear
Her garter there Where you her glove have placed.
I had the vow
That thou hast now And glances to discover
Her love to me,
And she to thee Keads but old lessons over.
She hath no smile
That can beguile, But as my thought I know it ;
Yea, to a hair,
Both when and where And how she will bestow it.
What now is thine
Was only mine, And first to me was given ;
Thou laugh'st at me,
I laugh at thee, And thus we two are even.
But I'll not mourn,
But stay my turn, The wind may come about, sir,
And once again
May bring me in And help to bear you out, sir.
I/-
BALLAD OF AGINCOURT
FAIR stood the wind for France, When we our sails advance, Nor now to prove our chance
Longer will tarry ; But putting to the main At Kaux, the mouth of Seine, With all his martial train
Landed King Harry.
And taking many a fort Furnish'd in warlike sort, Marcheth towards Agincourt
In happy hour ; Skirmishing day by day With those that stopp'd his way Where the French Gen'ral lay
With all his power.
Which in his height of pride King Henry to deride, His ransom to provide
To the King sending ; Which he neglects the while As from a nation vile, Yet with an angry smile
Their fall portending.
103
104 Ballad of Agincourt
And turning to his men Quoth our brave Henry then : " Though they to one be ten,
Be not amazed : Yet have we well begun, Battles so bravely won Have ever to the sun
By fame been raised.
"And for myself (quoth he) This my full rest shall be, England ne'er mourn for me
Nor more esteem me : Victor I will remain Or on this earth lie slain, Never shall she sustain
Loss to redeem me.
"Poitiers and Cressy tell, When most their pride did swell, Under our swords they fell :
No less our skill is Than when our grandsire great, Claiming the regal seat, By many a warlike feat
Lopp'd the French Lilies."
The Duke of York so dread The eager vaward led ; With the main Henry sped
Among'st his henchmen ; Exeter had the rear, A braver man not there, — 0 Lord, how hot they were
On the false Frenchmen !
Ballad of Agincourt 105
They now to fight are gone : Armour on armour shone, Drum now to drum did groan, —
To hear was wonder. That with the cries they make The very earth did shake ; Trumpet to trumpet spake,
Thunder to thunder.
Well it thine age became, 0 noble Erpingham, Which did'st the signal aim
To our hid forces ; When from a meadow by, Like a storm suddenly, The English archery
Stuck the French horses,
With Spanish yew so strong, Arrows a cloth-yard long, That like to serpents stung
Piercing the weather ; None from his fellow starts, But playing manly parts, And like true English hearts,
Stuck close together.
When down their bows they threw And forth their bilboes drew And on the French they flew,
Not one was tardy ; Arms were from shoulders sent, Scalps to the teeth were rent, Down the French peasants went
Our men were hardy.
106 Ballad of Agincourt
This while our noble King, His broad-sword brandishing, Down the French host did ding,
As to o'erwhelm it; And many a deep wound lent, His arms with blood besprent, And many a cruel dent
Bruised his helmet.
Gloster, that Duke so good, Next of the Eoyal blood, For famous England stood
With his brave brother ; Clarence, in steel so bright, Though but a maiden knight, Yet in that furious fight
Scarce such another.
Warwick in blood did wade, Oxford the foe invade, And cruel slaughter made
Still as they ran up : Suffolk his axe did ply, Beaumont and Willoughby Bare them right doughtily,
Ferrers and Fanhope.
Upon Saint Crispin's day Fought was this noble fray Which fame did not delay
To England to carry : 0 when shall English men With such acts fill a pen, Or England breed again
Such a King Harry !
TO THE VIRGINIAN VOYAGE
You brave heroic minds, Worthy your country's name,
That honour still pursue ;
Go and subdue, Whilst loit'ring hinds Lurk here at home with shame.
Britons, you stay too long ;
Quickly aboard bestow you, And with a merry gale Swell your stretch'd sail,
With vows as strong
As the winds that blow you.
Your course securely steer, West and by south forth keep ;
Rocks, lee-shores, nor shoals,
When Eolus scowls, You need not fear ; So absolute the deep.
And cheerfully at sea Success you still entice
To get the pearl and gold,
And ours to hold Virginia,
Earth's only Paradise.
107
108 To the Virginian Voyage
Where nature hath in store Fowl, venison, and fish, And the fruitful'st soil, Without your toil, Three harvests more, All greater than your wish.
And the ambitious vine Crowns with his purple mass The cedar reaching high To kiss the sky, The cypress, pine, And useful sassafras.
To whom the golden age Still nature's laws doth give, No other cares attend But them to defend From winter's rage, That long there doth not live.
When as the luscious smell Of that delicious land,
Above the seas that flows, The clear wind throws Your hearts to swell Approaching the dear strand ;
In kenning of the shore (Thanks to God first given)
O you, the happiest men,
Be frolic then ; Let cannons roar, Frighting the wide heaven.
To the Virginian Voyage 109
And in regions far,
Such heroes bring ye forth,
As those from whom we came ;
And plant our name Under that star Not known unto our North.
And as there plenty grows Of Laurel everywhere,
Apollo's sacred tree,
You it may see, A poet's brows To crown, that may sing
there.
Thy voyages attend Industrious Hackluit,
Whose reading shall inflame
Men to seek fame, And much commend To after-times thy wit.
AN ODE WRITTEN IN THE PEAK
THIS while we are abroad, \
Shall we nob touch our lyre 1
Shall we not sing an ode 1 Shall that holy fire,
In us that strongly glow'd, In this cold air expire ?
Long since the summer laid
Her lusty brav'ry down, The autumn half is wj-^rjcL^
And Boreas 'gins to frown, Since now I did behold
Great Brute's first builded town.
Though in the utmost Peak
A while we do remain, Amongst the mountains bleak
Exposed to sleet and rain, No sport our hours shall break,
To exercise our
What though bright Phoebus' beams Refresh the southern ground,
And though the princely Thames With beauteous nymphs abound,
And by old Camber's streams Be many wonders found ;
An Ode Written in the Peak 111
Yet many rivers clear
Here glide in silver swathes ; And what of all most dear,
Buxton's delicious baths, Strong ale and noble cheer,
To assuage breem winter's scathes. >C%^ ( I
Those grim and horrid caves,
Whose looks affright the day, Wherein nice nature saves
What sne would not bewray3 Our better leisure craves,
And doth invite our lay.
In places far or near,
Or famous or obscure, Where wholesome is the air,
Or where the most impure, All times and everywhere,
The muse is still in ure.
From POLY-OLBION
^MILFORD HAVEN
You goodly sister floods, how happy is your state ! Or should I more commend your features or your
fate, That Milford, which this isle her greatest port doth
call,
Before your equal floods is lotted to your fall 1 Where was sail ever seen, or wind hath ever blown, Whence Pembroke yet hath heard of haven like her
own?
She bids Dungleddy dare Iberia's proudest road And chargeth her to send her challenges abroad Along the coast of France, to prove if any be Her Milford that dare match : so absolute is she. So highly Milford is in every mouth renowned, No haven hath aught good in her that is not found. Whereas the swelling surge, that with his foamy
head
The gentler-looking land with fury menaced, With his encountering wave no longer there con tends ;
But sitting mildly down like perfect ancient friends, Unmoved of any wind which way soe'er it blow And rather seem to smile than knit an angry brow. The ships with shattered ribs scarce creeping from the seas,
Milford Haven 113
On her sleek bosom ride with such deliberate ease, As all her passed storms she holds but mean and
base So she may reach at length this most delightful
place, By nature with proud cliffs environed about.
(SONG V.)
OF WARWICK
THUS, whilst in crowds they throng, Led by the king himself the champion comes along ; A man well strook in years, in homely palmer's gray And in his hand his staff, his reverend steps to stay, Holding a comely pace, which at his passing by In every censuring tongue, as every serious eye, Compassion mixed with fear, distrust and courage
bred. Then Colebrond for the Danes came forth in
ireful red ;
Before him, from the camp, an ensign first displayed Amidst a guard of gleaves : then sumptuously
arrayed Were twenty gallant youths that to the warlike
sound
Of Danish brazen drums, with many a lofty bound, Came with their country's march, as they to Mars
should dance. Thus forward to the fight both champions them
advance :
And each without respect doth resolutely choose The weapon that he brought, nor doth his foe's
refuse : The Dane prepares his axe, that ponderous was to
feel, Whose squares were laid with plates, and riveted
with steel, 114
Guy of Warwick 115
And armed down along with pikes, whose hardened
points, Forced with the weapon's weight, had power to tear
the joints
Of cuirass or of mail, or whatsoe'er they took : Which caused him at the knight disdainfully to look. When our stout palmer soon, unknown for
valiant Guy, The cord from his straight loins doth presently
untie,
Puts off his palmer's weed unto his truss, which bore The stains of ancient arms, but showed it had before Been costly cloth of gold; and off his hood he threw: Out of his hermit's staff his two-hand sword he drew (The unsuspected sheath which long to it had been) Which till that instant time the people had not seen: A sword so often tried. Then to himself quoth he : "Arms, let me crave your aid, to set my country free, And never shall my heart your help again require, But only to my God to lift you up in prayer." Here Colebrond forward made, and soon the
Christian knight Encounters him again with equal power and spite :
Where strength still answered strength, on courage
courage grew. Look how two lions fierce, both hungry, both
pursue
One sweet and self-same prey, at one another fly, And with their armed paws engrappled dreadfully, The thunder of their rage and boisterous struggling
make The neighbouring forests round affrightedly to
quake :
116 Guy of Warwick
Their sad encounter such. The mighty Colebrond
struck
A cruel blow at Guy : which though he finely broke Yet with the weapon's weight his ancient" hilt it
split, And, thereby lessened much, the champion lightly
hit
Upon the reverend brow : immediately from whence The blood dropt softly down, as if the wound had
sense Of their much inward woe that it with grief should
see.
The Danes, a deadly blow supposing it to be, Sent such an echoing shout that rent the troubled
air. The English at the noise waxed all so wan with
fear As though they lost the blood their aged champion
shed. Yet were not these so pale but the other were as
red : As though the blood that fell upon their cheeks
had staid.
Here Guy, his better spirits recalling to his aid, Came fresh upon his foe, when mighty Colebrond
makes Another desperate stroke ; which Guy of Warwick
takes
Undauntedly aloft ; and followed with a blow Upon his shorter ribs, that the excessive flow Streamed up unto his hilts : the wound so gaped
withal As though it meant to say, Behold your champion's
fall
Guy of Warwick 117
By this proud palmer's hand. Such claps again
and cries
The joyful English gave as cleft the very skies. Which coming on along from these that were with out, When those within the town received this cheerful
shout They answered then with like ; as those their joy
that knew. Then with such eager blows each other they
pursue, As every offer made should threaten imminent
death : Until, through heat and toil both hardly drawing
breath, They desperately do close. Look how two boars
being set Together side to side their threatening tusks do
whet, And with their gnashing teeth their angry foam
do bite, Whilst still they shouldering seek each other where
to smite ; Thus stood those ireful Knights ; till flying back
at length
The palmer, of the two the first recovering strength, Upon the left arm lent great Colebrond such a
wound, That whilst his weapon's point fell well near to the
ground,
And slowly he it raised, the valiant Guy again Sent through his cloven scalp his blade into his
brain. (SONG xn.)
