Full text of "Elizabethan sonnets. Newly arr. and indexed, with an introd"

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ELIZABETHAN SONNETS

Voz.. I

OEN ENGLISH GOERNE

ELIZABETHAN $ONNETS
NEWLY ARRANGED AND INDEXED

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY

SIDNEY LEE

VoL. I

WESTM I NSTE R
ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE AND CO., LTD.

I9O4

PUBI, ISHERS' NOTE
TJJ texts contained in the l,resent volume are re-
printed with very slight alterations from the English
Garner issued in eight volumes (877«89o, London,
8voJ by Professor Arber, whose naine is suflcient
guarantee for the accurate collation of the texts
wilh the rare originals, the old spelling being in
most cases carefully modernised. The contents of
the original Garner have been rearranged and now
for the first rime classified, under the general
editorial supervision of lr. Thomas Seccombe.
Certain |acunae bave been fil|ed by the interpolation
of fresh marrer. The Ir, troductions are wholly
new and bave been written specially for this issue.

Edinburgh : 1". and A. CONST^B.% Prinzers fo His llajlsl

PREFATORY NOTE

IN the Introduction to these volumes I illustrate the close
dependence of the Elizabethan sonnet on foreign models.
The research continues an investigation of which the first
results htve alread¥ appeared in m¥ Lire af
No full nor detailed examination of the foreign in-
fluences at work on Elizabethan literature has yet been
undertaken, and I hope that the length to which the
present essa¥ runs will be excused on account of the
novelt¥ of its information. But, despite the number of
pages which I have pressed into my service, my treatment
of the relations subsisting between this comparativel¥
small branch of Elizabethan literature and continental
literar), effort is far from exhaustive. That fact is worth
emphasising, because it ma¥ suggest to students of Eliza-
bethan literature how wide and fertile a field of literary
research still awaits thorough exploration, and ma¥ en-
courage them to engage in it.
With a view to aiding further pursuit of the inquir¥, I
¥

vi E LIZABETHAN SONNET$
have added two indexes--the first of proper names, the
second of first lines. These indexes have been compiled
by Mr. W. B. Owen, B.A., who has also verified the text
ofthe numerous quotations that figure in the Introduction.

SIDNE¥ LEE.

February zStl.

CONTENTS

PREFATORY NOTE,
INTRODUCTION :--
I. The Elizabethan Sonnet-Literature, . . ix
ll. The Supremacy of Petrarch, . xi
III. The Sonnet in Sixteenth-Century ltaly, xviii
IV. The Sonnet in Sixteenth-Century France, . xxi
v. The first coming of the Sonnet in Sixteenth-Century
England, xxvii
Vl. The earliest Elizabethan Sonneteers--Sidney and
Watson, xxxil
VlI. The zenith of the sonneteering vogue in Elizabethan
EnglandmDaniel and Constable, . xlix
viii. Lodge, Barnes, and Fletcher, lxiv
IX. Drayton and Spenser, . Ixxxv
x. Poetoe Minimi, . c
Xl. Conclusion, . cv
Syr P[hilip] S[idney]--His Astrophel and Stella. Wherein the
excellence of sweet Poesy is concluded, . t
Sundry other rare Sonnets of divers Noble men and Gentlemen,
159, 88
vii

viii E LIZABETHAN SONNETS
Sir Philip Sidney--Sonnets and Poetical Translations, 1598, Io9
*Thomas Watson--The Tears of Fancie, or, Loue Disdained,
593, 37
Barnabe BarnesParthenophil and Parthenophe. Sonnets,
Madrigals, Elegies, and Odes, I593, I65

The item indicated by an aslerisk la a new addition to Cn Englis Garner

INTRODUCTION

For out of olde feldes, as men seith.
Cometh al this newe corn fro yeer fo yere ;
And out of olde bokes, in good fei,h,
Cometh al this newe science that men lere."
CHAUCEI, T&e °arlement o/Foules, il. ',-',$.

THE ELIZABETHAN SONNET-LITERATURE

THESE volumes, which offer the reader fifteen collections
of sonnets, bring together a substantial part of the vast
sonnet-literature which was produced in Elizabethan
England. One conspicuous contribution to that literature
is indeed omitted. Shakespeare's sonnets find no place
here. Their exclusion is well justified. In the first place,
unlike the work of his contemporaries in the saine field,
Shakespeare's sonnets are readily accessible elsewhere. In
the second place, Shakespeare's sonnets possess an incom-
parable poetic merit and a psychological interest which
entitle them to a place apart from other examples of the
like branch of literary effort. At the saine time, every
serious student of Shakespeare's sonnets will find it to his
advantage to study them in conjunction with the inferior
work of his contemporaries. Not merely will his apprecia-
tion of their oesthetic quality be thereby quickened, but he
will understand the contemporary circumstances of literary
history which brought them into being. A comparative

in,,estigation alone renders it possible to estimate the
extent to which Shakespeare's sonnets were coloured by
the conventions and conceits of professional sonneteers of
the period. Not otherwise c.an an answer, which shall be
entitled to respect, be given to the question, how much of
the story and imagery of Shakespeare's sonnets is the fruit
of" his personal experience.
Little of the perennial fascination which loyers of poe-
find in Shakespeare's sonnets can be set to the credit of the
contents of these two volumes. There were, among Shake-
speare's contemporaries, writers who occasionally reached a
high degree of excellence in the sormeteering art. Sidney and
Spenser, Lodge and Constable, Daniel and Draqon, what-
ever their inferiority to Shakepeare at his best, tank at
rimes with him and other great masters ofthe craft in litera.-
skill and feeling. Drayton's famons poem, ' Since there's no
help, corne let us kiss and part," deserves a foremost place
in any caa/o ra/s n of Elizabethan sonnet_ But
Drayton, like ail notable Elizabethan sonneteers, exhibits
strange inequalities of thought and of expression He and
they are more remarkable for their 'aiacr/ty in sinking"
than for any poer of sustained flight in the exa]ted
regions of poetry.
The sonnet at the end of the sixteenth century had for
English writers a perilous attraction. Sonneteering was
in universai vogue among ail who interested themselves in
literature, amateurs and professionais alike_ Every youth
of ordinary education was moved to woo the Huses in a
sequence of sonnet There was hardly an aspirant to poetic
faine of the age who failed to experiment in sonneeering
near the opening of his career. A perfect sonnet is oce of

[ NTRODUCTIOI X

the most difficult of all forms of poetr'. Only the fullest
command of the harmonies of language, and the ripest
power of mental concentration, ensure success. Yet the
brevity" of the form, the singleness of the idea whlch is all
its construction seems to crave, encourages the delusion
that it is easy of accomplishment.
In spire of the wide dissemination of literary" interest
and literaw feeling in Elizabethan England, the average
level of literaw capacity was not much higher than that of
other epochs. It was consequently inevitable that, when
the rage for sonneteering set in among the Elizabethans,
the mass of their sonneteering efforts should be bad.
Thomas Watson and Barnabe Barnes, Giles Fletcher and
Bartholomew Griffin, here and there sound a pleasing note
in their voluminous collections. But for the most part their
sonnets lack either meaning or music. The rest of the
sonneteering tribe--the authors of the sonnets collected
under the various titles of Ceelia, Zepkeria, Diella, CMoris,
and Laura--are notable for little else than the uncouthness
of their verbiage and their poverty" of thought. Theyare
mere wallowers in the bogs that lie at the foot of the
poetic mountain.

THE SUPREMACY OF PETRARCH

But quite apart from merit and demerit of craftsman-
ship, the sonneteering activity of Elizabethan England
forms an interesting chapter in literary history. The
chapter has not ),et been full written. It illustrates an

xii ELIZABETHAN SONNETS

aspect of Elizabethan literature to which due attention has
hot yet been paid by critics or chroniclers. One is accus-
torned to regard the literary energy of sixteenth-century
England as rnainly a national rnovement, as an outburst of
original thought which owed little to foreign influence or
suggestion. No student can advance far in his investiga-
tions in any direction, least of ail in the direction of the
Elizabethan lyric, without seriously qualifying this impres-
sion. As soon as one closely compares the tone and
language of the Elizabethan lyric with those of the lyric
in France and ltaly during the sarne epoch, or in the epoch
irnrnediately preceding the Elizabethan, as soon as one
realises the persistent intercourse between Elizabethan
England and the cultivated nations of Europe, one is
brought to the conclusion that the Elizabethan lyric in
nearly ail its varied shapes of song and sonnet was, to a
very large extent, directly borrosved frorn foreign lands.
It rnay be safely predicated that, had hOt foreign literature
supplied the initiative and the exarnple, the Elizabethan
lyric svould hot have corne into being, at any rate in the
shape svhich is farniliar to us. Out ancestors often
improved conspicuously on their foreign rnodels; they
gave fuller substance, fuller beauty to the poetry which
they adapted to their osvn tongue from Latin or Greek,
frorn French or Italian. But the inspiration, the invention,
is no purely English product. The English renderings are
as a fuie too literal borrowings to be reckoned, in a justly
critical estirnate, arnong wholly original cornpositions.
The Elizabethan sonnet offers the best of ail illustrations
of the vast debt that Elizabethan literature owed to foreign
influences. For practical purposes the sonnet rnay be

NTRODUCTION xiii

regarded as an invention of Italy. 1 It was at any rate the
Italian writers of the thirteenth century who first gave the
genre definite or permanent shape and character. Dante
(I265-I32I) may fairly be reckoned the earliest sonneteer of
historie interest. His Vita Nuova, in which he narrates
the story of his love for Beatrice, consists of thirty-one
lyrical poems linked together by chains of prose. Twenty-
rive of the poems are regular sonnets. Twenty-six other
sonnets figure in the rest of Dante's minor work, either
separately or in sequences, where they are usually inter-
mingled with canzone (Le. lyrical odes) and ballate (Le.
ballades). The influence of Dante's efforts was in some
degree indirect, but in manner and matter he sounded
the key-note of the sonnet of the Renaissance. Most of
his quatorzains profess to recite to the lady of his affections
the course of his amorous emotion; others soliloquise in
general terms on the joys and pangs of love; a few are
affectionately dedicated by the writer to friends of his own
sex. Love is throughout pictured solely in its ethereal
aspects. It is for Dante the worship ofbeauty and of virtue.
The origin of the sonnet (i.e. the quatorzain of fourteen lines) has been traced
with great plausibility to a more remote source. It bas much in common with
the epigram, which is familiar to readers of the Greek Anthology ; and when
knowledge of the epigrams of Greece spread among scholars of Western Europe
in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, some early writers of sonnets acknow-
ledged the identity of the two poetic forms by bestowing on their sonnets the
naine of epigrams. Cf. the collection of Epigrammes h Les EEuvres de
CIAment Alarot, Paris, c. 15So (pp. 469, 489, 5o9)- The poets of the Greek
Anthology, like ail the late Greek lyrists, influenced the development of the
sonnet as soon as their work became generally accessible. But despite the
influence of the Greek epigram on its history, the sonnet seems as a matter of
fact to have corne 6rst into being independently of classical example. The
quatorzain ,vas apparently first designed in the eleventh or twelfth century by the
poets of Provence, and the earliest Italian sonneteers worked on Provençal
foundations.

XiW LIZABFTHAN SONNETS

His sonnets, in fact, frankly interpret a leading phase of
that idealism with which the writings of Plato and his
disciples illumined metaphysical speculation in medioeval
Europe. The physical attributes of the poet's mistress
by no means escape Dante's attention. He sings in
simple language of her eyes, her smile, ber lips, her
golden tresscs. But all such features reflect for him the
splendour of the final type or idea of beauty which has its
home in celestial spheres, x
In the fourteenth century Petrarch (I3o4-I374)assumed
Dante's mantle, and devoted his main literary energy to
sonneteering. Although his sonnets differ little from
Dante's either in form or spirit, Petrarch's fame as a
sonneteer quickly outran that of his predecessor. Petrarch
was the sonneteer who finally dominated Western Europe;
and no subsequent practitioner in the art in Italy, France,
Spain, or England, during the two centuries which followed
his achievement, failed to bear witness to his mighty in-
fluence. Petrarch wrote sonnets on a larger scale than any
before him. The extant poems of this kind from his pen
number three hundred and seventeen in ail. Arranged in
two sequences, the first section, which is addressed to the

a In form Dante's sonnets show a rare mastery of metricai effect. They are
constructed with great regularity. The fourteen lines are distributed in two
quatrains and two tercets. The rhymes, which in no case number more than
rive, are arranged somewhat variously. Many of Dante's sonnets foilow the for-
mula, abba, abba, «de, «de (or cric). This is generally claimed to be the
standard Italian scheme of sonnet-rhyme, but the exceptions are too numerous
fully to justify this pretension. The concluding rhyming couplet, which is
characteristic of the Elizabethan sonnet, is rare in the Italian sonnet, and absent
altogether from the French, but it figures in six of Dante's sonnets and in several
of Petrarch's. The Italian formula for the last six lines occasionally runs « dddc «,
and many other permutations are found, llo single scheme of rhyme can be
regarded as the universai Italian type.

I NTRODUCTION XV

poet's mistress Laura during her lifetime, includes two
hundred and twenty-seven quatorzains; while the second
section, which is addressed to Laura after death, numbers
ninety. Variety is given to each sequence by the intro-
duction at irregular intervals of other forms of lyrical
verse: ballades (bal/are), sestines (sestine), madrigals
(madriga/z), and odes (canzonz). 1 With greater artistic
effect than Dante achieved, Petrarch ruade of his sonnet-
collection a lyrical medley in which the sonnet played
the chier, but by no means the only, part. The interruption
of sonnet-sequences by ode or briefer lyric effort became, in
virtue of Petrarch's example, an habitual characteristic of
European sonneteering at the most flourishing epoch ofits
history.
Petrarch's topic, like Dante's, is the Platonic idem of love,
the glorification of ethereal sentiment. The effort doubtless
derived its original impetus from a genuine experience of
the poet, but the idealistic web which he weaves about his
emotion proves that his work is mainly a conscious exercise
of the intellect and imagination, with which his own affairs
of the heart have only a remote or shadowy concern. Ail
the phases ofelation and despair which love may be deemed
capable of engendering in the mind, find artistic reflection
in Petrarch's verse. He sketches with a gentle delicacy
of phrase the effect on amorous feeling of spring and
summer, of light and darkness, of the presence and
absence by day and night of a beloved mistress. He
describes with every imaginative embellishment the beauty
I The section inscribed to Laura in life contains, besides the two hundred and
twenty-seven sonnets, twenty-one odes of varying lengths, eight sestines, four
madrigals, and rive ballades. The second sequence conlains eight canzoni, one
sestina, and one ballata.
]. b 8

XV| E LIZABETHAN SONNETS
of his mistress's features, ber intellectual endowments, heC
high birth. 1 His thought is nearly always true to the
ethereal plane which he marked out for himself as his
field of labour. Very rarely and very momentarily does he
touch earth. At the saine time, it is to be noted that a
current o[ religious [ervour co|ours his poetry, especially
the second of his sonnet-sequences, which he inscribed to
Laura a[ter death ; and occasionally he turns altogethcr from
purposes of love to give play to strong political feeling, or to
testify affection [or a friend or patron of his own sex. But
the exa|tation of the ideal type o[ beauty which connotes
both mental and physica| per[ection is his main aire.
The sonnet-sequence in later years was occasionally
diverted from that goal which Petrarch most conspicuously
sought, but he himself gave the cue for ail subsequcnt
variations of the sonnet-topic. Later sonnetcers grcat|y
veloped the hint that he offered them in the sonncts which
he inscribcd to his ma|e [riends--to his patron,
Colonna, to Colonna's [ather and brothcr, and to his close
ally, the poet Sennuccio. These poems he ruade vehicles
for exuberant adulation, for expressions of admiration and
affection. Often the sensual aspect of love, on which
cf. especially Sonnets clxxviil, and clxxix., where Petrarch dwells hot so
much on graces of feature, as on high birth (nobil satgte), charm of intellect
( intelletto dolce ed alto), and thoughtful expression (asttto lensoso).
2 Almost ail forms of address which poets of the Renaissance employed when
inscribing sonnets to their maie friends or patrons are adumbrated in a fine
sonnet (No. ccxxvii., concluding the first section), which Petrarch inscribed to
his especial patron and friend, Giacomo Colonna. There he deplored with equal
warmth the absence of his 'lord' and his «lady.' 'Affection for his lord, and
love for his lady are the chains,' he declares, which bind him fast in sorrow.'
'Carith di signore, amor di donna
Son le catene ove con multi affanni
Legato son, perch'io stesso mi strinsi.'

I ITRODUCTION xvii

Petrarch very lightly touched, galned in the sonnets of
succeeding ages mastery over its ethereal aspects. Some
sixteenth-century sonneteers, again, impressed either by
Petrarch's pietism or by his political enthusiasm, turned
their poems to the purposes of spiritual meditation or of
political exhortation. At rimes metaphysical reflection of
a someihat more technical kind than Æetrarch essayed,
became the sonneteer's leading theme. But itis very rarely
that the seed had hOt been sown by the Italian toaster.
The Petrarchan sonnet experienced some other modi-
fications. Petrarch was a classical scholar, and reminis-
cences of Horace and other classical writers often emerge
in his sonnets. But his successors enjoyed a larger oppor-
tunity than he of exploring classical literature. In the
sixteenth century some new literary strands came to
mingle with the Petrarchan threads out of which the
sonnets of Europe were to be woven. The Greek lyric
poetry with its airy fancies and its delicate imagery,
drawn from the Greek mythologyhthe cult of Venus, the
Cytherean goddess, and of Cupid, her Puck-like son--
fused itself after Petrarch's day with the poetic thought of
the later Renaissance. Themes and figures derived from
Theocritus or Moschus, from Meleager or Anacreon, were
grafted on Petrarchan sentiment and diction. In only
slightly less degree, too, certain poetic achievements of the
Latins--notably the amorous verse of Catullus, Propertius,
and Ovid--offered sonneteers suggestions which Petrarch
had neglected. Phrases and ideas conveyed for the
first rime from sources such as these, were welcomed by
Petrarch's successors no less eagerly than those which came
ftom Greek lyrics,

xviii E LIZABE'rHAI So1 ll ETS

But in spite of increase in knowledge on the part of
succeeding sonneteers in Western Europe, Petrarch's pre-
dominating force was undiminished. He remained the
acknowledged ru/er of the art. The whole country that
was to be occupied by the sonneteers was mapped out
by him, and although some districts proved more attractive
than others to future settlers, and were cultivated more
effectively, the boundaries that Petrarch set up were re-
ligiously respected. The process of transferring his work
into foreign tongues, the differences in the learning,
capacities, and aims of the adapters, evolved an endless
variety of superficial differences of thought or expression.
But there is no ground for impugning the constant and
all-embracing influence that he actively exerted upon
sonnet-literature through fully two hundred years.

III

THE SONNET IN SIXTEENTII-CEIITURY ITALY
In order to apprehend the overwhelming character and
cxtent of Petrarch's and his successors' influence on the
Elizabethan sonnet, some preliminary knowledge of its
course in both sixteenth-century Italy and France is
essential. The Elizabethan sonnet is for the most part the
reflection of a foreign substance, and only after that foreign
substance is closely studied will the reflection be seen in
its true light.
For the first hundred years after his death Petrarch's
work was, in Italy, more widely read than imitated. In
the fifteenth century, despite great literary activity in
other directions, sonneteers were hot abundant in Italy.

INTRODUCTION XX

Petrarch's chief Italian disciple of the era was Serafino
dell' Aquila (1466-I5OO), whose sonnets and strambotti
quickly acquired European faine, and were soon freely
plagiarised in France and England as well as in his own
country, s But it was hot till the sixteenth century opened
that Petrarch's influence proved its true capacity. It was
only through the middle or the later decades of that century
that in Ital¥ itself, no less than in Spain, France, and
England, the sonnet flourished in al1 its luxuriance. The
exaggerated popularity which the sonnet then enjoyed
throughout Western Europe has hot been experienced at
that or any other era by any other form of verse. It
has been computed that the sixteenth-century sonnets of
Western Europe exceed in number 3oo»ooo.
The sixteenth century was reckoned in Italy, no less
than in France and England, the golden age of literature.
But in whatever branch of imaginative literature Italian
writers of that century ruade their reputation, it was their
invariable ambition to excel as sonneteers in addition.
Italian scholars, who only wrote poetry in Latin, penned
numerous sonnets in Latin. Ariosto and Tasso, the
brightest stars in the literary firmament of sixteenth-
century Italy, wrote sonnets on a generous scale.
Hundreds of lesser lights whose brilliancy has long since
dwindled did little else through long periods of their lires
than court literary faine as sonneteers; Pietro Bembo and
i Strambotti were eight-lined lïrics in various brisk inertes. Florio, the
Elizabethan lexicographer, in his Italian dictionary, defined them as' Country
gigges, rounds, catches, virelaies or three men's songs.'
« , So great was the admiration felt for this poet [Serafino] by his [Italian]
contempoaries, that his epitaph assures the travel|er that he may hold it an
honour even to have seen his tomb.'Courthope's History ofEnglisli Poetry,
vol. il. p. $ .

XX E LIZABETHAN SONNETS
Luigi Alarnanai, for e×ample, in the first hall of the century,
or Lodovico Dolce and Battista Guarini in the second hall,
strained every nerve to win the position of champions of
the art. The source of their inspiration was never for a
moment obscure& They and the crowd of their com-
petitors felt pride in claiming kinship with Petrarch; the¥
dubbed themselves Petrarchists, and the¥ called their art
Petrarchism. The Petrarchan form and spirit lost much of
their pristine beaut¥ and dignit¥ as they passed, in sixteenth-
centur¥ Ital¥, from pen to pen. The old conceits were
distorted into an interminable series of fantastic shapes.
Such small traces of sincere emotion as could be placed to
Petrarch's credit were blotted out. The worship of ideal
beaut¥ was maintained, usuall¥ with a correct formalit¥
which approached the grotesque. The sonneteers de-
liberatel¥ worked within a definitel¥ limited range of ideas
and images, and no genuine originalit¥ in the method of
their presentment was countenanced. None the less, there
was no slackening in the flow of this degenerate Petrarchism
among the master's countrymen till after the close of the
sixteenth centur¥. Throughout that centur¥ the Italian
printers grew busier year b¥ year in disseminating sonnet-
literature. One hundred and twenty-one volumes of
sonnet-sequences came from Italian presses in the firgt
quarter of the centur¥; three hundred and twent¥-six
volumes, most of which bore convincing testimon¥ to the
degenerac¥ of the art, were published during the last
quarter. 1
The vogue of the sonnet is well illustrated in a rare miscellany of previously
unprinted sonnets by living writers, 'hich was published in x59x (Part l. at
Genoa, Part Xl. at Pavia), under the title çcelta di ime di diversi noderni
autori. NonaOiù stamlaIe. More than forty contributors are enumerated, and the

INTRODUCTION

One cause of the sonnet's persistence in Italy may
possibly be round in the stimulus which all lyric poetry
derivid, during the last hall of the sixteenth century,
from the invention and wide dissemination there of music
of the modern kind. The first Italian musical composers,
in their search for words for the newly invented madrigal
and part-song, liberally borrowed from the sonnets of
Petrarch and his successors. The French and English
song-books were often mere adaptations of Italian song-
books in both their words and music, and through such
agencies the lease of lire enjoyed by the Italian sonnet
was greatly extended both at home and abroad.

THE SONNET IN SIXTEENTH-CENTURY FRANCE

It was from Italy that the sonneteering vogue spread to
France. There it did hot corne to birth before the middle
poems number I85. A more ample collection of Italian sonnets of the sixteenth
century may be found in the first two volumes of Agostino Gobbi's Scdla disonati
can:oni de' iù eccellenti rimatori d'oKni secolo, 4 vols., V enice, 1739. Some
xTo writers represent the period x5oo«55 o, and x3 o the period 55o-6oo. The
incessant reissue of the earlier poetic work of the century during its later half
accounts for the steady increase in the number of the poetic publications. A
very full bibliography of the sixteenth-century sonnet in France and Italy was
lately completed by M. Hugues Vaganay, Librarian of Les Facultés Catholiques
of Lyon, an enthusiastic student of the sonnet on the continent of Europe.
bi. Vaganay's work is entitled ' sonnet en Italie et en t;rance au X VI"
siScle. Essai de Bibliographie comparée' (Lyon, 19o3). It describes several
thousand volumes of French and Italian sonnets ; but, large as the work is, it by
no means exhausts its theme. Italian scholars who only wrote in Latin, penned
among their voluminous Latin poems numerous Latin sonnets, which greatly
increase the total number of sonnets that were brought to birth in sixteenth-
century Italy. Latin sonnets were also very common in France {cf. Gruter's
ample collections : Dditiat C. . llalorum oaarum, 16o8, z vols., and Deh'tiae
Ç. goetarum Gallorum I6O9, 3 vals.).

xxii ELIZABETHAN SOlqlqETS
years of the sixteenth century, but it then developed vith a
rapidity and intensity which produced sonnets in number
hardly inferior to the ltalian record. Melin de St. Gelais
(1487-i558) and Clément Marot (I497-544) have long
disputed with one another the honours of first introducing,
in the third or fourth decades of the sixteenth century,
the Petrarchan sonnet to France. The priority is justly
allotted to Marot, who, in a detached sonnet penned in
honour of a dignitary of Lyons in the year I529, first in
France touched the Petrarchan lyre. This and two other
quatorzains of like date, in one of which he adapted an
epigram from Martial, figure in Marot's collection of
'Épigrammes.' Shortly afterwards, Marot translated six
sonnets and a canzone directly from Petrarch.
le was, however, only after Marot's death that the reign
of the sonnet was definitely inaugurated in France. That
result was due to the deliberate resolve of Pierre de
Ronsard and six friends, who were already acquainted with
the work of Marot or Melin de St. Gelais, to adapt to the
French language the finest products of foreign literature.
Ronsard and his companions assumed the corporate title
of La tl/iade, and adopted the sonnet as the characteristic
instrument of their school. The manifesto of the new
movement was written by Joachim du Bellay, one of its
Cf. Les OEuvres {Paris, c. x55o), Épigrammes, pp. 469, 489, 5o9 (an imitation
of Martial). See aiso uvres ComzOlètes de Ci/ment A[arot, published by Jannet
|x868-87z), vol. iii. p. 59 (Épigrammes). Melin de St. Gelais' familiar sonnet
beginning
' Voyant ces monts de veue ainsi lointaine,'
which is often quoted as the first of French sonnets, and which was translated
by Sir Thomas Wyatt, was clearly anticipated by the efforts of his friend
Marot.

INTRODUCTION xxiii

ablest champions. There Frenchmen were adjured to
write sonnets after the manner of Petrarch and the modern
Italians. 1 While pointing out to the French nation ail the
avenues to literary culture which the ancient classics offered
them, Du Bellay was especially emphatic in his commenda-
tion of the Italian sonnet as a main source of culture.
'Sonne-moi ces beaux sonnets, non moins docte que plai-
sante invention italienne, pour lesquels tu as Ptrarque et
quelques modernes Italiens.' *
With rare enthusiasm, Du Bellay and his colleagues
devoted themselves to acclimatising in the French tongue
the thought and expression of Greek writersbfrom Homer
and Pindar to the latest Alexandrine and Byzantine poets--
and of Latin writers--from Ovid and Vergil to the Latin
versifiers of medioeval and modern Italy. To the work
of the late Greek lyrists the new French poets quickly
acknowledged a close affinity, and one of Ronsard's and
Du Bellay's lieutenants, Rem), Belleau, turned from manu-
script Anacreon's verse into sparkling French song, and
published his version belote the Greek text appeared in its
editio ?rince?s. But to no poet of the past did the Pléiade
leaders pay such whole-hearted homage as to Petrarch, of
whose work Du Bellay asserted that, if Homer and Vergil
had undertaken to translate it, they would have been unable
to reproduce its grace and sincerity.
The Petrarchan sonnet-sequence, with its intermingled
odes and sestines and madrigals, was cultivated by Ronsard
Du Bellay's manifesto, which revolutionised French literature, was entitled
Z)fens¢ et illustration de la langue ranfais¢, and was published in February
549. It eeommended the deliberate imitation in Fench of the best Geek»
Latin, and Italian poetry.
I)/]¢ns« et illustration, etc.» II ¢ partie, ch. iv.

xxiv E LIZABETHAN SO,NNETS

and his friends and disciples with marvellous assiduity. 1
The Petrarchan rein was at once assimilated. The French
sonneteers idealised beauty, alike in its yielding and way-
ward moods, in strict imitation of their Italian masters.
The imagery is always derivative. Flowers and precious
stones, planers and comets, sunrise and sunset, shipwrecks
and sieges, the ghostly phantoms of loyers' nights, tigresses
and Medusas, match in as wearisome a procession through
the French sonnet-sequences as through the Italian sonnet-
sequences of the sixteenth century. Love's mundane,
sensual aspects are, except in a few instances, ignored,
and no reader is long left in doubt of the unreality which
infects the sixteenth-century French quatorzain of love.
At the saine rime, the French poets were fertile in adulatory
sonnets addressed to men of tank and fashion, and many
penned, too, long series on political and philosophical
themes. But whatever the subject of the French sonnet,
it is rarely that a spontaneous note was sounded.
No limits were set to the sonneteering productivity of
sixteenth-century France. Ronsard, who of ail his colleagues
was most bountifully endowed with lyric gifts, aspired to
wear the laurels of Pindar, Horace, and Anacreon, as well as
those of Petrarch. But he succeeded in publishing nearly
a thousand sonnets during the middle years of the century.
Most of them were amorous sequences bearing such titles
as 'Amours de Cassandre,' 'Amours pour Hélène,' and
'Amours pour Astrée.' Ronsard's ally, Du Bellay, chris-
tened a sequence of the saine type ' Olive,' and he also won

I The precise relations between the PiCade and Petrarch are well indicated
in L¢ Pttrarfuism¢ au A'VI « Sitcle. P/trarfue et 8onsard, par Marius Pieri
Marseilles 896).

INTRODUCTION XXV

renown through a long series of political and metaphysical
sonnets, which he collected under the names of'Regrets,'
and 'Antiquités de Rome.' De Bail, a third member of the
Pléiade, was equally voluminous in sonneteering addresses
to fanciful mistresses like Méline and Francine, or to friends
and patrons. The leaders of the new school quickly
gathered about them hosts of disciples, who energetically
emulated their example. In the later years of the six-
teenth century, when the energy of French sonneteers
was still untamed, the crown was worn among them by
Philippe Desportes (546-t6o6), a fashionable ecclesiastic,
whose fluency as a sonneteer is probably unsurpassed
in literature. He has little other genuine claire to
lasting remembrance. Ail the artifices of thought and
language which render the later Italian Petrarchism tedious
and repugnant to truc loyers of poetry, found reflection in
his ample pages. 1
The French Pléiade and their followers, in a greater and
greater degree as the years passed, contented themselves
with literal translation of the Italian words. There is
probably no sonnet of Petrarch, and few of the popular

Desportes' pillages of Italian poetry covered a wide area, and many were
very civilly indicated in his lifetime in a rare w, lume called Les Rencontres des
fuses de France et d'Italie (Lyon, I6O4). Desportes translated and adapted a
very large number of the sonnets of Serafino dell' Aquila and of Antonio Tebaldeo,
both writers of the fifteenth century (cf. Francesco Flamini, Stuci di storia
lette,'«lria italiana e straniera, Livorno» 1895 , pp. 341-79 , 433"9)- He ruade
equally free with the work of Bembo, Ariosto, Sannazaro, Tansillo, and Molza,
ail of whom were popular sonneteers in the sixteenth century. To these
sources M M. Vaganay et Vianey have recently claimed to add by their researches
the poetry of a less known Italian poet, Pamphio Sasso (d. 1556), some portions
of whose work seem to have been printed in later editions of Serafino, with-
out indication of its true authorship (cf. Revue d'Histoire litt/raire de la Prance
April-June 19o3).

xxvi ELIZABETHAN SONNETS

sonnets of his Italian followers, which were hot more or
less exactly and more or less independently reproduced a
dozen rimes or more in French verse during the later years
of the sixteenth century. To a student of Italian sonnet-
literature French sonnet-literature of the sixteenth century
reveals practically nothing that will hot be already familiar
to him in its Italian original.
Although the French sonneteer failed to announce to
his readers the precise Italian source whence he derived
individual poems, he was true to the spirit of Du Bellay's
original call to arms, and avowed in general terres his
veneration for the ltalian sonnet, and his large debt toit.
No higher eulogy could be passed on Du Bellay, in the eyes
of his French admirers, than the bare statement that he
had introduced into his own land the love-sonnet of Italy. !
In one of his sonnets Du Bellay tells his mistress that
although she has ail the charms of Laura, his lack of
Petrarch's power prevents him from doing her justice.
That regret was echoed by hundreds of Du Bellay's country-
men. Desportes, in the following sonnet which he wrote
for the flyleaf of a copy of Petrarch's poems (' Pour mettre
devant un Petrarque'), struck the note that was universal :--
' Le labeur glorieux d'un esprit admirable
Triomphe heureusement de la posterité,
Comme ce Florentin qui a si bien chanté
Que les siecles d'apres n'ont trouvé son semblable.
! Vauquelin de la Fresnaie, one of Du Bellay's most ardent imitators, in a
sonnet addressed to his master, wrote :--
' Ce fut toy, Du Bellay, qui des premiers en France
D'Italie attiras les Sonets amoureux.'
Ziers Sontts, Io. iii. (ed. Julien Travers, I87o , ii. p. 7oz).
I Du Bellay'$ Les tlrnours, lqo. iiL (edit. ! 597, p. 3o8/'). Du Bellay com-
pares himsdf to a crow and lais toaster to a san.

INTRODUCTION xxvii

La beauté n'est ainsi, car elle est perissable ;
Mais Laure avec ses vers un trophée a planté,
Qui fait que l'on revere h jamais sa beauté,
Et qui rend son laurier verdissant et durable.
Celle qui dans ses yeux tient mon contentement, .
La passant en beauté, luy cède seulement
En ce qu'un moindre esprit la veut rendre immortelle.
Mais j'ay plus d:amitié, s'il fut mieux écrivant,
Car sa Laure mourut et il resta vivant ;
Si ma dame mouroit, je mourrois avec elle. '

TtlE FIRST COMING OF THE SONNET IN SIXTEENTH-
CENTURY ENGLAND
In sixteenth-century England the history of the sonnet
falls into two well-defined chapters. The form of verse was
at its first coming into England recognised as the child of
Petrarch, and Petrarch remained the guiding spirit of the
sonnet through the Elizabethan era. But Petrarch's
example did hot prove.strong enough in itself---before it
mingled with other developments--to stir in this country
an extended or a permanent enthusiasm. It required the
added stimulus supp]ied at a later date by tbe sonneteering
activity of sixteenth-century France and sixteenth-century
Italy, to render the sonnet in England a universally
popular poetic instrument. The widespread vogue of the
sonnet in Elizabethan England was, at the outset, indeed
excited by French energy to a larger degree than by Italian.
Consequently the first chapter in the history of the English
sonnet, which treats of the sonnet under the more or less
exclusive sway of Petrarch, is short. The canvas is mainly
Desportes, Edition 858 (ed. Michiels), p. 4 7.

xxviii ELIZ JkBETHAN SONNETS

occupied by the second chapter, which treats of its growth
under the spur hot merely of Petrarch himself, but, in
addition, of the French Pléiade School and of the con-
temporary ltalian Petrarchists.
Petrarch's lame reached England in his lifetime. Chaucer,
who was his contemporary, in the prologue to the Cerk's
Talc, refers to
' Fraunceys Petrarck, the laureat poete
.., whos rethoryke sweete
Enlumined al Itaille of poetrye.'
In his poem of Troilus and Criseyde (Book I. stanzas
58-60), Chaucer in a spirit of prophecy translated one of
Petrarch's best-known sonnets, which was in the sixteenth
century to undergo innumerable renderings and adaptations
in every language of Europe. t But Chaucer's cry round no
lasting echo. More than a century passed away without
any further attempt in England to spread abroad a know-
ledge of Petrarch's poetic achievements.
Early in the sixteenth century Petrarch was discovered
anew by cultivated Englishmen of Henry VIII.'S Court, who
visited Italy and eagerly assimilated the literature of the
Italian Renaissance. The eider Sir Thomas Wyatt and
the Earl of Surrey were the true pioneers of the sonnet in
Petrarch's Sonnet (ciL) opens :--
' S'amor non , che dunque quel ch'i' sento
Chaucer's fourteen-line translation, which fiils two stanzas» each of seven lines,
begins thus :-
,If no love is, 0 God, what fele I so?
And if love is, what thing and whiche is
If love be good, from whennes comth my wo?'
See Watson's rendering of the saine sonnet of Petrarch in lais'E««ropz-«Ol«, I'o. v.
Cf. De Baif, i. xo, ed. Marty-Lareaux {Amours de Francine}, and Jacques G révin
(Z'Olimpe) in Becq De Fouquière's Poètes Français du XVI'. Siècle, p. zoo.

l NTRO UCTION XXiX

England. Their culture was wide, and they knew many
classical writers. They perceived the merit of Petrarch's
predecessor, Dante, and of some of Petrarch's followers,
notably Serafino and Alamaimi. To a smaller extent they
were impressed too by the rising faine of their own con--
temporar¥ Ariosto, as well as of Marot and Melin de St.
Gelais in France. But it was mainly from Fetrarch that
they borrowed their inspiration, t
Wyatt and Surrey did their main literary work between
t53 o and t54o, but none of it was published before t557,
when it appeared, together with much poetry by other of
Henry VIII.'s courtiers, in the volume called Songes and
Sonettes written by the ryght honorable Lorde lffenry lffoward
laie Earle of Surrey and other.*" The book was familiarly
called, after its publisher's naine, Tottel's 3Vlriscellany.
Sonnets figured largely in this volume. Although their
source was never precisely indicated, it was generally

A¢¢ording to the familiar language of Puttenham, the Elizabethan criti¢ of
English po.-try:--' In the latter end of the same king's [Henry vlll.] raigne
sprong vp a new eompany of eourtly makers, of whom Sir Thomas IF.rat th'
elder and Henry Earle of Surrey were the two chieftaines, who hauing trauailed
into Italie, and there tasted the sweete and stately measures and stile of the
ltalian Poesie as nouiees newly crept out of the schooles of 19ante .4rioae and
Petrarch, they greatly pollished our rude and homely maner ofvulgar Poesie,
from that it had bene before, and for that cause ma}, justly be .,ayd the first
reformers of out EngHsh meetre and stile.'--(Puttenham's tiret of IEnglish
Poeff, 1589, ed. Arber, p. 74, ed. x869.) Again : ' I repute them [i.e. Wyatt
and Surrey] for the two chier lanternes of light to ail others that haue since
employed thelr pennes vpon English Poesie, their eonceits were loftie, their
selles stately, their termes proper, in ail imitating 'ery naturall)' and studiously
their blaister lrrancl« tararcha.'--lbid., p. 76.) Again : 'The saine Earle of
Surrey and Sir Thoma« 14ryat, the first reformers and polishers of out vulgar
Poesie, mueh afl'eeting the stile and measures of the ltalian Petrarca.'--(lbid.,
P- x39-)
s That volume quickly obtained popularity, and was nine rimes reprinted belote
t589 ; no further editlon followed till 77.