ELEGY
TO MY MOST DEARLY LOVED FRIEND,
HENRY REYNOLDS, Esquire Of Poets and Poesie
MY dearly loved friend, how oft have we
In winter evenings, meaning to be free,
To some well-chosen place used to retire,
And there, with moderate meat and wine and fire,
Have passed the hours contentedly with chat,
Now talked of this, and then discoursed of that,
Spoke our own verses 'twixt ourselves ; if not,
Other men's lines, which we by chance had got,
Or some stage pieces famous long before,
Of which your happy memory had store ;
And I remember you much pleased were
Of those who lived long ago to hear,
As well as of those of these latter times
Who have enriched our language with their rimes,
And in succession how still up they grew, —
Which is the subject that I now pursue.
For from my cradle, you must know that I
Was still inclined to noble poesy,
And when that once Pueriles I had read,
And newly had my Cato construed,
In my small self I greatly marvelled then,
Amongst all other, what strange kind of men
118
An Elegy 119
These poets were ; and, pleased with the name,
To my mild tutor merrily I came,
(For I was then a proper goodly page,
Much like a pigmy, scarce ten years of age)
Clasping my slender arms about his thigh,
" O, my dear master ! cannot you," quoth I,
" Make me a poet ? Do it if you can,
And you shall see I'll quickly be a man."
Who me thus answered, smiling, " Boy," quoth he,
" If you'll not play the wag, but I may see
You ply your learning, I will shortly read
Some poets to you." Phoebus be my speed,
To 't hard went I, when shortly he began,
And first read to me honest Mantuan,
Then Virgil's Eclogues ; being entered thus,
Meth ought I straight had mounted Pegasus,
And in his full career could make him stop
And bound upon Parnassus bi-clift top.
I scorned your ballad then, though it were done
And had for finis William Elderton.
But soft, in sporting with this childish jest,
I from my subject have too long digrest,
Then to the matter that we took in hand :
Jove and Apollo for the Muses stand !
That noble Chaucer in those former times, The first enriched our English with his rimes, And was the first of ours that ever brake Into the Muses' treasure, and first spake In weighty numbers, delving in the mine Of perfect knowledge, which he could refine And coin for current, and as much as then The English language could express to men He made it do, and by his wondrous skill Gave us much light from his abundant quill.
120 An Elegy
And honest Gower, who in respect of him Had only sipped at Aganippe's brim, And though in years this last was him before, Yet fell he far short of the other's store.
When after those, four ages very near, They with the Muses which conversed were That princely Surrey, early in the time Of the Eighth Henry, who was then the prime Of England's noble youth ; with him there came Wyat, with reverence whom we still do name Amongst our poets ; Brian had a share With the two former, which accounted are That time's best makers, and the authors were Of those small poems which the title bear Of songs and sonnets, wherein oft they hit On many dainty passages of wit.
Gascoigne and Churchyard after them again, In the beginning of Eliza's reign, Accounted were great meterers many a day, But not inspired with brave fire ; had they Lived but a little longer, they had seen 'Their works before them to have buried been.
Grave, moral Spenser after these came on, Than whom I am persuaded there was none, Since the blind bard his Iliads up did make, Fitter a task like that to undertake ; To set down boldly, bravely to invent, In all high knowledge surely excellent.
The noble Sidney with this last arose, That heroe for numbers and for prose, That throughly paced our language, as to show The plenteous English hand in hand might go With Greek and Latin, and did first reduce Our tongue from Lyly's writing then in use ;
An Elegy 121
Talking of stones, stars, plants, of fishes, flies,
Playing with words and idle similes ;
As the English apes and very zanies be
Of everything that they do hear and see,
So imitating his ridiculous tricks,
They spake and writ all like mere lunatics.
Then Warner, though his lines were not so
trimmed,
Nor yet his poem so exactly limned And neatly jointed but the critic may Easily reprove him, yet thus let me say For my old friend, some passages there be In him, which I protest have taken me With almost wonder, so fine, clear and new, As yet they have been equalled by few.
Neat Marlowe, bathed in the Thespian springs, Had in him those brave trans! unary things That the first poets had, his raptures were All air and fire, which made his verses clear ; For that fine madness still he did retain Which rightly should possess a poet's brain.
And surely Nash, though he a proser were, A branch of laurel yet deserves to bear ; Sharply satiric was he, and that way He went, since that his being to this day, Few have attempted • and I surely think Those words shall hardly be set down with ink Shall scorch and blast so as his could, where he Would inflict vengeance ; and be it said of thee, Shakespeare, thou hadst as smooth a comic
vein,
Fitting the sock, and in thy natural brain As strong conception and as clear a rage, As any one that trafficked with the stage.
122 An Elegy
Amongst these Samuel Daniel, whom if I May speak of, but to censure do deny, | Only have heard some wise men him rehearse iTo be too much historian in verse ; JHis rimes were smooth, his metres well did close, jiBut yet his manner better fitted prose. Next these, learned Jonson in this list I bring, Who had drunk deep of the Pierian spring, Whose knowledge did him worthily prefer, And long was lord here of the theatre ; Who in opinion made our learn'dst to stick Whether in poems rightly dramatic Strong Seneca or Plautus, he or they, Should bear the buskin or the sock away. Others again here lived in my days, That have of us deserved no less praise For their translations, than the daintiest wit That on Parnassus thinks he high'st doth sit, And for a chair may 'mongst the Muses call, As the most curious maker of them all ; As reverend Chapman, who hath brought to us Musseus, Homer, and Hesiodus Out of the Greek; and by his skill hath reared Them to that height, and to our tongue endeared, That were those poets at this day alive, To see their books thus with us to survive, They would think, having neglected them so long, They had been written in the English tongue.
And Silvester who from the French more weak Made Bartas of his six days' labour speak In natural English, who, had he there stayed He had done well, and never had bewrayed His own invention to have been so poor, Who still wrote less in striving to write more.
An Elegy 123
Then dainty Sandys, that hath to English done Smooth sliding Ovid, and hath made him run With so much sweetness and unusual grace, As though the neatness of the English pace Should tell the jetting Latin that it came But slowly after, as though stiff and lame.
So Scotland sent us hither for our own That man, whose name I ever would have known To stand by mine, that most ingenious knight, My Alexander, to whom in his right I want extremely, yet in speaking thus I do but show the love that was 'twixt us, And not his numbers, which were brave and high, So like his mind was his clear poesie ; And my dear Drummond, to whom much I owe For his much love, and proud I was to know His poesy ; for which two worthy men, I Menstry still shall love, and Hawthornden. Then the two Beaumonts and my Browne arose, My dear companions, whom I freely chose My bosom friends; and in their several ways Eightly born poets, and in these last days Men of much note, and no less nobler parts, Such as have freely told to me their hearts, As I have mine to them. But if you shall Say in your knowledge that these be not all Have writ in numbers, be informed that I Only myself to these few men do tie, Whose works oft printed, set on every post, To public censure subject have been most. For such whose poems, be they ne'er so rare, In private chambers that encloistered are, And by transcription daintily must go ; As though the world unworthy were to know
124 An Elegy
Their rich composures, let those men that keep These wondrous relics in their judgment deep, And cry them up so, let such pieces be Spoke of by those that shall come after me, I pass not for them ; nor do mean to run In quest of these that them applause have won Upon our stages in these latter days, That are so many ; let them have their bays That do deserve it ; let those wits that haunt Those public circuits, let them freely chaunt Their fine composures and their praise pursue ; And so, my clear friend, for this time adieu.
NNYMPHIDIA
THE COURT OF FAIRY
OLD Chaucer doth of Topas tell, Mad Eabelais of Pantagruel, A later third of Dowsabel,
With such poor trifles playing ; Others the like have laboured at, Some of this thing and some of that, And many of they know not what,
But that they must be saying.
Another sort there be, that will Be talking of the Fairies still, Nor never can they have their fill,
As they were wedded to them ; No tales of them their thirst can slake, So much delight therein they take, And some strange thing they fain would make,
Knew they the way to do them.
Then since no Muse hath been so bold, Or of the later, or the old, Those elvish secrets to unfold,
Which lie from others' reading ; My active Muse to light shall bring The Court of that proud Fairy King, And tell there of the revelling.
Jove prosper my proceeding !
"5
126 Nymphidia
And thou, Nymphidia, gentle Fay, Which, meeting me upon the way, These secrets didst to me bewray,
Which now I am in telling ; My pretty, light, fantastic maid, I here invoke thee to my aid, That I may speak what thou hast said,
In numbers smoothly swelling.
This palace standeth in the air, By necromancy placed there, That it no tempests needs to fear,
Which way soe'er it blow it. And somewhat southward tow'rd the noon, Whence lies a way up to the moon, And thence the Fairy can as soon
Pass to the earth below it.
The walls of spiders' legs are made Well mortised and finely laid ; He was the master of his trade
It curiously that builded ; The windows of the eyes of cats, And for the roof, instead of slats, Is covered with the skins of bats,
With moonshine that are gilded.
Hence Oberon him sport to make, Their rest when weary mortals take, And none but only fairies wake,
Descendeth for his pleasure ; And Mab, his merry Queen, by night Bestrides young folks that lie upright, (In elder times, the mare that hight,)
Which plagues them out of measure.
Nymphidia 127
Hence shadows, seeming idle shapes,
Of little frisking elves and apes
To earth do make their wanton scapes,
As hope of pastime hastes them ; Which maids think on the hearth they see When fires well-near consumed be, There dancing hays by two and three,
Just as their fancy casts them.
These make our girls their sluttery rue, By pinching them both black and blue, And put a penny in their shoe
The house for cleanly sweeping ; And in their courses make that round In meadows and in marshes found, Of them so called the Fairy Ground, Of which they have the keeping.
These when a child haps to be got Which after proves an idiot When folk perceive it thriveth not,
The fault therein to smother, Some silly, doting, brainless calf That understands things by the half, Say that the Fairy left this oaf
And took away the other.
But listen, and I shall you tell A chance in Faery that befell, Which certainly may please some well
In love and arms delighting, Of Oberon that jealous grew Of one of his own Fairy crew, Too well, he feared, his Queen that knew,
His love but ill requiting.
128 Nymphidia
Pigwiggin was this Fairy Knight,
One wondrous gracious in the sight
Of fair Queen Mab, which day and night
He amorously observed ; Which made King Oberon suspect His service took too good effect, His sauciness and often checkt,
And could have wished him starved.
Pigwiggin gladly would commend Some token to Queen Mab to send, If sea or land could ought him lend
Were worthy of her wearing ; At length this lover doth devise A bracelet made of emmet's eyes, A thing he thought that she would prize,
No whit her state impairing.
And to the Queen a letter writes, Which he most curiously indites, Conjuring her by all the rites
Of love, she would be pleased To meet him, her true servant, where They might, without suspect or fear, Themselves to one another clear
And have their poor hearts eased.
" At midnight the appointed hour ; And for the Queen a fitting bower," Quoth he, " is that fair cowslip flower
On Hipcut hill that bloweth : In all your train there's not a fay That ever went to gather may But she hath made it, in her way ;
The tallest there that groweth."
Nymphidia 129
When by Tom Thumb, a Fairy Page, He sent it, and doth him engage By promise of a mighty wage
It secretly to carry ;
Which done, the Queen her maids doth call, And bids them to be ready all : She would go see her summer hall,
She could no longer tarry.
Her chariot ready straight is made Each thing therein is fitting laid, That she by nothing might be stayed,
For nought must her be letting'; Four nimble gnats the horses were, " Their harnesses of gossamer, Fly Cranion her charioteer
Upon the coach-box getting.
Her chariot of a snail's fine shell, Which for the colours did excel, The fair Queen Mab becoming well,
So lively was the limning ; The seat the soft wool of the bee, The cover, gallantly to see, The wing of a pied butterflee ;
I trow 'twas simple trimming.
The wheels composed of crickets' bones, And daintily made for the nonce, For fear of rattling on the stones
With thistle-down they shod it ; For all her maidens much did fear If Oberon had chanc'd to hear That Mab his Queen should have been there,
He would not have abode it.
130 Nymphidia
She mounts her chariot with a trice, Nor would she stay, for no advice, Until her maids that were so nice
To wait on her were fitted ; But ran herself away alone, Which when they heard, there was not one But hasted after to be gone,
As she had been diswitted.
Hop and Mop and Drop so clear, Pip and Trip and Skip that were To Mab, their sovereign, ever dear,
Her special maids of honour ; Fib and Tib and Pink and Pin, Tick and Quick and Jill and Jin, Tit and Nit and Wap and Win,
The train that wait upon her.
Upon a grasshopper they got
And, what with amble and with trot,
For hedge nor ditch they spared not,
But after her they hie them ; A cobweb over them they throw, To shield the wind if it should blow, Themselves they wisely could bestow
Lest any should espy them.
But let us leave Queen Mab awhile, (Through many a gate, o'er many a stile, That now had gotten by this wile),
Her dear Pigwiggin kissing ; And tell how Oberon doth fare, Who grew as mad as any hare When he had sought each place with care
And found his Queen was missing.
Nymphidia 131
By grisly Pluto he doth swear,
He rent his clothes and tore his hair,
And as he runneth here and there
An acorn cup he greeteth, Which soon he taketh by the stalk, About his head he lets it walk, Nor doth he any creature balk,
But lays on all he meeteth.
The Tuscan Poet doth advance The frantic Paladin of France, And those more ancient do enhance
Alcides in his fury, And others Ajax Telamon, But to this time there hath been none So Bedlam as our Oberon,
Of which I dare assure ye.
And first encountering with a Wasp,
He in his arms the fly doth clasp
As though Jiis breath he forth would grasp,
Him for Pigwiggin taking : " Where is my wife, thou rogue ? " quoth he ; " Pigwiggin, she is come to thee ; Restore her, or thou diest by me ! "
Whereat the poor Wasp quaking
Cries, "Oberon, great Fairy King, Content thee, I am no such thing : I am a Wasp, behold my sting ! "
At which the Fairy started ; When soon away the Wasp doth go, Poor wretch, was never frighted so ; He thought his wings were much too slow,
O'erjoyed they so were parted.
132 Nymphidia
He next upon a Glow-worm light, (You must suppose it now was night), Which, for her hinder part was bright,
He took to be a devil, And furiously doth her assail For carrying fire in her tail ; He thrashed her rough coat with his flail ;
The mad King feared no evil.
"Oh!" quoth the Glow-worm, " hold thy hand,
Thou puissant King of Fairy-land !
Thy mighty strokes who may withstand ?
Hold, or of life despair I ! " Together then herself doth roll, And tumbling down into a hole She seemed as black as any coal ;
Which vext away the Fairy.
From thence he ran into a hive : Amongst the bees he letteth drive, And down their combs begins to rive,
All likely to have spoiled, Which with their wax his face besmeared. And with their honey daubed his beard : It would have made a man afeared
To see how he was moiled.
A new adventure him betides ; He met an Ant, which he bestrides, And post thereon away he rides,
Which with his haste doth stumble, And came full over on her snout ; Her heels so threw the dirt about, For she by no means could get out,
But over him doth tumble.
Nymphidia 133
And being in this piteous case, And all be-slurred head and face, On runs he in this wild-goose chase,
As here and there he rambles ; Half blind, against a molehole hit, And for a mountain taking it, For all he was out of his wit
Yet to the top he scrambles.
And being gotten to the top,
Yet there himself he could not stop,
But down on the other side doth chop,
And to the foot came rumbling ; So that the grubs, therein that bred, Hearing such turmoil overhead, Thought surely they had all been dead ;
So fearful was the jumbling.
And falling down into a lake, Which him up to the neck doth take, His fury somewhat it doth slake ;
He calleth for a ferry ; Where you may some recovery note, What was his club he made his boat, And in his oaken cup doth float,
As safe as in a wherry.
Men talk of the adventures strange Of Don Quixote, and of their change Through which he armed oft did range,
Of Sancho Pancha's travel ; But should a man tell everything Done by this frantic Fairy King, And them in lofty numbers sing,
It well his wits might gravel.
134 Nymphidia
Scarce set on shore, but therewithal He meeteth Puck, which most men call Hobgoblin, and on him doth fall
With words from frenzy spoken : " Oh, oh," quoth Hob, " God save thy grace ! Who drest thee in this piteous case 1 He thus that spoiled my sovereign's face,
I would his neck were broken ! "
This Puck seems but a dreaming dolt, Still walking like a ragged colt, And oft out of a bush doth bolt,
Of purpose to deceive us ; And leading us makes us to stray, Long winter's nights, out of the way ; And when we stick in mire and clay,
Hob doth with laughter leave us.
" Dear Puck," quoth he, " my wife is gone : As e'er thou lov'st King Oberon, Let everything but this atone,
With vengeance and pursue her ; Bring her to me alive or dead, Or that vile thief, Pigwiggin's head, That villain hath my Queen misled ;
He to this folly drew her."
Quoth Puck, " My liege, I'll never lin, But I will thorough thick and thin, Until at length I bring her in ;
My dearest lord, ne'er doubt it. Thorough brake, thorough briar, Thorough muck, thorough mire, Thorough water, thorough fire ;
And thus goes Puck about it. '
Nymphidia 135
This thing Nymphidia overheard, That on this mad king had a guard, Not doubting of a great reward
For first this business broaching ; And through the air away doth go, Swift as an arrow from the bow, To let her sovereign Mab to know
What peril was approaching.
The Queen bound with Love's po werf ul'st charm
Sate with Pigwiggin arm in arm ;
Her merry maids, that thought no harm,
About the room were skipping ; A humble-bee, their minstrel, played Upon his hautboy, every maid Fit for this revel was arrayed,
The hornpipe neatly tripping.
In comes Nymphidia, and doth cry, "My sovereign, for your safety fly, For there is danger but too nigh ;
I posted to forewarn you : The King hath sent Hobgoblin out, To seek you all the fields about, And of your safety you may doubt,
If he but once discern you."
When, like an uproar in a town, Before them everything went down ; Some tore a ruff, and some a gown,
'Gainst one another justling ; They flew about like chaff i' th' wind ; For haste some left their masks behind ; Some could not stay their gloves to find ;
There never was such bustling.
136 Nymphidia
Forth ran they, by a secret way, Into a brake that near them lay ; Yet much they doubted there to stay,
Lest Hob should hap to find them ; He had a sharp and piercing sight, All one to him the day and night ; And therefore were resolved by flight
To leave this place behind them.
At length one chanced to find a nut, In the end of which a hole was cut, Which lay upon a hazel root,
There scattered by a squirrel Which out the kernel gotten had ; When quoth this Fay, " Dear Queen, be glad Let Oberon be ne'er so mad,
I'll set you safe from peril.
" Come all into this nut," quoth she, " Come closely in ; be ruled by me ; Each one may here a chooser be,
For room ye need not wrastle : Nor need ye be together heaped ; " So one by one therein they crept, And lying down they soundly slept,
And safe as in a castle.
Nymphidia, that this while doth watch, Perceived if Puck the Queen should catch That he should be her over-match,
Of which she well bethought her ; Found it must be some powerful charm, The Queen against him that must arm, Or surely he would do her harm,
For throughly he had sought her.
Nymphidia 137
And listening if she aught could hear, That her might hinder, or might fear ; But finding still the coast was clear ;
Nor creature had descried her ; Each circumstance and having scanned, She came thereby to understand, Puck would be with them out of hand ;
When to her charms she hied her.
And first her fern-seed doth bestow,
The kernel of the mistletoe ;
And here and there as Puck should go,
With terror to affright him, She night-shade strews to work him ill, Therewith her vervain and her dill, That hindereth witches of their will,
Of purpose to despite him.
Then sprinkles she the juice of rue, That groweth underneath the yew ; With nine drops of the midnight dew,
From lunary distilling : The molewarp's brain mixed therewithal ; And with the same the pismire's gall : For she in nothing short would fall,
The Fairy was so willing.
Then thrice under a briar doth creep, Which at both ends was rooted deep, And over it three times she leap ;
Her magic much availing : Then on Proserpina doth call, And so upon her spell doth fall, Which here to you repeat I shall,
Not in one tittle failing.
138 Nymphidia
"By the croaking of the frog; By the howling of the dog ; By the crying of the hog
Against the storm arising ; By the evening curfew bell, By the doleful dying knell,
0 let this my direful spell,
Hob, hinder thy surprising !
" By the mandrake's dreadful groans ; By the lubrican's sad moans ; By the noise of dead men's bones
In charnel-houses rattling ; By the hissing of the snake, The rustling of the fire-drake,
1 charge thee thou this place forsake,
Nor of Q,ueen Mab be prattling !
" By the whirlwind's hollow sound, By the thunder's dreadful stound, Yells of spirits underground,
I charge thee not to fear us ; By the screech-owl's dismal note, By the black night-raven's throat, I charge thee, Hob, to tear thy coat
With thorns, if thou come near us !
Her spell thus spoke, she stept aside, And in a chink herself doth hide, To see thereof what would betide,
For she doth only mind him : When presently she Puck espies, And well she marked his gloating eyes, How under every leaf he pries,
In seeking still to find them.'
Nymphidia 139
But once the circle got within,
The charms to work do straight begin,
And he was caught as in a gin ;
For as he thus was busy, A pain he in his head-piece feels, Against a stubbed tree he reels, And up went poor Hobgoblin's heels ;
Alas ! his brain was dizzy !
At length upon his feet he gets, Hobgoblin fumes, Hobgoblin frets ; And as again he forward sets,
And through the bushes scrambles, A stump doth trip him in his pace ; Down comes poor Hob upon his face, And lamentably tore his case,
Amongst the briars and brambles.
" A plague upon Queen Mab ! " quoth he, " And all her maids where'er they be : I think the devil guided me,
To seek her so provoked ! " When stumbling at a piece of wood, He fell into a ditch of mud, Where to the very chin he stood,
In danger to be choked.
Now worse than e'er he was before,
Poor Puck doth yell, poor Puck doth roar,
That waked Queen Mab, who doubted sore
Some treason had been wrought her : Until Nymphidia told the Queen, What she had done, what she had seen, Who then had well-near cracked her spleen
With very extreme laughter.
140 Nymphidia
But leave we Hob to clamber out, Queen Mab and all her Fairy rout, And come again to have a bout
With Oberon yet madding : And with Pigwiggin now distraught, Who much was troubled in his thought, That he so long the Queen had sought,
And through the fields was gadding.
And as he runs he still doth cry,
" King Oberon, I thee defy,
And dare thee here in arms to try,
For my dear lady's honour : For that she is a Queen right good, In whose defence I'll shed my blood, And that thou in this jealous mood
Hast laid this slander on her."