XXX ELIZABETHAN ONNETS

hinted at in two anonymous sonnets in the collection,
entitled respectively A raist of Pttrarke and of Laura
is ladie, and Tat Petrark cannot be lassed but notwit-
standing Mat Laura la far surlpa$$td. The first sonnet
opened thus :--
' O Petrarch, head and prince of Poets ail,
Whose lively gift of flowing eloquence
Well may we seek, but find hOt how or whence
So rare a gift with thee did rise and rail,
Peace to thy bones, and glory immortal
Be to thy naine.'
The second sonnet began with the lines :--
' With Petrarch to compare there may no wight
Nor yet attain unto so high a style.' t
Of Wyatt and Surrey, the two main contributors to
Tottel's volume, XVyatt, who had the advantage of superior
poetic feeling although hot of metrical skill, was the more
voluminous sonneteer. His extant sonnets number thirty-
eight. The majority are neither adaptations nor para-
phrases; they are direct translations--for the most part

of Petrarch. s One example
will suffice :--
P'TRARCII, Sonnet cl]t. -
Amor, che riel pen$ier m[o ve, e fera,
E'I suo g mage[or riel mio cor tene ;
Talor tto uell fote vent ;
Que]la ch'ae, soffer;r
E oI che'l d[o. l'aoE sne
n, vero reveren affrene ;
D[ ntro a[r f st si ea :
de or pant ge re"
ndo o s [mpra; pe, trema;
I s'onde, non app p[ f.
Che ss'io f» tremendo il m[o sirote,
non s [nfin all' o ese
Che bel fa chi ben amdo me.
Tottel, ed. Arber, p. x78.

of Wyatt's ordinary method

The following sonnets of Petrarch are literally rendered by Wyatt.

WvA"r'r (Tottel, p. 33)-
The long love that in my thought I harbour,
And in my heart doth keep his resldence,
lmo my face presseth with bold pretence,
And thert campeth displaying hls banner.
She that me learns to love and to sufi.er,
And wills that my trust, and lust's negligence
Be reined by reason, shame, and reverence,
With his hardiness takes displeasure.
Wherewith love to the heart's forest he fleeth,
Leaving lais enterprise with pain and cry,
And there him hideth, and nos appeareth.
What may I do, when my masser feareth,
But in the fieid with him to lire and diet
For good is the lire, ending faithfully.
a Tottel, ed. Arber, p. 175.
I give

[ NTRODUCTION XXX

Wyatt did not entirely confine his study to the sonnets
of Petrarch. He paid some attention to the master's
canzone, two of which he borrowed. Nor was he uninterested
in the work of Petrarch's fifteenth-century disciple, Serafino
dell' Aquila. At least tvo of his songs reproduce Serafino's
fantastic lyrics (strambotti). Even in his satires Wyatt,
while betraying the influence of Juvenal and Persius, freely
conveyed passages from the similar work of the sixteenth-
century Italian Fetrarchist, Luigi Alamanni. Nor did
the first lines of the Italian mad English in order to facilitate comparison.
The onnets of Petrarch are numbered according to the notation accepted in ail
modern edition$. To Wyatt's sonnets are atached the page-numbers in Arber's
reprint (87o) of Tottel's Iistellany, 155 ? :--
Petrar¢h xvii. {Son' animali al mondo di si allera vista).
Cf. Tottel, p. 38 {Some fowls there be that bave so perfe¢t sight
Petrarch xix. (Mille fiate, o dolce mia guerrera).
Cf. Tottel, p. 69 (How oft bave I, my dear and cruel foc).
Petrar¢h xliv. {Mie venture al venir son tarde e pigre).
Cf. Tottel, p. 68 (Ever my hap is slack tnd slow in ¢oming).
Petrarch lxi. {Io non fit' d'amar vol lassato unquan¢o).
Cf. Tottel, p. 33 (Ver was I never of your love aggrleved).
Petrar¢h lxxxi. {çesare, poi che' 1 traditor d'Egitto).
Cf. Tottel, p. 37 (Cmsar, when that the traitor of Egypt).
Petrarch xcix. {Amor, Fortuna, e la mia mente schiva).
Cf. Tottel, p. 69 (Love, Fortune, and my mind which do remember).
Petrarch ¢iv. {Pace non trovo, non ho da far guerra :)
Cf. Tottel, p. 39 (I final no peace, and ail my war is donc).
Petrarch cix. (Amor, che nel pensier mio vive, e regna).
Cf. Tottel, p. 33 The long love that in my thought I harbour).
Petrarch ¢xx. (Ire, caldi sospiri, al freddo cote:)
Cf. Tottel, p. 73 {Go, burning sighs, unto the frozen heart).
Petrar¢h cxxxvi. {Pien d'un vago pensier, che mi desvia).
Cf. Tottel, p. 35 tSuch -ain thought as wonted to mislead me).
Petrar¢h ¢lvi. {Passa la nave mia ¢olma d'oblio).
Cf. Tottel» p. 39 {My galley ¢harged with forgetfulness).
Petrarch clxxxviii. {S'una fede amorosa, un cor non finto).
Cf. Totte], p. 7o {If amorous faith, or if an heart unfaigned) ; sec also
p. 36 {If waker tare, if sudden pale eolour).
Petrarch c¢xxix. {Rotta l'alta Colonna, e'l verde Lauro ;)
Cf. Tottel, p. 72 {The pillar perisbed is whereto I leant).
I. c 8

XX×i ELIZABETHAN SONNETS

Wyatt altogether neglect French literature. He rendered
with verbal accuracy a popular sonnet of Melin de St.
Gelais ( 487- 558)?
Surrey is hardly less learned a graduate in the Petrarchan
school, though his sonnets often adapt his master's work with
greater freedom than Wyatt essayed. But he did hOt on
occasion disdain literal translation. Petrarch's Sonnet cix.,
which was rendered into English by Wyatt, was also inde-
pendently translated by Surrey, his fellow-poet ; and it may
be of some interest to compare with Wyatt's version, which
has already been quoted, Surrey's version, which is some-
what more literal and more dexterous.
' Love that lileth and reigneth in my thought,
That bui/t his seat within my captive breast ;
Clad in the arms wherein with me he fought,
Oft in my face he doth his banner rest.
She, that me taught to love, and surfer pain ;
My doubtful hope, and eke my hot desire
With shamefast cloak to shadow and refrain,
Her smiling grace conierteth straight to ire.
And coward Love then to the heart apace
Taketh his flight ; whereas he lurks, and plains
His purpose lost, and dare hOt show his face.
For my Lord's guilt thus faultless bide I pains.
Yet from my Lord shall hOt my foot remove :
Sweet is his death, that takes his end by love.'

THE EARLIEST ELIZABETHAN SONNETEERS--
SIDNEY AND WATSON
The promise of a poetic revival in England, which the
effort of Wyatt and Surrey gave, was hot fulfilled. Surrey's
' Voyant ces monts de veue ainsi lo,ntaine.' Tottel, p. 70 : « Like to these
immeasurable mountains.'

| NTRODCTION xxxiii

death in I547 1 was followed by a barren quarter of a
century, and only at the close of that period did a great
literary era dawn on Èngland. In that interval the Pléiade
school of France inaugurated and brought to maturity the
first golden age of modern French literature. Throughout
the same epoch Italian literature was still bearing rich
fruit, and it was Italian literary energy that dominated
the new French outburst. To Èlizabethan literature, how-
ever, the primary impulse seems to bave corne from the
new French activity, and hot from the continuous flow of
Italian poetry. The sonnet was reintroduced, for the second
rime in the century, into England mainly from France. 2
Petrarch quickly reasserted over the Elizabethan sonnet
that supremacy which Wyatt and Surrey had acknow-
ledged. The best Elizabethan sonneteers--men like
Sidney, Watson, and Spenser--were hot content to prac-
fise the sonneteering art on any large scale until they

z Surrey survived Vyatt by rive years.
s The student should be warned against the irreguar use of the word ' sonnet'
for 'song' or 'poem,' which might suggest the erroneous notion that the
'sonnet' continuously played a part in English literature through the middle
years of the sixteenth century. CA proper sonnet,' in Clement Robinson's
poetical anthology, A Handefull of 191casant Deliter, I584, is a lyric in ten
four-line alternatively rhymed stanzas, lgeither Barnabe Googe's Eglogs,
taphes, and Sonnetter, t563, nor George Turbervile's 2E2itahet , Epig'ramt,
Songs, andSann«ts, 1567, contains asingle fourteen-lined poem. William Byrd
published in 1587 his tsalms, Sonels, and SanKs of Sadness and lietie, but
though he tells the reader that if he be disposed ' to bec merrie» heere are
Sonets,' and heads a section of the book ' Sonets and Pastorales,' no poem
bearing any relation to the sonnet form is included. When the truc 'sonnet'
was reintroduced into England, it was ofien technically designated by the
French word 'quatorzain' rather than by 'sonnet.' Watson is eongratulated on
' scaling the skies in lofty qalar»ains" in verses before his tassionate Centrie,
158' ; cf. erad quatarains, in Thomas Hashe's preface to his edition of Sidney's
Astrop&d and St¢lla, I59I ; and Amours in Quatoains on the title-page ot the
first edition of Drayton's Se.nets, t594.

XXXiV ELIZABETHAN ONNET

had steeped themselves in Petrarch's text. But even they
studied with equal thoroughness the writings of the Pléiade
masters, while the majority of the Elizabethan sonneteers
concentrated their attention on contemporary France, and
derived their chier knowledge of Petrarch and of his Italian
followers from the French adaptations of Italian work
by Ronsard and Desportes rather than by more direct
approach. The wholesale loans which the Elizabethan
sonneteers invariably levied on foreign literature did not
always succeed in extinguishing the buoyant native tire.
But genuine originality of thought and expression was
rare. Indeed, some of the Elizabethan sonneteers (whose
literary morality and whose claire to the honours of poetic
invention have hot hitherto been impugned) prove, wben
their work is compared with that of foreign writers, to
bave been verbatim translators, and almost sink to the
level of literary pirates.
Thomas Watson, Edmund Spenser, and Sir Philip Sidney,
who were all in tender years of infancy when Elizabeth
came to the throne in 1558 , divide among themselves the
parentage of the Elizabethan sonnet. In early youth
Sidney and Watson visited France, and Sidney extended
his travels into Italy, making the acquaintance of the
painters there as well as of the poets. Spenser seems also
to have gone abroad in early lire, while he was serving
in a secretarial capacity his patron, the Earl of Leicester.
In ail these men the recent literary revival in France first
stirred the poetic impulse, x
Extant catalogues of two libraries on this side of the Channel show that the
works of the French poets were purchased by book-buyers through the Eliza-
bethan period. The catalogue of the library formed by Mary Queen of Scots
at the op¢ning of the epoch includes, besides nuraerous translations into French

INTRODUCTION XXxV

Probably Spenser's earliest poetic effort was an act of
homage to Ronsard's counsellor, Joachim du Bellay. Fif-
teen of the Frenchman's sonnets on the theme of the Apoca-
lypse were rendered by Spenser, while a schoolboy, into
English, under the title of The Visions of Bellay. Subse-
quently he revised this youthful venture, and combined
with ita translation of the longer series of sonnets by
Du Bellay called Les Antiquit/s de Rotor. In the 'envoy'
in sonnet form to his rendering of Du Bellay's qntfquitds,
Spenser apostrophised the Frenchman in language that
plainly acknowledges his literary influence:

' Bellay, first garland of free Poesie,
That France brought forth, though fruitfull of brave wits,
Well worthie thou of immortalitie.'

But Spenser also learned much that was of pressing import-
ance to him from the greatest of the French poets who
preceded the Pléiade. It was not, it proves, from the
masters of that new French school, it was from that school's

of the classics and modern Italian poetry, many volumes of Clment Marot,
Ronsard, and Du Bellay, including ail their sonnets; Zes Erreurs .4mou-
reuses of Pontus de Tyard, one of the Pliade sonneteers ; Zes Soupirs of Olivier
de Magny ; and a volume by Claude de Buttet. The Recueil d¢poesiefranfolse,
Paris, 1555, was aiso included.--{Zibrary of Queen Mary Stuart, by Julian
Sharman.) William Drummo,d of Hawthornden, at the end of the petiod,
notes that he read between I6o6 and I64 works by the following Fren¢h
authors: Ronsard, Pontus de Tyard, Le Seigneur des Bon Accords, Pasquier,
Jodelle, Jean de la Perase, Passerat, Pibrac, Du Bartas. He also studied
French translations of Tasso's .4minta, Samaazaro's .4r«adia, Montemayor's
Diana, Petrarch, Guarini's Pastor Fido, Ariosto's Orlando. "I'he Italian poets
read by Drummond in their own tongue in the saine period only include ]3embo,
Luigi Groto Cieco, F. Contarini, S. Carlo Coquinato, Lodovico Paterno, Tasso,
Marino, Parabosco, and Lelio Capilupi. By I6lI Drummond had collected
I2O books in French, 61 in Italian, and only 5o in English. He had also some
2oo Latin volumes, 35 in Greek, Il in Hebrew, and 8 in Spanish. His French
collection far exceeded ail the others in modern languages put together.

XXXVi

ELIZABETItAN ONNETS

eminent predecessor, Clément Marot, two of whose eclogues
he silently imitated in his Sh«h«rd's Calendar (Nos. xi. and
xii.), that Spenser gained his earliest knowledge of Petrarch.
Shortly before his death, Marot had translated into six
twelve-lined stanzas, with a four-line envoy, an ode or
canzone (No. xlii.), which figures among Petrarch's sonnets.
The Italian poet gave this poem no separate designation,
but Marot invented for it the title of Les Visions
rarqu«, which harmonises with its subject-matter. Spenser's
earliest experiments in verse include, besides the sonnets
from Du Bellay, seven others which bear Marot's invented
name of The Visions of PetrarcA. These seven sonnets re-
produce in English Marot's French verses word for word.
The expansion of the French twelve-line stanzas into
quatorzains, and of the four lines of the French envoy into
fourteen lines, fails in any material respect to differentiate
the English and French renderings of ietrarch's ode.
There can be no doubt that Spenser only knew the ode
at the time of writing in Marot's version. Subsequently he
read Petrarch in the Italian text, and at a much later date
devised a new sonnet-sequence on the Petrarchan plan ; but
it is clear that it was through the study of. French that
Spenser passed to the study of Italian.
The evidence that Sidney and Watson drew their first
literary sustenance from France is less complete, but there
is positive evidence that very early in their career both
came under the impressive influence of Ronsard, Du Bellay's
chier. It was claimed for Watson that he did for the
progress of English poetry what Ronsard did for French
poetry. With no less eagerness than Spenser did Sidney
and Watson seek, in years of adolescence, direct acquaint-

INTRODUCTION XXXVii
ance with the Frenchmen's Italien masters. Watson trans-
lated into Latin Petrarch's whole collection of sonnets, t
The ' Stella' of Sidney's adoration was avowedly modelled
on Petrarch's 'Laura.' But there is little question that it
was through France that both Sidney and Watson travelled
to the Italian shrine.
Thus were the foundations laid for the edifice of sonnet-
sequences in Elizabethan England. Spenser only in later
lire continued those experiments in the adaptations of
foreign sonnets which he began in youth. But about I58O ,
more than a decade before Spenser resumed his labours,
Sidne¥ and Watson both set to work simultaneously on the
construction of a sonnet-sequence in the Petrarchan vein.
The main part of Sidney's work, which is known under
the title of AstrolMd and Stdla, circulated among his friends
in manuscript for eleven years before it was printed pos-
thumousl¥ in I59I. Watson's first effort in the like direc-
tion came from the press in I582. The publication of
Watson's collection gave the cue to the sonneteering move-
ment in Elizabethan England. His volume sheds a flood of
light on the biology of Elizabethan sonnet-literat ure.
Watson's book is entitled Tire "E«a,otzraS;a , or tas-
sionate Çenturie of Love. It consists of one hundred separate
poems, few of which are quite regular sonnets; the lines
usually number eighteen instead of fourteen. But the work
illustrates at ever¥ point the method and spirit of the
nascent sonneteering vogue.
The inaugural poem (a regular sonnet) is addressed to the
Watson failed to publish his performance, but preserved two of his Latin
versions of Petrarch's sonnets in his collection called Te 'E/E'ro/zrE01E, Or
t'assienat¢ Centurk er Z.att. See Watson's t'ocres, ed. Arber, 895, pp. 42»
t38.

xxxviii E LIZABETHAlq SOlqlq ETS

author by an admiring friend, and places Petrarch in the
centre of the stage. The lines opening thus :--
' The stars which did at Petrarch's birthday reign
Were fixed again at thy nativity,
Destining thee the Tuscan's poesy,
Who scaled the skies in lofty quatorzain.
The ltluses gave to thee thy fatal vain,
The very same, that Petrarch had, whereby
Madonna Laura's fame is grown so high,
And that whereby his glory he did gain.'
Another enthusiastic friend of the English poet, writing
in Latin verse, declared how France was now at length fast
garnering the wealth of Parnassus and luxuriating in the
new achievements of Ronsard :
' Gallica Parnasso coepit ditescere lingua,
Ronsardique operis luxuriare nouis.'
Of all countries of Europe only England, Watson's pane-
gyrist proceeds, was still awaiting the advent ofgreat poetry,
and Watson had arisen to satisfy her yearning.
Watson deprecates ail claire to originality. To each poem
he prefixes a prose introduction in which he frankly indi-
cates, usually with ample quotation, the French, Italian, or
classical poem which was the source of his inspiration. He
aires at little more than paraphrasing sonnets and lyrics by
Petrarch and Ronsard, or by Petrarch's disciples, Serafino
dell' Aquila, Ercole Strozza (47 I- 15o8), or Agnolo Firen-
i Arber edition, p. 34-
a It is a curious proof of the estimation in which the poets of sixteenth-century
ltaly, even those of small merit, were held by Elizabethan critics, to find Gabriel
llarvey, when he seeks to pay a high compliment to a popular English writer,
like George Gascoigne, telling him that he is the equal of an Italian of such
restricted faine as Ercole Strozza (of Ferrara). Harvey's eulogy of Gascoigne
runs thus :--
' Gascoignus solus, seipsum cure Hercule
Strozza comparat, homine Italo
Eodemque viro generoso ac poeta nobili.'
Zetter.Book of GaSriel Iurar,ey, pul,I. Camden Society, 1884, p. 55-

[ NTRODUCTION XXXX

zuola, together with passages from the chief writers of
Greece and Rome. t As a rule, his rendering is quite literal,
though he now and then inverts a line or two of his original,
or inserts a new sentence. In the conventional appeals
to his wayward mistress, and in his exposition of amorous
emotion, there is no pretence of a revelation of personal
experience. Watson's whole effort is a literary exercise from
the pen of a scholiast. Appropriately enough he devotes
his last page to a good rendering in Latin, in regular sonnet
form, of one of Petrarch's concluding quatorzains (cccxiii.),
in which the Italian poet deplores his absorption in the
vanities of love, and prays God that he may aspire to
higher things.
Subsequently Watson vigoroisly concentrated his energy
hot only on the more recent poetry of Italy, but also on
the new birth of Italian music, which gave added impetus
to lyric activity through Europe. He published a para-
phrase in Latin hexameters of Tasso's lately issued pastoral
drama 4minta, and also an English rendering of a selection
of Italian madrigals. The latter work was widcly popular.
The new Italian music was gowing fashionable in
Elizabethan England, especially the madrigal and part-song,
to which the great contemporary Italian composers devoted
x Eight of Watson's sonnets re, according to his own account, renderings
from Petrarch ; twelve are from Serafino deii' Aquila (I466-I5OO) ; four each
corne from Strozza, the Ferrarese poet, and from Ronsard ; three from the Italian
poet, Agnolo Firenzuola (1493-1545) ; two each from the French poet, Etienne
Forcadel, knovn as Forcatulus {15147-1573) , the Italian Girolamo Parabosco
{ff. 1548), and 2Eneas Sylvius ; while many are ba.sed on pas.sages from such
authors as (among the Greeks), Sophocles, Theocritus, Apolionius of Rhodes
{anthor of the epic ,4ronau/ica) ; or {among the Latins), Vergil, Tibullas, Ovid,
IIorace, Ptopertius, Seneca, Pliny, Lucan, Martial, and Valerius Flaccus ; or
(among other modern Italians}, Angelo Poliziano {I454-I494} , and Baptista
Mantuanus {I448-I516) ; or (among other modern Frenchmen), Gervasius Sepinus
of .qaumur, writer of eclogues after the manner of Vergil and Mantuanus.

X| LIZABETHAN SONNETS
their chief energies. In Iaha Mad,al« En,l«h«d( 9o),
Watson gave the earliest hint of the sustenance that the
Elizabethan lyric was to derive from the recent union of
Italian music with Italian poetry. He translated the ltalian
words which Luca l,Iarenzio, the Venetian composer, and
other Italian musicians of eminence, had set to music. The
verse was for the most part derived from the Italian son-
neteers. One of the most famous of Fetrarch's sonnets
(cclxix.)--'Zefiro torna, e '1 bel tempo rimena'--is the
original of the fourth of Watson's translated madrigals. I
Watson rendered it from the reprint in Marenzio's music-
book, without an), indication of its authorship. That
reticence illustrates how the taste for music silently opened
a new path for the admission into Elizabethan England of
the Italian master's poetry.
This rare book, of which a copy is in the British Museum, is omitted from
Arbeds collection of Watson's poems. It was reprinted by Professor E. I. Car-
p¢nter, of Chicago, in theJournal of Germani¢ vliilology {vol. il. No. 3, P- 337),
and by Wilhelm Bolle in Z)ie KedrueM¢n enKlis¢&en Li¢derbiic&er bi$ I6OO
(Palatstra, xxix. pp. 39-56, Berlin, x9o3). In both reprints the Italian originals
o[ the madrigals are reprinted with the English.
s The whole of the saine sonnet of Petrarch was et to music by Alfonso Fera-
bosco and Geronimo Conversi as well as by Marenzio, and is translated indep¢n-
dently by anoer Elizabethan collector of wotds for music, lqicholas ronge, in
his 3Irica TranmliMna (I $88). (Sec nglisli Garner, Sort¢r lizabetan Po¢ms,
P. 77.} In like fashion, Petrarch's sonnet on the nightingale begitming {cclxx.},
' Quel rosiguol che si oa,'e piagne,' appeats in an Englàsh translation {beginting
i O nightingale that sweetl), dothe complain '} in Morle]ds 2radriKalx tofle
['oitt$, Nos. I9» 2o, I98 , which ere set to music b)' an English composer, Petcr
Phillips, who speut most of his litre abroad. Of the general relation betweeu
English madrigals and Pett arch's sonnets light is thrown b)' the musical composer,
Thomas Morle)'. In his Plain aut Eaxy lntroduaion to ra«tical 3Iuxic {I597},
the first satisfactory musical treatise published in England» Morley wrote of the
' light music' which had latel), become popular in English : ' The best kind
of it is termed madrigal, a word for the etymologie of which I can give no
reason ; ]et use showeth that it is a kind of musicke ruade upon songs and
sonnets» such as Petrarcha and manie Poets of out rime have excelled in.'

1 NTRODUCTION XI

But Watson never deserted the sonnet in its pristine
simplicity. In I593, a year after his death, there was
published a second sequence of amorous sonnets by him
in strict metre. These numbered sixty in ail, and bore
the title T/te Tears of Fancie, or Love Disdained. A lthough
the writer there gave no references to his authorities, the
trail of France and Italy is unconcealed. In the opening
sonnets he describes a skirmish between himselfand Cupid in
the Anacreontic manner which Ronsard especially affected.
The remaining poems re-echo, in a somewhat piping
key, the tearful sighs and groans which Petrarch and his
imitators had already sounded with wearisome iteration.
At rimes he adapts a Petrarchan canzone or ode to the
purposes of his sonnet-sequence. His Sonnet Iii., which
describes how the sun and the moon bring joy to all living
creatures except the despairing loyer, reproduces with little
change Petrarch's first sestina:

PvTRARCU» Sestina l.
A qualunque animale alberga in terJa
Se non se alquanli c' hanno in odio il Sole,

Tempo da travagliare è quanto è '1 glorno -"
Ma poi, ch' il ciel accende le sue stelle.

In Sonnets xix. and xx., in which the power of the heart
and eye in cherishing love are fantastically contrasted, he
handles a æetrarchan conceit which was universaIly appro-
priated by Petrarch's disciples. 1 Sonnets xlvii., xlviii, and ll.
on Spring, Sonnets xxviii, and xxix. on Echo, are equally
derivative in thought or expression.
Petrarch's Sonnet lxiii., 'Occhi, piangete ; accompagnate il core,' whefe
the poet holds dialogue with his eïes, with its complement in cxvii., ' Che fai,
alma ? che pensi ? avrem mai pace ?' where the poet holds dialogue with hi

xlii ELIZABETHAN SONNETS

Sir Philip Sidney died six years belote Watson, but the
long sertes of sonnets which occupied his leisure through
the last six years of his lire were hot published till 1591.
Then for the first rime, in accordance with a common
practice of the age, they were produced surreptitiously by
an adventurous publisher, Thomas Newman, who acquired
a written copy without consultation with the author's
friends. 1 The pathetic circumstances of Sidney's early death
in the war in Holland rendered him a national hero, ald his
writings exerted on Elizabethan thought an overwhelming
influence which owed as much to his extraneous repute as
to their intrinsic merit. Although itis probable that
heart, were especially favoured by the later Italian and French sonneteers as well
as by the English. Cf. Desportes, l)iane, Livre I. Sonnet il. dialogue between
the poet and his h©alt), and the sonnet h©aded Z)ialoou« betwe©n the po©t and
his eyes}, which follows Sonnet lxi. in the saine collection. Cf. Ronsard's Ode«»
Livre IV. Ode xxii., where the eyes and heart address one another.
i The publisher, Thomas Newman employed Thornas Nashe, then a young
man of four and twenty, to write a preface, and he added an appendix of
' poems and sonnets of sundry other noblemen and gentlemen,' which included
twenty-eight sonnets by the poet Samuel Daniel and seven lyrics, one of the
latter being assigned fo E. 0., i.e. Edward Vere, Earl of Oxford, and the rest
being issued anonymously. Daniel's sonnets were published without the know-
ledge of the author frorn a manuscript copy which lewman had acquired
irregularly. The publish©r dedicated the volume to a mercantile friend, Francis
Flower. Newman's transaction is identical at ail points with that of Thomas
Thorpe when he published Shakespeare's sonnets in 16o9, and Newman's
Francis Flower stands towards Sidney's sonnets in the saine relation as Thorpe's
friend, W. H., stands to,¢arls Shakespeare's sonnets. Protests against New-
man's piratical procedure were ruade to the Stationers' Company, apparently by
the poet Daniel. The first edition was suppressed, but another was immediately
issued ly/Newman without Nashe's preface or the appendix. A third edition v¢as
undertaken in the saine year by a second adventurer publisher, Iatthew Lownes ;
a unique copy of Lownes' edition is in the Bodleian Library, with the title-page
somewhat defaced. An authentic version of Sidney's sonnets, with additional
poems b)" him which wer¢ hot previously in print, was appended to the third
edition of his ,4rcadia, '598. Thcre the songs with which Sidney had inter-
spersed his sonnets were rightly distributed among them ; Newman had placed
them together b)" themse|ves a/ter the sonnets.

INTRODUCTION xliii

Sidney's pursuit of the favour of Lady Rich, a coquettish
friend of his youth who married another, led him to
turn sonneteer, the imitative quality that characterises
Watson's Pasionate Çenturfe of Love is visible throughout
Sidney's ample effort, and destroys most of those specious
pretensions to autobiographic confessions which the unwary
reader may discern in them. 1
Sidney had a far finer poetic faculty than Watson, but
his reading in French and Italian was no less extended.
He wrote under the glamour of Petrarchan idealism, and
held that it was the function of the 'lyrical kind of
songs and sonnets' to sing 'the praises of the immortal

Thc relations describcd in the sonnets as subsisting between Astrophel (the
title that Sidney bestowed on himself) and Stella (the naine which he gave the
lady of his poetic affections) closely resemble those indicated as subsisting
between Petrarch and his poetic mistress, Laura, in the first series of the Italian
poet's sonnets, which were written in the lifetime of his lady-love, Laura. There
is no question that Stella was Pendope, daughter of Walter Devereux, first Earl
of Essex, and sister of Robert Devereux, second Earl of Essex, Queen Elizabeth's
favourite. When she was about fourteen years old her father destined ber for
Sidney's bride ; but that project came to nothing. She married, in x58x , when
about nineteen, Robert, second Lord Rich, and was soon the mother of a large
family of children. Sidney plays upon her husband's naine of Rich in his
Sonnet xxiv. in something of the saine artificial way inwhich Petrarch plays upon
the name of his mistress, who was also another's wife, in his Sonnet v. Sidney
himself married on 2oth September x583, and lived on the best possible terres
with his wife, who long survived him. Lady Rich also survived Sidney's death
in x586, but ber later lire, during which she proved unfaithful to her husband
and was divorced from him, does hot concern us here. Sidney's poetic worship
of Stella became a conventional theme in Elizabethan poetry, and enjoyed a
popularity only second to that of Petrarch's poetic worship of Laura. The Iacus
clasicus for its treatment is the collection of elegies, eatitled ,4s/rolel, to which
Spenser was the chier contributor. That volume was dedicated to Sidney's
widow, and his sister, the Countess of Pembroke, wrote a poem for it.
Throughout the work, Sidney's celebration of Stella is accounted his most
glorious achievement in literature. The dedication of dstroflheI to Sidney's wife
deprives of serious autobiographical significance his description in the sonnets of
his pursuit of Stella's affections.

xliv ELIZABETttAN SONNETS
beauty,' and of no more mundane passion- t Detachment
from the realities of ordinary passion, which cornes of
much reading about love in order to write on the sub-
ject, is the central feature of Sidney's sonnets. Sidney's
masters were Petrarch and P, onsard. His admirers dubbed
him 'our English Petrarch,' or 'the Petrarch of our rime.'
His habit was to paraphrase and adapt foreign writings
rather than literally translate them. But hardly any of his
poetic ideas, and few of his 'swelling phrases,' are primarily
of his invention. Songs, in accordance with the foreign
practice, were interspersed in his sonnet-sequence, and
they no less than his quatorzains are founded on foreign
models3
Sonnet xli. faMy represents Sidney's method when at
its freest. He describes how he won a prize in a tourna-
ment owing to the presence of his lady-love among the
spectators. The beams of her eyes lent him prowess. In
like fashion Petrarch (Sonnet cci.) had described a brilliant
court entertainment which was illumined by the light of
Laura's countenance. The central idea of the two poems is
the saine. Sidney's tournament is the child of Petrarch's
princely banquet. Sidney follows Ronsard with greater
fidelity in reproaching his mistress with showing more
! ,if I were a mistress,' he added, 'sonneteers wouid never persuade Re
they were in love ; so coidly they apply fiery speeches, as men that had rather
read loyers' writings, nd so cught up certain sweiling phrases.., than that in
truth they feei those passions.'--.4alag'efar Paetri¢, ed. A. S. Cook, Boston,
19or, p. 52.
In the added sonnets and poeticai translations, which were printed for the
first rime, as an appendix to the .4strophel ami Stdla collection {in the third
edition of the .4rcadia, I598), two iyrics are staled to be translations from the
romance D/ana by the Spaniard, Montemayor, and many others are sp¢ciily
noted as adaptations of Italian «tunes,, the titles of which are given. But
Sidney's indebtedness is far greater than these hints suggest.

INTRODUCTION X|V

attention to her dog than to himself, t Petrarch's addresses
to the River Po (Sonnet cxlvii.) and to the River Rhone
(Sonnet clxxiii.) precisely adumbrate Sidney's address to
the River Thames (AstrolOhd, ciii.). The apostrophe to the
bed (Sonnet xcviii.), in which the English poet turns and
rosses in the black horrors of the silent night, repeats the
cry of whole flocks of Petrarchists in France and Italy. *
His condolences with SteIla in ber sickness (ci.), and his
lamentations on ber absence (xci., cri.); the appeals to
sleep (Astro]tel, xxxviii, and xxxix.), to the sonneteer's
Ronsard, Hmours, I. lxxviii. :--
' Ha ! petit chien que tu es bien-heureux.
Sidney, HstrapM and çtella, lix. :--
' Dear, why make you more of a dog than me ? '
Melin de St. Gelais seems to bave inaugurated such addresses to lapdogs (cf.
uvres, ed. Blanchemain, i. 97} in his poem ' Ha petit chien, que tu as de
bonheur.' The theme was developed in 'anctaris (1588), 1o. v., a collectitm
of Latin poems by the French writer Jean Bonnefons, which were publishe
with a French translation by Gilles Durant, and were well known in England
(cf. Pandtarir, ed. Blanchemain, pp. 21-25).
The early slxteenth-century Italian sonneteer Tebaldeo, in Oera
No. 5, begins a sonnet thus :--
' Letto, se per quiete e dolee pace
Trovato fosti da l'ingegno humano
Hor perche il corpo mio ti colca in vano,
E senza requie in le tue piume glace ?'
Desportes adopted Tebaldeo thus (/)/ara, I. viL) :--
' O lict ! s'il est ainsi que tu sois invent
Pour prendre un doux repos, quand la nuict est venue.
D'oh vient que dedans toy ma douleur continue,
Et que je sens pr toy mon tourment augment ?
Je ne fay que tourner d'un et d'autre cost.'
Sidney's Sonnet xcviil, has these lines :
«Ah, bed ! the field where Joy's peace some do sec . . ,
With sweet sort shades thou oft invitest me
To steal some rest ; but, wretch, I ara constrained . .
With Caxe's hard hand, to turn and toss in thee.'

xlvi ELIZABETHAN SONNETS

favoured bird, the nightingale, to the moon, and to his
mistress's eyes, are all close echoes of his reading, even
though they are at times touched by a finer feeling and music
than English minds can discover in the foreign original.
Sidney conspicuously emulates the extravagance of
French sonneteers in his reiteration of their habitual
epithet 'sweet.' When he wrote
«Sweet kiss, thy sweets I fain would sweetly endite,
Which even of sweetness sweetest sweetner art.'
(Sonnet Ixxix.)
Sidney clearly had in m[nd lines like these :--
' Baiser plus doux que le nectar des Dieux,
Que miel, que sucre, que manne éthérée
Baiser sucré d'une bouche sucrée.'
(Claude de Pontoux, L'ld/e, Sonnet xxxii.)
Like Watson, Sidney follows Petrarch in closing his
sonnets of love on Petrarch's most characteristic note.
In his concluding sonnet he imitates the Italian poet's
solemn and impressive renunciation of love's empire :--
' Leave me, O love, which reachest but to dust,
And thou, my mind, aspire to higher things.'
In one respect Sidney showed a loyalty to his foreign
models in which he outran his sonneteering fellow-
countrymen. He alone of all the sixteenth-century
Eglish sonneteers endeavoured to reproduce with any
strictness the foreign metres as well as the foreign
imagery and ideas. Sixteenth-century Italy, for the most
part, observed the common Petrarchan scheme of a bba,
abba, ode, ode. France loyally followed the Italian
The epithet ' sucré' is of constant occurrence in French sonnets, and clearly
suggested the epithet ' sugared' which is frequently applied by English con-
lemporaries to Elizabethan sonnets. Francis Meres wrote of Shakespeare's
' sugared sonnera.' ' Sugared talk' appears i,Jra, ii. 6o.

I NTRODUCTION xlvii

formula as far as the first eight lines were concerned, while
introducing into the last six the modification ced, ede. But
neither in France nor in Italy did the number of different
rhymes in a sonnet exceed rive. From the first England
evinced an unwillingness to obey any such intricate metrical
laws. Wyatt and Surrey adopted the simplest and (in
Italy) the least common of the Petrarchan variations of
the regular type ; they closed their sonnets with a rhyming
couplet. The last six lines were consequently no longer
constructed of two tercets, but of a quatrain and a couplet.
The concluding couplet came, in face, to dominate the
Elizabethan sonnet, and the dozen preceding lines gradu-
ally lost the demarcations and limitations of separate
quatrains and tercets that were habitual to them abroad ;
they developed into an unbroken string of alternately
rhymed lines. The rive rhymes of the foreign sonnet thus
grew into seven in the Elizabethan sonnet. The Elizabethan
sonneteer, indeed, often dispensed with strongly marked
pauses at any point in the poem, and the poem tan con-
tinuously from the first to the twelfth, if hOt to the fourteenth
line. George Gascoigne, in his Certayne Notes of Instruc-
tion concernin tlte makin of Verse or Ryme in English,
defined the accepted Elizabethan practice when he wrote
of sonnets thus :--' Fouretene lynes, every lyne conteynlng
terme syllables. The first twelve to ryme in staves of foure
lynes by cross metre and the last two ryming togither, do
conclude the whole' (published in Gascoigne's tosies,
The multiplicity of rhymes in Elizabethan sonnets was
deplored by Samuel Daniel, himself a sonneteer on the
English pattern, whose metrical dexterity left little to be
desired. But he excused the rhyming excesses of himself
I. d 8

xlviii ELIZABETHAN SONNET$

and other sonneteers by the reflection that 'ryme is no im-
pediment' to a true poet's 'conceit, but gives him wings to
mount . . . to a far happier flight.' x
Spenser showed some familiarity with the French and
Italian laws, but rarely put them into practice. Watson
abandoned them altogether ; and Shakespeare, like most of
his contemporaries, was content to follow Watson's example.
Sidney sought no such freedom. Alone of the Elizabethans
he declined to obe¥ the anglicised rules of sonneteering.
In nearl¥ ail the one hundred and eight sonnets of which his
collection entitled Astropheland SteIla consists, the principle
of the double quatrain is faithfully respected. He very
often adopted the orthodox Petrarchan scheme a b b a,
a b b a. He ruade smaller resistance to the rhyming couplet
at the close, but in twenty-one sonnets he avoided it.
When he employed it, he so diversified the rhymes of the
preceding four lines as to preserve much of the effect of the
double tercet.
But whatever the rate of the Petrarchan metres, Petrar-
chan imagery completely dominated the thought of the
Elizabethan circle of poets that gathered round Sidney
and Spenser. The eight sonnets and the two canzone in
which Petrarch pictured visions of Laura in a dream
especially captivated the Elizabethan poet's imagination,
and when Sir Walter Raleigh sought to give expression to
the elation with which Elizabethan England welcomed (in
59o) the first instalment of Spenser's Faery Oueen--the
firstfruits of the mature Elizabethan spirit--he had recourse
to a Petrarchan conceit wherewith to give his eulogy its
pith and moment.
Daniel, A defente ofRyme, 6o 7 (ed. Grosart, iv. 44).

| NTRODUCTION xlix

Methought I saw the grave where Laura lay,
Within that temple where the vestal flame
Was wont to burn ; and passing by that way
To see that buried dust of living faine,
Whose tomb fait Love and fairer Virtue kept,
Ail suddenly 1 saw the Fairy Queen ;
At whose approach the soul of Petrarch wept ;
And from thenceforth those Graces were hOt seen,
For they this Queen attended ; in whose stead
Oblivion laid him down on Laura's hearse. 't
Raleigh's compliment to Spenser's #'aïry Queïn is a
notable act of homage to Petrarch. The finely turned
qualification of Petrarch's influence had little significance.
The prophecy that at length'oblivion had laid him clown
on Laura's hearse' was premature. The ride of Petrarchan
inspiration was destined immediately to flow in England
in fuller vigour than before.

VII

THE ZENITH OF THE SONlgETEERING VOGUE IN ELIZA-
BETHAN EF/GLAF/D--DANIEL AND CONSTABLE

Before Sidney and Watson had laid down their pens, and
before the vogue of the quatorzain had completed its
corquest of England, there emerged in a very low rank
of the literary hierarchy a writer of English sonnets, whose
grotesque rusticity and plagiaristic habit were curious
omens for the future. In x584 there was printed a volume
entitled 'Pandora. The Musyque of the beautie of his
Mistresse Diana. Composed by John Soothern, Gentleman,
This sonnet proved the parent of many Inter English sonnets, chief among
them being Milton's Sonnet xxiii. :--
' Methought I saw my late espousèd saint.'

| EI IZABETHAN ONNETS

are merely
boast

and dedicated to the ryght honorable Edward Deuer, Earle
of Oxenforde, etc.'t In discordant doggerel, and in a
vocabulary freely strewn with French words and idioms,
this writer composed a series of sonnets, odes, and' odel-
lets,' which were translated with an unsurpassable crudity
from the French of Ronsard. Soothern's' Diana' is avowedly
Ronsard's 'Cassandre' or' Astrée.' He declares himself a
close observer of Ronsard's worship of 'an Astre divine.'
The eulogies wh/ch the French poet bestows on Henry It.
of France and his courtiers, Soothern transfers without
qualification to his patron, the Earl of Oxford. Ronsard's
recurring boasts that his pen is capable ol r making his
patrons immortal are absorbed in Soothern's verse with
grotesque effect. Soothern affects to emulate the example
of Ovid and Petrarch as well as of Ronsard. Pindar and
Anacreon were, he pretends, also among his masters. But
there is very little in his uncouth writing which is not the
original property of the French poet. It was probably only
in Ronsard's adaptations that he studied Greek. Such
rustic lines as
' Vaunt us that never man before,
Now in E.ngland, knewe Pindar's string2
Soothern's grotesque rendering of Ronsard's

' Le premier de France
J'ai Pindarisé.'
(Ronsard, Odes, Book ii. Ode 2.)
Only two copies seem known : a perfect exemplar is in the Christie-Millet
Libtary at Britwell ; an imperfect cop,, with manuscript notes by George
Steevens {formedy in the Corser Collection), is in the British Museum. Of
another alleged imperfect ¢opy, which is said by Heber and by Corser to b¢
among Capell's books at Trinity College, Cambridge, nothing is known thete.
{Sec Capell's S,tal¢speartana, by W. W. Greg, 19o3. )

| TRODUCT ION

The brutality with which Soothern ravaged Ronsard's
sonnets admits of endless illustration. The following
parallelism is typical :--

Patora, Sonnet iv. Roussir, 'lmur*, BI,. L Sonnet ii.
When Nature ruade my Dia, that belote Nature ortlant la dam qui devoit
.Ail other nymphes a]ould force the heart re- De sa douceur forcer les pins retel]es,
bellant»
She gave ber tbe ma.se of beauties ecellent, Lui fit préx, ent des b¢antez les plus telles,
That he keepe mince long, in ber coffers in Que d mille n,t en espargne elle avoir.
|toge

A contemporary English crtic, Puttenham, in his/ffrte of
Englis/ Poesie, writing in x 589 in ignorance of the exalted
English poetry that the near future had in store, bIindly
credited this halting English sonneteer with 'reasonable
good facility in translation.' But the critic at the saine time
justly complained of his impudent thefts from Ronsard. t
The episode of Soothern's strangely contrived robberies is
merely of value as a straw denoting the quarter from which
the wind was about to blow in full blast on the Elizabethan
sonnet.
With x59, the date ofthe publication (although hot ofthe
composition) of Sidney's 2ffstrolel and çtella, the sonnet-
eering rage opened in EngIand in earnest. Between that
date and 5ç7 amorous sequences came from the print-
ing presses of London in a continuous stream. Many of
the writers acknowledged that they emulated Sidney's

t Puttenham is especially wrathfnl with Soothern for his sbameless use of
'these French wordes fredden, egar, suler6ous , fllandinK, eeltst, calaarols,
tfie6anois, and a uumber of others, for English w'ordes, which haue no marier of
conformitie with our language either by custome or deriuation which may make
them tollerable.' {' ,4rte ofEnglLt Poesie, ed. Arher, p. 259. ) Puttenham
maket maty quotatioBs by way of proviBg the unjustifiable ¢lums'mess of
Sootbem's numerous Gallicisms. The whole passage is wortla studying,

Iii ELIZABETHAN SONNETS

example. Of discipleship to him they ruade repeated
boast; but their imitative temper did hOt restrict them to
so narrow a field of study. Most of them pitched their
tents in France, making occasional excursions into Ital),.
AIl worshipped at the shrine of Petrarch, but they were
often content with second or third-hand knowledge of his
achievement. Ariosto and Tasso were at rimes more
immediate sources of inspiration; but the most popular of
the French sonneteers, notably Ronsard and Desportes,
were the masters who boasted the largest following. The
names which the Eiizabethans bestowed on their sonnet-
sequences were invariably borrowed from France. 'Delia,'
' Diana,' ' Idea,' all did duty as titles of French collections
of love-poetry before they were enlisted in the like service
in Elizabethan England. The Elizabethans rang bold
changes on the conventional phrases and sentiments to
which the Frcnch tongue introduced them. They quickly
proved that Soothern's clumsy endeavour was a crude
freak, and that theft from France could be ruade with
grace and dextcrity. The frigid conceits were hot always
literally produced; they were at rimes amplified with a
good deal of ingenuity, and were clothed in warmer tones.
But they rarely bore an), trace of genuine passion or sub-
stantive originality. The Elizabethan sonnet, as it multi-
plied, travelled further and further from personal emotion
or experience.
Samuel Daniel may be reckoned Sidney's first successor
on the throne of Elizabethan sonneteers. The adventurous
publisher Newman issued piratically twenty-eight sonnets
by Daniel at the end of his unauthorised edition of Sidney's
Astrophel and Stella. In self-defence Daniel published on

INTRODUCTION liii

his own account a collection of fifty-five sonnets to which
he gave the general title Delia.
Daniel pretends to be a follower of Petrarch, although at
a long interval. His 'attire,' he says, is'base'compared
with the great toaster's. His 'pen' cannot achieve the
saine 'consistent style.' He tells his poetic mistress that,
'thou, a Laura, hast no Petrarch found'(Sonnet xxxviii.),
yet he hopes that his affections are hOt inferior to Petrarch's
in warmth. This precise foire of self-depieciation is a con-
vention of the French sonneteers of the Pléiade, and serres
as a warning that Daniel's claim of discipleship to Petrarch
should hot be taken too literally. Du Bellay had lately
written in a sonnet which was probably the foundation of
Daniel's :-
'Mais je n'ay pas ,este divine grace,
Ces hauts discours, ces traits ingénieux
Qu'avoit Pétrarque, et moins audacieux,
Mon vol aussi tire une aile plus basse. '
There is a likelihood that Daniel was better read in the
later Italian poetry which was produced in his own lifetime
than in the Italian poetry of Petrarch. The verses entitled
' The Description of Beauty,' the last of three poems which
he appended to his collected sonnets, are honestly described
as 'translated out of Marino.' With a more characteristic
secrecy Daniel failed to disclose that the immediately
pieceding 'Pastoral' was a literal iendering of a song
t The volume was licensed by the Stationers' Company to Simon Waterson,
a publi»her in whom Daniel had every confidence, on 4th Fehruary i59i-2.
Daniel here abandoned nine of hii previou»iy publi»hed »onnets and added thirty-
one. He revised and enlarged the »equence in a reissue two year» later in the
volume entitled Delia ad osamend augm«nted, and it is in this shape that his
collection is printed in these volumes.
t Du Bellay, ed. I597, LesA»wurs, p. 3o8b, Sonnet x. Cf. Desporte»'»onnet
already quoted, pp. xxvi, xxvil, yura.

or 'choro' in Tasso's recently published pastoral play of
A minta, x
But on the whole the signs of French influence in Daniel's
sonnets are far greater than those of Italian influence. It
tas hot Daniel's ordinary custom to adapt Italian poetry at
first hand. Reminiscences of Petrarch undoubtedly abound
in Daniel'$ sonnets, but they prove on examination to be
borrowed from the adaptations of Petrarch's work by
recent French disciples. Nor did he disdain recourse to
the original work of French writers, especially Ronsard
and Du Bellay. s From the work of the former he clearly
drew those pathetic sonnets in which he prophetically de-
scribes the havoc that old age will work upon his strength
and his mistress's beauty. To the example of Ronsard

I give the opening stanza and the envoy in both English and Italian :m

T^s$o, Amimta, Atto t. Sc. 2 (lait chorus).
O Bella et de l'oro
Non gi perche di latte
Sen' corse il fiurne, stillb mele il bobo,
Non p¢rch& i frutti Ioro
Dier da l'axatro intatte
Le terre, e gli angui errar senz' ira» b totco,
Non perch nuuol fosco
Non spiego allhor suo vo,
Ma, in Primvera eterna,
C' hora s'accende e verna.
Rite di luce, dl sereno il Cielo,
N pord> peregrino
O guet'm, o merce. - gli altrui lidi il pino.
Amiam, che'l Sol si muove, e poi rlnace.
A noi sua breve luce
S'asconde, e q sonno eterna notre adduce.

0 happy Golden Age !
Hot for that Rivers ran
With Streams ofmilk» and Honey dropt from
Treea ;
Not that the eaxth dld gage
Unto the Husbandman
Her voluntary fruits, free without Fees,
Hot for no cold did freeze#
Nor any cloud beguile,
Th' Eterual flow'ring Spring,
Wherein llved ev'ry thing ;
And whereon th' Heavens perpetually did
stalle :
Hot for no ship had brought
From foreign Shore, or war or wane iii
Let's lovethe Sun doth set, and rise again ;
But when a out short Light
Cornes once to set, it make Eternal lqight.

2 Delia, the title of Daniel's collection, is clearly borrowed from France.
Maurice Sve of Lyon$ first published in 1544 a very popular collection of
dizains or epigrammes of love on the Petrarchan model, under the title of Delie,
abject deplus aulte vertu. Another edition was prepared at Paris in 1564. A
beautiful reprint was issued at Lyons in I862.

INTRODUCTION Iv

must be assigned, too, Danîel's insistence on his belief that
his verses have the power of immortalising those whom they
celebrate. That conceit spread from classical literature
through the whole of Renaissance poetry. But Ronsard
was mainly responsible for its universal vogue among the
Elizabethan sonneteers. 1
But the French contemporary Desportes, of all foreign
writers, is Daniel's most conspicuous creditor. It is to the
French renderings of Petrarch's poetry by Desportes that
Daniel's sonnet-sequence is at nearly all points indebted.
The student of Petrarch will often detect a resemblance
between the Italian text and Daniel's words, but will
recognise at the saine time variations in the English sonnet
which he might easily be misled into assigning to the
invention of the English poet. A reference to Desportes'
adaptation of the saine poem of Petrarch is needed to
explain the situation. Daniel borrowed from Desportes
the latter's version of the Italian, occasionally changing the
French phraseology, but more often exhibiting a servility
that a nice literary morality could hardly justify.
The evidence on this point is conclus/ve. Daniel's
Sonnets xv. and xxxii, closely reflect Petrarch's Sonnets
xxxvii, and clxxxviii. In the first, Petrarch reproaches
Laura's looking-glass with absorbing her interests; in the
Sec pp. xcvii, xcviii, infra. I have traced this conceit of the 'eternising'
power of poetry through classical poetry in my Lift of Shakeseare, p. xx4.
Cf. especially Pindar's Olym2Mc Odts, xi. ; Horace's Odes, iii. 3 ° ; Ovid's Areta-
mor&oses, xv. 87x, sg. ; and Virgil's Georgics, iii. 9- The conceit was universal
in Elizahethan poetry addressed to both men and women. Sidney, in his
,4ologe for t'oetrie {x595), wrote of the habit of poets to 'tel1 you tb.at they
will make you immortal by their verses.' ' Men of great calling,' lashe wrote
in his t'lette t'ennilesse (1593), take it of merit to have their 'names eter-
nised by poets.'

lvi ELIZABETHAN ONNFTS

second, he generally deplores the misery which cornes of
his loyalty to his mistress} Daniel worked alone on
Desportes' renderings of the Italian.

DAIItI D«li,
Why doth my m;*tress credit so r 1
Gng b« b, deied ber by tbe
And do¢h ¢ raoE« Ik on him, al I
ing eym.
e oken to of Iofty tre dlare
The fu of a r-ag storm
And OE what force yo wounding es nre,
U myIf, y t may End tbe form.
en I your gl, ge yourselçon me
Tbat mior shows the wer of your face
Tomire yo fo t mucb maydger
Ncs changed to Bower in sucb a
ç change I hot ower n hyacinth
's eye y tu yous ht fo flint.

Ira trne beart and falth unfeied
If a t
If hunr-ttaen though long retained,
F but witb amoke, d cherlshed
tire :
And if a ow witb re's cbacters poEted :
Bewy my Ie, th broken wo bave
sken,
To h wbicb in my tbgh" temple,
inted :
d lay to view my lre-awen
on :

DSI*OltTI.S, Le A".rz l'ippolyf, XVlII.
Pourquoy si folement croyez-vous i un verre,
Voulant voir les beaute.z que vous avez des
cieux?
MiriZ-vius dessus moy pour les connoàtre
mieux,
Et voyez de quels traits vostre bel oeil m'en-
Un vieux cbesne ou un pro, renversez contre
Monstrent comblin le vent et grand et
furieux :
Aussi vousconnoistrez le pouvoir de vos yux,
Voyant par quels efforts vous me faites la
guerre.
Ma mort de vos beautez vous doit bien aSseurer
Joint que vous ne pouvez sans peril vous
miter:
Narcisse devint fleur d'avoir veu sa figure.
Craigner doncques, madame, un semblable
danger,
--Non de devenir fleur, mais de vous voir
changer,
Par vostre oell de Mduse, en quelque rocbe
dure.
Ds.«pnltT, /'-es A monts Je Diane, I. 8.
Si la foy plus certalni en une ame non feinte,
Un desir temeraire, un doux lagulssement,
Une erreur volontaire, et entir virement,
Avec peur d'en gnarir, un profonde atteinte ;
Si voir un peuste au front toute dépeinte,
Une voix empescbée, un morne estonnement,
De honte ou de frayeur naisstns soudaine-
Une pasle couleur, de ls et d'amour teinte ;

I Petrarch's Sonnet xxxvii, begins :--
Il mlo avversaxio, in cui veder solete
Gli ocehi vostri, eh'Amore, e '1 ciel onora.'
Sonnet elxxxviii, begins :
' S'una fede amorosa, un cor non iînto,
Un ]aneEir dolce, un deslar cortese.'

INTRODUCTION lvii

If I bave wept the day and sighed the ni8ht,
While thrice the sun appreched his northern
bound;
If sur a fath bath ever wrougbt arlght,
And well deserved, and yet no favour round.

Let thls suflce ; the whole world h maysee,
The fauh is hers, though mine the most hurt
b¢.

Bref, si se mesprlser pour une autre adorer,
Si verser mille pleurs, si toujours soupirer,
Faisant de sa douleur nourrhure et breuvage ;
Si, Ioln estre de flamme, et de pres tout
transi,
Sont cause que je meurs par defaut de mercy,
L'ofl'ens¢ en est sur vous, et sur moy le dom-
mage.

Another example of Daniel's relations with Desportes
ma¥ be quoted as an effective illustration of his ingenuity
as a translator3

D/GqI[L Dt[[I, X'||l. DSPOltTP., Le* ,4 r de C[eoniee, LXll.
Once may 1 ee, when years may wreck my Je verray par les ans, vengeurs de mon martire,

wrong
And golden halrs may change to silver wire :
And those hright rays 0bat kindle ail this
tire),
Shall lai| in force, thelr power hot so strong.

Flet b¢auty, now the hurden of my song,
Who.e glorions hlaze the world's eye doth
admire,
Must yield ber praise to tyrant Time's desire ;
Then fades the flower, which fed ber pride
so long.
When, ifshe grieve to gaze ber in her glass,

Whicb then presents ber wlnter-wlthirid
Go you my verse I go tell ber what she was I
For what she was, she best rnay find in you.
Vour fiery heat let$ hot ber glory pass,

But Phoenix-like to make her |ire anew.

Que l'or de vos cheveux argenté deviendra,
Que de vos deux soleils la splendeur s'est-
eindra,
Et quï! faudra qu'Amour tout confus s'en
retire.
La beauté qui, si douce, a prësent vous inpire,
Cedant aux Iols du tans, ses faveurs re-
prendra ;
L'hyver de vostre teint les fleuretes perdra,
Et ne lalsera tien des thresos que j'admire.

Cet orgueil desdaigneux qui vous fait ne
En regret et chagrin se verra transformer.

Avec le changement d'une image si belle.
Et peut estre qu'alors vous n'aurez déplaisir
De revivre en mes vers, chauds d'amoureux
désir,
Ainsi que le phénix an feu se renouvelle.

A fourth instance ma), be cited in which Daniel, while
following Desportes at no great interval, yet contrives some-
what greater changes in the phraseology.
Here, too, Desportes doubtless had an Italian original, but I bave hot yet
discovered it.
Desportesishere adaptingone of Ronsard'» madrigalswhlch consists ofsixteen
line». The first, fifth, and ninth lines run respectively :--
' Si c'est aimer, bladame, et de jour et de nuit rever.
Si c'est aimer de suivre un bonheur qui me fuit,
Si c'et aimer de vivre en vous plu» qu'en moy-mesme.--

Ivii| E LIZABETHAN SONNETS

D.q,t, Ddim, ,x. 059= edition
If th;, be Love, to dra .eary Breath,
To paint on FIouds, till the Shore cry to th'
Air ;
With downward Looks, still rcading on the
Earth
These sad blemorials of my I,ove's Despair :
If hisbe Love to war against my Soul,
Lie down to wail, rls¢ up to sigh nd grieve ;
The never«esting Stone of Care to totl ;
Stltl to complain my Griefs, whilst none
retieve.
I fthlsbe Love to cloath me with dark Thoughts,
Haunt;ng untrodden paths to wail apart ;
My Pleasure's Horror, Husick Tragick
Notes ;
Tears in mine Eyes, and Sorrow at my Heart.
If thls be Love. to lire a Living Death ;
Then do I love. and draw this weary breath.
Probably the best known
finely phrased appeal to

Dr.soltTr.s, L'Amours d¢ Diane, L xxi
Si c'est aimer que porter bas la vue
Que parler bas, que soupirer souvant.
Que s'Carer solitaire en rvant,
BrIé d'un feu qui point ni diminue -"
Si c'est aimer que de peindre en la nue,
Semer sur l'eau, jetter ses crb au vant,
Chercher la nuict par le soleil levant,
Et le soleil quant la nulct est venue ;
Si c'est aimer que de ne s'aimer pas,
Halr sa vie, embrasser son treslS,
Tous les amours sont campez en mon ame ;
Mais nonobstant, si me puis-je louer
Qu'il n'est prison, ny torture, ny flame,
Qui mes desirs me sçeust faire avouer.
of ail Daniel's sonnets is the

' Care-charmer Sleep, son of the sable Night,
Brother to Death, in silent darkness born.'
This is again for the most part a mere adaptation from
Desportes (Amours d'Hlolyte , l xxv.)
' Sommeil, paisible fils de la nuict solitaire
0 frère de la mort, que tu m'es ennemy
Even the epithet « care-charmer' is borrowed. It renders
the conventional dass«-sMn, which is common]y appHed to
sleep (sommei/) by French sonneteers, x

The last three lines run :I
' Si cci est aimer, furieux je vous aime,
Je vous aime et sçay bien que mon mal est fatal.
Le cur le dit assez, mais la langue est muette.'
{Ronsad, ed. Blanchemain, vol. i. p. 3ll.) De Bail bas a similar sonnet
{Araoursde rancine, Bk. i. p. 1o2, ed. Marty-Laveaux, 1881) : ' Si ce n'est pas
Amour, que sent donc.ques mon CUr ?' So, too, Claude de Pontoux, L'Idte,
cxxvi. : ' N'est Amour qu'est ce donc que le sens?'
Cf. Pierre de Brach, OEuvr¢$ Poetiçues, ed. I)ezeimeris, i. 59- The admir-
able epithet, ' care-charmer,' as well as tbe description of sleep as ' brother of

INTRODUCTION ]ix

Sleep was, indeed, one of the most constant themes of
French poetry of the epoch. Daniel was only one of a
number of Elizabethans who appIied to the topic the
phraseology and imagery which prevailed in France. ]ut
his handling of it especial]¥ impressed the EIizabethan
public, and was itself a fruitful parent of later Fnglish
imitations. ]artholomew Griffin boldly plagiarised Danie],
when in his sonnet-sequence of/;''de««a (No. xv.) he penned
an address to ' Care»charmer sleep,' ' brother of quiet
death.' So endless is the chain which links sonneteer to
sonneteer in the sixteenth century.
The imitative habit of Daniel's Muse renders it unneces-
sary to inquire, with former critics, into the precise identity
of the lady to whom he affected to inscribe his sonnet mis-
ce||any. De|la is v. mere shadow of a shadowna mere
embodiment of what Petrarch wrote of Laura, and Ronsard
wrote of Marie, and the other ladies of his poetic fancy.
To Petrarch ultimately belong such lines by Daniel as the_e
death,' which Daniel borrowed from Desportes, is ultimately of Greek ofigin.
Meleager in the Greek Anthology (Pal. xii. I27), sings of vvlovo 6rvo.
Homer and Hesiod both called sleep brother of death.' Such imagery
was thoroughly naturalised in France. Very numerous instances of ifs employ-
ment could be gven from the Pléiade writers. Cf. Ronsard's ode to sleep
(Os, Book Iv. Ode iv.) :--
' A grand tort Homère nomme
Frère de la morte la somme.'
De Bail, i. II 3 :--
' Somme, que je te hay, vray frère de la murt.'
Desportes, p. 74 (Prière au Sommeil) :
' Somme, doux repos de mes yeux,
Aimé des hommes et des dieux»
Fil' de la nuict et du silence, , , o
On te dit frère de la mort.'

Ix ELIZABETHAN SONNETS

which have hitherto been mistaken for an attempt at a
portrait from the life :M
Chastity and Beauty, which were deadly foes,
Lire reconcilèd friends within her brow.'
(Sonnet ri.)
The theory that the hazy features of this phantom of
Italian and French poetry were drawn directly from a lady
residing in the west of England, whose home was on the
banks of a river Avon, possibly tbat in Wiltshire, hardly
merits discussion. There is no reason to quarrel with the
suggestion that Daniel may have been acquainted with a
lady dwelling by the Avon. He resided in the part of the
country through which the Wiltshire Avon runs. Accord-
ingly he wrote :--
' Avon, poor in fame, and poor in waters,
Shall have my song, where Delia hath her seat.'
(Sonnet liii.)
But the example of Petrarch and his French imitators
made it obligatory for sonneteers to apostrophise rivers of
their acquaintance. Sidney had lately addressed a sonnet
to the Thames. 'Avon shall be my Thames' echoed
Daniel (Sonnet lvii.) by way of friendly emulation. Anxiety
to conform at ail points to the sonneteering fashions of his
day at home and abroad, was Daniel's dominating impulse.
His Delia does hOt adroit of examination from any more
human point of view.
Despite the lack of originality, Daniel's sonnets enjoyed
CL Petxarch, Sonnet cclvi. (To Laura in Heaven) :--
' Due gran nemiche insieme erano aggiunte,
Bellezza, ed Onestà, con pace tanta,' etc.
Ronsard's Sonnet .pp«ours, Second Part, ' Sur la mort de Marie,' Book 11.
Sonnet ix., adapts the ame sonnet of Petrarch, with little change.

INTRODUCTION lxi

vast popularity. Spenser lauded their' well tuned sotg. 't
'The sweet-tuned accents'- of 'Delian sonnetry' rang,
according to another admirer, through the whole country.
Their influence is especially perceptible in the sonnet-
sequence called L)iana, by Henry Constable, which came
from the press immediately after the appearance of 2elia--
in the autumn of 592.
Constable's rare volume contains only twenty-three poems.
It was licensed for the press 22nd September 1592, and its
full title tan : ' Diana, the praises of his Mistres in certaine
sweete Sonnets, by H. C.' (London, Printed by I. C. for
Richard Smith, I592.) a The publisher, Richard Smith,
reissued the collection with very numerous additions in I
That reissue is a typical publishing venture of the age.
The new title ran: 'Diana, or, The Excellent conceitful
Sonnets of H. C. augmented with divers Quatorzains of
honourable and learned personages. Divided into VIII.
Decades.' With this miscellany Constable had small
concern.
The printer, James Roberts, and the publisher, Richard
Smith, who supplied dedications respectively to the reader
and to Queen Elizabeth's ladies-in-waiting, had swept
together sonnets in manuscripts from ail quarters, and
presented their customers with a disÇrdered assembly of
what they called ' orphan poems.' Besides the twenty-three
sonnets which Constable claimed for himself in the original
edition, the new issue contained eight by Sir Philip Sidney.
Seventy-six sonnets were included in ail; the 'honourable
Colin Clouts Corne Home Maine, I. 4$.
Ztpt, ia, Introd. Sonn. l.
Only one copy is known to be extant ; it Çelongs to Mrs. Christie-Miller of
Britwell.

lxii ELIZABETHAN SONNETq

and learned personages,' to whom the remaining forty-one
quatorzains belonged, were hot indicated, and bave hot
been positively identifie&
Apart from internal evidence, the Franco-Italian spirit
of Constable's work is betrayed, both by the general title
Diana, which is directly borrowed from Desportes' chier
sonnet-sequence, and by the Italian words--sonetto primo,
sonetto secundo, and so forth--which form the headlines
of each poem in the authentic issue. Echoes of Sidney,
Watson, and Daniel mingle with the foreign voices.
Constable's 3rd Decade, Sonnet i., on his mistress's
sickness, shows the influence of Astroflhel attd Stella
(Sonnet ci.), as well as of Petrarch's lamentations on Laura's
failing health (Sonnets cciii., cxcv., cxcvii.). The sorrow
which the sonneteer affects at the waywardness of his
mistress usually paraphrases Ronsard--at rimes clumsily
and unimpressively.
' Unhappy day, unhappy month, and season
When first proud love, (my joys away adjourning)
{Decade v. Sonnet viii.g
is an awkward rendering of Ronsard's lines--
"Heureux le jour, l'an, le mois et la place,
L'heure et le temps, où vos yeux m'ont tué.
(Amours, Book. I. cxi.)
Most" of the familiar conceits--how the lady's lips make
the roses red (Decade x. Sonnet ix.), a how the eye and heart
accuse each other of causing love's wounds (Decade w.
The notion that the flowers take their colour and smell from the poet's
mistress, is very common in the sonnets of Ronsard and his friends. Cf. Ron-
saxd Amours» 1. cxl. :--
' Du beau jardin de son printemps riant
Sort un parfum qui mesme l'orient
Embasmeroit de ses douces haleine$...--

Sonnet viL), how verse has the faculty of immortalising its
hero or heroine (Decade viii. Sonnet iv.)--reappear with
due precision. Obedient to convention, Constable likens
Diana to sun, moon, and stars (Decade ri. Sonnet i.),
and when he complains of the wounds with which Love's
arrows bave tortured his heart, he follows the old French
poet Melin de St. Gelais in comparing his state with that
of Saint Francis. l Constable's language, which can be on
occasion tuneful and dignified, seems at rimes to iwe
more than Daniel's diction to the poet's invention. But
the main poetic ideas offer convincing testimony of foreign
origin. Evidence that Shakespeare read Constable's verse
and borrowed from it probably gives it its most lasting
interest.

The converse conceit, that the flowers lend their beauty to the lady, also
recurs frequently. Cf. Du Bellay, Olizt, ii. :--
EII' print son rein des beaux lis blanchissans,
Son chef de l'or, ses deux leures de roses
Et du Soleil ses yeux resplendissans.'
The first of these conceits forms the topic of Shakespeare's Sonnet xcix.
Shakespeare closely followed Constable's treatment of it.
1 Constable wfites :--
Saint Francis had the like ; yet felt no smart,
Where I in living torments never die ....
hrow, as Saint Francis, if a saint ara I
The bow that shot these shafts a relic is.'
(Decade I. Sonnet ix. ).
Cf. Melin de St. Gelais :--
' Quand vous verrez S. François en peincture,
D'un seraphin les playes recevant,
Souvienne vous que plus forte poincture
Vous m'avez mis en l'ame plus avant.
(873 edition (ed. Blanchemain, Paris), vol. iL
p. to, 1%. xiii.).
I. e 8

lxiv ELtZABETHAN SONNETS

VIII

LODGE, BARNES, AND FLETCHER
Until ail the sonnet-literature that was produced in
Italy and France, down to the end of the sixteenth century,
has been read and re-read in conjunction with the Eliza-
bethan sonnet-litcrature, none can state definitely the
limits of the raids that the Elizabethan sonnetcers ruade
on their foreign neighbours. The efficient conduct of the
investigation requires that one should enjoy access to the
productions not merely of the grcatest French and Italian
masters, but of the whole swarm of Petrarchists whose
writings are now very difficult to procure. How widely
and into what remote recesses the Elizabethan poet flung
his net, is curiously illustratcd by the exploits of Thomas
Lodge, hOt the least famous of Elizabethan sonnetecrs.
Lodge possesscd no small measure of poetic feeling and
ability ; yet whcn his achievement is closely examined, and
compared iith foreign poetry, it bctrays a more startling
indcbtedness to his extraordlnary width of reading than
the work of any other Elizabethan.
Lodge's reading was immense. His prose tracts abound
in acknowledged quotations hOt merely from familiar
classical authors, but from obscure Latinists of the iddle
Ages, and from French and Italian writers of every degree
of reputation.
Cf. W£ts 3Iiseri¢ (London, r596}, where quotations are given usually with
translations from (among numerous other authors) Demosthenes, Aristolle,
Seueca, Horace, Martial, Ovid, Plautus, uvenal, Lucan, Cicero, St. Augu
tine, Ausonius, Pausanias, Claudianus, and Manilius, as well as from Mantuanus
Du Baxtas, Rabelais, and ' that divine Petrarch.'

INTRODUCTION

In his romances called The Lire and 19eat of I'illiam
Longbtard (1593), and 3/Iargarite of America (1596), he
throws some light on his methods as a sonneteer. In the
first of these works he entitles a poem of twent¥ lines an
'Imitation of a Sonnet in an ancient French poet,' and
he calls another lyric a ' briefe rancie . . . after the manner
of the Italian rimes.' Two sonnets and one lyric, which
appear in the [ararite, are described as written ' in imita-
tion of Dolce, the Italian poet,' and in the case of the third
effort he quotes the first words of Dolce's poem. Two
other sonnets in the same romance are respectively assigned
to the contemporary Italian poetasters, Lodovico Pascale
and Vincenzo Martelli. Lodge's translation of Martelli's
sonnet is worthy of study. The first four lines run in
English and Italian thus :--

0 chluse valli, o ricche piagge apriche»
0 fior vagh/, o verdi erbe, o liete
Ch'avete or l'aure, a i parti vostrl amiche :

Elsewhere Lodge is less plain-spoken. In l/Yilliam
Longbeard he loosely adapts an Italian madrigal by Bian-
ciardi (' When I admire the rose')without any warning of
the fact. x In his Romance ofRosalynd, he places a song in
the French language (beginning,' Hélas[ tirant plein de
rigueur') in the mouth of his shepherd Montanus, and gives
no hint that it is other than his own composition. It is

! Another translation of the same Italian madrigal figures in John Wilbye's
Madrials {598}, 11o. xL It begins: 'Lad},, hen I behold the roses
sprouting.'

lxvi EIXZ^BT^N SONETS
a 'chanson' lterally transcrbed from the rst book of
Desportes' Amours de Diane. t
But it is in the collected sonnet-sequence called Phillis,
which was published in xs93, that Lodge sinks deepest into
the mire of deceit and mystification, t In the dedication
and the induction, both addressed to the Countess of
Shrewsbury, he appeals to his patroness to ' like of Phillis
in her country caroling, and to countenance her poore and
affectionate sheepheard.' Artless simplicity is all he claires
for his verse. He modestly deprecates comparison between
himself and ' learned Colin' (Le. Spenser), or Daniel, whom
he hails as Delia's 'sweet prophet.' There is no word in
the preface to indicate that in his sonnet-sequence he is
anywhere wearing borrowed laurels. In his Margarite of
America Lodge hints at a part of the truth when he wrote,
' Few men are able to second the sweet conceits of Philip
Desportes, whose poetical writings [are] for the most part
Englished, and ordinarily in everybody's hands.' But this
admission does not prepare the reader for the discove
that the majority of Lodge's poetic addresses to the rustic
Phillishis village maiden's 'country carolling'are
ingeniously contrived literal translations of sonnets which
are scattered through the collections of Ronsard, Desrtes,
Ariosto, and other French and Italian poets.
The source of the title of the collection is significant.
Phillis,who owes her poetic faine originally to Ovid's Heroides
(ii.), was a conventional naine in French lyric poetry long
Ed. lichiels, p. 3o.
The olume is arrang on he fore mel of nnet-suenc.
Not ail ils forty sonne are of the relar length, and tersr ong
them are three elees and an e. The nnels alone are pnt in this
collectio

INTRODUCTION ]xvii

before it found a home in Elizabethan song. The
French poet Vauquelin de la Fresnaie, in his Idillies et
Pastoralles (1560), seems first to bave conferred the designa-
tion on the heroine of a long series of pastoral poems. *
Thence it appears to bave spread far and wide among
English poets. Watson constantly introduced it into his
ltalian Mradrigalls Englished (I59o). In christening his
pastoral heroine Phillis, Lodge fell an easy victim to a
French fashion.
There is probably no French lyrist of his generation
whose work Lodge did not assimilate in greater or less
degree; but it was on the king of recent French poets,
Ronsard, that he levied his heaviest loans. Most of his
sonnets to Phillis were written with the first book of
Ronsard's Amours at his elbow. Ronsard's volume had
appeared in numerous editions since its first issue in 552,
and was one of the most accessible of French poetry-books.
In order to remise the precise relations between Lodge's
sonnets and Ronsard's Amours, the following six of
! It was commonly employed quite early in the slxteenth centu. Wyatt,
imitating a French version of Petrarch's Sonnet clxxxviii., heads his version,
'The loyer confesseth him in love with t'Mllis.'--Tottel, p. 3 6.
Many of Vauquelin's lydcs or madflgals begin with such lines as these, ail
of which will sound familia, to students of Elizabethan song
' EnUe les fleurs, ent,e les
Doucement dormoit ma Philis'--(Id. Ix.);
or
« Au b¢u visge de Philis,
Comme en un lier, Amour se couche
Entre les zoses et les lis
Et sur les oeillets de sa bouche
' Philis, ton jeune cur
Me traite à 1 rigueur.'--(/d, xiv.).
Phillis's naine figures with equal frequency in Vauquelin's sonnets and elegies.

lxviii ELIZABETHAN SONNETS

Lodge's addresses to Phillis may be profitably studied wlth

Ronsard's originals?
Lo--, Pliillis, xxxv.
! hope and fear. ! pray and hold my pente.
No** freeze my thoughta and straight they
fry again,
!, w admire and stralght my wonders cea»e,
! Ioose my bonds and yet myself restrain ;
"l'his likea me most that leaves me discontent.
bi)" COurage serres and 'et my heart dotb
rail.
biy will doth cllmb whereaS my hopos are
Slnt,
I laugh at love, yet when he cornes I quail ;
The more I strive, the duller bide I still,
I would be thralled, and yet I freedom love,
I would redress, yet hourly feed mine iii,
I would repine, and date hot once reprOve ;
And for my Io,'e I ara bereft of power.
And strengthless strive my weakness to devour.
I3Ge, Pilli:,
The devry roseate Morn had with ber hairs
In sundry sorts the Indian clime adorned ;
And now ber et'e« apparrelèd in tea's,

RONSARD, a4/rs, I. xii.
]'espere et crain, je me tals et supplie,
Or' je suis glace» et ores un feu chaud,
J'admire tout, et de rien ne me chauh
Je me delace, et puis je me relie.
Rien ne me plaist sinon ce qui m'ennuie,
Je suis vaillant et le cur me defaut.
J'mi l'espoir bas, j'ay le courage hauh
Je donte Amour, et si ie le deslie.
Plus je me pique, et plus je suis retif»
J'aime estre libre, et veux estre captif,
Cent fois je meurs, cent fois je prends nais-
Un Promethe en passions je suis ;
Et, pour aimer perdant tout puissance,
Ne pouvant rien, je fay ce que je puis.
RONSARD, a4mos', I. XCIV.
De ses cheveux la rousoante Aurore
Esparsement les tndes remplissoit.
Et ja le ciel long traits rougiasoit,

The Ioss oflovely biemnon long had mourned, De maint mail qui le matin decore,
Ronsard was hot himself the inventor of the language or the theme in each
case. One of these cited sonnets (Lodge, xxxv.) he ndapted from Petrarch,
and another (Lodge, xxxii.} from Bembo. By way of illustrating graphically
the inveterate principle of transference, I print with my first example of Lodge's
plagiaristic habits (Sonnet xxxv.), its Petrarchan prototype. The familiar
sonnet in Petrarch (No. civ.) runs thus :--
' Pace non trovo, et non ho da far guerra ;
E temo, e spe,o, ed ardo, e son un ghiaccio ;
E volo sopra '1 cielo, e giaccio in terra ;
E nulla strin£o, e tutto '1 mondo abbraccio.
Tal m' ha in prigion, che non m' apte, nè serra
N per suo mi riten, n scoglie il laccio ;
E non m' ancide Amor, e non mi sferra ;
1 mi vuol vivo, nè mi trac d' impaccio.
Veggio senz' occhi ; e non ho lingua, e grido ;
E bramo di petit, e cheggio ara ;
Ed ho in odio me stesso, ed amo altrui ;
Pascomi di dolor : piangendo rido :
Egualmente mi spiace morte, e vita.
In questo stato son, Donna, per vui.'