And quickly arms him for the field, A little cockle-shell his shield, Which he could very bravely wield :
Yet could it not be pierced : His spear a bent both stiff and strong, And well near of two inches long : The pile was of a horse-fly's tongue,
Whose sharpness nought reversed.
And puts him on a coat of mail,
Which was of a fish's scale,
That when his foe should him assail,
No point should be prevailing : His rapier was a hornet's sting ; It was a very dangerous thing, For if he chanced to hurt the King,
It would be long in healing.
Nymphidia
His helmet was a beetle's head, Most horrible and full of dread, That able was to strike one dead,
Yet did it well become him ; And for a plume a horse's hair Which, being tossed with the air, Had force to strike his foe with fear,
And turn his weapon from him.
Himself he on an earwig set,
Yet scarce he on his back could get,
So oft and high he did curvet,
Ere he himself could settle : He made him turn, and stop, and bound, To gallop and to trot the round, He scarce could stand on any ground,
He was so full of mettle.
When soon he met with Tomalin, One that a valiant knight had been, And to King Oberon of kin ;
Quoth he, " Thou manly Fairy, Tell Oberon I come prepared, Then bid him stand upon his guard ; This hand his baseness shall reward,
Let him be ne'er so wary.
" Say to him thus, that I defy His slanders and his infamy, And as a mortal enemy
Do publicly proclaim him : Withal that if I had mine own, He should not wear the Fairy crown, But with a vengeance should come down,
Nor we a king should name him."
142 Nymphidia
This Tomalin could not abide To hear his sovereign vilified ; But to the Fairy Court him hied,
(Full furiously he posted,) With everything Pigwiggin said : How title to the crown he laid, And in what arms he was arrayed,
As how himself he boasted.
'Twixt head and foot, from point to point, He told the arming of each joint, In every piece how neat and quaint,
For Tomalin could do it : How fair he sat, how sure he rid, As of the courser he bestrid How managed, and how well he did ;
The King which listened to it,
Quoth he, ' ' Go, Tomalin, with speed, Provide me arms, provide my steed, And everything that I shall need ;
By thee I will be guided ; To straight account call thou thy wit ; See there be wanting not a whit, In everything see thou me fit,
Just as my foe's provided."
Soon flew this news through Fairy-land, Which gave Queen Mab to understand The combat that was then in hand
Betwixt those men so mighty : Which greatly she began to rue, Perceiving that all Faery knew The first occasion from her grew
Of these affairs so weighty.
Nymphidia 143
Wherefore attended with her maids, Through fogs, and mists, and damps she wades, To Proserpine the Queen of Shades,
To treat, that it would please her The cause into her hands to take, For ancient love and friendship's sake, And soon thereof an end to make,
Which of much care would ease her.
A while there let we Mab alone, And come we to King Oberon, Who, armed to meet his foe, is gone,
For proud Pigwiggin crying : Who sought the Fairy King as fast, And had so well his journeys cast, That he arrived at the last,
His puissant foe espying.
Stout Tomalin came with the King, Tom Thumb doth on Pigwiggin bring That perfect were in everything
To single fights belonging : And therefore they themselves engage To see them exercise their rage With fair and comely equipage,
Not one the other wronging.
So like in arms these champions were,
As they had been a very pair,
So that a man would almost swear
That either had been either ; Their furious steeds began to neigh, That they were heard a mighty way • Their staves upon their rests they lay
Yet ere they flew together
144 Nymphidia
Their seconds minister an oath, Which was indifferent to them both, That on their knightly faith and troth
No magic them supplied ; And sought them that they had no charms Wherewith to work each other's harms, But came with simple open arms
To have their causes tried.
Together furiously they ran,
That to the ground came horse and man,
The blood out of their helmets span,
So sharp were their encounters ; And though they to the earth were thrown, Yet quickly they regained their own, Such nimbleness was never shown,
They were two gallant mounters.
When in a second course again,
They forward came with might and main,
Yet which had better of the twain,
The seconds could not judge yet ; Their shields were into pieces cleft, Their helmets from their heads were reft, And to defend them nothing left,
These champions would not budge yet.
Away from them their staves they threw, Their cruel swords they quickly drew, And freshly they the fight renew,
They every stroke redoubled ; Which made Proserpina take heed, And make to them the greater speed, For fear lest they too much should bleed,
Which wondrously her troubled.
Nymphidia 145
When to the infernal Styx she goes, She takes the fogs from thence that rose, And in a bag doth them enclose,
When well she had them blended. She hies her then to Lethe spring, A bottle and thereof doth bring, Wherewith she meant to work the thing
Which only she intended.
Now Proserpine with Mab is gone Unto the place where Oberon And proud Pigwiggin, one to one,
Both to be slain were likely : And there themselves they closely hide, Because they would not be espied ; For Proserpine meant to decide
The matter very quickly.
And suddenly unties the poke, Which out of it sent such a smoke, As ready was them all to choke,
So grievous was the pother ; So that the knights each other lost, And stood as still as any post ; Tom Thumb nor Tomalin could boast
Themselves of any other.
But when the mist 'gan somewhat cease, Proserpina commandeth peace ; And that a while they should release
Each other of their peril : " Which here," quoth she, " I do proclaim To all in dreadful Pluto's name, That as ye will eschew his blame,
You let me hear the quarrel : K
146 Nymphidia
" But here yourselves you must engage, Somewhat to cool your spleenish rage ; Your grievous thirst and to assuage
That first you drink this liquor, Which shall your understanding clear, As plainly shall to you appear ; Those things from me that you shall hear
Conceiving much the quicker."
This Lethe water, you must know, The memory destroyeth so, That of our weal, or of our woe,
Is all remembrance blotted ; Of it nor can you ever think ; For they no sooner took this drink, But nought into their brains could sink
Of what had them besotted.
King Oberon forgotten had
That he for jealousy ran mad,
But of his Queen was wondrous glad,
And asked how they came thither : Pigwiggin likewise doth forget That he Queen Mab had ever met, Or that they were so hard beset,
When they were found together.
Nor neither of them both had thought That e'er they had each other sought, Much less that they a combat fought,
But such a dream were loathing. Tom Thumb had got a little sup, And Tomalin scarce kissed the cup, Yet had their brains so sure locked up,
That they remembered nothing.
Nymphidia 147
Queen Mab and her light maids, the while, Amongst themselves do closely smile, To see the King caught with this wile,
With one another jesting : And to the Fairy Court they went With mickle joy and merriment, Which thing was done with good intent,
And thus I left them feasting.
THE SHEPHERD'S SIRENA
DORILUS in sorrows deep, Autumn waxing old and chill, As he sat his flocks to keep Underneath an easy hill, Chanc'd to cast his eye aside On those fields where he had seen Bright Sirena, nature's pride, Sporting on the pleasant green ; To whose walks the shepherds oft Came, her godlike foot to find, And in places that were soft Kissed the print there left behind : Where the path which she had trod Hath thereby more glory gain'd Than in Heav'n that milky road Which with nectar Hebe stain'd. But bleak winter's boist'rous blasts Now their fading pleasures chid, And so fill'd them with his wastes That from sight her steps were hid. Silly shepherd sad the while For his sweet Sirena gone, All his pleasures in exile, Laid on the cold earth alone ; Whilst his gamesome cut-tailed cur With his mirthless master plays
The Shepherd's Sirena 149
Striving him with sport to stir As in his more youthful days. Dorilus his dog doth chide, Lays his well-tun'd bagpipe by, And his sheep-hook casts aside ; There (quoth he) together lie. When a letter forth he took, Which to him Sirena writ, With a deadly down-cast look, And thus fell to reading it.
Dorilus, my dear (quoth she), Kind companion of my woe, Though we thus divided be, Death cannot divorce us so. Thou whose bosom hath been still Th' only closet of my care, And in all my good and ill Ever had thy equal share ; Might I win thee from thy fold, Thou should'st come to visit me, But the winter is so cold That I fear to hazard thee. The wild waters are waxed high, So they are both deaf and dumb, Lov'd they thee so well as I They would ebb when thou should'st come ; Then my cot with light should shine, Purer than the vestal fire ; Nothing here but should be thine That thy heart can well desire : Where at large we will relate From what cause our friendship grew, And in that the varying fate Since we first each other knew ;
150 The Shepherd's Sirena
Of my heavy passed plight, As of many a future fear, Which except the silent night None but only thou shalt hear. My sad heart it shall relieve When my thoughts I shall disclose, For thou can'st not choose but grieve When I shall recount my woes : There is nothing to that friend To whose close uncrannied breast We our secret thoughts may send, And there safely let it rest. And thy faithful counsel may My distressed case assist ; Sad affliction else may sway Me a woman as it list. Hither I would have thee haste, Yet would gladly have thee stay, When those dangers I forecast That may meet thee by the way Do as thou shalt think it best ; Let thy knowledge be thy guide ; Live thou in my constant breast Whatsoever shall betide.
He her letter having read Puts it in his scrip again, Looking like a man half-dead, By her kindness strangely slain ; And as one who inly knew Her distressed present state, And to her had still been true, Thus doth with himself debate.
I will not thy face admire, Admirable though it be,
The Shepherd's Sirena 151
Nor thine eyes whose subtile fire So much wonder win in me ; But my marvel shall be now (And of long it hath been so) Of all womankind that thou Wert ordain'd to taste of woe. To a beauty so divine, Paradise in little done,
0 that fortune should assign
Ought but what thou well mightst shun. But my counsels such must be (Though as yet 1 them conceal) By their deadly wound in me They thy hurt must only heal. Could I give what thou do'st crave, To that pass thy state is grown
1 thereby thy life may save But am sure to lose mine own. To that joy thou dost conceive, Through my heart the way doth lie ; Which in two for thee must cleave, Lest that thou shouldst go awry. Thus my death must be a toy Which my pensive breast must cover ; Thy beloved to enjoy
Must be taught thee by thy lover. Hard the choice I have to choose ; To myself if friend I be I must my Sirena lose ; If not so, she loseth me.
Thus whilst he doth cast about What therein were best to do, Nor could yet resolve the doubt Whether he should stay or go ;
152 The Shepherd's Sirena
In those fields not far away
There was many a frolic swain
In fresh russets day by day
That kept revels on the plain :
Nimble Tom, sirnam'd the Tup,
For his pipe without a peer,
And could tickle Trenchmore up
As 'twould joy your heart to hear ;
Ralph, as much renown'd for skill,
That the Tabor touch'd so well ;
For his Gittern little Gill,
That all other did excel ;
Rock and Rollo every way
Who still led the rustic ging,
And could troll a roundelay
That would make the fields to ring ;
Colin on his shawm so clear
Many a high-pitcht note that had
And could make the echos near
Shout as they were waxen mad.
Many a lusty swain beside,
That for nought but pleasure car'd,
Having Dorilus espi'd
And with him knew how it far'd,
Thought from him they would remove
This strong melancholy fit,
Or so, should it not behove,
Quite to put him out of 's wit ;
Having learnt a song which he
Sometime to Sirena sent,
Full of jollity and glee,
When the nymph liv'd near to Trent ;
They behind him softly got,
Lying on the earth along,
The Shepherd's Sirena 153
And when he suspected not Thus the jovial shepherds sung. I^ear to the silver Trent
Sirena dwelleth, She to whom nature lent
all that excelleth ; By which the Muses late
and the neat Graces Have for their greater state
taken their places : Twisting an Anadem
wherewith to crown her, As it belong'd to them most to renown her, Chorus. — On thy bank In a rank
Let thy swans sing her, And with their music along let them bring her.