INTRODUCTION lxix

When she p|ed the nymph whom I admire. Quand elle veid la nymphe que j'adore
Combing ber Iocks. of which the yellow gold Tresser son chef. dont l'or qui jaunissolt
Made blmh the beauties of ber curld wh'e. Le crespe bonlieur du sien blouissoit,
Which heaven itself with wonder might be- Voire elle-mesme et tout le ciel elicore.
hold ;
Then red with shame, ber reverend locks she Lors ses cheveu vergongneuse arracha,
And weeping hid the beauty of ber face, Si qu'en pleurant sa face elle cacha.
The flower of fancy wrought such discontent: Tant la beaut8 des beautés lui ennuye
The sighs wbich midst the ait she hreathed Et ses sousptrs, parmi l'air se suivants.

Trois jours entiers enfanterent des vents,
Sa honte un feu ses yeux une pluye.
ROISARDj Imor',r» 1. CXr.
Franc de raison, esclave de furem',
Je vay chassant une fere sauvage,
Or' sur un mont, or' le long d'un rivage»

Now midst the woods of outl and vain Or' dans le bois de jeunesse et d'erreur.

deslre.
For leash I bear a cord of careful grief;
For brach I lead an over-forward mind ;
My hounds are thoughts, and r.ge despairlng
blind.
Pain, cruehy, and care without relief.
But they perceivlng that my swlh pursuit
My flylng fairy cannot overtake.
With open mouths their prey on me do make,

J'ay pour ma laisse un long trait de malheur,
J'ay pour limier uu trop ardent courage.
J'ay pour mes chiens l'ardeur et le .jeune ige,

J'ay pour plqueurS l'espoir et la douleur.
Mais eux, voyans que plus elle est chassée»
Loin, Ioln. devant plus s'enfuit lance,
Tournant sur moi leur rigoureux effort,

Like hungr¥ honds that lately Iost their suit. Comme mastins affan de repaitre,
And full of f on the ter fe, A ngs morc palpent de leur tre
To hasn on my hapie dth OE sed. Et s mer me Ualnent h la mort.
A thond rimes to OEk d OEink OEe me, Cent et cent fois pe r mme,
To two f eyes to ow a nard best, A deux bux ye monsUer nud n oeur,
Grt tht with bitter liquor to rtin, ire tojoun d'une amere liqueoe,
To e past of d OEked st ; Mg tousjou d'e oEume lrême ;
To sigh full oft wioEout relent ofOEe, Avo la face et te» et moe. et blesme.
To e for efand yet conc! the te» Plus uspirer, moire fl la rigueur.
To othen' will to fhion my de. Mor d'uy» rl langueur.
To pine in Io dh through nsive Du vueil d'auy d Ioix fre h soy-mesme.

pale :
A short despite, a falth unfeignèd
To love my fc, and set my lire at naught,
With heedless eyes mine endl ms to
A will to sk, a f to tell the thght
To ho fo ail, yet for d to die,
Is of my e e dy.
tn t
wlth
ton of , their fat ttort
Made ail the

Un court despit, une almantine foy,
Aimer trop mieux son ennemy que soy,
Peindre en ses yeux mille vaines fignres ;
Vouloir perler et n'oser respirer,
Eerer tot et se d¢seperer.
Sont de ma mort les plus certains augures.
RONSARD, AmOurs» I. xxxii.
Quand au premier la dame que j'adore
Des ses beautez vint embellir les cieu=,
Le fils de Rb$'e appela tous les dieux.
Pour faire encor d'elle une autre Pandor

lxx ELIZABETHAN SONNET$

Apollo fxrst his golden rtys mmong,
Did form the bczuty of ber bounteous eyes
Hc graced ber witb bls swect mclodious song,
And ruade ber subject of hls poesi¢s.
Thc warrior Mars b¢queatbcd ber tierce disdain,
Venus her smilc, and Phoeb¢ ail ber fait.
Python his voice, and Ceres ail ber grain,
Thc morn ber Iocks and fingcrs did repair.
Young Love, his bow, and Thctis gave ber feet
Clio her pt-41se, Pallas her science swcct.

Lors Apollon richement la dcore,
Or' de ses rais luy façonnant les yeux,
Or' luy donnant son chant melodieux,
Or' son oracle et ses beatut vers encore.
Mars luy donna sa fiere cruauté,
Venus son ris, Diane r,a beauté,
Pithon sa voix, Cer ,t son abondance,
L'Aube ses doigts et ses crin$ deliës,
Amour son arc, ThetlS donna ses piC,
Clion sa gloire, et Pallas sa prudence.

LoIE, PAillia, llllv. RONS&RD. ,4mour, L XX.
I would in fi d golden-coloed tain, Je voudrois bien, finement jaunit,
With tcmpting showcrs pleut rt de- En pluyc d'or goutte goutte dcsoendre
scd
Into fa PhilIis' lap, m lovcl friond, Ds Ic giron de m belle Cndrc,
When sleep h sc with slumr do qu'en ye le somme va glisnt ;
r.
I wId chgd fo a milk-whitc bulI, Puis je voudroi, Ch taureau hIchnt
Vhen midst the glaome fields she should Me trafoer, po sur mon dos la endre
apo,
B plt fin fo surprise my des, Qd elle va sur l'herbt la plm tendte
ilst from their stalks, she plant flowers ule, $ l'cmt, mille fleu rat.

did pull.
! were content to wcar out my pain,
To be Narcissus so she were a spring,
To drown in ber tbose woes my heart do
wring.
And more ; I wish tra.nsformèd to remain,
That whilst ! thus in pleasure's lap did lie,
I migbt refresh desire, which else would die.

Je voudrois bien, pour alleger ma peine,
Estre un Narcisse. et elle une fontaine,
Pour m'y plonger une nuict à sejour,

Et voudrois bien que ceste nuit encore
Fust eternelle, et que jamais l'Aurore
Pour m'Ciller ne r'allumast le jour.

A comparison of these six pairs of sonnets can lead to
onl¥ one conclusion. Here at least Lodge's servile de-
pendence on Ronsard stands confessed. Not that he was
invariabl¥ quite so docile. Occasionall¥ he handles a
conceit of Ronsard with greater freedom, and seeks with
success to enhance its effect. His beautiful lines---

' Sweet bees have hived their honey on thy tongue,
And Hebe spiced her nectar with thy breath '--(PMl/is, xxii.)

are obviously an improvement on Ronsard's--

'Une mignarde abeille
Dans vos lvres forma son nectar savoureux.'---(/lmours, II. il.)

INTRODUCTION [ XXi

But in spite of the embellishment, the loan remains un-
disguised.
Lodge's indebtedness to Ronsard bas been strangely
ignored by modern critics, but it did hot (as might be
guessed) escape the attention of contemporaries. In an
anonymous tract entitled Tarlton's Arews out of Purgatory
(159o), the author of which bas been doubtfully identified
with Thomas Nashe, a company of poets of all nations is
represented as meeting in Purgatory. Prominent in the
assembly sits 'old Ronsard,' 'with a scroll in his hand,
wherein was written the description of Cassandra his
mistress.' There follows an English parody of Ronsard's
lyrics, which the satiric author slyIy introduces with the
words, ' because [Ronsard's] style is hot common, nor have
I heard out Engllsh authors write in that vein, mark it,
and I will rehearse it, for I have learnt it by heart.' The
quoted poem assigned to Ronsard, is an obvious skit on one
of the lyrics which figures in Lodge's Romance ofRosalynd, x
The whole passage ironicaIIy suggests that Lodge's debt to
Ronsard was known to be discreditably large.
Ronsard, however, was only one of Lodge's many foreign
masters. His indebtedness to Desportes is hardi), less
pronounced. Of the two examples of translations from
that poet which I give below, it is worth noting that Lodge
had alread¥ published a literal rendering of the first as an
original poem in his early volume of verse, which he called
Sdllaes Metamorhosis (i589). He also turned the saine
sonnet of Desportes into a lyric, which appears in his
I Mr. A. H. Bullen, in his valuable volume of Lyrics from Eliabetan
Roman*es (I89o), calls attention to this satiric reference to Lodge, and also
quotes some very interesting illustrations of Lodge's indebtedness fo Desportes.
--|Introduction, pp. vii.-xv.)

lxxii ELIZABETIIAN SONNETS

Rosalynd. Neither in its original shape nor in its adapta-
tions tan this poem be commended. Lodge usually seems
indeed to have been attracted by the worst examples of
Desportes' art. The second sonnet, cited below, is justly
denounced by Desportes' modern French editor as 'une
merveille de recherche et de mauvais goret.' It is worth
noting that Lodge, in this second example, * put himself,
with clumsy effect, to the pains of following Desportes'

scheme of rhymes.
Loo, Ptilli.% XXXlVlL
frso ! seek che sbades, ! presently do
The g of ve fo hh w and
me by;
If I tbhk w write, hh M plt ;
If I O myef OEe wton 1
I f I Ient hh pfide, he do inoE my n ;
If t my check atç hh cheeks m
moist with moan ;
if I diloee che wounds the which my h
haoE alain.
He k hh fa off, and em d
If I walk e wds, the w e hh
defight ;
If 1 melf tmment, he bathes h h my
blo ;
He ll my Idier if oe I wend to fighh
lf delight, be sts my bk it che
In brief, the uel g doch ner« from me
Bru es m Iting etal with my w.
fle hct wa chat s ong
my
Which ow the prf of my ne'er-
ing
F Phillh, m te ickle from
my hrains;
For why Such s of with me
find pe.

DSOTES,/)ia, H. iii.
$i je me sie l'ombre, aussi soudainement
Amour, laissant son arc, s'araied et se repose ;
Si je pense des vers, je le voy qui compose ;
Si je plains mes douleun, il se plaint haute-
ment.
Si je me plais au mal, il accroist mon tourment ;
Si je respan des pleun, son visage il arrose ;
Si je monstre ma playe, en ma poitrine
enclose,
Il defait SOn bandeau, l'essuyant doucement.
Si je vais par les bois, aulx bois il m'accom-
pagne.
Si je me suis cruel, dans mon sang il se
bagne..
Si je vais la guerre, il devient mon soldart.
Si je passe la nuict, il conduit ma nacelle ;
Bref, jamais l'importun de moy ne se depart»
Poux rendre mon desir et ma peine eternelle.
Dzseo'ra.s, .D,',,,, z. xlix.
Ces eaux qu, sans cesser» coulent dessus ma
ce.
Les temoins douvens des coux.rtes
douleurs»
Diane» helas I voyez, ce ne sont point des
eurs ;
Tant de pleuta dedans moy ne se, auroient
u'OUvoer p]e.

Desportes seems to have himself adapted his poem from Pontus de Tyrd,
Les Erreurs Amoureuses ('548), Livre L, No. xxiii. (' L'eau sur ma face en ce
point distillante').

IITROI)UCTION lxxiii

These Ioods that wet m¥ cheeks are gathered
from th¥ grace
And thy perfectiol3s, and from btmdred
thousand #lower
Wbich from thy beauties sprlng ; whereto I
medley shower
Of rose ad lilie$ too, the coloursof thy face.
My love doth serve for tire, my heart the
furnace
The aperries of my sighs augment the burn-
ing flame.
The limbec is mine eye that doth d[stil the
An by bow much my tire [s violent and
By so much doth it cause the waters mount on
high,
That shower from out mine eyes, for to assuage
my mb&

C'est une eau que je fa¥, de tout ce que
De vos peffeetions, et de cent mille fleu
De vos jeunes beautez, y recelant les odeurs,
Les roses et les lis de votre bonne grace.
Mon amour sert de feu, mon CUr sert d
fourneau,
Le vent de mes souplrs nourrir sa vehemence.
Mon oell sert d'a]amblc par où distile l'eau.
Et d'autant que mon feu est violent et chaud.
Il fait ainsi monter tant de vapeurs en haut,
Qui coulent par mes yeux en ai grand'
abondance.

From many obscure ltalians (Dolce, Pascale, and
Martelli), Lodge also drew without any hint of acknow-
ledgment several of his sonnets to Phillis. To illustrate
his method in dealing with Italian poets of eminence,
I print his Sonnet xxi., together with its original in
Ariosto. t

This sonnet of Ariosto was popular with French sonneteers; the
following rendering is in Claude de Pontoux's sonnet-sequence entitled
L']d/s (Sonnet clxxxvi.). But Lodge followed the Italian and hot the French
version.

' O heraux de mon cur, mes souspirs trop hastifs !
O mes pleurs qu'en veillant je ne cele qu'a peine
O mon prier semé sur l'infertile arène l
O tousjours en un VU mes pensers intentifs I
O durables tourments : ô soulas fugitifs I
O disirs bu raison jamais ne tient domaine I
O tres certaine erreur, ô esperance vaine :
O contre un dur desdain mes regrets trop retifs !
Helas ! quand cessera ou s'alentira l'ire,
De vostre long travail et de mon long martire ?
N'aurez vous jamais fin ? gagnerez-vous le temps
Las I je vous quitteray l'excessive despense
Que vous faites chez moy, si me donnez dispense
Seulement de iouyr de ce que ie pretens.'

Ixxiv

ELIZABETHAN ONNETS

Ye berads OE my beart, mine ardent groa,
0 tear wbich gly wd bu out to
b I
Oh nt on ft] d my ging m,
0 b eut to e-Lng
1 I
jt en of m F jt
fond dr whom fn could hot
de I
0 bo ol love that intte

LoDowoe AtxosTo, from Gobbi, SeGIta di
Smttti (7a9), l.
O messaggl del cor, sospiri ardenti,
O lagrimeq che'l glorno io celo pena |
O preghi sparsl in non feconda arena ;
0 sempre in un voler pensieri intenti ;
0 del mlo inglusto mal giusti lamenti,
0 deair, che ragion mai non raffrena ;
0 t. C' Amor dietro t[ ment,

Yet prove the Ioadtar tmto bazi betide I Quando gran alti, quando pa&si lenti ;
When will ¥ou ceas¢? or thall pain noyer- Sart,c.lxeceasi» o che 'allenti mai
ceaing,
Seize on my heart ? Oh mollify your Votro lungo travaglio, il mlo martire,
Let your a.ault with over.swift increa.dng, 0 pur fia l'uno, l'altro iasieme eterno?
Procure my death, or call on timele ge. Che fia non ao, ma hen chiaxo dicerno,
What if they dot They shall but feed the tire, Che'l mio poco consiglio, troppo ardire
Whlch 1 bave kindled hy my fond de.alre. Soli polo incolpar, ch'io viva in gua':

It is unnecessary to pursue Lodge further. The general
opinion hitherto held of his sonnets is thus expressed by
Professor Minto :--' There is a seeming artlessness in Lodge's
sonnets, a winning directness, that constitutes a great part
oftheir charm. They seem to be uttered through a clear and
pure medium straight from the heart ; their tender fragrance
and music corne from the heart itself. '1 Facts require the
substitution in this passage for the word' heart ' of the words
'French and Italian sonneteers.' Lyric faculty need not
be denied Lodge, even after his habits of plagiarism have
been brought to light; but it is a misuse of terres to describe
him as an origitaal poet seekitag to give voice to his indi-
viduality. He is a clever and spirited adapter of foreign
texts, whose sense of rhythm and literary sensibility are
not altogether obscured in his borrowed lines ; but no trace
of his own personality remains there when his methods of
composition are rightly apprehended. Of the morality of

x C,araeterlstics of EnKlis,t Po«ts, p. x98.

INTRODUCTION |XXV

those rnethods little that is agreeable can be said. The
censure which was bestowed by a conternporary critic on
Soothern, the clumsiest of English plagiarists frorn Ronsard»
applies with srnall qualification to Lodge, despite his
infinitely superior dexterity: 'This man deserues to be
endited of pety larceny for pilfering other mens deui»es
frorn thern and conuerting them to his owne use, for in
deede as I would wish every inventour which is the very
Foet to receaue the prayses of his inuention, so would I hot
haue a translatour tobe ashamed to be acknowen of
translation.' 1
Barnabe Barnes, who rnade his reputation as a sonneteer
in the sarne year as Lodge (1593), was more voluminous
than any of his English conternporaries. The utrnost differ-
ences of opinion bave been expressed by modern critics as
to the value of his work. One denounces hirn as 'a fool';
another eulogises him as'a born singer.' He clearly had
a native love of literature, and gave promise of lyric power
which was never quite fulfilled. His Sonnet lxvi. on ' Cn-
tent' reaches a very high level of artistic beauty, and many
single stanzas and lines ring with true harrnony. But as
a whole his work is crude, and lacks restraint. He frequently
sinks to rneaningless doggerel, and many of his grotesque
conceits are offensive.
To the historian of the Elizabethan sonnet his work is,
however, of first-rate importance. No thorough investigator
into the history of Shakespeare's sonnet tan afford to over-
look it. Cnstantly he strikes a note which Shakespeare
Puttenham, Te Arte oflnglis P#«si«, 589. Ed. Aber, 1869, p. 6o.
g Cf. Sonnet lxiii., where, hot content with wishing himself to be his mistress's
gloves, her pearl-necklace, and her « ber of gold,' the poet prays to be also meta-
morphosed into ' That sweet wine which down her throat doth trickle.'

lxxvi ELIZABETHAN SONNETS

clearly echoed in fuller tones. There are circumstances, too,
in his biography and in the estimation in which he was held,
that make it probable that he was the poet whose rivalry in
the pursuit of the favour of a common patron is one or
Shakespeare's themes, s
In May I593 there appeared Barnes' interminable series
of love-poems. It bore the title, 'Parthenophil and Par-
thenophe: Sonnets, Madrigals, Elegies, and Odes. To the
right noble and virtuous gentleman, M. William Percy, Esq.,
his dearest friend. 'a Here a hundred and rive sonnets are
interspersed with twenty-six madrigals, rive sestines, twenty-
one elegies, three 'canzons,' twenty odes (one in sonnet
form), and what purports to be a translation of Moschus'
first' Eidillion.'
Barnes' Muse bas no greater claim than that of other
Elizabethan sonneteers to English birth. Her paternity
is indeed distributed with more than ordinary catholicity.
Many of Barnes' poems are echoes of Sidney's verse, both
in the Arcadia as well as in Astrophel and Stella. His

Cf. Barnes' Sonnet Ivi., « The dial ! love, which shows how my days spend' ;
or Ixiv., ' If ail the Ioves were Iost, and should be round
' Where or to whom» then, shall I make ¢omplaint?
When I shall resign
Thy love's large charter and thy bonds again.
Shakespeare followed Barnes in his free use of law terres» by which the latter
il|ustrates what he calls «the tenure of IoveSs service' {xx.); {cf. Barnes'
Sonnet iv.» « suborners,' Sonnet viii., « mortgage,' Sonnet xx.» 'rents'). The
parallels between Shakespeare's and Barnes' sonnets are far more numerous
than my present space permits me to indicate.
Barnes dedieatory sonnet to Shakespeare's patron, the Earl of South-
ampton, is printed ai p. 314. Cf. my Z of.çhakeseare, pp. I32.4.
s Only one COl)), is known to be extant, and that--with a defaced title-page--
belongs to the Duke of Devonshire. The book was licensed to John Wolf by the
Stationers' Company on xoth May x593.

INTRODUCTION ixxvii
Canzon 2 is a spirited tribute to SidneF under his poetic
naine of Astrophel. 1 Of his debt to Petrarch he openl¥
boasted. The kindl F contemporarF critic, Thomas Church-
Fard, paid him the compliment of dubbing him ' Petrarch's
scholar.' In Sonnet xliv. he makes handsome, if ungraceful,
acknowledgment to the Italian toaster
« That sweet Tuscan, P«trarch, which did pierce
His Laura with love
But Petrarch was only one of many masters. Barnes knew
much of the classics. With Petrarch he associates, in the
sonnet just quoted, Ovid and Musaeus. He ruade curious
experiments in adapting to his poet not merely classical
conceits but classical metres. One of his Odes (xvii.) is in
unrhymed Anacreontics ; another (xviii.) is in Sapphics ; a
third (xx.)he d6scribes as an Asclepiad. His 2st Elegy
is regularly written in elegiac hexameters and pentameters.
The naine of Barnes' heroine, Parthenophe, reflects his
reading of the Latin verse of a very popular eapolitan of
the arlF sixteenth century, Hieronymus Angerianus, who
entitled a brief section of his collected poet 'De Par-
thenope,' and included those two words in his title-page.
The Neapolitan was paying court to his native city under
ber alternative Greek naine, but he apostrophised Naples
with th warmth that befitted an address to a mistress.
! The first stan ns :
' Si sg Parthenophil
The ft kept upon is p,
Among OE' Arcadian shepherds evewhere,
Fo Asophel's bithday
Aroedia's honour ! ghty Pan's chief pride,
ere be the Nphs ? e Nymphs ail gathered be
To sing sweet Astrophels sweet praise

lxxviii ELIZABETHAN SONNETS

French influence at the saine time largely affected the
drift of Barnes' literary efforts. It is indeed to be suspected
that French example impelled Barnes to classical imitation,
and that he was often content to follow the French adapta-
tion of classical poetry rather than classical poetry in its
original form. He wrote largely in an Anacreontic vein,
and most of his knowledge of the Greek lyrists probably
reached him through France.
The poem which Barnes introduces in the course of his
miscellany, under the heading, T/teflrst Eidillion ofIoscus
describingLove, describes Venus' hue and cry after her stray-
ing son Cupid. This Greek poem was extremely popular
in French versions. Clément Marot had first adapted it
about x54o, in a poem of over one hundred and fifty lines,
called L'Amour Fugitif. De Bail, having met the poem
anew in Greek some thirty years later, composed a second
poem on Moschus' theme.* The conceit had thus been
completely Gallicised before Barnes worked on it, and he
doubtless owed more to the French adaptations than to the
Greek original.
The exceptionally miscellaneous character of Barnes'
volume, with its elegies in addition toits odes and mad-
rigals, though it can be nearly matched in Italian literature
of the century, seems to bear a deeper impress of contem-
porary France. s His reading in French was obviously far-
reaching. In his I2th Madrigal ('Like to the mountains
a Marot called the Greek author of the poem Lucian, apparently in error. Cf.
Ls uvres, Part ii.
Cf. De Bail» Pommes, Livre v. à Mademoiselle Victoire (ed. Marty-Laveaux,
il. 1)13. 276
a The introduction of elegies into oellections of love letry is very common
among sixteenth-century French iets--e.g ". Théedore de Bèze, Desportes» and
Vauquelin.

INTRODUCTION |XXiX

are my high desires') he paraphrases Melin de St. Gelais'
popular sonnet :
' Voyant ces monts de veue ainsi lointaine,
Je les compare à mon long déplaisir.'
When he apostrophises jealousy, as
' Thou poisoned canker of much beauteous love'
(Sonnet lxxxi.)
he recalls De Magny's sonnet (Amours, liii.) :--
' O Jalousie horrible aux Amoureux . . .
O fier serpent, terrible, et malheureux,
Caché au sein d'une fleur désirable.'
In Sonnet xci. he develops Petrarch's conceit (Sonnet
clvi.) that his love-stricken soul is a storm-tossed ship in
imminent peril of destruction. But it is Desportes' render-
ing of the Italian poem which seems to have directly in-
spired Barnes. His 'fancy's ship tossed here and there by
troubled, seas,' floating 'in danger, ranging fo and fro,' is
a mere echo of Desportes' story of his heart's vagaries :--
' Ma nef passe au destroit d'une mer courroucée ;
Un aveugle, un enfant, sans souci la conduit,
Désireux de la voir sous les eaux renversée.'
(.4mours de 2Diane, Livre I. lxviii.)
In accordance with the practice of the most degenerate
of his French and Italian contemporaries, Barnes repeatedly
succumbs to the temptation of chaining the planets to his
poetic car. In a sequence of twelve sonnets (xxxii.-xliii.), he
likens the progress of his passion to the passage of the sun
through the twelve signs ofthe Zodiac. x The strained conceit
* Astrology was pressed into their service by Renaissance poets of ail conn-
tries--notahly in France; cf. Fontus de Tyad's Alaneic«, I558 (see lais uvres,
ed. Marty-Laveaux, 233, 254-6), and Milles de 1Norry's Z'Çniz'ers, I583. In
t. f 8

lxxx ELIZABETHAN SONNETS
is valueless from ail literary points of view, but it is interest-
ing to learn the immediate channel through which it gained
entrance into English poetry, and the path which it subse-
quently followed there. Gilles Durant, the French versifier,
published in z588 an exceptionally ample development of
the extravagant fancy in a poem entitled Stances du
Zodiague (in thirty-three six-line stanzas). Barnes wrote
his twelve sonnets with his eye on Durant's verses. But he
contented himself with a general paraphrase. His accept-
ance of the theme, however, stirred contemporaries to
further action. Barnes' slender treatment of foreign
notions about the Zodiac fired a more eminent Elizabethan
poet, George Chapman, to give English readers a literal
rendering of the standard accourir by the Frenchman
Durant of the Zodiac's figurative relations with mundane
love. Chapman's poem was called TleAmorous Zodiac, and
was published in his volume called Ovid's Banquet of Sense
in 1595, two years after the publication of Barnes' sonnet
collection. Chapman reproduced with almost miraculous
exactness Durant's stanzas ; the metre is the saine through-
out, and at times Chapman contrives to employ the identical
rhyming syllables. 1 Barnes contributed no little to the
' Le second Curieux, ou second discours de la nature du monde et de ses parties,'
a chapter of the poet's Discours Pilosofi¢ues, De Tyard writes : « Le Zodiac
a lieu icy ; car entre luy et l'homme il y a un merveilleux consentement par
sympathie.' Cf. Chaucer's Trealiseofte Astrolabe» i. § zl : « Everich of thise
xz signes [of the Zodiac] hath respecte to a certein parcelle of the body of a man
and hath it in governance ; as Aries hath thyn heved [i.e. head], and Taurus
thy nekke and thy throte, Gemini thyn armholes and thyn armes, and so forth.'
I The first stans in French and English run thus :
Jamais vers le soleil ie ne tourne la veuê I never sec the sun, but suddenly
Que soudain, de d6pit, le n'aye l'ame meuê My soui la moved with spite and jealousy
En moy mesme jaloux de sa felicit6 : Of his high bliss, in his sweet course dis-
çera'd

] NTRODUCTIO Ixxxi

circulation in England of thc sentiments and phrascology
of foreign poctry.
Barely four months passcd after the publication of Barnes'
encyclopoedic effort than there was offcred to the Eliza-
bcthan reading public a somcwhat smaIler volume of vcry
similar temper. The author, Giles Flctchcr, a former
Fellow of King's Collcgc, Cambridge, was foty-four ycars
old, and he ruade no secret of his method of wok in his
capacity of sonnetcer. Ho bears, in fact, useful testimony
fo the proccduc in vogue among his sonnctccing con-
temporarics by announcing on his title-page that his
'poems of love' wcre writtcn 'to the imitation of thc best
Latin pocts and othcrs.' In thc addrcss to his patroncss,
the wifc of Sir Richard Molineux, he deprecatcs the notion
that his book enshrincs any episodc in his own experiencc.
Hc mcrcly claires to follow the fashion, and to imitatc thc
'mcn of leaning and grcat parts' of Italy, Fance, and
England, who havc already writtcn ' pocms and sonnets of
Et rte à ctre-coeur, qud ie uoF tant de And ara dpid to sec so man F sis,
Lue deda le Ciel» or qu'ils ient in- As the bright sky unworthily dives,
di
De iou d'un honneur qu'ils n'ont int metë. Enj an honour they bave never *d.
588 ed., p. 44-)
The test of Chapman's poem is equally plagiaristic, but he omits rive of tbe
Frenchman's stans towas the en. Chapman ves no hint of his plagiaism.
Mr. Arthur Acheson in a recent volume, Shakeseare and the ival Poet, finals
most inconclusively in Chapman's morous diac evidence that Shakare
had Chapm and that poem in mind wh he attacked, in Sonnet xxi.,
the pmctice in sonnets of making 'a couplement of proud compare th sun
and mn,' etc. Eve sonneteer of France, Italy, and England offers equally
noble examples of such firative extravance. Mr. Acheson cit Chapman's
poem on the Ziac in iorance of Barnes' previous treatment of the theme, or
of Cpman's indebtedness to Durant's French poem.
tle was father of the poets Phine and Giles Fletcher, and uncle of John
Fletcher, the great dmmatist.

lxxxii E LIZABETHAI/ SONNETS

love.' Most men, he explains, have some personal know-
ledge of the passion, but experience is hot an essential
preliminary to the penning of amorous verse. ' A man may
write of love and hot be in love, as well as of husbandry
and hot go to the plough, or of witches and be none, or of
holiness and be fiat profane.' He regrets the English
poets' proclivities to borrow i from Italy, Spain, and France
their best and choice conceits,' and expresses a pious pre-
ference for English homespun; but this is counsel of
perfection, and he makes no pretence to personal independ-
ence of foreign models. He laughinglychallenges his critics
to identify his lady-love Licia with any living woman.
'Ifthou muse, What myLicia is? Take her to besome
Diana, or some Minerva: no Venus, fairer far. It may be
she is Learning's Image, or some heavenly wondcr : which
the Precisest may hot mislike. Perhaps under that naine
I have shadowed "Discipline" If.e. the ideal of puritanism].
It may be, I mean that kind courtesy which I round at the
Patroness of these Poems, it may be some College. It may
be my conceit, and pretend nothing. Whatsoever it be, if
thou like it, take it.' To his sonnets Fletcher appends an
ode, three elegies, and a verse rendering of Lucian's
dialogue ' concerning Polyphemus.'
Fletcher's verse is quite passable, and shows a command of
the sonnet form and metre which few of his contemporaries
excelled. His ideas are mainly borrowed from minor Latin
poetry by Italian or French writers, of recent or contem-
porary date. He does hot, however, disdain levying loans
on Watson and Sidney, as well as on French and ltalian
sonneteers writing in their own tongue. Though his phrases
are very often plagiarised, his adaptations are felicitous;

INTRODUCTION lxxxiii

and, unlike Lodge and Daniel, he rarely descends to
wholesale literal translation.
Fletcher very often betters his instruction. In Sonnet
xxvii., where he represents his nymph heating, by force of
her passion, the water of the fountain in which she bathes,
he reproduces with effect an epigram from the Greek
anthology which was familiar in a Latin version, and was
utilised by Shakespeare, probably after reading Fletcher's
effort, t Fletcher's next sonnet (xxviii.)--
' In rime the strong and stately turrets fall,
In time the rose and silver lilies die, . . .'

shows a poetic feeling that is superior to the Latin poem
wh/ch suggested it--
' Tempore tecta ruunt Praetoria, rempote rires,
Tempore quaesitae debilitantur opes.
Tempore vernales flores, argentea et arent
Lilia ; praefulgens tempore forma fluit .... ,s
In Fletcher's Sonnet xlv., 'There shone a cornet,
and it was full west,' he had in mind the Latin hexameters
of Jean Bonnefons, the far-famed contemporary writer of
France, whose Latin verses were turned into French,

t C£ Shakespeare's Sonncts cliii., cliv. ; Palatine anthology, ix. 627 ; Mackail's
Seleetions, p. 9t, and my Zt ofSaes23eart , p. 113, note 2.
a IferoÆ_vmi dngriani 2Veaoli/ani 'E#orrowoEtlvlov {Paris 1582), p. 28. The
general idea is often met with. Cf. ,Vatson's 'EaTo#vroEOkt, xlvii. :--
* In rime the bull is brought to bear the yoke . . .
In time the marble wears with weakest showers ' ;

and lxxvii. :--

' Time wasteth years and months and hours . . .
Time kilis the greenest herbs and sweetest flowers.'
In both cases Watson adapted Italian sonnets by Serafino, 'ho himself was
rendering a passage from Ovid's Tristia, v. ri. 1-I6.

lxxxiv ELIZABETHAN SONNETS

just before Fletcher wrote, by his poetic friend, Gilles
Durant3
Fletcher in his penultimate Sonnet ll. renders anew thc
sonnet of Ronsard (Amours, I. xxxii.) which Lodge had
already translated in Pillis, xxxiii. The subject is the
familiar conceit, how the mistress's beauty was the gift of
the gods and goddesses, who endowed her with their most
characteristic features. Fletcher's rendering is somewhat
freer than Lodge's literal translation, although at rimes the
phraseology is almost identical :w
'Apollo placed his brightness in her eyes,
Python a voice, Diana ruade her chaste,
Ceres gave plenty, Cupid lent his bow,
Thetis his feet, there Pallas wisdom placed.'

x Bonnefons' Latin poem begins : ' Qualiter exoriens ferali crine cometes';
Durant's French rendering begins : ' Comme un comte naissant va parmi l'air
amassant.' Sec La Panchari, Az,e¢ les imitations françoise$ de Gilles Durant,
ed. Blanchemain {Paris, 1878), p. 48. Ben Jonson, who expressed, in con-
versation with Drummond, great admiration for Bonnefons' poetic capacity as
illustrated by his Ptrvigilium Vtneris, is stated by Gifford and ail succeeding
editors to have literally translated in his well-known song, ' Still to be neat, still
to be dressed,' verses by Bonnefons beginning, Semper munditias, semper,
Basilissa, decores.' But these Latin verses, ahhough commonly assigned to
Bonnefons by English editors, are hot to be met with in that poet's works. The
alternative attribution of them to Petronius Arbiter by Upton, an early editor
of Ben Jonson, proves equally misleading. They are quoted as a well.known
composition without any author's naine in Nicolaus Heinsius's edition of Ovid,
t652, ii. 394, and in Colomtsii Ouscula, t668, p. 220.
a Cf. Ronsard's sonnet and Lodge's translation at pp. lxix, lxx, supra. In
de Pontoux' L'2"d/e the conceit ws worked out in much the saine way (Sonnet
ccxviii.} :--
'... lui donna Junon
Sa grâce, and Apollon sa perruque dorée ;
Venus les yeux riants, Iuppin sa gravité,
Pallas son beau par/er, bref toute sa beautd
Fut ouvrage des Dieux.'
Ronsard lightly touches again on the fancy in ltnours, . No. il. :--
' De Junon sont vos bras, des Graces vostre sein.'

| NTRODUCTION ]xxxv

Lodge had already anglicised Ronsard to this effect
Apollo first his golden rays among
Did form the beauty ofher bounteous eyes ....
Python [sc. bequeathed] his voice, and Ceres ail ber grain
Young Love his bow, and Thetis gave her feet ;
Clio ber praise, Pallas ber science sweet.'
Fletcher's concluding Sonnet Iii. which apostrophises
Licia's «sugared talk,' stalle, voice, and the like--
' O ! pearls enclosed in an ebon pale !
O ! rose and lilies in a field most fair !'

appears to be an ingenious mosaic of phrases derived from
Claude de Pontoux' L'Idée. a

DRAYTON AND SPENSER

Early in I594 a more imposing figure in the annals of
Elizabethan sonneteering first took the field. Michael
Drayton, a reputed friend of Shakespeare, wrote sonnets
at intervals through more than a quarter of a century. But
the greater number of his poems in this kind were com-
pleted before I6oo, and an important instalment was
published in 594 when the sonneteering rage was at its
height. It is in one of his latest sonnets that his sonnet-
a Cf. Chude de Pontoux' L'Idte, Sonnet cxl. :--
' O doux regard, O par61e sucr,'
and Sonnet cc. :--
' O tresse d'or friz, O pCitz arcs d'ebene,
O iardain plein de lys, Jardin deliciem¢,
Plein de roses d'oeletz, de thym, de m-rioleine,
O petis rancs de perle agencez.'

lxxxvi E LIZABETHAN SONNETS

eering power shows to best advantage. 1 Elsewhere he
rarely maintains a high level of melody or diction ; signs of
haste and carelessness in composition abound ; he gives the
reader the impression that it was with reluctance, if hOt
with his tongue in his cheek, that he yielded to the sonnet-
eering craze. In Sonnet ix. he asks :--
' As other men, so I myself, do muse
Why in this sort I wrest Invention so.'
In Sonnet xxxi. he expresses the hope that his wit will hOt
'keep the pack-horse way,'
' That every dudgen low Invention goes,
Since Sonnets thus in bundles are imprest.'
He admits that his sonnets have little connection one
with another ; they lack any single thread of sentiment to
justify their publication as a sequence. In a preliminary
address ' To the Reader' he disavows passion :--
« Into these Loves, who but for Passion looks ;
At this first sight, here let him lay them by !
And seek elsewhere in turning other books,
Which better may his labour satisfy.
No far-fetched Sigh shali ever wound my breast 1
Love from mine eye, a Tear shail never wringl
No "Ah me I"s my whining sonnets drest 1
A libertine ! fantasticly I sing.'

The x6x9 edition of Drayton's sonnets prints for the first time his fines!
effort, ' Since there's no help, corne, let us kiss and part I ' (No. lxi.). Only the
sixty-three sonnets, together with the one ' To the Reader,' in that edition, are
included in the prescrit collection. The first edition of I594, entitled /deas
lirr#'zr, /lma'#rs i» )aCçrzains, contains fifty-two sonnets in ail. Several of
these were dropped and others added in the numerous subsequent editions (cf.
vol. iL p. xgo, bibliographical note). No complete collection ofDraytn's sonnets
exists. The nearest approach to completeness is round in Pocms by licae!
Z)ray¢on, edited by J. P. Collier for the Roxburghe Club, 1856.

l "qTRODUCTION lxxxvii
Drayton ranges over a variety of subjects. Writing in
general terres on topics like the celestial numbers, imagina-
tion, folly, and the soul, he constantly ignores the lady
to whom he professes to owe his inspiration. Else-
where his references to his mistress are the merest con-
ventionalities. In Sonnet xxi. he narrates how he was
employed by a 'witless gallant' to write a sonnet to
the wench whom the young man wooed, with the result
that his suit was successful. There is other evidence
to prove that such commissions were familiar to most
of the professional sonneteers, and Drayton doubtless
speaks truth when he claires personal experience of the
practice.
Nevertheless, while he acknowledged that the art as it
was ordinarily practised in England was a bastard product,
Drayton affected anxiety to persuade his public that, unlike
his litcrary colleagues, he handled none of their well-worn
weapons of plagiarism. He announced to'his ever kind
Mecenas, Ma. Anthony Cooke, Esquire,' to whom he dedi-
cated his first volume of sonnets in 1594 :--
I Drayton makes no slstained effort to identify the object of his passion
beyond associating her in tsvo sonnets svith a Warwickshire stream called Ankor,
v¢hich tan near his bi,thplace through the Wa,svickshire forest of Arden.
' Arden's sweet Ankor, let thy giory be,
That fait Idea only lives by thee !'
(Sonnet xxxii.)
' Fait Arden, thoB my Tempe art alone !
And thoa, sv¢eet Ankor, at my Helicon ! '
{Sonnet liil.)
Both sonnets bear the heading, ' To the river Ankor,' and in general retaper are
identical with Petrarch's addresses to the Rhone and to the Po, which had been
çery literally imitated in France and Ira!y, and had already inspired Sidney's
sonnet to the river Thames, and Daniel's sonnet to the river Avon.

lxxxviii E LIZABETHAN SONNETS

« Yet these mine owne : I wrong not other men,
Nor trafique further than thys happy Clyme,
Nor filch from Portes, nor from Perarcs pen,
A fault too common in thys latter tyme.
Divine Syr Phillip, I auouch thy writ,
" I am no Pickpurse of anothers wit."' 1
But these protests prove on examination to be unworthy
of attention.
The title of Drayton's sonnet-sequence, Idea, gives a
valuable clue to one source of his inspiration. The title
was directly borrowed from a very extended sonnet-
sequence called L'ld/e, by Claude de Pontoux, a poetic
physician of Chalon. L'Id/e, a sequence of two hundred
and eighty-eight regular French sonnets, was published,
with a few odes, chansons, and other verse, in x579, just
after the author's death. 2
L'Id/e is to a very large extent based on classical and
Italian originals, and presents an unimpressive series of
extravagant conceits illustrating a lover's despairing grief, s
The naine symbolises the Platonic ;ia of beauty, which was
especially familiar to Du Bellay and Pontus de Tyard in
The reference in the third line is of course to Desportes. The la.st line is a
verbatim quotation fzom Sir Philip Sidney's Sonnet lxxiv. L 8.
I bave to thank M. Vaganay of Lyons for the loan of a copy of this very
rare and valuable volume.
s De Pontoux' angry denunciation of his disdainful lady-love is a specially ludi-
crous example of a formula common to most sonneteers of the period. His
Sonnet ccviii, runs :--
« Affamee Meduse, enragee Gorgonne,
Horrible, espouvantable, et felonne tigresse,
Cruelle et rigoureuse, allechante et traistresse,
Meschante abominable, et sanglante Bellonne,
Enyon, Alecto, Megere, Tisiphonne,
Pariur Niob, Medee charmeresse,
Impudente, sans foy, sorciere, piperesse,
Brute gloutonne, affreuse ourse, Iouue, lyonne ;

|NTRODUCTION ]XXXiX

France, and to Spenser in England. Drayton's 'soul-
shrined saint,' his'divine Idea,' his' fair Idea,' is the child
of de Pontoux' ' Céleste Idée,' 'Fille de Dieu' (Sonnet x.)1
Drayton adopted many of de Pontoux' developments of this
traditional theme. The English writer's enumeration of
the contrasted sensations which he endures at one and the
same moment, is round in the work of every sonneteer who
wrote since Petrarch. Ronsard's lines (Amours, Livre I.
lxxxviii.)---
' Estre indigent et donner tout le sien, . . ,
Posséder tout et ne jouir de rien,'
ma), bave suggested Drayton's self-contradictory strain, e.g.
'Where most I lost, there most of ail I wan.'
(Sonnet lxii.)

Hayneuse et ennemie, et pleine de rapine,
Cuisiniere d'enfer et fiere Proserpine,
Bourrelle impitoyable, inconstante et legere,
Pandore de tous maux, qui te fuyuent par trouppe»
Orgueilleuse Chimere et filndiere Atrope,
Mettras tu iamai$ fin t ma longue misere ?'
t Cf. de Pontoux {Sonnet xiv.) :--
« S'on dit que i'ayme une beauté mortelle,
Je dy que non : car i'ayme ceste Idee,
Qui de l'esprit de Dieu s'est debordee,
Pour donner forme au monde universelle.'
Sonnet lxxxvii. :--
' Puis donc qu'elle a tout ce que souhaitter
On peut de beau, dois ie pas me vanter
En concevant ce Tout qui est en elle,
Que de Piaton l'Idee ie connois
Et d'Aristote ensemble ie conçois
En mon esprit l'essence vniverselle.'
In Sonnet ccxi. de Pontoux boasts of his superiority to college professors who
only depend on Aristotle and Plato for their knowledge of 'I#t« {cf. Sidney's
,'lstroa¢el , Lxiv. : « I do not envie Aristotle's wit ').

XC ELIZABETItAN SONNETS

But Drayton's full handling of the established convention
perhaps bears a closer resemblance to de Pontoux' treatment
of it than that of any other. Such lines as
' Ravished with joy amidst a hell of woe ;
Burnt in a sea of ice, and drowned amidst a tire '
repeat without much change de Pontoux'
' Ores de ioye, or' de dueil le me pais,
Ore une glace or' un feu me martire.'
(Sonnet c.)
Drayton's defiance of his critics (sec Sonncts xxxi.
and xxxix.) echoes de Pontoux' confident appeals to his
'Muse' and 'Minerva' to protect him from the assaults of
' ZoIle mordant' (Sonnet cxliii.).
But Drayton by no means confined his sonneteering
studies to the volume whence he took his shadowy
mistress's naine. He worked with equal zeal on the
labours of other foreign poets. Drayton's sonnet on
the Phoenix's regeneration by tire (No. xvi.) is traceable
through a long series of French adaptations to Petrarch
himself (Sonnet clii.). The sonnet on the belief that young
eagles are proved to be of the true breed by their power
of facing the glare of the sun (No. lvi.) was probably
suggested by Watson's "È«aopraOia (No. xcix.), which is
itself an imitation of Serafino (i55o ed., Sonnetto Primo);
but the tradition of the genuine eagle's visual capacity
was quite as accessible, in the shape that Dra),ton
handled it, in French and Latin verse as in Italian and
English. t His treatment of the perennial dispute between
J'acques de Billy (in Sonne#s Sirituels, No. 25, Paris, i57.7 ' p. 74} seems to
translate Serafino's version of the tradition in a sonnet -hich is neverthele

[ NTRODUCTION XC
Love and Reason, in which Reason is ignominiously de-
feated (ldea, xxxviii.), is an obvious copy of Ronsard's
Sonnets our Htlène (No. xxi.), which has for burden, ' La
Raison contre Amour ne peut chose qui vaille.' Perhaps,
too, an added touch or two was derived by Drayton
from Desportes' lyric, 'Procez entre Amour au siege de
la Raison, '* to which Ronsard's sonnet had already given
birth. Drayton's imitative appeals to night, to his lady's
fair eyes, to rivers; his classical allusions, his insistence
that his verse is eternal: all these themes recall at every
turn expressions from Ronsard, and Desportes, or from
their humbler disciples. A little is usually added, and a
little taken away ; but such slight substance as the senti-
ments possess is, with rare exception, a foreign invention
Doubtless Drayton was more conscious than his companions
of the absurd triviality of the sonneteering habit. No precise
foreign origin seems accessible for his sonnet (xv.) entitled
'His Remedy for Love,' in which he describes a potion
concocted of the powder of a dead woman's heurt, moistened
with another woman's tears, boiled in a widow's sighs, and
breathed upon by an old maid. This satire is clearIy
intended to apply to the simples out of which the con-
ventional type of sonnet was for the most part exclusively
compounded.
described as «imité de Grgoire de Nazienze.' The French rendering opened
thus :--
' L'aigle estant incertain des petits, qu'il eslèue
S'ils sont siens» que fait-il pour tel doute vuider ?
Tout droit au lieu les met, où Phebus vient darder
Ses rais» et de soupçon aussi tost se relève.'
The conceit is well known to lute Latùa poetry (cf. Claudian, Conx. lion.
Prf.,
See the first bock of the A»wur d Dane, ed. Michiels, p. 53-

xcii ELIZABETHAN SONI'ETS
Apart from Shakespeare, Spcnser was the most richly
endowed of Elizabethan poets who engaged in sonneteering.
We have already seen how his earliest work was an avowed
adaptation of the sonnets of Petrarch and Du Bellay; but
nearly a generation passed belote he addressed himself to
the composition of a sonnet-sequence of the conventional
pattern. It was in z595 that there was printed for the first
time his collection of eighty-eight sonnets. There is every
reason to believe that he wrote them about 1592, while he
was wooing, at the mature age of forty, the lady who
became his wife on Ith June 594- His sonnet-sequence
was thus no fruit of his callow youth, as in the case of
most of his contemporaries. It came from his pen when
his poetic powers were at their zenith. He had already
ruade substantial progress with his greatest literary achieve-
ment, T]z« Fa«r3: Q.ue«n. But any expectation that his
sonnets as a whole consequently claire a far loftier tank
than that to which the contemporary efforts mainly belong,
is belied by a close study of them.
William Ponsonby, on his own responsibility during the
author's absence in Ireland, published Spenser's sonnets in
595. The author bestowed on them the ltalian title of
Amoretli. 1 The publisher described them as 'sweet' and
1 The volume also contined four epigrams translated from the Greek
anthology» and the poet's fine Epi|halamium. The only epigram oi r any length
or interest {No. iv.), appended to the Amor«tti, notably illustrates Spenser's
identity with prevailing French taste» and its influence upon him. The subject
of the epigram--Cupid's complaint to his mother of a bee's sting--has been
traced to a sputious Theocritean idyll (xix.}, and was also adapted by Anacteon
(B. 33)- Watson tead it in a Latin epigrammatist, and based on it his Passion
iiii. in 'Ig«aTotra0ia. But there were in existence when Spenser wrote at least
eight different tecent tenderings oi r it into French by as many Ftench poets.
Ronsatd, De Bail, De Magny, and rive others handled the fancy. There can
be little doubt that Spenser's French reading impelled him to work upon it.

INTRODUCTION xciii

'conceited.' Such warnings prepare the reader for the
knowledge that most of them illustrate the fashionable
rein of artifice, and are founded on Italian models.
Not that Spenser failed on occasion to escape from the ¢on-
ventional chains. A few of his sonnets betray rare capacity
for the treatment, with poetic directness, of original ideas.
His familiar sonnet (No. lxxv.)--' One day I wrote ber name
upon the strand'--is evidence of the highest poetic faculty.
Amid ail the conventional imagery, Spenser makes at least
three autobiographical statements in his sonnets. Sonnet
xxxiii, is addressed by naine to his friend Lodowick Briskett,
and is an apology for the poet's dela¥ in completing his
Faery Queen. ha Sonnet Ix. Spenser states that he is forty-
one years old, and that one year has passed sinee he came
under the influenoe of the winged god. Sonnet lxxiv.
apostrophises the 'happy letters' which comprise the naine
Elizabeth, which he states was borne alike by his mother,
his sovereign, and his wife, Elizabeth Boyle.
In their metrieal effeets, too, Spenser's sonnets showed
greater originality than most of his English eontempor-
aries. He declined to follow exactly either the ordinary
English or foreign model. He formed most of his
sonnets of three quatrains alternately rhymed and a con-
eluding couplet. The alternate rhymes were unknown
abroad. But he restricted the total number of rhymes
in a single sonnet to rive, after the foreign fashion
instead of employing seven, after the English fashion.
The first line of his second quatrain rhymes with the last
line of his first quatrain, and the first line of his third
quatrain with the last line of his second. Thus each
quatrain was insensibly absorbed into its successor, and a

xciv E LIZABETHAN SONNETS
continuity which was rare in Elizabethan sonnets was
achieved. In two sonnets (x. and xlv.), the poet ventured
on a further innovation by winding up the sonnet with an
AIexandrine.
But, despite all his metrical versati[ity and his genuine
poetic force, the greater part of Spenser's sonneteering
efforts abound, [ike those of his contemporaries, in strained
conceits, which are often si[ently borrowed [rom foreign
literature without radical change of diction. Spenser
sought his main inspiration in Petrarch. The first friendly
critic (Gabrie[ Harvey) of Spenser's sonnet-sequence greeted
him as a Petrarchist, and defended him from censure based
on the ground of his subservience to the prevai[ing habit
of îmitating the Italian master. 'Petrarch's invention,'
Harvey pointed out,' is pure love itself; Petrarch's elocu-
tion pure beauty itse[f.' 'Ail the noblest French, Italian,
and Spanish poets,' continued Spenser's champion, « have in
their several veins Petrarchised, and it is no dishonour for
the daintiest or divinest muse to be his scholar whom the
amiablest invention and beautifullest elocution acknow-
ledged their master.' x
The metaphors from ships and tempests (Sonnets xxxiv.
and Ixiii.) are of true Petrarchan Iineage. Spenser's avowal
of sensibility to ice and tire (xxx.), and his appeal to his lady
to forsake her 'gIass of crystal clean' (Sonnet xlv.), echo
with slight variations the Italian phraseology. In identical
terres, too, does Spenser follow Petrarch in describing
his imprisonment in the net of his mistress's golden tresses,
which on occasion wave in 'the loose wind. '
Harvey's Piereç Su2#ertrogalion {1593} p. 61.
2 Petrarch Sonnet Ixix. ; Spenser, Sonnets xxxvii., Ixxxi.

11TRODUCTI01 XCV
But vast as s Spenser's manifest debt to Petrarch alke
in his eneral scheme and in its details, he did hOt dsdan
to borrow at the saine rime from Petrarch's French and
Italian disciples. It is hot always possible to determine
whether he is the immediate debtor of Petrarch or of
Petrarch's followers in Italy and France. Hs herone s the
wayward mistress, the sweet wrrior' (Sonnet lvii.) of
every sixteenth-centry sonneteer. Bt difference of vew
s nevitable as to whether she owe most to Petrarch»s ' dolce
guerrera,' or to De Baif's ' belle ennemie,' or to Desportes'
'douce adversaire.' Spenser had clearly immersed his
thought in French poetry. Adopting Ronsard's imagery,
he denounces his mistress in her wrath as a 'tigress.' Like
the lady-loves of all the Pléiade, her features are fairer than
the flowers or precious stones. Desportes, de Pontoux,
and Tyard never tire of likening their mistress's eyes to
pinks (oeill«¢s), her cheeks to roses, or her lips to gilliflowers
or marjorams. Spenser is hOt too proud to accept this
florid choice of similes (Sonnet Ixiv.). Ronsard when in
the presence of his mistress noted
Du beau jardin de son printemps riant
Sort un parfum qui mesme l'Orient
Embasmeroit de ses douces haleines.'
(Amours, Livre L cxi.)
Spenser expressed a like experlence thus--
« lleseemed, I smeit a garden of sweet flowers,
That dainty odours from them threw around.'
(lmoretti, Sonnet L, dv.)
It i$ hardly necessary to quote examples of thi$ chracteristic feature of the
French school. Probably Ronsard's sonnets (Amours, I. xxiii, and liv.) are
as representative as any of this aspect of his and his friends' work. The former
sonnet enumerates coral, marbre, ébène, albâtre, saphyrs, jaspe, porphyre,
diamans, rubis, oeillets, roses, and /in or, as meeting together in the features of
his mistress. Spense cites almost ail these objects in the iike connection.

XCVi ELIZABETHAN SONNETS

Sun, moon, stars, tire, lightning, diamonds, crystal, glass,
sapphires, all pale before his lady's eyes (Sonnets ix. and
xv.) in precisely the saine manner as other ladies' eyes
eclipse a like series of objects in the poetry of contemporary
France. No traders, Spenser tells us, who spoil ' the Indias
of their treasure,' secure merchandise more precious than his
lady-love's beautyn
' Ye tradeful Merchants, that, with weary toil,
Do seek most precious things to make your gain,
And both the Indias of their treasure spoil ;
What needeth you to seek so far in vain ?
For 1o, my Love doth in herself contain
A/! this world's riches that may far be round.
If sapphires, 1o, her eyes be sapphires plain ;
If rubies, 1o, her lips be rubies sound ;
If pearls, her teeth be pearls, both pure and round ;
If ivory, her forehead ivory ween ;
If gold, her locks are finest gold on ground ;
If silver, her fair hands are silver sheen.'
(Sonnet xv.)
Ronsard had already told the world, that no searcher
going from the shores of Spain to India could find ' si riche
gemme en Orient' as the hue (teint) of his mistress.
'Ny des Indois la gemmeuse largesse,
Ny tous les biens d'un rivage estranger,
A leurs tresors ne sçauroient eschanger,
Le moindre honneur de sa double richesse.'
(Amours, I. clxxxix.) t
Similarly Desportes, whom Spenser followed here with
greater literalness, had bidden
t cf. Ronsard's reductio ad absurdum of the saine conceit--
' Aller en marchandise aux Indes prc/euses,
Sans acheter ny or, ny parfum, ny joyaux.'
(Se,mets pour #J/ltne, xxiii. ).

] NTRODUCTION xcvii

Marchands qui recherchez tout le rivage more...
Venez seulement voir la beauté que j'adore,
Et par quelle richesse elle a sçeu m'attiser :
Et je suis seur qu'apres vous ne pourrez priser
Le plus rare tresor dont l'Afrique se dote.
Voyez les filets d'or de ce chef blondissant,
L'éclat de ces rubis, ce coral rougissant,
Ce cristal, cet ebene, et ces graces divines,
Cet argent, cet yvoire ; et ne vous contentez
Qu'on ne vous montre encor mille autres raretez,
Mille beaux diamans et mille perles fines. »
(Diane, !. xxxii.)

Shakespeare alone excepted, no sonneteer repeated with
greater emphasis than Spenser Ronsard's favourite conceit
that his verses are immortal, and give immortality to those
they commemorate :--

'This verse, that never shall expire ....
Fait ! be no longer proud of that shall perish,
But that, which shall },ou make immortal, cherish.'
(Sonnet xxvii.)
' Even this verse, vow'd to eternity,
Shall be thereof immortal moniment ;
And tell her praise to ail posterity,
That may admire such world's rare wonderment. »
(Sonnet lxix.)
' My verse your virtues rare shall eternise.'
(Sonnet lxxv.)

Despite the many classical precedents for this farailiar
conceit, Spenser here plainly speaks in the voice of
Ronsard alone. It was Ronsard who had, just before
Spenser wrote, promised his patron that his lute
' Par cest hymne solennel
Respandra dessus ta race
Je ne sça¥ quoy de sa grace,
Qui te doit faire éternel '--( O, tes, L viL);

xcviii ELtz^'rtt^ Sov-rs

who had declared of his mistress
Victorieuse des peuples et des Rois
S'en voleroit sus l'aile de ma ryme '--(tlmottrs, L Ixxû.) ;

lxxxvii.
ecstatic

Longtemps après la mort je vous feray revivre,...
Vous vivrez et croistrez comme Laure en grandeur,
Au moins tant que vivront les plumes et le livre.'
( Sanntls pour tirtlènt, !!.)
In two sonnets Spenser identifies his heroine with the
Petrarchan 18ia of beauty which had lately played its part
in numberless French sonnets by Du Bellay, Desportes,
Tyard, de Pontoux, and others. He catches the truc
idealistic note far more completely than Drayton, who,
in conferring on his sonnets the title of 'Idea,' professed
to range himself with the Italian and French Platonists.
Spenser writes in Sonnet xlv. :--
t Within my heurt (though hardly it ean shew
Thing so divine to view of earthly eye),
The fuir Idea of your eelestial hew
And every part remains immortally.'
This reflects Desportes' familiar strain :--
« Sur la plus belle Idée au ciel vous fustes faite,
Voulant nature un jour monstrer tout son pouvoir,
Depuis vous luy servez de forme et de miroir,
Et toute autre beauté sur la vostre est portraite.'
(Diane, II. Ixvii.)
Like the French writers, Spenser ultimately in Sonnet
disclaims any mortal object of adoration in an
recognition of the superior fascination of th¢

'Ne ought I sec, though in the clearest day,
When others gaze upon their shadows vain,
But th' onely image of that heavenly ray,

| NTRODUCTION XCX

Whereof sorne glance doth in mine eye rerna|n.
Of which beholding the Idaea plain,
Tbrough conternplation of my purest part,
With light thereof I do rnyself sustain,
And thereon feed my love-affarnish'd heart.'
Fontus de Tyard had already closed the ]ast book of hiæ
Les Erreurs Amoureuses on the identical note :--
' Mon esprit a heureusernent porté,
Au plus beau ciel sa force outrecuidée,
Pour s'abbreuuer en la plus belle Idée
D'où le pourtraR i'ay pris de la beauté.'
(Les Erreurs Amoureuses, Bk. xxl. xxxiii.)
When he was in his most solemn mood, Spenser invariably
cast his anchor in a foreign port. His sonnet to Christ at
Eastertide (Sonnet lxviii.) was clearly suggested by Des-
portes' ejaculation at the same season which unexpectedly
fills a niche in the poet's Amours de Diane. Petrarch's gravest
tone resounds in Spenser's impressive sonnet (lxxxiii.):m
Let hOt one spark of filthy lustful tire
Break out, that rnay her sacred peace rnolest. »
Watson and Sir Philip Sidney had already taught the
Elizabethan sonneteer to check any wanton tendencies in
his Muse by seeking inspiration at the Petrarchan oracle.
In that regard there is much in Spenser's .'onnets that re-
minds the reader more especially of Sidney's AstrolOAel and
Stella. The ficher tones of Spenser's mature genius give
the greater part of his Amoretti a literary rank above that
reached by the AstrofAel of former days. But Spenser,
no less than Sidney, to a large extent handled the sonnet
as a poetic instrument whereon to repeat in his mother-
tongue what he regarded as the finest and most serious
examples of poetic feeling and diction in Italy and France.

C ELIZABETIIAN SONNETS

POETE MINIMI

None of the remaining collections of sonnets, which are
brought together in these volumes, are of sufficient interest
to justify minute study. They imitate and exaggerate the
least admirable characteristics of the better endowed
,vriters who immediately preceded them. They illustrate
all the worst features of the Elizabethan passion for
sonneteering.
First in chronological order among these debased
developments of the vogue cornes a work of William Percy,
a son of the Earl of Northumberland, and a college friend
of Barnabe Barnes. It was to Percy that Barnes dedicated
his ample sequence of Parthenophil and Partheno2he. His
own collection of twenty poems was entitled Sonnets to
tlte fairest Coelia. 1 Spenser's publisher, William Pon-
sonb¥, undertook the publication. The author explains
in an address to the reader, that out of courtesy he had
lent the sonnets to friends, who had secretl¥ committed
them to the press. Making a virtue of necessit¥ he had
accepted the situation, but begged the reader to treat
them as 'toys and amorous devices.' There is no likeli-

Coelia, a naine very familiar in classical poetry, was applied to his poetic
mistress by the ver,/popular Latin poet Hieronymus Angerianus of Naples, in
his 'Ep,oroa'«,Vv/ov (Paris, x582}. Angerianus' work was well known fo Giles
Fletcher and others of his contemporaries. A sequence of twenty-six sonnets
was addressed to an imaginary Cxelia by the Scottish poet, Sir David Murray
of Gorthy (sec « The Tragicaldeath of Sophonisba,' adfin. London, x6x . 8vo).
I Only two copies seem now known ; the one belongs to the Duke of North-
umberland and the other to Mr. ltuth.

INTRODUCTION Cî
hood that the reader wil! treat them as anything e]se. Percy
shows some reading in home and foreign literature. Ernu-
|ating Drayton, he bids his |ute 'rehearse the songs of
Row|and's rage' (Sonnet viii.). He emp|oys musica! tcrms
(viii.) very much in the manner of the Frcnch sonneteer
Pontus de Tyard, and with Ronsard he finds 'a Gorgon
shadowed under Venus' face' (Sonnet xiiL). At rimes
he echoes the words of his friend Barnes. But his poetic
faculty was exiguous; he s invariably grotesque and at
rimes coarse, while his rhymes constantly strike the most
discordant notes.
Zep/eria, a collection of forty sonnets or 'canzons,' as
theanonymous poetastcr calls them, appeared in I594. No
author's naine was given in thc volume. Drummond of
Hawthornden, who read it in I6I, immediate]y after
Lodge's Phz'//i«, merely attributed it to the pen of'some
uncertMne writter.' The book s dedicated in verse'
'Alli veri figlioli delle Muse.' There Danicl is congratu-
lated on 'the sweet-tuned accents of his Delian sonnetry.'
Among other English ' modern Laureates' who bave roused
Ovid and the Tuscan Petrarch from the sleep of death, the
writer specially singles out Sir Philip Sidney (under his
poetic designation of Astrophel). A reference in Canzon xiv.
'to that Divine Idea' betrays knowledge of Drayton or
Spenser. Zeplteria limps clumsily along a most caco-
phonous path. The author was a law-student who mistook
legal technicalities for poetic imagery. To help out his
rhyme he invented a vocabulary of his own. The verbs
'imparadise,' ' portionize,' ' partialize,' ' thesaurize,' are some
of the fruits of his ingenuity. He claires that his Muse is
capablë of'hyperbolised trajections' ; he apostrophises his

Cii E IAZABTHAN SONNETS
ldy's eyes as 'illuminatin lmps,' and calls his pen his
hert's solicitor.' His modest admission
« lI slubberin peucil casts too ross a matter
Thy beauty's pure divinity to blaze ,m
truthfully characterises his literary ability.
' R. L. Gentleman,' probably Richard Linche, a miscel-
laneous writer of some little repute, published in 1596
thirty-nine sonnets under the title Di«lla,--a crude anagram
on ' Delia. '1 The publisher, Henry Olney, who dedicated
the volume to Arme, wife of Sir Henry Glenham, and
daughter of Thomas Sackville, the literary Earl of Dorset,
had lately produced Sir Philip Sidney's Aologiefor Poetrie
(I595). R. L.'s sonnets are typically servile in their repeti-
tion of well-worn phrases and îmagery. The apostrophes
to Time and to the poet's lute, the description of sunrise and
of the crystal fountains in his lady's eyes, are dull echoes of
Ariosto and Desportes. But authors at home, notably Sir
Philip Sidney, were also freely plagiarised. But the author
did not claim for his 'passionate sonnets,' as the publisher
figuratively called them, that they were anything beyond
literary exercises, s They were issued by way of prelude
to a verse translation of Bandello's love-story of Z)om Z)iego
and Ginevra.
To the same year (1595) belongs a collection of some-
what higher merit : Bartholomew Griffin's Fidessa, sixty-two
sonnets inscribed to 'William Essex, Esq.' Griffin desig-
It is barely possible that the sonneteer is the ' Maister IL L.,' the friend of
Richard Barnfield, to whom Barnfield inscribed the fine sonnet ' In praise of
Musique and Poetrie' on the opening page of his poems For Divers I-Iumours,
'595. Barnfield credits his friend with special devotion to music, of which
there is no evidence in Linche's work.
* This volume is ver 7 rare. There are copies in the British Museum and in
the Bodleian Library.

I N'rRODUCTION ciil

nates his sonnets as the 'firstfruits of a young beginner.'*
He had some genuine poetic faculty, but plagiarised with
exceptional boldness. He did hot put himself, as a fuie,
to the trouble of going abroad for his inspiration. He
freely appropriated home products. He absorbs in his
Sonnet xv. Daniel's address to 'Care-charmer sleep.' In
Sonnet xxxiii., where he imagines his wrinkled face and
silver hairs tobe a mrror reflecting the cruelty of his
mistress, he echoes Drayton's treatment (Idea, 594, xiv.) of
the sonneteering convention which makes every unrequited
loyer sec in a looking-glass his face prematurely withered
and deformed by despair. In Sonnet xliii., beginning,
'Tell me of love, sweet Love, who is thy sire ?' Griffin re-
wrote Wa.tson's 'E«a-o/zwzS« (Iii.), of which the first line
runs, 'When wert thou born, sweet Love? who was thy
sire?'* No sincerity tan be attached to this mosaic of
borrowed conceits and diction.
William Smith, the author of CMoris--a third collection
of sonnets which appeared in I596--was a very humble
disciple of Spenser. s The two opening sonnets, whichare

a Of Griffin's volume only three copies seem to be known--in the Bodleian,
Huth, and Bfitwell Libraries respeetively. Grifin's Sonnet iii., beginning,
Venus and young Adonis sitting by ber,' is almost identical with the fourth
poem--a sonnet beginning, ' Sweet Cytheroea, sitting by a brook '--in Jaggard's
piratical miseellany, TAc t'assionate ilgrim, whieh bore Shakespeare's naine
on the title-pal;e.
Watson based this effort on a sonnet which he attributes to Sesafino ; but
though it appears in later editions of Serafino's sonnets, it appears to be the
work of another ltalian sonneteer, Panaphilo Sasso. Despoztes zendered the
Italian sonnet very literally in Amours de Diane, Livre L xxxviL
* ' Chloris' was the naine of one of the ladies to whom Théodore de Bèze
aldressed himself in Iris early and ver,/populax collection of Latin Foemata,
{ed. Machard, *879, p. *97). In ,600 a licence was issued by the Statioers
Company for the issue of Amours by W.S. This no doubt refers to a second
collection of sonnets by William Smlth. The projected volume is hot extant.

civ ELIZABETHAN SONNETS

unnumbered, are, iike the forty-ninth and last, inscribed to
his toaster. Smith describes his poems as the 'budding
springs of his study.' They are mere reminiscences of his
reading, and the phraseology and metre have no literary
value.
Finaily, in 597, there came out a similar volume by
Robert Tofte, entitled Laura, t/te Joys osf a Traveller, or t/te
Feast of Fancy. The book is divided into three parts, each
consisting of forty ' sonnets' in very irregular metres. The
rules of the sonnet form are for the most part ignored.
There is a prose dedication to a weil-known patroness of
poets, Lucy, sister of Henry Percy, ninth Eari of Northum-
berland, afterwards wife of James Hay, first Eari of Carlisle.
Tofte tells his patroness that most of his ' toys' ' were con-
ceived in Italy,' and he distributes about his pages the
names of Italian citiesPPadua (p. 359), Siena (p. 372), Pisa
(p. 382), Rome (p. 386), Fiorence (p. 396), Mantua (p.
Pesaro (p. 49), and Fano (p. 42o)--by way of indicating the
places where he heid communion with his Muse. As its
name of Laura implies, his work is a pale reflection of
Petrarch.
The fifteen collections included in these volumes by no
means represent the whole of the amorous sonneteering
activity of the era, but they give as large a picture of it as
any student is iikely to need. Of the excluded collections
of sonnet-sequences of love, mention may be ruade of a very
rare collection of forty sonnets, echoing English and French

A postscript by a friend--' R. B.'---complains that the publisher had inter-
mingled with Tofte's genuine efforts 'more than thirty sonnets hot his.' But
the style throughout is so uniformly rame that it is hot possible to tlistinguish
the work of a second hand.

| NTRODUCTION CV

models, by an unidentified writer, ' E. C., Esq.,' undcr the title
of tmariçdulfe (I595), x and two efforts of greatcr intcrest,
which although writtin in Elizabeth's time were published
latcr: riz. William Alexandcr's Aurara, a hundred and six
sonncts, with a few songs and ¢legies intersperscd on Frcnch
patterns (publishcd in I6O4), and çwlica, a miscellany of
lyrics in varied metres, by Sir Fulk¢ Greville, afterwards
Lord Brook¢, the intimate fricnd of Sir Philip Sidney. Both
Alcxander and Grevill¢ amply illustratcd the influence of
foreign workers. Of collections of sonnets which belong
altogcthcr to a somewhat later epoch, one alone is of first-
rate literary interest. About I37 William Drummond of
Hawthorndcn penned a series of sixty-¢ight sonnets, in-
tcrspersed with songs, madrigals, and scxtains. Nearl¥ ail
wcre translatcd or adapted from modern Italian sonneteers.
But Drummond's dexterit¥ was exceptional. The writer's
native poetic tire is by no means dimmed by his dependence
on foreign effort.

CONCLUSION

The sonnet-sequence of love died hard in England, but,
after a time, il fell a victim to ridicule. The dissemination

This volume, which was dedicated by ' E. C.' to his ' two very good friends,
John Zouch and Edward Fitton, Esquiers,' was reprinted for the Roxburghe Club
in ,4 Zampert Garland, x88x, edited by Mr. Charles Edmonds. «Emaricdulfe'
is an anagram on the naine of one Marie Cufeld, or Cufaud, of Cufaud Manor,
near Basingstoke.
s PracticaIly to the saine category as these collections of sonnets belong the
voluminous laments of loyers, in six, eight, or ten-lined stanzas, which, though
hot in strict sonnet fotm, cIoseIy resemble in retaper the sonnet-sequences.

CVi ELIZABETHAN SONNET$

of borrowed sentiment by the sonneteers, and their mono-
tonous and mechanical plagiarisms, had the natural effect
of bringing their endeavours into disrepute. The air in
England during the last years of the sixteenth century
rang with sarcastic protests.
In early life Gabriel Harvey, Spenser's admiring critic,
wittily parodied the mingling of adulation and vituperation
in the conventional sonnet-sequence, in his 'Amorous
Odious Sonnet intituled The Student's Loove or Hatrid.'
Chapman, in 1595, in a series of sonnets entitled, 'A
Coronet for his Mistress Philosophy,' appealed to his literary
comrades to abandon 'the painted cabinet' of a love-
sonnet for a coffer of genuine worth.
But the most resolute of the censors of the sonneteering
vogue was the poet and lawyer, Sir John Davies. In a
sonnet addressed about 596 to his friend, Sir Anthony
Cooke (the patron of Drayton's Idea), he inveighed against
the' bastard sonnets,' which 'base rhymers daily begot to
their own shames and poetry's disgrace.' In his anxiety to
stamp out the folly, he wrote and circulated, in manuscript, a

Such are Willobie's .4visa, ]594 ; .4lcilia: Philoparthen's Lorn'n K Folly, by
I. C., 595 (reprinted in Some nKer Eli«than Poems, . A. II. Bullen, in
the prnt ries, pp. 39-362) ; rboEr Dic«s, 597 (containing two
replat sonne), by Nichoi Breton ; 1, the omhs Iin a «lklaholy
, by Rort Tofte, 598 ; Daipntus, or the Passes ofL,«, by Anthony
ScMoker, (reprinted in Some nKer Elittn Poems, pp. 363-4o4) ;
Breton's T Passiote Sheheard» or The Sheardes ,e : set dne in
sions lo lB Shrsse Aglaia ; il many cellenl con,eited oems and
leant ss fit f yng es U an amay fdle our«s, ! 4 {none of the
* ne' e in sonnet mette} ; d John Reynoids' Domys 'merose . . .
mdn sed t« liudy anfons of 2eak a u«, !. ough
George Witheds simil produ¢fio--his exquisitely fanciful Filia {67} and
Faire-Viue, te oeistr¢sse of PiFArete (1622}--were publh at a later
fiod, they were probly digned in the oning years of the seventeen
century.