Tagus and Pactolus
are to thee debter, Nor for their gold to us,
are they the better : Henceforth of all the rest
be thou the river, Which as the daintiest
puts them down ever ; For as my precious one
o'er thee doth travel She to pearl paragon
turneth thy gravel. Chorus. — On thy bank In a rank
154 The Shepherd's Sirena
Let thy swans sing her, And with their music along let them bring her.
Our mournful Philomel
that rarest tuner, Henceforth in Aperil
shall wake the sooner. And to her shall complain
from the thick cover, Eedoubling every strain
over and over ; For when my love too long
her chamber keepeth, As though it suffered wrong the morning weepeth. Chorus. — On thy bank In a rank
Let thy swans sing her, And with their music along let them bring her.
Oft have I seen the sun,
to do her honour, Fix himself, at his noon,
to look upon her, And hath gilt every grove
every hill near her With his flames from above
striving to cheer her ; And when she from his sight
hath herself turned, He as it had been night
in clouds hath mourned.
The Shepherd's Sirena 155
Chorus. — On thy bank In a rank
Let thy swans sing her, And with their music along let them bring her.
The verdant meads are seen, when she doth view them, In fresh and gallant green straight to renew them ; And every little grass
broad itself spreadeth, Proud that this bonny lass
upon it treadeth ; Nor flower is so sweet
in this large cincture, But it upon her feet leaveth some tincture. Chorus. — On thy bank In a rank
Let thy swans sing her, And with their music along let them bring her.
The fishes in the flood,
when she doth angle For the hook strive a good
them to entangle. And leaping on the land
from the clear water Their scales upon the sand
lavishly scatter ; Therewith to pave the mould
whereon she passes
156 The Shepherd's Sirena
So herself to behold as in her glasses.
Chorus. — On thy bank In a rank
Let thy swans sing her, And with their music along let them bring her.
When she looks out by night
the stars stand gazing, Like comets to our sight
fearfully blazing, As wondering at her eyes
with their much brightness, Which so amaze the skies, dimming their lightness ; The raging tempests are calm,
when she speaketh, Such most delightsome balm from her lips breaketh. Chorus. — On thy bank, In a rank
Let thy swans sing her, And with their music along let them bring her.
In all our Brittany
there's not a fairer, Nor can you fit any
should you compare her ; Angels her eye-lids keep,
all hearts surprising, Which look, whilst she doth sleep,
like the sun's rising :
The Shepherd's Sirena 157
She alone of her kind
knoweth true measure, And her unmatched mind is heavens treasure. Chprus. — On thy bank In a rank
Let thy swans sing her, And with their music along let them bring her.
Fair Dove and Darwen clear,
boast ye your beauties, To Trent your mistress here
yet pay your duties ; My love was higher born,
towards the full fountains, Yet she doth moorland scorn
and the Peak mountains ; Nor would she none should dream
where she abideth, Humble as is the stream which by her slideth. Chorus. — On thy bank In a rank
Let the swans sing her, And with their music along let them bring her.
Yet my poor rustic muse
nothing can move her, Nor the means I can use
though her true lover : Many a long winter's night
have I wak'd for her,
158 The Shepherd's Sirena
Yet this my piteous plight
nothing can stir her : All thy sands, silver Trent,
down to the Humber, The sighs that I have spent never can number. Chorus. — On thy bank In a rank
Let thy swans sing her, And with their music along let them bring her.
Taken with this sudden song, Least for mirth when he doth look, His sad heart more deeply stung Than the former care he took ; At their laughter and amaz'd, For a while he sat aghast But a little having gaz'd Thus he then bespoke at last.
Is this time for mirth (quoth he) To a man with grief opprest, Sinful wretches as you be, May the sorrows in my breast Light upon you one by one, And as now you mock my woe, When your mirth is turn'd to moan May your like then serve you so.
When one swain among the rest Thus him merrily bespake : Get thee up, thou arrant beast ; Fits this season love to make 1 Take thy sheep-hook in thy hand, Clap thy cur and set him on ;
The Shepherd's Sirena 159
I For our fields 'tis time to stand, Or they quickly will be gone. Roguish swineherds that repine At our flocks, like beastly clowns, Swear that they will bring their swine And will root up all our downs. They their holly whips have brac'd, And tough hazel goads have got ; Soundly they your sides will baste If their courage fail them not. Of their purpose if they speed Then your bagpipes you may burn ; It is neither drone nor reed, Shepherd, that will serve your turn. Angry Olcon sets them on And against us part doth take, Ever since he was out-gone OfFring rhymes with us to make. Yet, if so our sheep-hooks hold, Dearly shall our downs be bought ; For it never shall be told We our sheep-walks sold for naught. And we here have got us dogs Best of all the Western breed, Which, though whelps, shall lug their hogs Till they make their ears to bleed : Therefore, shepherd, come away. Whenas Dorilus arose Whistles cut-tail from his play, And along with them he goes.
From THE MUSES' ELYSIUM
DESCRIPTION OF ELYSIUM
A PARADISE on earth is found Though far from vulgar sight, Which with those pleasures doth abound That it Elysium hight.
Where in delights that never fade The muses lulled be, And sit at pleasure in the shade Of many a stately tree,
Which no rough tempest makes to reel, Nor their straight bodies bows ; Their lofty tops do never feel The weight of winter's snows.
In groves that evermore are green, No falling leaf is there, But Philomel (of birds the queen) In music spends the year.
The Merle upon her myrtle perch There to the Mavis sings, Who from the top of some curled birch Those notes redoubled rings.
160
Description of Elysium 161
There daisies damask every place, Nor once their beauties lose, That when proud Phoebus hides his face, Themselves they scorn to close.
The pansy and the violet here, As seeming to descend Both from one root, a very pair, For sweetness yet contend.
And pointing to a pink to tell Which bears it, it is loath To judge it, but replies for smell That it excels them both.
Wherewith displeased they hang their heads,
So angry soon they grow,
And from their odoriferous beds
Their sweets at it they throw.
The winter here a summer is, No waste is made by time, Nor doth the autumn ever miss The blossoms of the prime.
The flower that July forth doth bring In April here is seen ; The primrose that puts on the spring In July decks each green,
The sweets for sovereignty contend, And so abundant be, That to the very earth they lend And bark of every tree.
162 Description of Elysium
Kills rising out of every bank In wild meanders strain, And playing many a wanton prank Upon the speckled plain,
In gambols and lascivious gyres Their time they still bestow, Nor to their fountains none retires Nor on their course will go :
Those brooks with lilies bravely decked So proud and wanton made, That they their courses quite neglect And seem as though they stayed,
Fair Flora in her state to view, Which through those lilies looks, Or as those lilies lean'd to shew Their beauties to the brooks ;
That Phoebus in his lofty race Oft lays aside his beams, And comes to cool his glowing face In these delicious streams.
Oft spreading vines climb up the cleeves Whose ripened clusters there Their liquid purple drop, which drives A vintage through the year :
Those cleeves whose craggy sides are clad With trees of sundry suits, Which make continual summer glad, Even bending with their fruits ;
Description of Elysium 163
Some ripening, ready some to fall, Some blossom'd, some to bloom, Like gorgeous hangings on the wall Of some rich, princely room.
Pomegranates, lemons, citrons so Their laded branches bow, Their leaves in number that outgo Nor roomth will them allow.
There in perpetual summer's shade Apollo's Prophets sit Among the flowers that never fade But nourish like their wit ;
To whom the nymphs upon their lyres Tune many a curious lay, And with their most melodious choirs Make short the longest day.
The thrice three virgins heavenly clear Their trembling timbrels sound Whilst the three comely graces there Dance many a dainty round.
Decay nor age there nothing knows ; There is continual youth : As time on plant or creatures grows, So still their strength renewth.
The Poets' paradise this is, To which but few can come ; The Muses' only bower of bliss, Their dear Elysium.
164 Description of Elysium
Here happy souls (their blessed bowers Free from the rude resort Of beastly people) spend the hours In harmless mirth and sport.
Then on to the Elysian plains Apollo doth invite you, Where he provides with pastoral strains In Nymphals to delight you.
THE SECOND NYMPHAL LALUS, CLEON AND LIROPE
The Muse new courtship doth devise By nature's strange varieties Whose rarities she here relates, And gives you pastoral delicates.
Lalus, a jolly, youthful lad,
With Cleon, no less crown'd
With virtues, both their beings had
On the Elisian ground ;
Both having parts so excellent
That it a question was
Which should be the most eminent
Or did in ought surpass.
This Cleon was a mountaineer
And of the wilder kind,
And from his birth had many a year
Been nursed up by a hind ;
And, as the sequel well did show,
It very well might be,
For never hart nor hare nor roe
Were half so swift as he.
But Lalus in the vale was bred
Amongst the sheep and neat,
And by those nymphs there choicely fed
With honey, milk and wheat :
165
166 The Muses' Elysium
Of stature goodly, fair of speech,
And of behaviour mild
Like those there in the valley rich
That bred him of a child.
Of falconry they had the skill
Their hawks to feed and fly,
No better hunters ere clomb hill
Nor holloa'd to a cry :
In dingles deep and mountains hoar
Oft with the bearded spear
They combated the tusky boar,
And slew the angry bear.
In music they were wondrous quaint ;
Fine airs they could devise ;
They very curiously could paint
And neatly poetise :
That wagers many time were laid
On questions that arose
Which song the witty Lalus made,
Which Cleon should compose.
The stately steed they manag'd well ;
Of fence the art they knew ;
For Dancing fhey did all excel
The girls that to them drew.
To throw the sledge, to pitch the bar,
To wrestle and to run,
They all the youth excelled so far
That still the prize they won.
These sprightly gallants lov'd a lass,
Called Lirope the bright ;
In the whole world there scarcely was
So delicate a wight.
There was no beauty so divine
That ever nymph did grace,
The Second Nymphal 167
But it beyond itself did shine
In her more heavenly face.
What form she pleased each thing would take
That ere she did behold ;
Of pebbles she could diamonds make,
Gross iron turn to gold.
Such power there with her presence came
Stern tempests she allayed ;
The cruel tiger she could tame,
The raging torrents staid.
She chirl, she cherished, she gave life,
Again she made to die ;
She raised a war, appeased a strife
With turning of her eye.
Some said a god did her beget,
But much deceived were they ;
Her Father was a Eivulet
Her Mother was a Fay.
Her lineaments, so fine that were,
She from the fairy took ;
Her beauties and complexion clear
By nature from the brook.
These rivals waiting for the hour
(The weather calm and fair)
When as she us'd to leave her bower
To take the pleasant air,
Accosting her, their compliment
To her their goddess done,
By gifts they tempt her to consent :
When Lalus thus begun.
Lotus. Sweet Lirope, I have a lamb, Newly weaned from the dam, Of the right kind, it is notted, Naturally with purple spotted :
168 The Muses' Elysium
Into laughter it will put you
To see how prettily 'twill butt you,
When on sporting it is set
It will beat you a curvet,
And at every nimble bound
Turn itself above the ground.
When 'tis hungry it will bleat
From your hand to have its meat
And when it hath fully fed
It will fetch jumps above your head,
As innocently to express
Its silly sheepish thankfulness ;
When you bid it, it will play,
Be it either night or day.
This, Lirope, I have for thee
So thou alone wilt live with me.
Cleon. From him, O turn thine ear away And hear me, my lov'd Lirope, I have a kid as white as milk, His skin as soft as Naples silk ; His horns in length are wondrous even And curiously by nature writhen ; It is of th' Arcadian kind ; There's not the like 'twixt either Inde. If you walk 'twill walk you by, If you sit down it down will lie ; It with gesture will you woo And counterfeit those things you do ; O'er each hillock it will vault And nimbly do the somersault ; Upon the hinder legs 'twill go And follow you a furlong so ; And if by chance a tune you rote 'Twill foot it finely to your note.
The Second Nymphal 169
Seek the world and you may miss To find out such a thing as this. This, my love, I have for thee So thou'lt leave him and go with me.
Lirope. Believe me, youths, your gifts are rare, And you offer wondrous fair ; Lalus for lamb, Cleon for kid, — 'Tis hard to judge which most doth bid. And have you two such things in store And I ne'er knew of them before ? Well, yet I dare a wager lay That Brag my little dog shall play As dainty tricks when I shall bid As Lalus' lamb or Cleon's kid. But t'may fall out that 1 may need them : Till when ye may do well to feed them. Your goat and mutton pretty be, But, youths, these are no baits for me. Alas, good men, in vain ye woo ; 'Tis not your lamb nor kid will do.
Lalus. I have two sparrows white as snow, Whose pretty eyes like sparks do show : In her bosom Venus hatched them Where her little Cupid watched them, Till they two fledge their nests forsook, Themselves and to the fields betook ; Where by chance a fowler caught them, Of whom I full dearly bought them. They'll fetch you conserve from the hip And lay it softly on your lip ; Through their nibbling bills they'll chirrup And fluttering feed you with the sirrup ; And, if thence you put them by They to your white neck will fly ;
170 The Muses' Elysium
And, if you expulse them there, They'll hang upon your braided hair. You so long shall see them prattle Till at length they'll fall to battle, And when they have fought their fill You will smile to see them bill. These birds my Lirope's shall be So thou'lt leave him and go with me.
Clean. His sparrows are not worth a rush ; I'll find as good in every bush. Of doves I have a dainty pair Which, when you please to take the air, About your head shall gently hover Your clear brow from the sun to cover, And with their nimble wings shall fan you That neither cold nor heat shall tan you ; And like umbrellas with their feathers Shield you in all sorts of weathers ; They be most dainty coloured things, They have damask backs and chequered wings ; Their necks more various colours show Than there be mixed in the bow. Venus saw the lesser dove And therewith was far in love, Offering for't her golden ball For her son to play withal. These my Lirope's shall be, So she'll leave him and go with me.
Lirope. Then for sparrows and for doves I am fitted 'twixt my loves. But, Lalus, I take no delight In sparrows, for they'll scratch and bite 'Twixt Venus' breasts if they have lain I much fear they'll infect mine.
The Second Nymphal 171
Cleon, your doves are very dainty, Tame pigeons else you know are plenty : These may win some of your marrows, I am not caught with doves nor sparrows. I thank ye kindly for your cost, Yet your labour is but lost.
Lotus. "With full-lea v'd lilies I will stick Thy braided hair all o'er so thick That from it a light shall throw Like the sun's upon the snow. Thy mantle shall be violet-leaves, With the fin'st the silkworm weaves As finely woven, whose rich smell The air about thee so shall swell That it shall have no power to move. A ruff of pinks thy robe above, About thy neck so neatly set That art it cannot counterfeit, Which still shall look so fresh and new As if upon their roots they grew. And for thy head I'll have a tire Of netting, made of strawberry wire, And in each knot, that doth compose A mesh, shall stick a half -blown rose, Bed, damask, white ; in order set About the sides shall run a fret Of primroses, the tire throughout With thrift and daisies fringed about. All this, fair nymph, I'll do for thee So thou'lt leave him and go with me.
Cleon. These be but weeds and trash he brings I'll give thee solid, costly things. His will wither and be gone Before thou well canst put them on ;
172 The Muses' Elysium
With coral I will have thee crowned, Whose branches, intricately wound, Shall girt thy temples every way ; And on the top of every spray Shall stick a pearl orient and great, Which so the wandring birds shall cheat That some shall stoop to look for cherries As other for tralucent berries, And wondring caught ere they be ware In the curl'd trammels of thy hair. And for thy neck a crystal chain, Whose links, shap'd like to drops of rain, Upon thy panting breast depending Shall seem as they were still descending, And, as thy breath doth come and go, So seeming still to ebb and flow : With amber bracelets cut like bees, Whose strange transparency who sees, With silk small as the spider's twist Doubled so oft about thy wrist, Would surely think alive they were, From lilies gathering honey there. Thy buskins ivory, carv'd like shells Of scollop, which, as little bells Made hollow, with the air shall chime And to thy steps shall keep the time. Leave Lalus, Lirope, for me, And these shall thy rich dowry be.
Lirope. Lalus for flowers, Cleon for gems ! For garlands and for diadems I shall be sped. Why, this is brave : What nymph can choicer presents have ? With dressing, braiding, frowncing, flowering, All your jewels on me pouring,
The Second Nymphal 173
In this bravery being dressed
To the ground I shall be pressed ;
That I doubt the nymphs will fear me
Nor will venture to come near me.
Never Lady of the May
To this hour was half so gay,
All in flowers, all so sweet
From the crown, beneath the feet.
Amber, coral, ivory, pearl !
If this cannot win a girl
There's nothing can, and this ye woo me.
Give me your hands and trust ye to me
(Yet to tell ye I am loth)
That I'll have neither of you both.
Lotus. When thou shalt please to stem the flood (As thou art of the wat'ry brood) I'll have twelve swans more white than snow Yok'd for the purpose, two and two, To draw thy barge wrought of fine reed So well that it nought else shall need. The traces by which they shall hale Thy barge shall be the winding trail Of woodbind whose brave tassel'd flowers (The sweetness of the woodnymphs' bowers) Shall be the trappings to adorn The swans by which thy barge is borne. Of flowered flags I'll rob the bank, Of water cans and king-cups rank, To be the covering of thy boat ; And, on the stream as thou dost float, The Naiades that haunt the deep Themselves about thy barge shall keep, Recording most delightful lays By sea-gods written in thy praise.
174 The Muses' Elysium
And in what place thou hapst to land, There the gentle, silvery sand Shall soften, curled with the air As sensible of thy repair. This, my dear love, I'll do for thee So thou'lt leave him and go with me.
Clean. Tush, nymph, his swans will prove but
geese,
His barge drink water like a fleece. A boat is base : I'll thee provide A chariot wherein Jove may ride : In which when bravely thou art borne Thou shalt look like the glorious morn Ushering the sun, and such a one As to this day was never none ; Of the rarest Indian gums More precious than your balsamums Which I by art have made so hard That they with tools may well be carv'd To make a coach of ; which shall be Materials of this one for thee ; And of thy chariot each small piece Shall inlaid be with amber-gris And gilded with the yellow ore Produc'd from Tagus' wealthy shore : In which along the pleasant lawn With twelve white stags thou shalt be drawn, Whose branched palms of a stately height With several nosegays shall be dight, And as thou rid'st thy coach about For thy strong guard shall run a rout Of estriges, whose curled plumes Sens'd with thy chariot's rich perfumes The scent into the air shall throw ;
The Second Nymphal 175
Whose naked thighs shall grace the show, Whilst the woodnymphs and those bred Upon the mountains, o'er thy head Shall bear a canopy of flowers Tinseled with drops of April showers Which shall make more glorious shows Than spangles or your silver oes. This, bright nymph, I'll do for thee, So thou'lt leave him and go with me.
Lirope. Vie and revie, like chapmen profer'd Would't be received what you have offer'd : Ye greater honour cannot do me, If not building altars to me. Both by water and by land, Barge and chariot at command ; Swans upon the stream to tow me, Stags upon the land to draw me ! In all this pomp should I be seen, What a poor thing were a queen. All delights in such excess As but ye, who can express ? Thus mounted should the nymphs me see, All the troop would follow me, Thinking by this state that I Would assume a deity. There be some in love have been, And I may commit that sin ; And if e'er I be in love, With one of you I fear 'twill prove. But with which I cannot tell : So, my gallant youths, farewell.
176 The Muses' Elysium
THE SIXTH NYMPHAL SILVIUS, HALCIUS, MELANTHUS
A woodman, fisher, and a swain This nymphal through with mirth maintain, Whose pleadings so the Nymphs do please, That presently they gave them bays.
Clear had the day been from the dawn,
All chequered was the sky,
Thin clouds like scarfs of cobweb lawn
Veiled heaven's most glorious eye. {The wind had no more strength than this,
That leisurely it blew, I To make one leaf the next to kiss hjhat closely by it grew.
The rills that on the pebbles played
Might now be heard at will ;
This world they only music made,
Else everything was still.
The flowers like brave embroidered girls
Looked as they much desired
To see whose head with orient pearls
Most curiously was tired ;
And to itself the subtle air
Such sovereignty assumes
That it receiv'd too large a share
From nature's rich perfumes.
The Sixth Nymphal 177
When the Elysian youth were met
That were of most account.
And to disport themselves were set
Upon an easy mount :
Near which of stately fir and pine
There grew abundant store,
The tree that weepeth turpentine,
And shady sycamore :
Amongst this merry youthful train
A forester they had,
A fisher, and a shepherd's swain,
A lively country lad :
Betwixt which three a question grew
Who should the worthiest be,
Which violently they pursue
Nor stickled would they be ;
That it the company doth please,
This civil strife to stay,
Freely to hear what each of these
For his brave self could say :
When first this forester (of all)
That Silvius had to name,
To whom the lot being cast doth fall,
Doth thus begin the game. Silvius. For my profession then and for the life
Head
All others to excel, thus for myself I plead ! I am the prince of sports, the forest is my fee, He's not upon the earth for pleasure lives like me. The morn no sooner puts her rosy mantle on But from my quiet lodge I instantly am gone, When the melodious birds from every bush and
briar Of the wild spacious wastes make a continual choir;
178 The Muses' Elysium
The motlied meadows then, new varnisht with the
sun, Shoot up their spicy sweets upon the winds that
run
In easily ambling gales and softly seem to pace That it the longer might their lusciousness embrace. I am clad in youthful green, I other colours scorn ; My silken baldrick bears my bugle or my horn, Which setting to my lips I wind so loud and
shrill
As makes the echos shout from every neighbour ing hill.
My dog-hook at my belt, to which my lyam's tied, My sheaf of arrows by, my woodknife at my side, My crossbow in my hand, my game on my rack To bend it when I please, or, if I list, to slack ; My hound then in my lyam, I by the woodman's
art Forecast where I may lodge the goodly high-palm'd
hart,
To view the grazing herds, so sundry times I use, Where by the loftiest head I know my deer to
choose ;
And to unherd him then I gallop o'er the ground Upon my well-breath'd nag to cheer my earning
hound.