INTRODUCTION cvii
specimen series of nine ' gulling sonnets,' or parodies of the
conventional efforts. Even Shakespeare does hot seem to
have escaped Davies's condemnation. Sir John is especiall¥
severe on the sonneteers who handled conceits based on
legal technicalities. In his eighth «gulling sonnet,' he ridi-
cules effectively the application of law terres to affairs of
the heart. Although Sir John here directl¥ aires his shafts
at the insignificant author of the most clums¥ of the extant
collections, Zeeria, many an expert practitioner--even
Shakespeare in his Sonnets ixxxvii, and cxxxiv.--had laid
himself equall¥ open to attack.
' My case is this. I love Zepheria bright,
Of her I hold my heart by fealty :
Which I discharge to her perpetually I
Yet sh¢ thereof will never me acquit[e],
For now supposing I withhold her right,
She hath distrained my heart to satisfy
The duty which I never did deny,
And far away impounds it with despite.
I labour therefore justly to repleave Il.e. recover]
My heart which she unjustly doth impound.
But quick Conceit wh/ch now is Love's high shrievel
Returns it as esloyned [i.«. absconded], hot tobe found.
Then what the law affords--I only crave
Her heart, for mine iawit ber name to have.'
(Davies's Sonnets, No. viii.)
Echoes of the critical hostilit¥ are heard, it is curious to
note, in nearly all the references that Shakespeare himself
makes to sonneteering in his plays. 'Tush, none but
minstrels like of sonneting,' impatiently exclaims Biron in
£ove's Labour's £ost (IV. iii. x 58). In the Two Gentlemen of
Verona (III. ii. 68 seq.) there is a satiric touch in the recipe
for the conventional love-sonnet which Proteus offers th¢
amorous Duke :--

cviil ELIZABETHAN SONNETS

' You must lay lime to tangle her desires
By wailful sonnets, whose composèd rime
Should be full-fraught with serviceable ows . , .
Say that upon the altar of her beauty
You sacrifice your tears, your sighs, your heart. »
Mercutio treats Elizabethan sonneteers even less re-
spectfully when alluding to them in his flouts at Romeo :m
' Now is he for the numbers that Petrarch flowed in : Laura
to his lady was but a kitchen wench; marry, she had a
better love to be-rime her.'---(Ro»oeo andJuliet» xx. iv. 4x-4.)
When the sonnet-sequence of love had grown out of date,
Ben Jonson, in his play of Volone (Act iii. sc. 2), looked
back on the past 'days of sonneting,' and reproached its
,votaries with their debt to 'passionate' Petrarch. Jonson
condemned the artificiah principles of the sonnet root and
branch, when he told Drummond of Hawthornden that ' he
cursed Petrarch for redacting verses to sonnets which he
said were like that tyrant's bed, where some who were too
short were racked, others too long cut short.' (Jonson's
Conversation, p. 4-)
In England no more than on the continent did love,
which was nearly always feigned, constitute the sole topic
of the sonnet-sequence. But abroad and at home sonnets
on religion, metaphysics, and astrology were interpolated at
one point or another in many amorous collections. There
were also several volumes of sonnets consecrated exclusivel
to religion and philosophy. Barnes and Constable each
wrote an extended series of 'Spiritual Sonnets.' Henry
Locke issued in x597 a collection of no less than three
hundred and twenty-eight 'Sundrie Sonets of Christian
Passions, with other Affectionate Sonets of a Feeling
Conscience.'
The imitative character of the Elizabethan sonnet was

[ NTRODUCTION CX
hOt obscured when it was diverted to the service of religion.
The English 'Spritual Sonnets' are all closel¥ modelled
on the two series of Sonnets Spirituels, which the Abbé
Jacques de Bill¥ published in Paris in 577 .
Very many separate sonnets, too, were penned throughout
Europe, altogether apart from either the amorous or the
religious sequences. Elizabethan England was hardly Mss
rich than France or Italy in isolated sonnets inscribed to
great patrons and to personal friends. Of detached sonnets
to friends or patrons specimens can be round at the
beginning or end of nearl¥ every published book of the
period. In sonnets of this class Petrarch still remains the
predominating influence, modified by later Italian and by
French examples. Elizabethan sonnets to patrons com-
monly echo that affectionate note which the Tuscan
master struck in his famous sonnet to "his friend and
patron, Colonna--a note which was often afterwards de-
veloped by his Italian and French, no less than by his
English disciples, into a poean of impassioned devotion
to a Moecenas.
The more closely the different manifestations of the son-
neteering vogue in sixteenth-century Europe are studied,
the more closel¥ is each seen to conform to one or other of
a ver¥ limited number of fixed types, ail of which owe their
birth to Petrarch. However varied the language in whîch
the sixteenth-century sonnet was clothed, its spirit never
diverges very far from that of the Petrarchan archetype.
' In his sweete mourning sonets: wrote Sir John Harington,
a typical Elizabethan, in I59 I, 'the doleful] Petrarke . . .
! A long series of ver), similar Sonets Sirituels, written by Arme de Marquets,
sister of the Dominican order, xvho died at Poissy in I598, was published
in Paris in x6o$.

CX E LIZABETHAN SONNETS

seemes to have comprehended ail the passions that ail men
of that humour have feR.'
Shakespeare was the greatest poetic genius who was
drawn into the sonneteering current of the sixteenth century.
His supremacy of poetic power and invention creates a
very wide interval between his efforts and those of his
contemporaries. Nevertheless the Elizabethan age was
too completely steeped in the Petrarchan conventions to
permit him full freedom from their toils. His commanding
powers converted into gold most of the base ore which is
the fabric of the Elizabethan sonnet in others' hands. Yet,
as soon as Shakespeare's endeavour is minutely scrutinised,
the processes of assimilation, which were characteristic of
contemporary sonneteers, are seen tobe at work in it also.
Many a phrase and sentiment of Petrarch and Ronsard, or
of English sonneteers who wrote earlier than he, give the
cue to Shakespeare's noblest poems. Only when the Eliza-
bethan sonnet is studied comparatively with the sonnet of
France and Italy are the elements of its composition
revealed. When the analysis is completed, Shakespeare's
sonnets, despite their exalted poetic quality, will be ac-
knowledged to owe a very large debt to the vast sonneteering
literature of sixteenth-century Europe on which they set a
glorious crown.
SIDNEY LEE.
5t Marr I9o4.

Harington's translation of Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, p. 3 o, edit. I634.

tlis

Syr P. S.
lstrophel and Stella.

Wherein the excellence of sweet
Poesy is concluded.
('.9

ço the end of vhich are added, sundrv
other rare &nnets of divers Noble
men and Gentlemen.

At London
Printed for Thomas Newman.
lnno. Domini. x 59 I.
[Title-page of first (surreptltious) imprion. 1

I, A 8

SIR P. S. H
ASTROPHEL AND

SY"ELLA.

Wherein the excellence of swect
Pocsy is concluded.

Printed

At London,
for Thomas Newman.
Anno Domini, 159 i.

|Title-page of second revised impreçsion |

7o tbe worshi]ful and bis ver A'
good friend, Master FRAvczs FLOVER Esyuire :
in«rease of ail content.
[This dedlcatlon only appears in the first ($urreptitious) impression of s9t. ]
'T was my fortune, Right Worshipful, not many
days since, to light upon the famous device of
.Isro'IgL and SrgLr, which carrying the
general commendation ofall men ofjudgment, and
being reported to be one of the rarest things that ever any
Englishmen set abroach, I bave thought good to publish it
under your name; both for I know the excellency of your
Worship's conceit, ahove ail other to he such as is only fit fo
discern of ail matters of wit; as also for the credit and
countenance your patronage may give to such a work.
Accept of if, I beseech you, as the firstfruits of my
affection, which desires to approve itself in ail duty unto you :
and though the argument, perhaps, may seem too light for
your grave view; yet considering the worthiness of the
author, I hope you will entertain it accordingly.

4 TII E E PISTLE.

For my part, I have been very careful in the printing of it :
and whereas being spread abroad in written-copies, it h.ad
gathered much corruption by iii writers; I have used their
help and advice in correcting and restoring it to his first
dignity, that I knoxv were of skill and experience in those
matters.
And the rather was I moved to set it forth, because I
thought it pity anything proceeding from so rare a man
should be obscured; or that his fame should not still be
nourished in his works: xvhom the works xvith one united
grief, bewailed.
Thus craving pardon for my bold attempt, and desiring the
continuance of your \Vorship's favour unto me : I end.

Your's always to be commanded,
THOI/AS NEWMAN.

Somewhat to read, for them
that list.
['1 hls preface, by Thomas Nashe ouly appears in the first (surreptitious) edition of $9.]
EMPUS adest plausus aurca lomla venir. So ends
the scene of idiots ; and enter AsTRot, rtt, in pomp.
Gentlemen that have seen a thousand lines of folly
drawn forth ex uno tuncto imtudentioe, and two
famous mountains to go to the conception of one mouse ;
that have had your ears deafened with the echo of Fame's
brazen towers, when only they have been touched with a
leaden pen; that have seen P^r sitting in his bower of
delights, and a number of Mm^ses to admire his mlserable
hornpipes: let not your surfeited sight--newly corne from
such puppet-playthink scorn to turn aside into this Theatre
of Pleasure: for here you shall find a paper stage streweà
with pearl, an artificial heaven to overshadow the fair frame,
and crystal walls to encounter your curious eyes; whiles the
tragi-comedy of love is performed by stadight.
The chier actor here is MïLPO., whose àusky robes,
dipped in the ink of tears [which] as yet seem to drop, when
I view them near; the argument, cruel Chastity; the
prologue, Hope; the epilogue, Despair. Videte quoeso et
linguis animisque favete.

" T. Nasu.
6 SOMEWHAT TO READ FOR THEM THAT LIST. Lpt. xsgx.
And here, peradventure, my witless youth may be taxed
with a margent note of presumption, for offering to put up
any motion of applause in the behalf of so excellent a poet
(the least syllable of whose name sounded in the ears of
judgment, is able to give the meanest line he writes, a
dowry of immortality) yet those that observe how jewels
oftentimes come to their hands that know hot their value ;
and that the coxcombs of our days, like ,Eso,'s cock, had
rather have a barley kernel wrapt up in a ballet, than they
will dig for the wealth of wit in any ground that they know
not; I hope will also hold me excused, though I open the
gate to his glory, and invite idle ears to the admiration of his
melancholy.
Quid etitur sacris nisi tantum fama toetis.
Which although it be oftentimes imprisoned in la dies
caskets, and the precedent books of such as cannot sec
%vithout another man's spectacles; yet, at length, it breaks
forth in spite of his keepers, and useth some private pen,
instead of a pick-lock, to procure his violent enlargement.
The sun, for a time, may mask his golden head in a cloud ;
yet in the end, the thick veil doth vanish and his embellished
blandishment appears. Long hath ASTROPnEL--England's
sun--withheld the beams of his spirit from the common view
of our dark sense ; and night hath hovered over the gardens
of the Nine Sisters : while ignisfatuus, and gross fatty flames
(such as commonly arise out of dunghills) have taken occasion,
in the midst eclipse of his shining perfections, to wander
abroad %vith a wisp of paper at their tails, like hobgoblins;
and lead men up and clown, in a circle of absurdity a whole
%veek, and they never know where they are. But now that
cloud of sorrow is dissolved, %vhich fiery Love exhaled from

T. Ntk ] SOMEWHAT TO READ FOR THEM THAT LIST. 7
his dewy hair ; and Affection hath unburdened the labouring
streams of her womb in the low cistern of his grave: the
Night hath resigned her jetty throne unto LJCIFER, ànd
clear daylight possesscth the sky that was dimmed.
Wherefore, break off your dance, you fairies and elves!
and from the fields, with the torn carcases of your timbrels!
for your kingdom is expired. Put out your rushlights, you
poets and rhymers ! and bequeath your crazed quatorzains to
the chandlers ! for lo, here he cometh that hath broken your
legs.
APOLLO hath resigned his ivory harp unto ASTROPHEL; and
he, like MERCURY, must lull you asleep with his music. Sleep
ARGUS[ sleep ignorance[ sleep impudence[ for MERCURY
hath Io: and only Io Poean belongeth to ASTROPHEL.
Dear ASTROPHEL that in the ashes of thy love, livest again,
like the Phoenix. 0 might thy body, as thy naine, live again
likewise here amongst us[ but the earththe mother of
mortalityhath snatched thee too soen into her chilled cold
arms; and will hot let thee, by any means, be drawn from
her deadly embrace : and thy divine soul, carried on angels'
wings to heaven, is installed in HERMES' place, sole olocutor
to the gods. Therefore mayest thou never return from the
Elysian fields, like ORPHEUS. Therefore must we ever mourn
for our ORPHEUS.
Fain would a second spring of passion here spend itself on
his sweet remembrancebut Religion, that rebuketh profane
lamentation, drinks in the rivers of those despaidul tears,
which languorous ruth hath outwelled; and bids me look
back to the House of Honour: where from one and the self.
same foot of renown, I shall find many goodly branches
derived ; and such as, with the spreading increase of their
virtues, may somewhat overshadov the grief of his Ioss.

8 SOMEWHAT TO READ FOR THEM THAT LIST. [Sept. sgx.

Amongst the which; fait sister of PHOEBUS! and eloquent
secretary of the Muses! most rare Countess of PEMBROt:E !
thou art hot tobe omitted: whom arts do adore as a second
IItNERV^, and our poets extol as the patroness of their
invention. For in thee, the Lesbian S^l,l, tto with her
lyric harp is disgraced; and the laurel garland, which thy
brother so bravely advanced on his lance, is still kept green
in the temple of P^LL^S. Thou only sacrificest thy soul
to contemplation! Thou only entertainest emptyhanded
HOUER ! and keepest the springs of Castalia from being dried
up ! Learning, wisdom, beauty and ail other ornaments of
nobility whatsoever, seek to approve themselves in thy sight ;
and get a further seal of felicity from the smiles of thy favour.

0 yove àig,a viro ni yove ,,ara fores.
I fear I shall be counted a mercenary flatterer, for mixing
my thoughts with sueh figurative admiration: but general
report that surpasseth my praise, condemneth my rhetorie
of dulness for so cold a commendation. Indeed, to say the
truth, my style is somewhat heavy-gaited, and cannot dance
trip and go so lively ; with " 0 my love!" "Ah my love!"
"AIl my love's goneI"--as other shepherds that have been
|ools in the morris, rime out of mind : nor hath my prose any
skill to imitate the "almond leap verse," and sit tabering,
rive years together, nothing but "to be," "to he," on a
paper drum. Only I tan keep pace with Gravesend barge;
and tare not, if I have water enough to land my ship of
fools with the Terr0 (the ride, I should say). Now every
man is hot of that mind. For some, to go the lighter away,
will take in their freight of spangled feathers, golden pebbles,
straw, reeds, bulrushes, or anything ; and then they bear out
their sails as proudly, as if they were ballasted with bull beef.

Sept.T" Nffih.ffigz.j'l SOMEWHAT TO READ FOR THEM THAT LIST. 9
Others are so hardly bestead for a loading, that they are
fain to retail the cinders of Troy, and the shivers of broken
trunchions, to fill up their boat ; that else should go empty:
and if they have but a pound's weight of good merchandise, it
shall be placed at the poop, or plucked into a thousand pieces
to credit their carriage.
For my part every man as he likes. Meus cujusque is
quisçue. 'Tis as good to go in cut-fingered pumps as cork
shoes: if one wear Cornish diamonds on his toes. To
explain it by a more familiar example. An ass is no great
statesman in the beasts' commonwealth, though he wear hi
ears, u]sevctt mufle, after the Muscovy fashion, and bang the
lip like a cap-case hall open; or look as demurely as a
sixpenny brown loaf; for he bath some imperfections that
do keep him from the common Council : yet, of many, he is
deemed a very virtuous member, and one o the honestest
sort of men that are. So that out opinion--as SEXTUS
Evr)ocu afiïrmeth--gives the naine of good or ill to every
thing. Out of whose works--laely translated into English,
for the benefit of unlearned writers--a man might collect a
whole book of this argument : which, no doubt, would prove
a worthy commonwealth matter; and far better than wit's
wax kernel, luch good worship bave the author!
Such is this golden age wherein we live, and so replenished
with golden asses of all sorts : that if learning had lost itself
in a grove of genealogies ; we need do no more but set an old
goose over half a dozen pottle pots (which are, as it were, the
eggs of invention) and we shall have such a breed of books,
within a while after, as will fill all the xvorld xvith the wild
fowl of good wits.
I can tell you this is a harder thing than making gold of
quicksilver; and will trou!,le you more than the moral of

IO SOMEWHAT TO READ FOR THEM THAT LIST. LSept.sg,-
.SOP'S glowworm hath troubled our English apes: who,
striving to varm themselves with the flame of the
philosopher's stone, have spent all their wealth, in buying
bellows to blow this false tire.
Gentlemen! I fear I have too much presumed on yom
idle leisure; and been too bold, to stand talking all this
while in another man's door: but now I will leave you to
survey the pleasures of Paphos, and offer your smiles on the
ltars of VENUS.

Yours, in all desire fo please,
THOMAS NASHB.

¢ Sir P[HILIP]
HIS
AS TR 0 P t-/E L . »

S[IDNEY]

STELLA.

[OvING IN truth, and fain in verse mv love
to show,
That She, dear She! might take some
pleasure of my pain;
Pleasure might cause her read, reading
might make her know,
Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace
obtain :
I sought fit words to paint the bla.kest face of woe,
Studying inventions fine, ber wits to entertain ;
Oft turning others' leaves, to see if thence would flow
Some fresh and fruitful showers upon my sunburnt brain :
But words came halting forth, wanting Invention's stay.
Invention Nature's child, fled step-dame's Study's blows;
And others' feet still seemed but strangers' in my way.
Thus great with child to speak, and helpless in my throes;
Biting my trewand pen, beating myself for spire :
" Fool ! " said my Muse, "look in thy heart, and write ! "

Il.
.OT ,T 'HE first sight, nor with a dribbed shot, leed :
Low. gave the wound, which while I breathe, will
But known worth did in mine of time proceeà,
"[dl, by degrees, it had full conquest got.
I saw and liked, I liked but lovèd not;
I loved, but straight did not v,-hat Love- deceed :
At lenh to LovE's decrees, I forced, agreed ;
Yet v.th repining at so partial lot.
No even that footstep of lost liberty
Is gone ; and now, like slave-born Muscovite,
I call it praise to surfer tyranny :
And now employ the remnant of my ,vit
To make me self believe that ail is ell ;
While with a feeling skill, I paint m)" hell.

III.
! T D.çX¢Y wits c" on the Sisters n|ne,
That brave!y maskt, their fancies may be told ;
Or PI.DAR S apes flaunt they in phrases fine,

Enamelling v,'ith pied flowers their thoughts of gold ;
Or else let them in statelier glory shine,
Ennobling new-found tropes with problems old ;
Or with strange similes enrich each line,
Of herbs or beasts which Inde or Afric hold :
For me, in sooth, no Muse but one I know.
Phrases and problems from my reach do grow,
And strange things cost too deax for my poor sprites.
How then ? Even thus. In S'-l.X.x's face I read
What love and beau%, be. Then ail my deed
But copying is, g'hat in her Nature v,'rites.

SirP. Sidney.'] 4 S T R O P H E L A N Z) Ç T E L L A 13
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IV.
IRTIJE! ^L^, now let me take some test.
Thou sett'st a bate between my will and wit :
If vain love have my simple soul opprest ;
Leave what thou lik'st not ! deal not thou with it
Thy sceptre use in some old C^'ro's breast :
Churches or schools are for thy seat more fit.
I do confess, pardon a fault confest !
My mouth too tender is for thy hard bit.
But if that needs thou wilt usurping be
The little reason that is left in me ;
And still th'effect of thy persuasions prove :
I swear my heart, such one shall show to thee,
That shrines in flesh so true a deity ;
That VIRTUE 1 thou thyself shalt be in love !

Ve
T I$ MOST truemthat eyes are formed fo serve
The inward light ; and that the heavenly part
Ought to be King; from whose rules, who doth swerve.
(Rebels to Nature) strive for their own smart :
It is most true--what we call CLIPID' dart,
An image is ; which for ourselves we carve,
And, fools ! adore, in temple of our heart ;
Till that good GOD make church and churchman statve
True--that true beauty, Virtue is indeed ;
Whereof this beauty can be but a shade,
Which elements with mortal mixture breed :
True--that on earth, we are but pilgrims made;
And should in soul, up to out country more :
True--and yet true, that I must STELLA love.

VI.
OME LOVER$ speak, xvhen they their Muses entertain,
Of hopes begot by fear, of wot hOt what desires,
Of force of heavenly beams infusing hellish pain,
Of living deaths, dear wounds, fait storms, and freezing
rires.
Some one hia song, in JovE and JovE's strange tales attires ;
Bordered with bulls and swans, powdered xvith golden tain:
Another humbler wit to shepherd's pipe retires,
Yet hiding royal blood full oft in rural vein.
To some a sweetest plaint, a sweetest style affords; [words :
While tears pour out his ink, and sighs breathe out his
His paper, pale despair ; and pain, his pen doth more.
I can speak what I feel, and feel as much as they ;
But think that all the map of my state I display,
When trembling voice brings forth, that I do STELLA love.

VII.

HEN NATURE made her chief wor|{--STELLA'S eyes ;
;îVAVi In colour black, why ,vrapt she beams so bright ?
Would she in beamy black, like painter wise,
Frame daintiest lustre, mixed of shades and light ?
Or did she else that sober hue devise,
In object best to knit and strength our sight ?
Lest if no veil these brave gleams did disguise,
They sun-like should more dazzle than delight.
Or would she her miraculous pover show?
That whereas black seems beauty's contrary ;
She, even in black, doth make all beauties flow !
But so and thus, she minding LOVE should be
Placed ever there, gave him this mourning weed ;
To honour all their deaths, which for her bleed.

r P. Sidney." 1
t,s,-,ss..J ,¢d2 .$ T R O P IZ E L ,d N D S r E L L .4 . 15

VIII.
_'OvE BOrN in Greece, of late fled from his uative place;
Forced by a tedious proof, that Turkish hardened
heart
Is no fi mark to pierce with his fine pointeà dart :
And pleased with out sort peace, stayed here his flying race.
But finding these North climes do coldly him embrace ;
Not used to frozen clips, he strave to find some part
Where, with most ease and warmth, he might employ his art.
At length he perched himself in STELLA'S joyful face ;
Whose fait skin, beamy eyes, like morning sun on show:
Deceived the quaking boy ; who thought from so pure light,
Eiïects of lively heat must needs in nature grow. [flight
But she most fait, most cold, maàe him thence take his
To my close heart ; where, while some firebrands he did lay,
He burnt un'wares his wings, and cannot fly away.

IX.
UEEN VIRTUE'S Court--which sorne call
Prepared by Nature's choicest furniture;
Hath his front built of alabaster pure.
Gold is the overing of that stately place.
The door, by which sometimes comes forth ber Grace,
Red porphyry is, which lock of pearl makes sure :
Whose porches rich (which name of cheeks endure)
Marble mixt red and xvhite do interlace.
The windows now--through which this heavenly guest
Looks o'er the worlà, and can find nothing such
Which date claim from those lights the name of best--
Of touch they are, that without touch do touch ;
Which Ct/PtO's self, from Beauty's mind did draw :
Of touch they are, and poor I am their straw.

I ./ISTRI'HL AND
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_EASON ! IN faith, thou aoE wc]l served ! that still
\Vouldst brabbling be with SENse and Love in me.
I rather wisht thee climb the Muses' bill,
Or reach the fruit of Nature's choicest tree,
Or seek heaven's course, or heaven's inside to see.
Why shouldst thou toil, out thorny soli to till ?
Leave S-ss- ! and those which SmNSm'S objects be.
Deal thou with powersl of thoughts, leave Love to will !
But thou wouldst needs fight both with Love and SENSm
With sword of wit, giving wounds of dispraise ;
Till downright blows did foil thy cunning fence.
For soon as they strake thee with ,.TeLLA'$ rayS;
REASON ! thou kneerdst ; and offeredst straight to prove
By rcason good, good reason ber to love.

XI.

N TRIJTH, O Love [ with vhat a boyish kind
Thou dost proceed in thy most serious ways ;
That when the heaven to thee his best displays,
Yet of that best, thou leav'st the best behind :
For like a child, that some fair book doth find,
With gilded leaves or coloured vellum plays ;
Or, at the most, on some fair picture stays :
But never heeds the fruit of writer's mind.
So when thou sav'st in Nature's cabinet,
STeLLA : thou straight look'st babies in ber eyes;
In ber cheek's pit, thou didst thy pitfold set ;
And in ber breast, bo-peep or couching lies :
Playing and shining in each outward part.
But, fool ! seek'st not to get into ber heart!

t |58xx$4.J *

XII.
UPI) ! BEC^çSE thou shin'st in STELL^'S eyes ;
That from her locks, thy dances none 'scapes free ;
That those lips swelled, so full of thee they be,
l'hat her sweet breath makes oft thy flames to fise ;
That in her breast, thy pap well sugared lies ;
That her grace, gracious makes thy wrongs ; that she
What words so e'er she speak, persuades for thee :
That her clear voice lifts thy fame to the skies :
Thou countest STELLA thine, like those vhose powers
Having got up a breach by fighting well,
Cry, "Victory ! this fait day ail is ours !"
O no ! Her heart is such a citadel,
So fortified with wit, stored with disdain ;
That to win it, is ail the skill and pain.

XIII.
HOEBtSs w^s judge between JovE, MARs and LovE;
Of those three gods, whose arms the fairest were.
JovE's golden shield did eagle sables bear,
Whose talons held young GANYMEDE above.
But in vert field, MARS bare a golden spear,
Which through a bleeding heart his point did shove.
Each had his crest. MARS carried VENçS' glove ;
JovE on his helm, the thunderbolt did rear.
CtPID then smiles. For on his crest there lies
STELL^'S fair hair. Her face, he makes his shield ;
Where roses gules are borne in silver field.
PHOEBtS drew wide the curtains of the skies
To blaze these last : and sware devoutly then,
The first, thus matched, were scantly gentlemen.
. B 8

I8 ,t..çTROHEL ND TLL

XlV.
,L^s ! BAVE I hot pain enough ? my frlend t
Upon whose breast, a fiercer gripe doth tire,
Than dJd on hJm who first stole down the tire;
XVhile Love on me, doth all his quiver spend:
But with your rhubarb words ye must contend
To grieve me worse in saying, "That Desire
Doth plunge my well-formed soul even in the mire
Of sinful thoughts, which do in ruin end."
If that be sin, which doth the manners frame
XVell stayed with truth in word, and faith of deed ;
Ready of wit, and fearing nought but shame :
If that be sin, which in fixt hearts doth breed
A loathing of all loose unchastity :
Then love is sin, and let me sinful be !

XV.
Ou TH^T do search for every purffng sprlng
XVhich from the ribs of old Parnassus flows;
And every flower, hot sweet perhaps, which grows
Near thereabouts, into your poesy wring :
You that do dictionary's method bring
Into your rhymes-running in rattling rows ;
You that poor PETR^RCH'8 long deceasèd woes,
With newborn sighs and denizened wit do sing:
You take wrong ways ! Those far-let helps be such
As do bewray a want of inward touch ;
And sure at length, stolen goods do corne to light.
But if (both for your love and skill) your name
Yotl seek to nurse at fullest breasts of Faine :
STELL^ behold ! and then begin to endite.

S'. P. Sldne.t tSt-tSS. x'STROI'HE IND .TELLI. 19

XVI.
N tA'rURE apt to like, when I did see
Beamies which were of many carats fine ;
My boiling sprites did thither soon incline,
And, Lov ! I thought that I was full of thee.
But finding not those restless flamcs in me,
Which othera said did make their souls to pine :
I thought those babes, of somc pin's hurt did whine ;
By my soul judging what love's pains might bc.
But while I thus with this lion played,
Mine eycs (shall I say curst or blest ?) bcheld
S'PLLA. Now she is named, necd more be said ?
In her sight, I a lesson new have spclled.
I now have learned love right; and learned even so,
As who by bcing poisoned doth poison know.

XVII.
IS MOTHER dear, CUPID offended late;
Becausc that MARS grown slacker in hcr love,
XVith pricking shot he did hot throughly more,
To keep the pace of their first loving state.
The boy refused for fear of MARS' hatc ;
Who threatened stripes, if he his wrath did provc:
But she, in chafe, him from her lap did shove;
Brake bow, brake shafts: while weeping CuPIO sate.
Till that his grandame Nature pitying it,
Of STELLA'S brows, madc him two better bows;
And in her eyes, of arrows infinite.
0 how for joy, he leaps i 0 how he crows !
And straight therewithlike wags new got to play
Falls to shrewd turns ; and I was in his way.

XVIII.

___ _ ITH WHAT sharp checks I in myself am shent,
When into REASON'S audit I do go;
And by just counts, myself a bankrupt know
Of all those goods which heaven to me hath lent.
UnabIe quite, to pay even Nature's rent,
Which unto it by birthright I do owe :
And which is worse, no good excuse can show,
But that my wealth I have most idly spent.
My youth doth waste, my knowledge brings forth toys ;
My wit doth strive those passions to defend,
Which for reward, spoil it with vain annoys.
I see my course to iose myseIf doth bend ;
I see, and yet no greater sorrow take,
Than that I lose no more for STELLA'S sake.

XIX.
N CtJPID's bow, how are my heart-strlngs bent t
That see my wrack, and yet embrace the saine.
When most I glory, then I feel most shame.
I willing run; yet while I run, repent.
My best wits still their own disgrace invent.
My very ink turns straight to STELLA'S name ;
And yet my words--as them, my pen doth frame--
Advise themselves that they are vainly spent.
For though she pass all things, yet what is all
That unto me; who rares like him that both
Looks to the skies and in a ditch doth fall?
O let me prop my mind, yet in his growth,
And not in nature for best fruits unfit !
" Scholar ! " saith Love, "bend hitherward your wit !"

Si'P'Sldne"l I S T R O P H £ L ,4 N D , 7 £ L L A 21
r $Sx-s584. J

XX.
LY ! FLY ! my friends ; I have my death wound, fly !
See there that boy! that murdering boy, I say!
x, Vho, like a thief, hid in dark bush doth lie,
Till bloody bullet get him wrongful prey !
So, tyrant ! he no fitter place could spy,
lor so fait level in so secret stay,
As that sweet black which veils the heavenly eye:
There himself with his shot, he close doth lay.
Poor passenger! pass now thereby I did,
And stayed, pleased xvith the prospect of the place ;
While that black hue from me the bad guest hid :
But straight I saw motions of lightning grace,
And then descried the glistering of his dart ;
But ere I could fly hence, it pierced my heart.

XXI.

OuR WORDS, my friend ! (right healthful caustics ! )
blame
My young mind marred, whom love doth windlass so;
That mine own writings (like bad servants) show
My wits quick in vain thoughts ; in virtue, lame.
« That PLATO I read for nought, but if he tame
Such coltish years; that to my birth I owe
Nobler desires : lest else that friendly foe
Great Expectation, wear a train of shame."
«, For since mad Match great promise ruade of me ;
If now the May of my years much decline,
What can be hoped my harvest time will be ?"
Sure you say well ! Your wisdom's golden mine,
Dig deep with learning's spade ! Now tell me this,
Hath this world ought so fait as STELLA is

22 ./-STOPtIEL d2VL) SZELLd. [ïP. Sidn,,/.,58,_,584.

XXII.
N mC;BESa" way of heaven, the sun did ride,
Progressing then from fait Twins' golden place;
Having no scarf of clouds before his face,
But shining forth of heat in his chief pride :
\Vhen some fait ladies, by hard promise tied,
On horseback met him in his furious race;
Yet each prepared with fan's well-shading grace,
From that foe's wounds, their tender skins to bide.
STELLA alone, with face unarmèd, marched ;
Either to do like him which open shone,
Or careless of the wealth because her own :
Yet were the hid and meaner beauties parched ;
Her daintiest bare, went free. The cause was this.
The sun which others burnt, did her but kiss.

XXIII.
HE cuRIoUS vits, seeing dull pensiveness
Bewray itself in my long settled eyes :
\Vhence those saine fumes of melancholy fise,
With idle pains and missing aire, do guess.
Some that know how my Spring I did address,
Deem that my Muse some fruit of knowledgc plies :
Others, because the Prince my service tries,
Think that I think State errors to redress.
But harder judges judge ambition's rage--
Scourge of itself, still climbing slippery place--
Holds my young brain captived in golden cage.
0 fools ! or overwise ! alas, the race
Of ail my thoughts hath neither stop nor start,
But only STELLA'S eyes and STELLA'S heart.

$irI'.Sidney.'l .4 ..ç T R O F H E I- AND S T E L L A 9 3

XXlV.
IcH FOOLS there be, whose base and filthy heart
Lies hatching still the goods wherein they flow :
And damning their own selves to TANTAL' smart,
Wealth breeding want ; more blest, more wretched grow.
Yet to tho-e fools, heaven such wit doth impart,
As what their hands do hold, their heads do know;
And knowing, love and loving lay apart,
As sacred things, far from ail danger's show:
But that rich fool, who by blind Fortune's lot,
The richest gem of love and life enjoys ;
And can with foui abuse, such beauties blot:
Let him deprived of -weet but unfelt joys,
(Exiled for aye from those high treasures, which
He knows hot) grow in only folly rich I

XXV.
HE WISEST scholar of the wight most wise,
By PnoEBus' doom, with sugared sentence gays:
" That virtue, if it once met with out eyes,
Strange flames of love it in our souls would raise :
But for that man, with pain this truth descries,
Whiles he each thing in sense's balance weighs :
And so nor will, nor can behold those skies,
Which inward sun to hcroic minds displays."
Virtue, of late, with virtuous care to stir
Love of hcrself, takes STELLA'$ shape; that shc
To mortal eyes might sweetly shine in her.
It is most true. For since I her did see,
Virtue's great beauty in that face I prove,
And find th'effect : for I do burn in love.

XXVI.
kIHOUGH DIJSTY wits dare scorn astrology ;
And fools can think those lamps of purest light--
,Vhose number, ways, greatness, eternity,
Promising wonders; wonder do invite--
To have, for no cause, birthright in the sky ;
But for to spangle the black weeds of Night :
Or for some brawl, which in that chamber high,
They should still dance to please a gazer's sight.
For me, I do Nature unidle know ;
And know great causes, great effects procure ;
And know those bodies high reign on the Iov:
And if these rules did fail, proof makes me sure.
Who oft fore-judge my after-following race,
By only those two stars in STELLA'S face.

XXVII.
EcAUSE I OFf in dark abstracted guise,
Seem most alone in greatest company ;
With dearth of words, or answers quite axvry,
To them that would make speech of speech arise.
They deem, and of their doom the rumour flies,
That poison foul of bubbling pride doth lie
So in my swelling breast ; that only I
Fawn on me self, and others do despise.
Yet pride, I think, doth not my soul possess,
Which looks too oft in his unflattering glass :
But one worse fault, ambition, I confess,
That makes me oft my best friends overpass
Unseen, unheard ; while thought to highest place
Bends cil his powers, even to STELLA'$ grace.

XXVIII.

OU THAT with allegory's curious frame,
Of others' children, changelings use to make :
With me, those pains for GOD s sake do not take.
I hst hot dig so deep for brazen faine.
When I say ST-LL^ I do mean the saine
Princess of Beauty; for whose only sake
The reins of love I love, though never slack:
And joy therein, though nations count it shame.
I beg no subject to use eloquence,
Nor in hid ways do guide philosophy :
Look at my hands for no such quintessence !
But know! that I, in pure simplicity,
Breathe out the flames which burn within my heart,
Love only reading unto me this art.

XXIX.
Ir¢E so.'«E weak lords--neighboured by mighty kings--
To keep themselves and their chief cities free ;
Do easily yield that ail their coasts may be
Ready to store their camp of needful things :
So Sr...^'s heart, finding what power Low. brings,
To keep itself in life and liberty;
Doth willing grant that in the frontiers he
Use ail to help his other conquerings:
And thus her heart escapes, but thus her eyes
Serve him with shot ; her lips, his heralds are ;
Her breasts, his tents ; legs, his triumphal car;
Her flesh, his food ; her skin, his armour brave.
And I, but for because my prospect lies
Upon that coast, ara given up for slave.

26 xZlSTRO.HEL IVD STELL

XXX.
,HETHER the Turkish new moon minded be
To fill his horns this year on Christian coast ?
How loles ' right King means, without leave of host,
To warm with iii-ruade tire, cold Muscovy ?
If French can yet three parts in one agree ?
What now the Dutch in thefr full diets boast ?
How Holland's hearts--now so good towns be lostq
Trust in the shade of pleasing Orange tree ?
How Ulster likes of that same golden bit,
Wherewith my father once made it half rame ?
If in the Scotch Court be no welt'ring yet ?
These questions, busy wits to me do frame :
I--cumbered with good manners--answer do ;
But knoxv not how, for still I think on you.

XXXI.
ITH HOW sad steps, 0 Moon ! thou climb'st the skies
How silently ! and with how wan a face !
What! may it be that even in heavenly place
That busy archer his sharp arrows tries ?
Sure, if that long with love-acquainted eyes
Can judge of love, thou feel'st a lover's case.
I read it in thy looks. Thy languisht gracc
To me that feel the like, thy state descries.
Then even of fellowship, 0 Moon t. tell me
Is constant love deemed there, but want of wit ?
Are beauties there, as proud as here they be ?
Do they above love to be loved ; and yet
Those lovers scorn whom that love doth possess ?
Do they call virtue there, ungratefulness ?

XXXII.
[ .IOr¢PHEUS ! the lively son of dead]y
Witness of life to them that living die.
A prophet oft, and oft an history,
A poet eke; as humours fly and creep :
Since thou in me so sure a power dost keep,
That never I with close up sense do fie,
But by thy work, my STLL^ I descry ;
Teaching blind eyes both how to smile and weep.
Vouchsafe of all acquaintance this to tell
Whence hast thou ivory, rubies, pearl and gold,
To show her skin, lips, teeth and head so well ?
" Fool ! " answers he, "no Indes such treasures hold ;
But from thy heart, while my sire charmeth thee»
Sweet STILLA'S image I do steal to me."

XXXIII.
MIoH'r--unhappy word, 0 me !--I might,
And then would not, or could not see my bliss :
Till now, wrapt in a most infernal night,
I find, how heavenly day, wretch ! I did miss.
Heart rent thyself! thou dost thyself but right.
No lovely PARts ruade thy HELEN his ;
No force, no fraud robbed thee of thy delight ;
No Fortune, of thy fortune author is ;
But to myself, myself did give the blow ;
While too much wit (forsooth !) so troubled me,
That I, respects for both our sakes must show:
And yet could not by rising morn foresee
How fair a day was near. O punisht eyes !
That I had been more foolish or more wise !

x$81t$84 ,

XXXIV.
C).ME, LET write. "And to what end ?" To ease
me
A burthened heart. "How can words ease, which are
The glasses of thy daily vexing care ? "
Oft, cruel fights well pictured forth do please.
"Art not ashamed to publish thy disease ?"
Nay that may breed my fame. It is so rare.
" But will hot wise men think thy words fond ware ?"
Then be they close, and so none shall displease.
"XVhat idler thing, than speak and not be heard ? "
,Vhat harder thing, than smart and hot to speak ?
" Peace ! foolish wit !" With wit, my wit is marred.
Thus write I, while I doubt to write ; and wreak
My harms on ink's poor loss. Perhaps some find
STELLA'S great powers, that so confuse my mind.