Sometime I pitch my toils the deer alive to take, Sometime I like the cry the deep-mouth'd kennel
make, Then underneath my horse I stalk my game to
strike
And with a single dog to hunt him hurt I like. The Silvians are to me true subjects, I their king : The stately hart his hind doth to my presence bring,
The Sixth Nymphal 179
The buck his loved doe, the roe his tripping mate, Before me to my bower whereas I sit in state. The Dryads, Hamadryads, the Satyrs and the
Fawns
Oft play at hide and seek before me on the lawns ; The frisking fairy oft when horned Cynthia shines Before me as I walk dance wanton Matachynes ; The numerous feathered flocks that the wild forests
haunt
Their silvan songs to me in cheerful ditties chant ; The shades like ample shields defend me from the
sun Through which me to refresh the gentle rivulets
run :
No little bubbling brook from any spring that falls But on the pebbles plays me pretty madrigals. I' th' morn I climb the hills, where wholesome
winds do blow ;
At noontide to the vales and shady groves below ; T'wards evening I again the crystal floods frequent : In pleasure thus my life continually is spent. As princes and great lords have palaces, so I Have in the forests here my hall and gallery, The tall and stately woods, which underneath are
plain ; The groves my gardens are, the heath and downs
again My wide and spacious walks : then say all what
ye can,
The forester is still your only gallant man. He of his speech scarce made an end But him they load with praise, The nymphs most highly him commend And vow to give him bays :
180 The Muses' Elysium
He's now cried up of every one, And who but only he 1 The forester's the man alone, The worthiest of the three : When some than the other far more staid, Will'd them a while to pause For there was more yet to be said That might deserve applause : When Halcius his turn next plies, And silence having won, " Room for the fisher man ! " he cries, And thus his plea begun. Halcius. No, forester, it so must not be borne
away,
But hear what for himself the fisher first can say. The crystal current streams continually I keep Where every pearl-pav'd ford and every blue-eyed
deep
With me familiar are ; when in my boat being set My oar I take in hand, my angle and my net About me ; like a prince myself in state I steer Now up, now down the stream, now am I here,
now there,
The pilot and the fraught myself j and at my ease Can land me when I list or in what place I please. The silver-scaled shoals about me in the streams, As thick as ye discern the atoms in the beams, Near to the shady bank where slender sallows grow And willows their shag'd tops down t'wards the
waters bow I shove in with my boat to shield me from the
heat,
Where choosing from my bag some prov'd especial bait,
The Sixth Nymphal 181
The goodly well grown trout I with my angle strike, And with my bearded wire I take the ravenous
pike, Of whom when I have hold he seldom breaks
away Though at my line's full length so long I let him
play
Till by my hand I find he well-near wearied be, When softly by degrees I draw him up to me. The lusty salmon too I oft with angling take, Which me above the rest most lordly sport doth make, Who feeling he is caught such frisks and bounds
doth fetch
And by his very strength my line so far doth stretch As draws my floating cork down to the very ground And wresting of my rod doth make my boat turn
round.
I never idle am ; sometime I bait my wheels With which by night I take the dainty silver eels ; And with my draught-net then I sweep the stream ing flood,
And to my trammel next and cast-net from the mud I beat the scaly brood ; no hour I idly spend, But wearied with my work I bring the day to end. The Naiades and Nymphs that in the rivers keep, Which take into their care the store of every deep, Amongst the flowery flags, the bulrushes and reed That of the spawn have charge (abundantly to breed) Well mounted upon swans their naked bodies lend To my discerning eye and on my boat attend, And dance upon the waves before me (for my sake) To th' music the soft wind upon the reeds doth make; And for my pleasure more the rougher gods of seas From Neptune's Court send in the blue Neriades,
182 The Muses' Elysium
Which from his bracky realm upon the billows ride And bear the rivers back with every streaming tide ; Those billows 'gainst my boat borne with delight ful gales
Oft seeming as 1 row to tell me pretty tales, Whilst ropes of liquid pearl still load my labouring
oars As stretch'd upon the stream they strike me to the
shores ;
The silent meadows seem delighted with my lays As sitting in my boat I sing my lass's praise. Then let them that like the forester up cry ; Your noble fisher is your only man, say I.
This speech of Halcius turn'd the tide
And brought it so about
That all upon the fisher cried
That he would bear it out ;
Him, for the speech he made, to clap
Who lent him not a hand,
And said 'twould be the waters' hap
Quite to put down the land 1
This while Melanthus silent sits
(For so the shepherd hight)
And having heard these dainty wits
Each pleading for his right ;
To hear them honour'd in this wise
His patience doth provoke,
When " For a shepherd room," he cries,
And for himself thus spoke. Melanthus. Well, fisher, you have done, and
forester for you
Your tale is neatly told, s'are both, to give you due, And now my turn comes next ; then hear a shepherd speak.
The Sixth Nymphal 183
My watchfulness and care gives day scarce leave to
break
But to the fields I haste, my folded flock to see ; Where when I find nor wolf nor fox hath injur'd me, I to my bottle straight and soundly baste my throat, Which done some country song or roundelay I roat So merrily, that to the music that I make I force the lark to sing ere she be well awake. Then Ball my cut-tailed cur and I begin to play, He o'er my sheep-hook leaps now th' one, now thr
other way
Then on his hinder feet he doth himself advance ; I tune, and to my note my lively dog doth dance ; Then whistle in my fist, my fellow swains to call ; Down go our hooks and scrips and we to nine holes
fall,
At dust-point or at quoits else are we at it hard ; All false and cheating games we shepherds are
debarred.
Surveying of my sheep, if ewe or wether look As though it were amiss, or with my cur or crook I take it, and when once I find what it doth ail It hardly hath that hurt but that my skill can heal. And when my careful eye I cast upon my sheep I sort them in my pens and sorted so I keep : Those that are big's t of bone I still reserve for breed, My cullings I put off or for the chapman feed. When the evening doth approach I to my bagpipe
take,
And to my grazing flocks such music then I make That they forbear to feed ; then me a king you see, I playing go before, my subjects follow me ; My bell-wether most brave before the rest doth
stalk,
184 The Muses' Elysium
The father of the flock, and after him doth walk My writhen-headed ram with posies crowned in
pride
Fast to his crooked horns with ribands neatly tied. And at our shepherds' board that's cut out of the
ground,
My fellow swains and I together at it round, With greencheese, clotted cream, with flawns and
custards stored,
Whig, cider and with whey I domineer a lord. When shearing time is come I to the river drive My goodly well-fleec'd flocks (by pleasure thus I
thrive) ;
Which being washed at will upon the shearing day My wool I forth in locks fit for the winder lay, Which upon lusty heaps into my cot I heave That in the handling feels as soft as any sleeve ; When every ewe two lambs that yeaned hath that
year About her new-shorn neck a chaplet then doth
wear.
My tarbox and my scrip, my bagpipe at my back, My sheep-hook in my hand, what can I say I lack ? He that a sceptre swayed, a sheep-hook in his hand Hath not disdained to have ; for shepherds then I
stand.
Then, forester, and you, my fisher, cease your strife, I say your shepherd leads your only merry life. They had not cried the forester And fisher up before So much, but now the nymphs prefer The shepherd ten times more ; And all the song goes on his side, Their minion him they make,
The Sixth Nymphal 185
To him themselves they all apply
And all his party take ;
Till some in their discretion cast,
Since first the strife begun
In all that from them there had passed
None absolutely won ;
That equal honour they should share,
And their deserts to show
For each a garland they prepare
Which they on them bestow,
Of all the choicest flowers that were,
Which purposely they gather ;
With which they crown them, parting there
As they came first together.
NOTES
Page 4, 1. 2. Paint on floods till the sJwre cry to the air. I do not grasp the poet's imagery. That ' paint ' is what Daniel wrote seems certain from what looks like an expansion of the line in Drayton's Idea sonnet 45.
" Muses which sadly sit about my chair, Drown'd in the tears extorted by my lines, With heavy sighs while thus I break the air, Painting my passions in these sad designs."
Moreover, the Errata in 1611 corrects a misprint in this line but says nothing about 'paint.' The word is frequently used simply for 'utter,' and probably is so here, and the meaning may be no more than this, that the poet as he sits by the waterside infects the shore with his passion. Cf. Civil War, ii. 129 [ed. 1595]—
" Nor had I then at solitary brook Sat framing bloody accents of these times "
[altered in 1602 to 'Nor had my Muse so sad a subject took,' and omitted in 1623]. Whether the ' floods ' are caused by the lover's tears, and the shore cries out in fear of being submerged, is more than I can say.
p. 6, 1. 16. arcs of love, i.e. eyebrows.
p. 14, 1. 23. arcs, i.e. triumphal arches.
p. 15, 1. 1. the Roman. Q. Mucius Scsevola.
p. 23, 1. 10. at last. I have supplied these words to fill out the metre and the sense.
p. 26, 1. 6. smoke. So 1602. Every edition I have seen sub sequent to this, including Grosart's, reads smoakt, which gives no sense. Of. Epistle to Countess of Cumberland, p. 34 —
" The all-guiding Providence doth yet All disappoint, and mocks this smoke of wit."
187
"7
188 Notes
p. 30. This passage of the ' Death of Talbot ' was a great favourite with Coleridge, especially the stanza beginning, ' Whilst Talbot, whose fresh ardour, ' etc. In a letter to Charles Lamb he says : ' ' You must read over these Civil Wars again. Gravely sober in all ordinary affairs, and not easily excited by any — yet there is one on which his Blood boils — whenever he speaks of English valour exerted against a foreign Enemy. . . . Thousands even of educated men would become more sensible, fitter to be members of Parliament or ministers, by reading Daniel — and even those few, who quoad intellectum only gain refreshment of notions already their own, must become better English men." (Quoted by Morris.)
p. 35, 1. 33. Knowing the heart of man, etc. This stanza was quoted by Wordsworth in the Fourth Book of the Excursion. In a note he transcribes the four stanzas beginning, ' Nor is he moved with all the thunder-cracks, ' as containing ' ' an admirable pic ture of the state of a wise man's mind in a time of public commotion." 'The whole poem,' he adds, ' is very beautiful.' In a letter to Lady Beaumont he speaks of it as "composed in a strain of meditative morality more dignified and affecting than any thing of the kind I ever read." The modern reader is apt to miss the imagery here. It is a comparison of man to the universe. All the terms, revolution, aspect, predominate, etc. , are borrowed from the Ptolemaic system of astronomy. In line 2 I have restored the correct reading ' his world,' which Grosart does not note, from 1602 ed. For the familiar thought of man as the microcosm, cf. p. 38, 1. 5.
p. 36, 1. 11. dispense with, come to terms with, a favourite word with Daniel.
p. 37, 1. 5. of, 1602. Texts usually read that, Grosart does not even note the true reading. Probably by the ' gold of leaden minds ' Daniel means panegyric.
p. 39, 1. 1. Wordsworth borrowed this line for the opening of the 18th sonnet to the river Duddon ; but omitted the first two words from his quotation marks.