XXXV.
ll-' HAT MAY words say, or what may words hot say
Where truth itself must speak like flattery ?
\Vithin what bounds, can one his liking stay ;
XVhere Nature doth with infinite agree ?
What NESTOR'S counsel can my flames allay,
Since REASON'S self doth blow the coal in me ?
And ah ! what hope that hope should once see day,
XVhere CuPxt) is sworn page to CBAsa'la'Y ?
HOIOIJR is honoured that thou dost possess
Him as thy slave; and now long needy FAME
Doth even grow rich, naming my STELLA'S name.
WIT learns in thee perfection to express ;
Not thou by praise, but PRAIsE in thee is raised.
It is a praise to praise, where thou act praised.

SirP. Sidney.]! s58s-t584..I 'd]SZ'OPttEL IVD S7ELI.. 2 9

XXXVI.
TELL^| WHENCE doth this new assault arise?
A conquered, yielded, ransacked heart to winl
Whereto, long since, through my long battered eyes,
Whole armies of thy beauties entered in.
And there, long since, Love thy Lieutenant lies:
My forces razed, thy banners raised within.
Of conquest, do not these effects suffice ?
But wilt now war upon thine own begin
With so sweet voice, and by sweet Nature so
In sweetest strength ; so sweetly skilled withal
In all sweet stratagems sweet Art can show:
That not my soul, which at thy foot did rail,
Long since forced by thy beams ; but stone nor tree
By SENSE'S privilege, can 'scape from thee.

XXXVII.
[This Sonnet was first printed in the x598 folio edition, appended to Sidney's Arcadla.J
Y MOUTH doth water, and my breast doth swell,
My tongue doth itch, my thoughts in labour be :
Listen then Lordings with good ear to me !
For of my life I must a riddle tell.
Towards AURORA'S Court, a nymph doth dwell
Rich in ail beauties which man's eye can see:
Beauties so far from reach of words, that we
Abuse her praise saying she doth excel.
Rich in the treasure of deserved renown.
Rich in the riches of a royal heart.
Rich in those gifts, which give th'eternal crown :
Who, though most rich in these and every part,
Which make the patents of true worldly bliss ;
Hath no misfortune, but that RICH she is.

I-Sir P. Sidney.
30 xzl S T R O ' tI E1. A 2V D S T E Z I. A . L t,8,-,8.

XXXVIII.

Hs IIIGHT, while sleep begins with heavy wings
To hatch mine eyes, and that unbitted thought
Doth rail to stray; and my chier powers are brought
To leave the sceptre of ail subject things :
The first that straight my fancy's error brings
Unto my mind, is STELL&'S image; wrought
By LovE's own self, but with so curious draught,
That she, methinks, hot only shines but sings :
I start ! look ! hark ! but what in closed up sense
Was held, in open sense it flies away;
Leaving me nought but wailing eloquence.
I, seeing better sights in sight's decay ;
Called it anew, and wooed sleep again :
But him her host, that unkind guest had slain.

XXXIX.
OME SLEEP ! O SLEEP ! the certain knot of peace !
The baiting place of wit ! the balm of woe !
The poor man's wealth ! the prisoner's release 1
Th'indifferent judge between the high and Iow!
With shield of proof, shield me from out the press
Of those tierce darts, DESPAIR at me doth throw 1
O make in me those civil wars to cease !
I will good tribute pay if thou do so.
Take thou of me, smooth pillows, sveetest bed,
A chamber deaf to noise and blind to light,
A rosy garland, and a weal-y head :
And if these things as being thine by right,
More not thy heavy Grace ; thou shalt in me
Livelier than elsewhere, STELLA'S image see.

Sir F. Sklney." I
t ,,-,»8.j ,dJ S 2" 0 t" l! . I..4 2x r l S 2" E I. I..4. 31

XL.
S GOOD to write, as for to lie and groan.
0 STELLA dear ! how much thy power hath wrought '
Thou hast my mind, none of the basct, brought
My still-kept course, while others sleep, to moan.
Alas, if from the height of Virtue's throne,
Thou canst vouchsafe the influence of a thought
Upon a wretch, that long thy grace hath sought ;
Weigh then, how I, by thee, am overthrown !
And then, think thus, "Although thy beauty be
Made manifest by such a victory;
Yet noblest conquerors do wracks avoid."
Since then thou hast so far subduèd me
That in my heart I offer still to thee.
0 do hot let thy temple be destroyed !

XLI.
Avluç "r/ils day, my horse, my hand, my lance
Guided so well ; that I obtained the prize :
Both by the judgment of the English eyes;
And of some sent by that sweet enemy, France !
Horsemen, my skill in horsemanship advance ;
Townsfolk, my strength ; a daintier judge applies
His praise to sleight, which from good use doth fise ;
Some lucky wits impute it but to chance;
Others, because, of both sides, I do take
My blood from them who did excel in this ;
Think Nature me a man-at-arms did make.
How far they shot awry ! The true cause is,
S'IELLA lookt on, and from her heavenly face
Sent forth the beams which made so fair my race.

x$81-|$84.

XLII

EYEs! which do the spheres ofbeaut¥ move;
Whose beams be joys ; whose joys, all virtues be ;
Who while they make LOVE conquer, conquer Lovl.
The schools where VEUtS hath learned chastity.
O eyes ! where humble looks most glorious prove ;
Only, loved tyrants ! just in cruelty,
Do not! O do not from poor me remove !
Keep still my zenith ! Ever shine on me !
For though I never see them, but straightways
My life forgets to nourish languisht sprites ;
Yet still on me, O eyes ! dart down your rays !
And if from majesty of sacred lights
Oppressing mortal sense, my death proceed :
Wracks, triumphs be; which love (high set) doth breed.

XLIII.
AIR EYES ! sweet lips ! dear heart ! that foolish I
Could hope, by CVPID's help, on you to prey:
Since to himself, he doth your gifts apply;
As his main force, choice sport, and easeful stay.
For when he will see who date him gainsay ;
Then with those eyes, he looks. Lo ! by and by,
Each soul doth at LovE's feet, his weapons lay ;
Glad if for her he give them leave to die.
When he will play ; then in her lips, he is ;
XVhere blushing red, that LovE's self them doth love ;
With either lip, he doth the other kiss.
But when he will for quiet's sake, remove
From all the world ; her heart is then his room :
\Vhere, well he knows, no man to him can corne.

Sir P. S;dney." I
t ,55,-,s.l ,,4 S T R O,P II E L ,41V D . î E. L L ,,I . 33

XLIV.
¥ WORDS, I know, do well set forth my mind ;
My mind bemoans his sense of inward smart :
Such smart may pity claim of any heart ;
Her heart, sweet heart ! is of no tigress kind :
And yet she hears, and yet no pity I find ;
But more I cry, less grace she doth impart.
Alas, what cause is there, so overthwart,
That Nobleness itself makes thus unkind ?
I much do guess, yet find no truth save this ;
That when the breath of my complaints do touch
Those dainty doors unto the Court of Bliss,
The heavenly nature of that place is such,
That once come there, the sobs of my annoys
Are metamorphosed straight to tunes of joys.

XLV.

.------TELLA OFT sees the very face of woe
i.] Painted in my beclouded stormy face ;
[_______J But cannot skill to pity my disgrace,
Not, though thereof the cause herself she know:
Yet hearing late a fable which did show
Of loyers never known, a piteous case ;
Pity thereof gat in her breast such place
That from that sea derived, tears' spring did flow.
Alas, if Fancy drawn by imaged things,
Though false, yet with free scope more grace doth breed
Than servant's wrack, where new doubts laonour brmgs;
Then think, my Dear! that you in me do read
Of lovers' ruin, some sad tragedy.
I am hot I, pity the tale of me !

rt;ir P. Sidno'

XLVI.

CURST TFIIE oft, I pity now thy case,
Blind-hitting boy ! since she, that thee and me
Rules with a beck, so tyrannizeth thee,
"llat thou must want or fcod or dwelling place.
For she protests to " banish thee her face."
Her face ! O LovE, a rogue thou then shouldst bel
" If Love learn hot alone to love and see,
Without desire to feed of further grace."
Alas, poor wagl that now a scholar art
To such a schoolmistress, whose lessons new
Thou needs must miss; and so, thou needs must smart I
Yet Dear! let me his pardon get of you,
So long (though he from book myche to desire)
Till without fuel, you can make hot tire.

XLVII.
HAT I HAVE I thus betrayed my liberty ?
Can those black beams, such burning marks engrave
In my free side ? or am I born a slave,
Whose neck becomes such yoke of tyranny ?
Or want I sense to feel my misery ?
Or sprite, disdain of such disdain to bave ?
Who for long faith, though daily help I crave,
May get no alms, but scorn of beggary.
VIRTUE, awake ! BEAUT¥, but beauty is.
I may, I must, I can, I will, I do
Leave following that which it is gain to miss.
Letherdo! Soft! buthereshecomes. Gotol
" Unkind ! I love'you not." O me ! that eye
Doth make my heart give to my tongue the lie.

XLVIII.
OuL's JoY ! bend not those morning stars from me !
Whcre Virtuc is madc strong by Bcauty's might,
Whcrc Love is Chasteness, Pain doth learn Delight,
And Humblcncss grows onc with Majcsty :
Whatever may cnsuc, O let me be
Co-partncr of thc riches of that sight !
Let hot mine cycs bc hcll-driven from that light
O look ! O shinc! O let me dic and sce!
For though I oft myself of thcm bemoan,
That through my hcart their bcamy darts be gone ;
Whosc curclcss wounds, cvcn now, most frcshly blced :
Yet sincc my death vound is alrcady got;
Dear Kil|er! $pare hot thy sweet crue| shot
A kind of gracc it is, to slay with spced.

XLIX.
, ON MY horse ; and Love on me, doth try
Out horscmanships : whilc by strangc work I prove
A horseman to my horsc, a horse to LovE;
And now man's wrongs in me poor beast! descry.
The teins wherewith my rider doth me tic
Are Humblcd Thoughts, which bit of Rcvercnce move;
Curbcd in with Fcar, but with glt boss above
Of Hope, which makes it secm fair to the cyc.
Thc wand is Will, thou Fancy saddlc art,
Girt fast by Mcmory ; and while I spur
My horse, he spurs with Sharp Desire my heart.
He sits me fast, however I do stir ;
And now hath ruade me to his hand so right,
That in the menage myself takes delight.

36 2 T O II E L A 2V D T E L L A P Sidne
$8=584.

TELLA! THE fulness of my thoughts of thee
Cannot be stayed within my panting breast ;
But they do swell and struggle forth of me
Till that in words, thy figure be exprest.
And yet as soon as they so formèd be,
According to my lord LOVE'S own behest :
XVith sad eyes, I their weak proportion see,
To portrait that which in this world is best.
So that I cannot choose but write my mind ;
And cannot choose but put out what I write ;
While these poor babes their death in birth do find.
And noxv my pen, these lines had dashed quite,
But that they stopt his fury from the same ;
Because their forefront bare sweet STELLA'S naine.

LI.
RDON MINE ears ! both I and they do pray,
So may your tongue still fluently proceed
To them, that do such entertainment need:
So may you still have somewhat new to say.
On silly me do hot the burden lay
Of all the grave conceits, your brain doth breed :
But find some HERCULE$ tO bear (instead
Of ATLAS tired) your wisdom's heavenly sway.
For me, while you discourse of courtly tides ;
Of cunning fishers in most troubled streams ;
Of straying ways, when valiant error guides:
Meanwhile, my heart confers with STELL&'S beams,
And is even irkt that so sweet comedy
By such unsuited speech, should hindered be.

Si P. Sidney." 1
,ss,-,su«.J /S T R O '/7 E Z ,, ¢ 9 S 2" £ z z ,4. 7

LII.
[ STRIFE IS grosvn between VIRTUE and LOVE ;
While each pretends that STELLA must be his.
"Her eyes, her iips, her ail," saith LOVE "do ms,
Since they do wear his badge, " most firmly prove."
But VIR'rOE thus that title doth disprove.
"That STELLA," O dear name ! " that STELLA is
That virtuous soul, sure heir of heavenly bliss :
Not tbis fait outside which out hearts doth move.
And therefore though her beauty and her grace
Be LOVE'S indeed : in STELLA'S self he may
By no pretence claim any manner place."
Weli, LOVE ! since this demurrer out suit doth stay,
Let VIRTUE have that STELLA'S self; yet thus
That VIRTUE but that body grant to us.

LIII.

N MARTIAL sports I had my cunning tried;
And )'et to break more staves did me address :
\Vhile with the people's shouts, I must confess,
Youth, luck and praise even fiiled my veins with pride.
When CUPID having me, his slave, descried
In MARS' iivery, prancing in the press.
"What now, Sir Fool!" said he (I wouid no less)
" Look here, I say ! " I looked, and SrELLA spied ;
Who, hard by, made a window send forth iight :
My heart then quaked, then dazzled were mine eyes,
One hand forgot to rule, th'other to fight.
Nor trumpets' sound I heard ; nor friendly cries ;
My foe came on, and beat the air for me :
Tiil that her blush taught me my shame to see.

LIV.
ECAUSE I breathe not love to every one,
Nor do hOt use set colours for to wear,
Nor nourish special locks of vowèd hair,
Nor give each speech a full point of a groan.
The courtly nymphs, acquainted vith the moan
Of them who in their lips, LovE's standard bear:
" What he ! " say they of me, " now I dare swear
He cannot love. No, no, let him alone ! "
And think so still ! so STELLA know my mind.
Profess indeed I do hot CuPxD'S art:
But you, fait maids ! at length, this true shall find,
That his right badge is but vorn in the heart.
Dumb swans hOt chattering pies, do lovers prove.
They love indeed who quake to say they love.

LV.

'USES .t I OFT invoked your holv aid,
jkrl ]] With choicest flowers my speéch t'engarland so,
That it, despised in true but naked show,
Might win some grace in your sweet grace arrayed.
And oft whole troops of saddest words I stayed,
Striving abroad a foraging to go;
Until by your inspiring, I might know
How their black banner might be best displayed.
And now I mean no more your help to try,
Nor other sugaring of my speech to prove ;
But on her name incessantly to cry.
For let me but name her whom I do love,
So sweet sounds straight mine ear and heart do hit,
That I well find no eloquence like it.

S'u P. Sdney." I

LVI.
IE ! SCHOOL of P^TIENCE, fie ! your lesson is
Far far too long to learn it without book.
What ! a whole week without one piece of look
And think I should not your large precepts miss?
When I might read those letters fair of bliss
Which in her face teach virtue : I could brook
Somewhat thy leaden counsels ; which I took
As of a friend that meant hot much amiss.
But now that I, Mas, do want her sight ;
What! dost thou think that I can ever take
In thy cold stuff a phlegmatic delight ?
No, P^TIEtCI ! If thou wilt my good ; then make
Her come, and hear with patience my desire:
And then, with patience bid me bear my tire!

LVII.
OE, H^VlUG ruade with many fights his own,
Each sense of mine, each gift, each power of mind :
Grown now his slaves ; he forced them out to find
The thoroughest words, fit for XVOE'S self to groan.
Hoping that when they might find STELLA alone,
Before she could prepare to be unkind;
Her soul, armed but with such a dainty rind,
Should soon be pierced with sharpness of the moan.
She heard my plaints, and did hot only hear,
But them (so sweet is she) most sweetly sing;
With that fair breast making WoE's darkness clear.
A pretty case ! I hoped ber to bring
To feel my griefs : and she with face and voice,
So sweets my pains; that my pains me rejoice.

[Sir P. Sidn«l.
4 ° xSî'ROFIfEL .CN# STELL./I. t's8,-,$s.

LVIII.
,OUBT THERE hath been--when, with his golden chain,
The Orator so far men's hearts doth bind ;
That no pace else their guided steps can find,
But as he them more short or slack doth rein--
XVhether with words, this sovereignty he gain ;
Clothed with fine tropes, with strongest reasons lined :
Or else pronouncing grace, wherewith his mind
Prints his own lively form in rudest brain ?
Now judge by this. In piercing phrases, late,
The anatomy of ail my woes I wrote.
STELLA'S sweet breath the saine to me did read.
O voice ! 0 face ! maugre my spee¢hes' might
Which vooed woe : most ravishing delight,
Even those sad words, even in sad me, did breed.

LIX.
E^r ! WH'/make you more of a dog, than me ?
[ If he do love; I burn, I burn in love!
If he wait well ; I never thence would move !
If be be fair; yet but a dog can be.
Little he is, so little worth is he.
He barks; my songs, thine own voice oft doth prove.
Bidden perhaps, he fetcheth thee a glove ;
But I unbid, fetch even my soul to thee !
Yet while I languish ; him, that bosom clips,
That lap doth lap, nay, lets in spire of spire,
This sour-breathed mate taste of those sugared lips.
Alas, if you grant only such delight
To witles8 things; then Love I hope (since wit
Becomes a clog) will soon ease me of it.

Sir P. Sidney.]
t ,#t...I .4 S T. O P H L «V D " T E L L . 41

LX.
[[" HEI y good angel guides me to the place
That heaven of joys throws only down on me
Thundered disdains and lightnings of disgrace.
But when the rugged'st step of Fortune's race
Makes me fall from her sight ; then sweetly she
XVith words--wherein the Muses' treasures be--
Shows love and pity to my absent case.
Now I--wit-beaten long by hardest Fate--
So dull am, that I cannot look into
The ground of this tierce love and lovely hate.
Then some good body tell me how I do !
Whose presence, absence ; absence, presence is :
Blessed in my curse, and cursèd in my bliss.

LXI.

FT WlTH true sighs, oft with uncallèd tears,
I[] Now with siow words, now with dumb eloquence "..
.l I STELLA'S eyes assailed, invade her ears :
But this, at last, is her sweet breathed defence.
" That xvho indeed infelt affection bears,
So captives to his saint both soui and sense ;
That wholly hers, all selfness he forbears :
Thence his desires he learns, his life's course thence."
Now since her chaste mind hates this love in me :
Vith chastened mind, I needs must show that she
Shali quickly me from what she hates, remove.
0 Doctor CUPID ! thou for me, reply !
Driven else to grant by angel's sophistry,
That I love not, without I leave to love.

[Sir P. Sidney.
2 .,.- ,S T R O I' H L I N D S T L L I . L ,sS,-,.

LXII.
-.Æ, TE TIRED with woe, even ready for to pine
With rage of love, I called my love " unkind
L_I She in whose eyes love, though unfelt, doth shine
Sweetly said, "That I, true love in her should fin&"
I joyed ; but straight thus watered was my wine.
"That love she did, but loved a love hot blind ;
Which would hot let me, whom she loved, decline
From nobler course, fit for my birth and mind :
And therefore by her love's authority,
Willed me, these tempests of vain love to fly ;
And anchor fast myself on Virtue's shore."
Alas, if this the only ruerai be
Of love new coined to help my beggary :
Dear I love me hOt, that ye may love me motel

LXIII.
Gl^ss^l rules ! 0 nov your virtues show !
So children still reaà you with awful eyes ;
As my young Dove may in your precepts wise
Her grant to me, by her own virtue know.
For late, with heart most high, with eyes most low ;
I craved the thing which ever she denies :
She lightning love, displaying Vmqus' skies,
Lest once should hot be heard; said twice "No!" "No!"
Sing then my Muse ! now Io Poean sing !
Heavens! envy not at my high triumphing;
But Grammar's force with sweet success confirm !
For Grammar says (O this dear STELLA'S " Nay !" )
For Grammar says (to Grammar» who says "Nay " ?)
" That in one speech, two negatives afflrm."

sirt P',#t-t#.jsie»l .4 S 7" R 0 P//E Z .4 N D S 7 E Z Z .4. 43

LXIV.
0 tORg! my Dear! no more these counsels try!
0 give my passions leave to run their race !
Let Fortune lay on me her worst disgrace !
Let folk o'ercharged with brain, against me cry!
Let clouds bedim my face, break in mine eye !
Let me no steps but of lost labour trace !
Let ail the earth in scorn recount my case ;
But do not will me from my love to fly!
I do not envy ARISTOTLE'S wit ;
Nor do aspire to C2ESAR'S bleeding fame;
Nor ought do care, though some above me sit ;
Nor hope, nor wish another course to frame:
But that which once may win thy cruel heart.
Thou art my Wit, and thou my Via-tue art.

LXV.

Ovg ! m, sure proof I may call thee unkind ;
That giv'st no better ear to my just cries !
Thou, whom to me, such my good turns should bind,
As I may well recount, but none can prize.
For when, naked boy ! thou couldst no harbour find
In this old world, grown now so too too wise ;
I lodged thee in my heart : and being blind
By nature born, I gave to thee mine eyes.
Mine eyes ! my light ! my heart ! my life ! Alas 1
If so great services may scornèd be :
Yet let this thought, thy tigerish courage pass.
That I, perhaps, am somewhat kin to thee;
Since in thine arms, if learned Fame truth hath spread,
Thou bar'st the arrow ; I, the arrow head.

44 M s r R o " /z £ z C.'l/l) S T E I. I. /I [$i;P.$idaey.

LXVI.
ND DO I see some cause a hope to feed ?
Or doth the tedious burden of long woe
In weakened minds, quick apprehending breed
Ol every image, which may comfort show ?
I cannot brag of word, much less of deed ;
Fortune's wheei's stili with me in one sort slow;
My wealth no more, and no whit less my need:
Desire stili on the stiits of fear doth go.
And yet amid ail fears, a hope there is
Stolen to my heart, since last fair night (nay, day !)
STEL.^'s eyes sent to me the beams of bliss ;
Looking on me, while I lookt other way :
But when mine eyes back to their heaven did move;
They fled with blush, which guilty seemed of love.

LXVII.

OPE ! ART thou true, or dost thou flatter me ?
Doth STELLA flOW begin with piteous eye,
The ruins of her conquest to espy ?
\\ 111 she take rime, belote ail wrackèd be ?
Her eye's speech is translated thus by thee :
But fail'st thou hot in phrase so heavenly high ?
Look on again ! the fair text better try !
What blushing notes dost thou in margin see ?
\Vhat sighs stolen out, or killed before full horn ?
Hast thou round such, and such like arguments ?
Or trt thou else to comfort me foresworn ?
Well ! how so thou interpret their contents :
I ara resolved thy error to maintain ;
Rather than by more truth to get more pain.

LXVIII.
TELLA ! THE only planet of my light !
Light of my life ! and life of my desire !
Chief good ! whereto my hope doth only aspire :
World of my wealth ! and heaven of my delight !
Why dost thou spend the treasures of thy sprite.
With voice more fit to wed AMPHION'S lyre ;
Seeking to quench in me the noble tire,
Fed by thy worth, and blinded by thy sight?
And ail in vain, for while thy breath so sweet,
With choicest words ; thy words, with reasons rare ;
Thy reasons firmly set on Virtue's feet;
Labour to kill in me this kflling care :
O think I then, what paradise of joy
Itis, so fait a virtue to enjoy ?

LXIX.
JoY! ïoo hfgh for my low style fo show.
O bliss ! fit for a nobler seat than me.
ENVY ! put out thine eyes ] lest thou do see
XVhat oceans of delight in me do flow.
My friend ! that oft saw, through all masks, my woe
Corne !come ! and let me pour myself on thee !
Gone is the winter of my misery!
My spring appears ! O see what here doth grow !
For STELLA hath with words (where faith doth shine),
Of her high heart given me the monarchy :
I ! O I may say that she is mine.
And though she give but thus conditionaIly
This realm of bliss, "while virtuous course I take :"
No kings be crowned, but they some covenant make.

['Sir P. S[dney.
46 «4STROPItEL AND .TELLA. l. t,#,-,5-

LXX.

'Y MUSE may well grudge at my heavenly joy,
If still I force her in sad rhymes to creep ;
She oft hath drunk my tears, now hopes t'enjoy
Nectar of mirth, since I, JovE's cup do keep.
Sonnets be hot bound 'prentice to
Trebles sing high, as well as basses deep :
Grief, but LovE's winter livery is: the boy
Hath cheeks to smile as well as eyes to weep.
Come then, my Muse! show thou height of delight
In well-raised notes: my pen, the best it may
Shall paint out joy, though but in black and white.
"Cease! eager Muse !" "Peace ! pen! For mysake, stay!"
I give you here my hand for truth of this :
" Wise silence is best music unto bliss."

LXXI.
Ho WILL in fairest book of Nature know
How virtue may best lodged in beauty be;
Let him but learn of love to read in thee !
TELLA ! those fair lines which true goodness show.
There, shall he find ail vices' overthrow ;
Not by rude force, but sweetest sovereignty
Of REASON : from vhose light those night birds fly.
That inward sun in thine eyes shineth so.
And hot content to be perfection's heir,
Thyself dost strive all minds that way to move;
Who mark in thee, what is in thee most fair :
So while thy beauty draws the heart to love,
As fast thy virtue bends that love to good.
But ah ! DESlRE still cries, «' Give me some food !"

I' $8-$84.J °

LXXII.
ESIRE [ though thou my old companion art,
And oft so clings to my pure love, that I
One from the other scarcely can descry ;
While each doth blow the tire of my heart :
Now from thy fellowship, I needs must part.
VENUS is taught with D1AN's wings to fly.
I must no more in thy sweet passions lie.
VIRTUE'S gold now, must head my CUPID'S dart.
Service and Honour, Wonder with Delight,
Fear to offend, Will worthy to appear,
Care shining in mine eyes, Faith in my sprite:
These things are left me by my only Dear.
But thou, DES1RE ! because thou wouldst bave ail;
Now banisht art : but yet, alas, how shall ?

LXXIII.

OvE STILL a boy, and oft a wanton is ;
Schooled only by his mother's tender eye.
What wonder then, if he his lesson miss ;
When for so soft a rod, dear play he try ?
And yet my Star; because a sugared kiss
In sport I suckt, while she asleep did lie :
Doth lower ; nay, chide ; nay, threat for only this!
"" Sweet ! It was saucy LovE, hot humble I."
But no 'scuse serves; she makes ber wrath appear
In Beauty's throne. See now! who dares corne near
Those scarlet judges, threat'ning bloody pain ?
O heavenly fool! Thy most kiss-worthy face,
Anger invests with such a lovely grace ;
That ANGER'S self! I needs must kiss again !

4 8 A $ TR OPHIE L ,4 ND S TZZI. t

LXXIV.
[ N-w- drank of Aganippe's well ;
Nor never did in shade of Tempe sit :
And Muses scorn with vulgar brains to dwell.
Poor layman, I ! for sacred rites unfit.
Some do, I hear, of poets' fury tell ;
But (GOD wot) wot not what they mean by it :
And this I swear by blackest brook of hell ;
I am no pick-purse of another's wit.
How falls it then, that with so smooth an case
My thoughts I speak ? and what I speak doth flow
In verse ? and that my verse best wits doth please ?
Guess we the cause. What is it thus ? Fie, no !
Orso? Muchless! Howthen? Surethusitis.
My lips are sweet, inspired with S-IIA'S kiss.

LXXV.

:[F ALL the Kings that ever here did reign ;
[ EDWARD named FOUR'rH; as first in praise I naine.
Not for his fair outside, nor well-lined brain ;
Although less gifts imp feathers oft on Faine.
Nor that he could young-wise wise-valiant, frame
His sire's revenge, joined with a kingdom's gain:
And gained by MARS ; could yet mad M,Rs so tame,
That balance weighed what sword did late obtain.
Nor that he ruade the fleur de luce so 'fraid,
Though strongly hedged, tri bloody lion's paws;
That witty Louis to him a tribute paid.
Nor this, nor that, nor any such small cause ;
But only tor this worthy Knight durst prove
To lose his crown, rather than rail his love.

LXXVI.

HE covms! and straight therewith her sbining
twins do move
Their rays to me ; who, in ber tedious absence, lay
Benighted in cold woe : but now appears my day,
The only light of joy, the only warmth of love. [prove
She comes with light and warmth! which like AORORA
Of gentle force, so that mine eyes dare gladly play
With such a rosy morn ; whose beams, most freshly gay,
Scorch not: but only do dark chilling sprites remove.
But lo ! while I do speak, it groweth noon with me ;
Her flamy glistering lights increase with time and place :
Myheart cries, "Ah ! It burns !" Mine eyes now dazzled be.
No wind, no shade can cool. What help then in my case ?
But with short breath, long looks, stayed feet, and walking
head ;
Pray that my Sun go down with meeker beams to bed.

LXXVII.
HosE LOOKS ! whose beams be joy, whose motion is
delight ; [is ;
That face ! whose lecture shows what perfect beauty
That presence ! which doth give dark hearts a living light
That grace ! which VENUS weeps that she herself doth miss;
That hand! which without touch, holds more than ATLAS'
might ;
Those lips! which make death's pay, a mean price for a kiss ;
That skin ! whose past-praisehue scornsthispoor terre ofwhite;
Those words ! which do sublime the quintessence of bliss ;
That voice ! which makes the soul plant himself in the ears ;
That conversation sweet
As construed in true speech, the name of heaven it bears :
Make me in my best thoughts and quiet'st judgment see
That in no more but these, I might be fully blest ;
Yet, ah ! My maiden Muse doth blush to tell the test.
L D 8

LXXVIII.
How a'tm pleasant airs of true love be
Infected by those vapours, which arise
From out that noisome gulf, which gaping lies
13etween the jaws of hellish JE^LOVS'.
A monster! others' harm! self's misery!
BE^oxY's plague ! VmxoE's scourge ! succour of lies !
Who his own joy to his own hurt applies ;
And only cherish doth with injury !
Who since he hath--by Nature's special grace--
So piercing paws, as spoil when they embrace ;
So nimble feet, as stir still though on thorns ;
So many eyes, aye seeking their own woe ;
So ample ears, that never good news know :
Is it hot evil that such a devil wants horns ?

LXXIX.

,VEET KISS ! thy sweets I fain would ssveetly endite :
Which even of sweetness, sweetest sweet'ner art !
Pleasing'st consort ! where each sense holds a part ;
Which coupling dores guide VENVS' chariot right.
Best charge and bravest retreat in Cupm's fightl
A double key[ which opens to the heart.
Most rich, when most his riches it impart [
Nest of young joys ! schoolmaster of delight !
Teaching the mean at once to take and give.
The friendly fray! where blows both wound and heai.
The pretty death ! while ,ach in other live.
Poor hope's first wealth ! hostage of promised weal !
Breakfast of love ! But 1o ! 1o ! where she is,
Cease we to praise. Now pray we for a kiss ?

Sh. P. $idnq,.'l

LXXX.
WEET SWELLINO lip ! wcll mayest thou swcll in pridc ;
Sincc best wits think it wit, thcc to admire :
Nature's praisc ! Virtuc's stall ! CUPID's cold tire!
Vhcncc words, hot words but hcavcnly graccs slidc.
Thc new Parnassus! whcrc the Muses bide.
Swcct'ner of music ! wisdom's bcautificr !
Brcathcr of lifc ! and fast'ncr of Dcsirc !
Vhcrc Bcauty's blush in Honour's grain is dycd.
Thus much my hcart compcl!cd my mouth to sa),,
But now spitc of my hcart, my mouth will stay;
Loathing ail lies, doubting this flattery is :
And no spur can his resty race renew ;
Without how far this praise is short of you,
Sweet lip I you teach my mouth with one sweet kiss !

LXXXI.

! I(I$$ ! SVHICH dost those ruddy gems impart,
Or gems or fruits of new-round Paradise ;
Breathing ail bliss and Bweet'ning to the heart ;
Teaching dumb lips a nobler exercise.
O kiss ! which souls, even souls together ties
By links of love, and only Nature's art :
How fain would I paint thee to all men's eyes
Or of thy gifts at least shade out some part ?
But she forbids. With blushing words, she says
"She builds her lame on higher-seated praise : "
But my heart burns, I cannot silent be.
Then since, dear life ! you fain would have me peace;
And I, mad with delight, want wit to cease :
Stop you my mouth with still still kissing me !

LXXXII.
.],YMPH 01 the garden ! where all beauties be ;
Beauties which do in excellency surpass
.His, who till death lookt in a wat'ry glass;
Or hers, whom naked the Trojan boy did see.
Sweet garden nymph ! which keeps the cherry tree
Whose fruit doth far th'Hesperian taste surpass:
Most sweet fair ! most fair sweet ! do hot, Mas,
From coming near those cherries, banish me !
For though full of desire, empty of wit,
Admitted late by your best gracèd grace ;
I caught at one of them a hungry bite :
Pardon that fault ! Once more grant me the place
And I do svear even by the same delight,
I will but kiss, I never more will bite.

LXXXIII.

'OOD BROTHER PHILIP ! I have born you long.
I was content you should in favour creep,
\Vhile craftily you seemed your eut to keep ;
As though that fair soft hand did you great wrong.
I bare (with envy) yet I bare your song,
XVhen in her neck you did love ditties peep ;
Nay, more fool I ! oft suffered you to sleep
In lilies' nest, where LovE's self lies along.
What ! doth high place ambitious thoughts augment ?
Is sauciness, reward of courtesy ?
Cannot such grace your silly self content ;
But 3,ou must needs, with those lips billing be ?
And through those lips drink nectar from that tongue ?
Leave that Sir PHiP ! lest off your neck be vrung !

LXXXIV.
IOHWAY ! SINCE you my chier Parnassus bc ;
And that my Musc to somc cars hot unswcct,
Tcmpcrs hcr words to trampling horscs' fcct
More oit than to a chambcr mclody.
Now blcsscd you ! bcar onward blcsscd me
To hcr, whcrc I my hcart safclicst shall mcct.
My Musc and I must you of duty grcct
With thanks and wishcs, wishing thankfully.
Bc you still fait! honourcd by public hccd !
By no cncroachmcnt wrongcd ! nor timc forgot !
Nor blamcd for blood, nor shamcd for sinful dccd !
And that you know I cnvy you no lot
Of highcst wish, I wish you so much bliss :
Hundrcds of ycars you STELLA'S 'cct may kiss !

LXXXV.
SE TH housc ! My hcart ! thysclf contain !
Bcwarc full salis drown hot thy tottcring bargc !
Lest joy--by Naturc apt, spirits to cnlargc--
Thcc to thy wrack, bcyond thy limits strain.
Nor do likc lords, whosc wcak confusèd brain,
Not 'pointing to fit folks cach undcrchargc ;
Whilc cvcry office thcmsclvcs will dischargc,
With doing ail, lcavc nothing donc but pain :
But givc apt servants thcir duc place! Let cycs
Sec Bcauty's total sum summcd in hcr face !
Let ears hear speech, which wit to wonder ties !
Let breath suck up those sweets ! Let arms embrace
The globe of weal ! Lips, love's indentures make !
Thou but of ail, the Kingly tribute take!

LXXXVI.
L^s ! WIEtcE came this change of looks ? If I
Have changed desert, let mine own conscience be
A still felt plague to self-condemning me !
Let woe gripe on my heart ! shame load mine eye !
But if ail faith, like spotless ermine, lie
Sale in my soul ; which only doth to thee
(As his sole object of felicity)
With wings of love in air of wonder fly :
O ease your hand ! treat hot so hard your slave !
In justice, pains corne hot till faults do call :
Or if I needs, sweet Judge ! must torments have;
Use something else to chasten me withal,
Than those blest eyes, where ail my hopes do dweli.
No doom should make once heaven become his hell.

LXXXVII.
HeN I w^s forced from STELLA ever dear--
STELLA ! food of my thoughts, heart of my heart ;
STEt.t.^! whose eyes make ail my tempests clear--
By iron laws of duty to deçart :
Alas, I round that she with me did smart ;
I saw that tears did in her eyes appear ;
I saw that sighs, her sweetest lips did part ;
And ber sad words, my saddest sense did hear.
For me, I wept to see pearls scattered so ;
I sighed ber sighs; and waild for ber woe :
Yet swam in joy ; such love in her was seen.
Thus while th'effect most bitter was to me,
And nothing than the cause more sweet could be ;
I had been vext, if vext I had hot been.

LXXXVIII.

!UT | TRAITOR ABSENCE ! Darest thou counsel me
From my dear Captainess to run away ?
Because, in brave array, here marcheth she
That to win me, oft shows a present pay.
Is faith so weak, or is such force in thee ?
When sun is hid, can stars such beams display ?
Cannot heaven's food, once felt, keep stomachs free
From base desire, on earthly cates to prey ?
Tush! ABSENCE! while thy mists eclipse that light,
My orphan sense flies to the inward sight;
Where memory sers forth the beams of love.
That where belote heart loved and eyes did see ;
In heart both sight and love both coupled be.
United powers make each the stronger prove.

LXXXIX.

[Ow THAT of absence the most irksome night,
With darkest ,shade, doth overcome my day :
Since S'rELL^ s eyes wont to give me my day ;
Leaving my hemisphere, leave me in night.
Each day seems long, and longs for long-stayed night;
The night as tedious, woos th'approach of day.
Tired with the dusty toils of busy day;
Languisht with horrors of the silent night :
Sutïering the evils both of the day and night ;
While no night is more dark than is my day,
Nor no day hath less quiet than my night.
With such bad mixture of my night and day ;
That living thus in blackest winter night,
I feel the flames of hottest summer's day.

['Sir P. $idne.
56 STRO'HE 2VD ELLA. L

XC.
TELLA ! THINK taOt that I by verse seek faine ;
\Vho seek, who hope, ,vho love, who live but thee.
Thine eyes my pride ; thy lips mine history :
If thou praise hot, all other praise is shame.
Not so ambitious am I as to frame
A nest for my young praise in laurel tree :
In truth I swear, I wish hot there should be
Graved in my epitaph, a Poet's name.
Ne if I would, I could just title make
That any laud to me thereof should grow,
Without my plumes from others' wings I take.
For nothing from my ,vit or will doth flow :
Since ail my words, thy beauty doth indite ;
And love doth hold my hand and makes me write.