Notes 189
p. 46, 1. 11. All the editions read ' rest with me ; ' which both spoils the rhyme and supplies no antithesis to the ' here ' two lines below.
p. 49, 1. 11. area. I take credit for restoring the true reading from the edition of 1611. Every edition since, that I have seen, including Grosart's, reads ' air,' which neither scans nor makes sense.
p. 51. Hymen's Triumph richly deserves a reprint. Cole ridge said of it: " Hymen's Triumph exhibits a continued series of first-rate beauties in thought, passion, and imagery ; and in language and metre is so faultless, that the style of that poem may, without extravagance, be declared to be imperish able English " (Literary Remains, ii. 360).
p. 55. The Ode was first published in Daniel's volume of 1594 at the end of the Sonnets. In the collected volume of 1623 it is printed twice. As Daniel's happiest song, I give it the place of honour at the end of this selection.
p. 57. DaffadilL I leave Drayton's spelling of this word, as he uses it for a proper name. Moreover, his spelling is recognised by Skeat.
p. 62, 1. 10. Seat. Sestos.
p. 63, 1. 1. "The Duke of Longaville, which was Prisoner in England, upon the Peace to be concluded be tween England and France, was delivered ; and married the Princess Mary, for Lewes the French King his master." — DRAYTON'S NOTE.
p. 64, 1. 13. "The Duke of Suffolk, when the Proclama tion came into England of jousts to be holden in France at Paris, he for the Queen's sake, his Mistress, obtained of the King to go thither : with whom went the Marquess Dorset and his four brothers, the Lord Clinton, Sir Edward Nevill, Sir Giles Campbell, Thomas Cheyney, which went all over with the Duke as his assistants."— DRAYTON'S NOTE. 1. 20. biss, silk.
p. 65, 1. 13. "Francis Valoys, the Dolphin of France, envying the glory that the English men had ob tained at the Tilt, brought in an Almain secretly, a man thought almost of incomparable strength,
190 Notes
which encountred Charles Brandon at the barriers ; but the Duke, grappling with him, so beat him about the head with the pommel of his sword, that the blood came out of the sight of his casque." — DRAYTON'S NOTE.
p. 66, 1. 9. " Sir William Brandon, standard-bearer to the Earl of Richmond (after Henry the Seventh) at Bos worth Field, a brave and gallant gentleman, who was slain by Richard there ; this was father to this Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk. "- DRAYTON'S NOTE.
p. 68. Princes like Suns. From e Queen Isabel to Richard
Love's September. From c Queen Margaret to
William de la Poole, Duke of Suffolk.' 1. 12. breem, stormy ; a word ' taken from Lydgate by Spenser, and echoed by later poets,' Murray, s.v. p. 69. From the Barons' Wars, Book vi., 30-63. p. 70, 1. 12. sledge, sledge-hammer.
1. 25. landscape, a painter's word for the background of a picture. This is the earliest instance of its use that I remember to have met. It does not come in the first version ; of which I give three stanzas here for the sake of comparison : —
" Here cliffy Cynthus, with a thousand birds Whose checkered plumes adorn his tufted crown, Under whose shadow graze the straggling herds, Out of whose top the fresh springs tumbling down
Duly keep time with their harmonious soun[d] ; The rock so lively done in every part As Art had so taught Nature, Nature Art.
" Here falls proud Phaeton, tumbling through the clouds The sunny palfreys have their traces broke, And setting fire upon the welked shrouds Now through the heaven fly gadding from the yoke,
The Spheres all reeking with a misty smoke, Drawn with such life, as some did much desire To warm themselves, some frighted with the fire.
" Upon the sundry pictures they devise, And from one thing they to another run ; Now they commend that body, then those eyes, How well that bird, how well that flower was done,
The lively counterfeiting of that sun; The colours, the conceits, the shadowings, And in that art a thousand sundry things."
Notes 191
p. 73, 1. 17. crankling, winding.
p. 74, 1. 3. cauples, horses ; from low latin caballus (Murray).
p. 76. Drayton first printed sonnets in a book called ' Ideas Mirrour. Amours in Quatorzains ' (1594), re printed by Collier in 1856. These (51 in number) were added to, corrected, and selected from, in various editions, until in the collected poems of 1619 there were 63, including for the first time the famous sonnet, ' Since there's no help, ' etc. Mr Elton in his masterly ' Introduction to Drayton ' (printed for the Spenser Society) has a very full bibliography, with a special appendix on the Sonnets. He calls attention to two which Drayton did not reprint (the first and eighth of this selec tion) as being * of a rare and excellent Spenserian vintage. '
p. 77, 1. 14. too good to be disgraced. Supply ' they are.'
p. 88. Odes. Mr Collier notes that ' the application of the word Ode at this date [1606] was nearly new in our language.' Daniel had employed it in 1592 (see page 55). Drayton writes a preface defending the name, and instancing classical authorities, such as Pindar, Anacreon, and Horace. He calls his own a * mixed ' style of Ode like that of Horace, ' little partaking of the high dialect of Pindar, nor alto gether of Anacreon, the arguments being amorous, moral, or what else the Muse pleaseth. ' Some of them are in the manner of Skelton. The intro ductory Ode ' To himself and the harp,' in which he gives a history and defence of the Ode form, concludes thus :
" Nor is't the Verse doth make, That giveth or doth take ;
'Tis possible to climb, To kindle or to slake, Although in Skelton's rime."
' All matter and no art ' is dangerous doctrine, and the Skeltoniads, though it is certainly possible to climb them with an effort, the modern reader finds intolerably rugged. The smoothest may be quoted here, as a confession of Drayton's poetical faith :
192 Notes
" The Muse should be sprightly Yet not handling lightly Things grave ; as much loth Things that be slight to clothe Curiously ; to retain The comeliness in mean Is true knowledge and wit. Nor me forced rage doth fit That I thereto should lack Tobacco, or the sack, Which to the colder brain Is the true Hippocrene. Nor did I ever care For great fools nor great fare : Virtue though neglected Is not so dejected As vilely to descend To low baseness, their end. Neither each rhyming slave Deserves the name to have Of poet : so the rabble Of fools for the table, That have their jests by heart, As an actor his part, Might assume them chairs Amongst the Muse's heirs. Parnassus is not clomb By every such nome ; Up whose steep side who swerves It behoves have strong nerves. My resolution such, Kow well, and not how much, I write : thus do I fare Like some few good, that care (The evil sort among) How well to live, and not how long."
p. 89, 1. 1. Eoan. Eos is the dawn.
1. 22. ceasure, i.e. ccesura, defined by Sidney as 'the breathing place in the midst of a verse. ' The word is used by Spenser (F. Q., II. x. 68).
' There abruptly it did end, Without full point, or other ceasure right.'
p. 90, 1. 13. This and the next stanza are an address to
Cupid.
1. 17. fascia, fillet, p. 92, 1. 3. make, mate.
p. 95, 1. 8. mine in the other part. Perhaps in should be is. p. 103. The original title of this poem is "To my friends
the Camber-britons and theyr Harp." In 1619 it
Notes
was altered to "To the Cambro-Britans and their Harpe, his Ballad of Agincourt." In the preface to both editions he thus speaks of it : " [I] would at this time also gladly let thee understand what I think above the rest, of the last Ode of this number (or if thou wilt Ballad) in my Book : for both the great master of Italian rymes, Petrarch, and our Chaucer, and other of the upper house of the Muses, have thought their canzons honoured in the title of a Ballad ; which for that I labour to meet truly therein with the old English garb, I hope as able to justify as the learned Colin Clout [i.e. Spenser] his roundelay."
p. 105, 1. 26. bilboes. Swords were so called, as coming from Bilboa. Thus both the English weapons, sword and bow, were from Spain.
p. 107. There are many variations in this and the previous poem between the editions of 1606 and 1619. For the most part the later text has been followed.
p. 108, 1. 12. Sassafras. A laurel formerly much used in medicine.
p. 109, 1. 14. Hackluit, Rev. Richard, the famous geo grapher, author of ' The Principall Navigations, Voiages, and Discoveries of the English Nation made by sea or over land to the most remote and farthest distant quarters of the earth, at any time within the compass of these 1500 yeares' (1589, aug mented 1590).
p. Ill, 1. 18. ure, use.
p. 118, 1. 19. Pueriles, i.e. 'Sententise Pueriles,' a well- known Latin phrase-book.
1. 20. Cato, i.e. Dionysius Cato, who wrote Disticha de moribus, once a famous school-book.
p. 119, 1. 20. William Elderton, a writer of ballads.
p. 120, 1. 11. Brian, Sir Francis, the favourite of Henry VIII., called 'Sacred Brian' in the Heroical Epistles, wrote in Tottell's Miscellany but with out signing his pieces, which are therefore now not distinguishable.
p. 121, 1. 15. Neat Marlowe. I should conjecture next, were it not for the phrase ' neatly poetise ' in the ' Second Nymphal,' p. 166, 1. 16. Cf. also Barons' Wars, N
194 Notes
iii. 39. 'In my verse, transparent, neat and clear. '
p. 122,1. 1. Samuel Daniel. In his Matilda (1594), Dray- ton had been much more complimentary : —
"Fair Rosamond, of all so highly graced Recorded in the lasting book of fame,
And in our Sainted Legendary placed By him who strives to stellify her name ; Yet will some matrons say she was to blame : Though all the world bewitched with his rime, Yet all his skill cannot excuse her crime."
And so, too, at the end of his Endimion and Phcebe (1595) he apologises to him, next after Spenser, thus :
" And thou, the sweet Musseus of these times, Pardon my rugged and unfiled rimes, Whose scarce invention is too mean and base When Delia's glorious Muse doth come in place."
In a prefatory sonnet to his Idea (1605) he says :
" Many there be excelling in this kind, Whose well trick' d rimes with all invention swell: Let each commend, as best shall like his mind, Some Sidney, Constable, some Daniel. That thus their names familiarly I sing, Let none think them disparaged to be; Poor men with reverence may speak of a King, And so may these be spoken of by me."
I suspect, too, that Daniel is the Melibceus of the Sixth Eclogue :
" Thou that down from the goodly Western waste To drink at Avon driv'st thy sunned sheep, Good Meliboeus, that so wisely hast Guided the flocks delivered thee to keep."
Daniel's Delia dwelt by the Avon.
p. 123, 1. 10. Alexander, Sir William, of Menstry, Earl of Stirling, the friend of Drummond of Hawthorn- den, and author of a portentous epic called ' Doomsday. '
p. 127, 1. 7. Hays, country dances.
p. 128, 1. 7. and. Drayton frequently misplaces this con junction for metrical reasons ; see p. 134, 1. 20 ; p. 137, 1. 5 ; perhaps most curious of all, p. 145, 1. 6.
Notes 195
p. 129, 1. 1. when. Dray ton not uncommonly uses the relative for the demonstrative ; see p. 135, 1. 25 ; p. 145, 1. 1.
p. 134, 1. 25. lin, cease.
p. 138, 1. 10. lubrican "it seems was a spirit, but of his / properties we are not fully informed." — NARES.
p. 152, 1. 7. Trenchmore, "a boisterous sort of dance to a
lively tune in triple time." — HALLIWELL. 1. 14. ging, company.
p. 167, 1. 33. notted, without horns.
p. 176, 1. 15. Something is wrong with this line. Perhaps we should read ' the only music ' ; but what does ' this world ' mean ? The world of waters ?
p. 178, 1. 9. lyam, a leash.
1. 11. my gaffle on my rack. This is Nares' correc tion for ' or my rack, ' the gaffle being the steel lever for bending the cross-bow. 1. 18, earning, same word as 'yearning.'
p. 179, 1. 6. Matachynes, a Spanish dance with swords. Nares says that Drayton, by calling them ' wanton,' mistook their nature.
p. 183, 1. 23. cuttings, the residue.
p. 184, 1. 6. flawns, custards.
1. 7. whig, a thin liquor made from whey. 1. 13. sleeve, silk.
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