XCI.
TELLA ! WHILE no,v, by honour's cruel might,
I ara from you--light of my life misled !
And that fair you, my sun, thus overspread,
With absence veil; I lire in sorrow's night.
If this dark place yet show, like candlelight,
Some beauty's piece, as amber-coloured head,
Milk hands, rose cheeks, or lips more sweet, more red ;
Or seeing gets black, but in blackness bright:
They please, I do confess, they please mine eyes.
But why ? Because of you they models be.
Models ! Such be wood globes of glistering skies.
Dear! Therefore be hot jealous over me,
If you hear that they seem my heart to more.
Not them, O no ! but you in them I love.

XCII.
E 'OJR words made, good Sir ! of Indian ware ;
That you allow me them by so small rate ?
Or do you cutted Spartan's imitate ?
Or do you mean my tender ears to spare ?
That to my questions, you so total are.
When I demand of Phoenix ST.LL&'S state;
You say, forsooth ! " You left her well of late."
0 GOD [ think you that satisfies my care ?
I would know whether she sit or walk ?
How clothed ? how waited on ? sighed she or smiled ?
V¢hereof ? with whom ? how often did she talk ?
Vv'ith what pastime Time's journey she beguiled ?
If her lips deigned to sweeten my poor naine ?
Say all [ and all wel| said, still say the same !

XCIII.
I;'ATE [ 0 fault [ 0 curse [ child of my bliss !
What sobs can give words grace my grief to showî
What ink is black enough to paint my woe ?
Through me, wretched me! even STELLA vexèd is.
Yet TRUTH--if caitiff's breath may call thee !--this
Witness with me, that my foui stumbling so
From carelessness did in no manner grow;
But wit confused with too much care, did miss.
And do I then myself this vain 'scuse give ?
I have (live I, and know this !) harmèd thee!
Though worlds quite me, shall I me self forgive ?
Only with pains, my pains thus eased be,
That ail thy hurts in my heart's rack I read :
I cry thy sighs, my Dear ! thy tears I bleed.

t$St-t384.

XCIV.

RIEI ! IIND the words .t For thou hast ruade my brain
So dark with misty vapours, which arise
From out thy heavy mould, that inbent eyes
Can scarce discern the shape of mine own pain.
Do thou then (for thou canst !) do thou complain
For my poor soul t. which now that sickness tries :
XVhich even to sense, sense of itself denies,
Though harbingers of death lodge there his train.
Or if thy love of plaint yet mine forbears--
As of a caitiff worthy so to die--
Yet wail thyself! and wail with causefull tears !
That though in vretchedness thy lire doth iie ;
Yet grow'st more wretched than thy nature bears,
By being placed in such a wretch as I l

XCV.

[ET SIGH$ ! dear SIGHS ! indeed true frlends you are.
That do hot leave your left friend at the worst :
But as you with my breast I oft have nurst ;
So grateful nov, you wait upon my care.
Faint coward Jo¥ no longer tarry date ;
Seeing HoI, E yield, when this woe strake him first :
DELIGHT protests he is hot for the accurst,
Though oft himself my mate in arms he sware.
Nay, SOIROW cornes with such main rage, that he
Kills his own children, TE^RS ; finding that they
By LOVE were ruade apt to consort with me.
Only true SoIqS ! you do hOt go away !
Thank may you have for such a thankful part ;
Thankworthiest )'et, when vou shall break my heart !

XCVI.
'HotJ6}i" ! with good cause thou likest so well the night !
Since kind or chance gives both one livery :
Both sadly black, both blackly darkened be ;
lqight barred from sun ; thou, from thine own sunlight.
Silence in both displays his sullen might ;
Slow heaviness in both holds one degree ;
That full of doubts ; thou, of perplexity :
Thy tears express night's native moisture right.
In both a mazeful solitariness.
In night, of sprites the ghastly powers do stir ;
In thee, or sprites or sprited ghastliness :
But, but, alas, night's side the odds hath far :
For that, at length, yet doth invite some rest ;
Thou, though still tired, yet still dost it detest |

XCVlI.

IAu, THAT fain would cheer her friend the NIGHT,
Shows her oft at the full her fairest face :
Bringing with her those starry nymphs, whose chase
From heavenly standing, hits each mortal wight.
But, ah, poor lqIGHT ! in love with IHOEBUS ' light,
And endlessly despairing of his grace ;
Herself (to show no other joy bath place)
Silent and sad in mourning weeds doth dight.
Even so, alas, a lady, DIAN's peer
With choice delights and rarest company,
Would fain drive clouds from out my heavy cheer
But woe is me
She could hot show my blind brain ways of joy ;
While I despair my sun's sight to enjoy.

60 ,'-/.s T R o '. E L . 2¢ D S TE L L A [ï P sia,,,»
xS8x-S84-

XCVIII.
,H, BED! the field where joy's peace some do see;
The field where ail my thoughts to war be trained
How is thy grace by my strange fortune stained
How thy lee shores by my sighs stormd be !
With sweet soft shades, thou oft invitest me
To steal some test ; but, wretch ! I ara constrained--
Spurred with LovE's spur, though gold; and shortly reined
With C^rE's hard hand--to turn and toss in theel
While the black horrors of the silent night
Paint Wo's black face so iively to my sight ;
That tedious leisure marks each wrinkled line.
But when AuRoI^ leads out PHOEI3US' dance,
Mine eyes then only wink : for spire perchance ;
That worms should have their sun, and I want mine.

XCIX.
HEIq FAR-SPEblT night persuades each mortal eye,
"1"o whom nor art nor nature granteth light ;
To lay his then mark-wanting shafts of sight,
Ciosed with their quivers, in sleep's armoury :
With windows ope then most my mind doth iie,
Viewing the shape of darkness and delight ;
Takes in that sad hue, which with th'inward night
Of his mazed powers keeps perfect harmony.
But when birds charm, and that sweet air which is
Morn's messenger, with rose-enamelled skies,
Call each wight to salure the hour of bliss ;
In tomb of iids, then buried are mine eyes:
Forced by their lord ; who is ashamed to find
Such light in sense, with such a darkened mind.

Sir P. Sidney.]

P TE^RS ! NO tears but rain from beauty's skies
Making those lilies and those roses grow;
Which aye most fair, now more than most fair show ;
While graceful pity, beauty beautifies.
0 honeyed Sighs! which from that breast do rise,
Whose pants do make unspilling cream to flow :
Winged with whose breath, so pleasing zephyrs blow
As can refresh the hell where my soul fries.
0 Plaints ! conserved in such a sugared phrase,
That eloquence itself envies your praise.
While sobbed out words a perfect music give.
Such Tears, Sighs, Plaints, no sorrow are but joy :
Or if such heavenly signs must prove annoy;
All mirth, farewell ! Let me in sorrow lire !

CI.
TELLA IS sick, and in that sick bed lies
SWEETNESS, which breathes and pants, as oft as she;
And GRACE, sick too, such fine conclusions tries,
That Sickness brags itself best graced to be.
BEAUT¥ is sick, but sick in such fait guise
That in that paleness BEAUT¥'s white xve see ;
And Jo', which is inseparate from those eyes.
STELLA IIOW learns--strange case !--to weep in thee.
LOVE moves thy pain, and like a faithful page,
As thy looks stir, cornes up and down to make
All folks prest at thy will, thy pain to assuage.
Nature with tare sweats for her darling's sake :
Knowing worlds pass ere she enough tan find
Of such heaven stuff, to clothe so heavenly a mind.

CI1.
HERIZ BIZ thosc roses gonc, which swcctcncd so our
eyes ?
XVhcrc thosc rcd chccks, which oft with fait incrcasc
did framc
Thc hcight of honour, in thc kindly badge of shamc ?.
Who hath thc crimson wccds stolcn from my morniug skies?
How doth thc colour vade of thosc vcrmilion dycs
Which Naturc's self did makc, and self cngraincd thc samc?
I would know by what right this palcncss ovcrcamc
That huc, whosc force my hcart still unto thraldom tics ?
G^LZI's adoptive sons, who by a bcatcn way
Thcir judgmcnts hackncy on, thc fault on sickncss lay :
But fccling proof makcs me (say thcy) mistakc it far.
It is but LOVE that makcs his papcr pcrfcct whitc,
To writc thcrcin more frcsh thc story of dclight :
Whilc bcauty's rcddcst ink, Vzlus for him doth stir.

CIII.

HAPPY THAMES ! that didst my STELLA bare.
I saw thyself with many a smiling line
Upon thy cheerful face, Jov's livery wear ;
While those fair planets on thy streams did shinc.
The boat, for joy could hot to dance forbear :
While wanton winds, with beauties so divine, "
Ravished; stayed hot, till in her golden hair
They did themselves (0 sweetest prison !) twine.
And fain those ,ZEoL's youths there would their stay
Have ruade ; but forced by Nature still to fly ;
First did with puffing kiss, those locks display.
She so dishevelled, blushed. From window, I,
With sight thereof, cried out, " 0 fait disgrace !
Let honour's self to thee grant highest place 1"

SirP. Sldn«y.'] .t.,eTROPHEL AND S:I'ELLA 6 3

CIV.

NvloLts wvrs! what hath been mine offence,
That with such poisonous care my looks you mark ?
That each word, nay sigh of mine you hark,
As grudging me my sorrows' eloquence ?
Ah ! is it hot enough, that I ara thence !
Thenc¢[ so far thence [ that scarcely any spark
Of comfort date corne to this dungeon dark;
Where rigour's exile locks up all my sense ?
But if I by a happy window pass ;
If I but stars upon mine armour bear ;
Sick, thirsty, glad (though but of empty glass ! )
Your moral notes straight my hid meaning tear
From out my ribs; and puflïng prove that I
Do STELLA love. Fools [ who doth it deny ?

CV.

NHAPPY SIGHT [ And hath she vanished by
So near ! in so good time ! so free a place
Dead glass[ dost thou thy object so embrace,
As what my heart still sees thou canst hot spy ?
I swear by her I love and lack, that I
Was hot in fault, who bent thy dazzling race
Only unto the heaven of STELLA'S face ;
Counting but dust what in the way did lie.
But cease mine eyes ! your tears do witness well
That you guiltless thereof, your nectar missed :
Curst be the page from whence the bad torch fell !
Curst be the night which did your strife resist [
Curst b¢ the coachman that did drive so fast !
With no worse curse than absence makes me taste.

[Sir P. Sidney
64 /t ..ç T R 0 P H E L tl 1V D S TE L L A. L !

CVI.
ABSEIT presence ! STELLA is hot here !
False flattering hope ! that with so fair a face
Bare me in hand that in this orphan place
STELLA. I say, my STELLA ! should appear.
What sayest thou now ? Where is that dainty cheer
Thou told'st mine eyes should help their famished case ?
But thou art gone now; that self-felt disgrace
Doth make me most to wish thy comfort near.
But here I do store of fair ladies meet ;
Who may with charm of conversation sweet,
Make in my heavy mould, new thoughts to grow.
Sure they prevail as much with me, as he
That bade his friend, but then new-maimed, to be
Merry with him and not think of his woe.

CVII.
TELLA ! SINCE thou so right a Princess art
Of ail the powers which life bestows on me ;
That ere by them ought undertaken be,
They first resort unto that sovereign part.
Sweet ! for a while give respite to my heart,
Which pants as though it still should leap to thee ;
And on my thoughts give thy Lieutenancy
To this great cause, which needs both use and art.
And as a Queen, who from her presence sends
Whom she employs, dismiss from thee my wit!
Till it have wrought what thy own will attends.
On servants' shame oft master's blame doth sit.
O let hot fools in me thy works reprove ;
And scorning, say, " See ! what itis to love !"

StrP'SidneY"l .] ç T R O P H E A Ar D . T E L L A 5
I z58x-x$84.J

CVIII.
'HEs Soow, using mine own iïre's rnight,
Melts clown his leacl into my boiling breast :
Through that clark furnace to my heart opprest,
There shines a joy from thee, my only light !
But soon as thought of thee breecls my dcligh t,
And my young soul flutters to thee his nest !
Most rude DESPAR, rny claily unbiclclen guest,
Clips straight my wings, straight wraps me in his night.
And makes me then bow clown my head, and say,
"Ah what cloth PHOEBUS' golcl that wretch avail,
Vv'hom iron cloors cio keep from use of day ?"
So strangely, alas, thy works in me prevail :
That in my woes for thee, thou art my joy ;
And in my joys for thee, my only annoy.

THE END OP

] E 8

FIRST SONG.

'OuB" YOU to whom my liuse these notes
intendeth ;
"Vhich now my breast o'ercharged to
music lendeth ?
To you ! to you ! all song of praise is due :
Only in you, my song begins and endeth.

Who hath the eyes which marry State with Pleasure ?
Who keeps the key of Nature's chiefest tr¢'asure ?
To you ! to yo, ! all song of praise is due
Only for you, the heaven forgat all measure.

Vrho hath the lips, where Wit in fairness reigneth ?
Who womankind at once both decks and staineth ?
To yo ! to you ! all song of praise is due :
Only by you, CUPID his crown maintaineth.

$rP'S;d'"l OTHER SONGS OF VARIABLE VERSE. 6î

Who hath the feet, whose steps ail sweetness planteth ?
Who else ; for whom Fame worthy trumpets wanteth ?
To you ! to you ! ail song of praise is due :
Only to you, her sceptre VENUS granteth.

Who hath the breast, vhose milk doth passions nourish ?
Whose grace is such, that when it chides doth cherish ?
To you ! to you ! ail song of praise is due :
Only through 3,ou, the tree of lire doth flourish.

Who hath the hand, which without stroke subdueth ?
Who long dead beauty with increase reneweth ?
To you ! to you ! ail song of praise is due :
Only at you, ail env), hopeless rueth.

Who hath the hair, which loosest fasteth tieth ?
Who makes a man live then glad when he dieth ?
To you ! to you ! ail song of praise is due :
Only ofyou, the flatterer never lieth.

Who hath the voice, which soul from senses sunders ?
Whose force but yours the bolts of beauty thunders ?
'Fo you ! to you ! ail song of praise is due :
Only with you, hot miracles are wonders.

Doubt you to whom my Muse these notes intendeth ;
Which now my breast o'ercharged to music lendeth ?
To you ! to you ! ail song of praise is due :
Only in you, my song begins and endeth.

68
OTHER
So;s
x$8x-x$84.

SECOND SONG.

AVE I c.,,tmn'r my heavenly jewel,
Teaching sleep most fair to be ?
Now will I teach her, that she,
When she wakes, is too too cruel.

Since sweet sleep her eyes hath charmèd,
The Bvo only darts of Love ;
Now will I with that boy prove
Some play, while he is disarmèd.

Her tongue, waking, still refuseth
Giving frankly, niggard " No :"
Now will I attempt to know
What " No" her tongue sleeping, useth.

See the hand that waking, guardeth ;
Sleeping, grants a free resort :
Now will I invade the fort ;
Cowards, LOVE with loss rewardeth.

But, O fool ! think of the danger
Of her just and high disdain ;
Now will I, alas, refrain,
Love- fears nothing else but anger.

Yet those lips, so sweetly swelling,
Do invite a stealing kiss:
Now will I but venture this,
Who will read must first learn spelling.

$,P..d«y.] OTHER ONGS OF VARIABLE VERSE. 0 9

0 sweet kiss ! but ah ! she is waking.
Low'ring beauty chastens me:
Now will I away hence flee;
Fooll more fool! for no more taking.

THIRD SON(].

F ORPHEUS' voice had force to breathe such music's
love
Through pores of senseless trees, as it could make
them move :
If stones good measure danced the Theban walls to build,
To cadence of the tunes which AMPHtON'S lyre did yield :
More cause a like effect at least wise bringeth.
0 stones ! 0 trees ! learn hearing ! STELLA singeth !

If love might sweeten so a boy of shepherd brood,
To make a lizard dull, to taste love's dainty food :
If eagle tierce could so in Grecian maid delight,
As his light were her eyes, her death his endless night :
Earth gave that love. Heaven, I trow, love refineth.
0 beasts ! 0 birds! look! love! 1o, STELLA shineth !

The beasts, birds, stones and trees feel this; and feeling, love.
And if the trees nor stones stir hot the same to prove ;
Nor beasts nor birds do corne unto this blessèd gaze:
Know that small love is quick, and great love doth amaze.
They are amazed : but you, with reason armed,
0 eyes ! 0 ears of men ! how are you charmed [

70 OTHER SONGS OF VARIABLE VERSE. [$?tSa._tSs.P. Sld.ey.

FOURTH SONG.

NLY JoY ! now hcre you are,
Fit to hcar and case my care.
Let my whispering voice obtain
-- Sweet reward for sharpest pain.
Take me to thee, and thee to me !

No, o, o, o, v Dear ! let b¢.

Night hath closed ail in her cloak,
Twinkling stars love thoughts provoke,
Danger hence, good care doth keep;
J E.LOUSV itself doth sleep.
Take me to thee, and thee to me !

No, no, o, no, ny Dear ! let b.

Better place no wit can find,
CUPID's yoke to loose or bind;
These sweet flowers on fine bed too,
Us in their best language woo.
Take me to thee, and thee to me !

No, no, no, no, my Dear ! let be.

This small light the moon bestows,
Serves thy beams but to disclose :
So to raise my hap more high.
Fear not else ! none can us spy.
Take me to thee, and thee to me l

No, no, no, no, my Dear ! let be.

$irP. Sidney.]1 x$8x-xSS4.J OTHER SONGS OF VARIABLE VERSE.

That you heard was but a mouse,
Dumb SLEEP holdeth ail the house :
Yet asleep, methinks they say
" Young folks, take time while you mayl"
Take me to thee, and thee to me !

No, no, no, no, my Dear ! let

Niggard time threats, if we misa
This large offer of our bliss ;
Long stay ere he grant the saine.
Sweet ! then, while each thing doth frame,
Take me to thee, and thee to me!

No, no, no, no, my Dear I let b.

Your fair mother is abed,
Candles out, and curtains spread :
She thinks you do letters xvrite.
Write I but let me first indite
"Take me to thee, and thee to me l"

No, no, no, no, my Dear l let b.

Sweet ! alas, why strive you thus ?
Concord better fitteth us.
Leave to MARS the force of hands ;
Your power in your beauty stands.
Take me to thee, and me to thee !

No, no, no, no, »ny Dear ! let be.

Woe to me ! and do you swear
Me to hate, but I forbear ?
Cursed be my destinies ail!
That brought me so high to fall.
$oon with my death I will please thee t

No, no, no, no, my Dearl let be.

FIFTH SONG.

HILE favour fed my hope, delight with hope was
brought ;
Thought waited on delight; and speech did follow
thought.
Then grew my tongue and pen records unto thy glory.
I thought ail words were lost that were hot spent of thee ;
I thought each place was dark,but where thy lights would be;
And ail ears worse than deaf, that heard hot out thy story.

I said thou wert most fair, and so indeed thou art.
I said thou art most sweet, sweet poison to my heart.
I said my soul was thine, O that I then had lied[
I said thine eyes were stars, thy breasts the milken way,
Thy fingers Ct01,m's shafts, thy voice the Angels' la$, :
And ail I said so well, as no man it denied.

But now that hope is lost, unkindness kills delight;
Yetthought and speech do live, thought metamorphosed quite :
For R^GE now rules the reins, which guided were by
PLEASURE.
I think now of thy faults, who late thought of thy praise.
That speech falls now to blame which did thy honour raise.
The same key open can, which can lock up a treasure.

SirP. Sidaey.] OTHER SONGS OF VARIABLE VERSE. 73

Thou then whom partial heavens conspired in one to frame
The proof of beauty's worth, th'inheritrix of fame,
The mansion seat of bliss, and just excuse of lovers :
Sec now those feathers pluckt, wherewith thou flew most
high !
Sec what clouds of reproach shall dark thy honour's sky!
Whose own fault casts him down, hardly high seat recovers.

And 0 my Muse ! though off you lulled her in your lap;
And then a heavenly child, gave her ambrosian pap ;
And to that brain of hers, your hidnest gifts infused !
Since she disdaining me, doth you in me disdain ;
Surfer hot her to laugh, while both we surfer pain.
Princes in subjectswronged,must deem themselves abused.

Your client poor, my self; shall STELLA handle so ?
Revenge ! revenge ! my Muse ! Defiance trumpet blow !
Threaten what maybe donc! yet do more than you threaten l
Ah ! my suit granted is. I feel my breast doth swell.
Now child ! a lesson new you shall begin to spell.
Sweet babes must babies have, but shrewd girls must be
heaten.

Think now no more to hear of warm fine-odoured snow,
Nor blushing lilies, nor pearls ruby-hidden row,
Nor of that golden sea whose waves in curls are broken :
But of thy soul, so fraught with such ungratefulness,
As where thou soon might'st help; most faith thou dost
oppress.
Ungrateful who is called, the worst of evils is spok'n.

l'Sir P. Sidney.
(.)THER SONGS OF VARIABLE VERSE. L t,s8,-,s84.
Yet worse than worst, I say thou art a Thief! A thief!
Now GOD forbid! A Thief! and of worst thieves, the
chier.
Thieves steal for need ; and steal but goods, which pain
recovers :
But thou, rich in all joys, dost rob my joys from me ;
Which cannot be restored by time nor industry.
Of foes, the spoil is evil : far worse of constant loyers'.

Yet gentle English thieves do rob, but will not slay.
Thou English murdering thief! wilt have hearts for thy
prey.
The name of Murderer now on thy fair forehead sitteth.
And even while I do speak, my death wounds bleeding be ;
Which, I protest, proceed from only cruel thee.
x, Vho may and xvill not save; murder in truth committeth.

But murder's private fault seems but a toy to thee.
I lay then to thy charge unjustest Tyranny!
If fuie by force without ail claim, a tyrant showeth.
For thou dost lord my heart, who ara not born thy slave ;
And which is worse, makes me most guiltless torments
have.
A rightful Prince by unright deeds a Tyrant groweth.

Lo! you grow proud with thisl For tyrants make folk
DOW o
Of foui Rebellion then I do appeach thee nowl
Rebel by Nature's laws, Rebel by law of reason.
Thou sweetest subject wert born in the realm of Love ;
And yet against thy Prince, thy force dost daily prove.
No virtue merits praise, once touched with blot of treason.

SbP. Sid.ey."lt ææ-æ»S,t.J OTHER SONGS OF VARIABLE VERSE. 75

But valiant rebels oft in fools' mouths purchase fame.
I now then stain thy white with vagabonding shame ;
Both Rebel to the Son and Vagrant from the Mother.
For wearing Vgtus' badge, in every part of thee ;
Unto Dx^t^'s train thou Runaway didst flee !
Who faileth one is false, though trusty to another.

What, is hot this enough ? Nay, far worse cometh here.
A Witch ! I say thou art, though thou so fair appear.
For I protest my sight never thy face enjoyeth,
But I in me am changed; I ara alive and dead,
My feet are turned to roots, my heart becometh lead.
No witchcraft is so evil, as which man's mind destroyeth.

Yet witches may repent. Thou art far worse than they.
Alas ! that I am forced such evil of thee to say.
I say thou art a Devil! though clothed in angel's shining;
For thy face tempts my soul to leave the heavens for
thee,
And thy words of refuse do pour even hell on me.
Who tempt, and tempted plague; are Devils in true
defining.

You then ungrateful Thief! you murdering Tyrant you!
You Rebel! Runaway! to Lord and Lady untrue.
You Witch ! you Devil ! Alas, you still of me beloved !
You see what I can say. Mend yet your froward mind !
And such skill in my Muse you, reconciled, shall find;
That by these cruel words, your praises shall be proved.

6 OTHER SONGS OF VARIABLE VERSE.

SIXTH SONG.

You THAT hear this voice |
O you that see this face !
Say whether of the choice
Deserves the former place ?
Fear hot to judge this bate,
For it is void of hate.

This side doth BEAUTY take.
For that doth lusIc speak.
Fit orators to make
The strongest judgments weak.
The bar to plead the right,
Is only True Delight.

Thus doth the voice and face,
These gentle lawyers wage,
Like loving brothers' case,
For father's heritage :
That each, while each contends,
Itself to other lends.

For beauty beautifies,
With heavenly hue and grace,
The heavenly harmonies :
And in this faultless face,
The perfect beauties be
A perfect harmony.

Sit P. Sdey.'
I lSX-x.584.J

OTHER SONG$ OF VARIABLE VERSE. 77

MUSIC more lofty swells
In speeches nobly placed ;
BEAUT¥ as far excels
In actions aptly graced.
A friend each party draws
To countenance his cause.

LOVE more affected seems
BE^t3T¥'S lovely light ;
And WONDER more esteems
Of Mt3SIC'S wondrous might :
But both to both so bent
As both in both are spent.

Music doth witness call
The car, his truth to try ;
BE^uT¥ brings to the hall
The judgment of the eye :
Both in their objects such,
As no exceptions touch.

The common SEIqSE which might
Be arbiter of this;
To be forsooth upright,
To both sides partial is :
He lays on this side chier praise ;
Chier praise on that he lays.

Then RE^SOS, Princess high !
Whose throne is in the mind ;
Which music can in sky,
And hidden beauties find.
Say ! whether thou wilt crown
With limitless renown ?

78 OTHER SONGS OF VARIABLE VERSE. [ï

SEVENTH SONG.

HOsE SENSES in so evil consort their stepdame
Nature lays,
That ravishing delight in them most sweet tunes
doth not raise :
Or if they do delight therein, yet are so closed with wit ;
As with sententious lips to set a title vain on it.
O let them hear these sacred tunes, and learn in
VONDER'S schools
To be (in things past bounds of wit) fools» if they be
hOt fools.

Vho have so leaden eyes, as not to see sveet ]3EAUTY'S
show ;
Or seeing, have so wooden wits as not that worth to know ;
Or knowing, have so muddy minds as not to be in love ;
Or loving, have so frothy thoughts as easy thence to move :
0 let them see these heavenly beams! and in fair letters
read
A lesson fit, both sight and skill, love and firm love to
breed.

Hear then! but then with wonder hear; see! but adoring
see
No mortal gifts, no earthly fruits, now here discerned be.
See! do you see this face ? A face ! nay image of the skies;
Of xvhich the two life-giving lights are figured in her eyes.
Hear you this soul-invading voice! and count it but a
voice ?
The very esser.ce of their tunes xvhen Angels do rejoice.

SirP. Sidney.] OTHER SONGS OF VARIABLE VERSE. 79

EIGHTH SONG.

N A GROVE most rich of shade,
Where birds wanton music ruade ;
May then young, his pied weeds showing,
New perfumed with flowers fresh growil,g ;

ASTROPHEL with STELLA swcet,
Did for mutual comfort meet;
Both within themselves oppressed,
But each in the other blessed.

Him great harms had aught much Cal-e;
Her fair neck a foui yoke bare:
But her sight his cares did banish,
In his sight her yoke did vanish.

Wept they had, Mas the while,
But now tears themselves did smile ;
While their eyes by love directed,
Interchangeably reflected.

Sigh they did, but now betwixt
Sighs of woe were glad sighs mixt;
With arms crossed, yet testifying
Restless rest, and living dying.

Their ears hungry of each word,
Which the dear tongue would afford :
But their tongues restrained from walking.
Till their hearts had ended talking.

8o OTHER SONG$ OF VARIABLE VERSE.

But when their tongues could not speak,
Love itself did silence break :
Love did set his lips asunder,
Thus to speak in love and wonder.

"STELLA ! Sovereign of my joy !
Fair triumpher of annoy !
STELL^ ! Star of heavenly tire !
SrELtA ! Loadstar of desire !"

" STELLA ! in whose shining eyes,
Are the lights of CUPID'$ skies ;
Whose beams where they once are darted,
Love therewith is straight imparted."

" STELLA ! whose voice when it speaks,
Senses ail asunder breaks.
STELL^ ! whose voice when it singeth»
Angels' to acquaintance bringeth."

" STELLA ! in whose body is
Writ each character of bliss.
Whose face ail, ail beauty passeth ;
Save thy mind which yet surpasseth."

«, Grant! O grant ! but speech, alas,
Fails me, fearing on to pass:
Grant! O me! what ara I saying ?
But no fault there is in praying."

"Grant ! O Dear! on knees I pray"
Knees on ground he then did stay
" That hot I ; but since I love you,
Time and place for me may rnove you !"

$1rP. Sidn/.'] C)THER SONGS OF VARIABLE VERSE.
!

"Never season was more fit :
Never room more apt for it.
Smiling air allows my reason ;
These birds sing : now use the season 1"

"This small wind ,vhich so sweet is,
See how it the leaves doth kissl
Each tree in his best attiring,
Sense of love to love inspiring."

"Love makes earth, the water drink ;
Love to earth makes water sink :
And if dumb things be so witty,
Shall a heavenly grace want pity ?"

There his hands in their speech, fain
Would have made tongue's language plain
But her hands, his hands repelling,
Gave repulse, ail grace excelling.

Then she spake, her speech was such,
As not ears, but heart did touch ;
While such wise she love denied,
As yet love she signified.
[The renining stanzas of thi $ong were first prlnted in the edition of
"ASTROPHEL ! " said she, "my love [
Cease in these effects to prove.
Now be still ! yet still believe me,
Thy grief more than death would grieve me. '»

"If that any thought in me,
Can taste comfort but of thee;
Let me fed with hellish anguish,
Joyless, hopeless, endless languish. '

{'Sr P. Sdne.
82 C)THER SONGS OF VARIABLE VERSE. L ,8,-,8.

" If those eyes you praisèd, be
Half so dear as 3,ou to me ;
Let me home return, stark blinded
Of those eyes ; and blinder minded ! "

"If to secret of my heart,
I do any wish impart ;
Where thou art not foremost placed :
13e both wish and I defaced ! "

" If more may be said, I say
Ail my bliss on thee I lay.
Il" thou love, my love content thee !
For ali love, ail faith is meant thee."

"Trust me, while I thee deny,
In myself the smart I try.
Tyrant HONOOR doth thus use thee.
STELL^'S self might hOt refuse thee "

"Therefore, Dear ! this no more move
Lest, though I leave not thy love,
Which too deep in me is framed ;
I should blush when thou art namedl

Therewithal away she went,
Leaving him to passion rent,
With what she had done and spoken ;
That therewith my song is broken.

NINTH SONG.
O «Y FLOC: ! go get you hence !
Seek a better place of feeding;
Where )'ou may have some defence
Fro the storms in my breast breeding
And showers from mine eyes proceeding.

SP.S;d.tT..t ...-..-J OTHER SONGS OF VARIABLE VERSE. 8 3

Leave a wretch in whom ail woe
Can abide to keep no measure :
Merry flock! such one forego,
Unto whom mirth is displeasure :
Only rich in mischief's treasure.

Yet, Mas, before you go,
Hear your woeful master's story ;
Which to stones I else would show.
Sorrow only then hath glory,
When 'ris excellently sorry.

STELLA I fiercest shepherdess !
Fiercest but yet fairest ever!
STELLA [ whom O heavens do bless !
Though against me she persèvere ;
Though I bliss inherit never.

STELLA hath refusèd me[
STELLA, who more love hath provtd
In this caitiff heart to be ;
Than can in good ewes be movèd,
Towards lambkins best belovèd.

STELLA hath refusèd me !
ASTROPHEL that so well servèd,
In this pleasant spring, must see,
While in pride flowers be preservèd
Himself only svinter-starvèd.

Why, alas, doth she then swear
That she loveth me so dearly ?
Seeing me so long to bear
Coals of love that burn so clearly :
And ver leave me helpless merely ?

fæir P. Sidney.
8 40THER SONGS OF VARIABLE VERSE. t z$a,-zs84.

Is that love ? Forsooth, I trow,
If I saw my good dog grievèd,
And a help for him did know;
My love should not be believèd,
But he were by me relievèd.

No, she hates me, welaway !
Feigning love somewhat to please me :
For she knows, if she display
Ail her hate ; death would soon seize me,
And of hideous torments ease me.

Then adieu, dear flock ! adieu
But, alas, if in your straying,
Heavenly Sa'ELL^ meet with you
Tell her in your piteous blaying,
Her poor slave's unjust decaying.

TENTH SONG.

DEAR life l when shall it be
That mine eyes, thine eyes may see ?
And in them, thy mind discover,
Whether absence have had force
Thy remembrance to divorce
From the image of the loyer ?

Or if I myself find not,
After parting ought forgot ;
Nor be barred from Beauty's treasure ;
Let no tongue aspire to tell
In what high joys I shall dwell.
Only Thought aims at the pleasure.

Si P. Sidney. "]

OTHER SONGS OF VARIABLE VERSE.

Thought therefore I will send theel
To take up the place for me;
Long I will not after tarry.
There, unseen, thou mayest be bold,
Those fair wondefs to behold,
Which in them, my Hopes do carr¥.

Thought! see thou no place forbear !
Euter hravely everywhere !
Seize on all to her belonging!
But if thou wouldst guarded be,
Fearing her beams ; take with thee
Strcngth of Liking, Rage of Longing !
[The next three stanZas first appeaed in the editlon of 59.]
Think of that most grateful time!
When my leaping heart will climb
In my lips to have his bidingl
There those roses for to kiss,
Which do breathe a sugared bliss ;
Opening rubies, pearls dividing.

Think of my most princely power l
When I blessèd shall devour
With my greedy lickorous senses
Beauty, Music, Sweetness, Love:
While she doth against me prove
Her strong darts, but weak defences.

Think ! think of those dallyings !
When with dovelike murmurings,
With glad moaning passèd anguish ;
We change eyes, and heart for heart
Each to othet do depart :
Joying till joy make us languish.

:'Sir P. 5idney.
6 OTHER SONGS OF VARIABLE VERSE. L ,sss-sss.

O my Thought ! my Thoughts surceasc |
Thy delights, my woes increase.
My lire melts with too much thinking.
Think no more ! but die in me,
Till thou shalt revivèd be;
At her lips my nectar drinking.

FINIS.

Sir P[HILIP] SIDNEY].

ELEVENTH SONG.

|This song was tirst priated in the edition of $95.|
Ho xs it that this dark night,
Underneath my window plaineth ?
If is one who from thy sight,
Being, ah ! exiled ; disdaineth
Every other vulgar light.

Why, alas ! and are you he ?
Be not yet those fancies changèd ?
Dear ! when you find change in
Though from me yo be estrangèd ;
Let my change fo ruin be.

Well in absence this will die.
Leave to seel and leave to wonder!
,d bsen« sur ill hel/, if I
Can learn hou .ysdf o sundo"
From tvhat in my heart doth lie.

Sir P. Sdney.'[
| $8-» $ 84,.J

OTHER SONGS OF VARIABLE VERSE.

But time will these thoughts remove :
Time doth work what no man knoweth.
Time doth as tl subj«t rove,
With lime still lb'affection groweth
In the faithful turtl dov.

What if you new beauties see!
Will not they stir new affection ?
I will think ttoE IMctures be
(Image-like of saints' lerfection)
Poorly connterfeiting thee.

But your reason's purest light
Bids you leave such minds to nourish !
Dear ! do reason no swh s:it« !
Never doth thy beauty flourish
More than in my reason's sight.

But the wrongs love bears, will make
Love at length leave undertaking.
17o, the more fools it do shake
In a ground of so firm making,
Deeper still they drive the stake.

Peace ! I think that some give ear !
Corne no more! lest I get anger.
BIiss ! I will my bliss forb«ar ;
Fearing, Sweet ! you to endanger I
But my soul shall harbour thee.

Well begone [ begone I sayt
Lest that ARGUS' eyes perceive you.
0 unjust Fortungs sway !
Which can make rite thus to leave you :
A ndfrom louts to run avuay.

POEMS & SON N ETS

OF SUNDRY" OTHER

NOBLEMEN AND GENTLEMEN.

p. , aie gr the flrst (sueptitious) quarto of $gs ; it was ot reprinted in the
autho foo edition of idue vci d othe wor . Twet-three of the
nne reapred in ni's sutho el-coileoEion, entitled /ia of ssg, d
twent-two what Del desi to the fily rend edition of Dtlia of s59 Cf. vol ri.,
If6 ae. Five of th nnets which e duly indited beiow, we hot repnt by Diei
t y rime.]

O, wailing verse ! the infant of my Iove--
MIlqERVA-Iike, brought forth without a
mother--
That bears the image of the cares I prove ;
Witness your father's grief exceeds all
other.
Sigh out a story of her cruel deeds,
With interrupted accents of despair:
A monument that whosoever reads,
May justly praise and blame my loveless Fair.
Say I her disdain hath drièd up my blood,
And starvèd you, in succours still denying.
Press to her eyes I importune me some good l
Waken her sleeping cruelty with crying !
Knock at her hard heart ! Say I I perish for herl
And fear this deed will make the world abhor her.

SONNET I.

F sorr hap the offspring of my care,
These fatal anthems and afflicted songs,
Corne to their view, who like to me do rare
May more them sigh thereat, and moan my wrongs.
But untouched hearts! with unaffected eye,
Approach hot to behold my soul's distress !
Clearsighted, you will note what is awry,
Whilst blind ones see no error in my verse.
You blinded souls! whom hap and error lead.
You outcast eaglets dazzled with the sun !
Ah you, and none but you, my sorrow read!
You best can judge the wrong that she hath done
That she hath done, the motive of my pain
Who whilst I love, doth kill me with disdain.

SONNET II.
IIEsI SORROWING sighs, the smokes of mine annoy,
These tears, which heat of sacred tire distils;
These are the tributes that my faith doth pay ;
And these my tyrant's cruel mind fulfil.
I sacrifice my youth and blooming years
At her proud feet ; that yet respects no whit
My youth, untimely withered with my tears ;
By winter woes, for spring of youth unfit.
She thinks a look may recompense my care,
And so with looks prolongs my long lookt ease :
As short the bliss, sois the comfort rare ;
Yet must that bliss my hungry thoughts appease.
Thus she returns my hopes to fruitless ever ;
Once let her love indeed or eye me never I

SONNET III.
|lq'ot repritted in 29tlia, Danlel's authorised collection,
HE oqLy bird alone that Nature frames,
When weary of the tedious lire she lires
By tire dies, yet finds new lire in flames;
Her ashes to her shape new essence give.
When only I, the only wretched wight,
Weary of lire that breathes but sorrow's blasts ;
Pursue the flame of such a beauty bright,
That burns my heart ; and yet my lire still lasts.
0 sovereign light ! that with thy sacred flame
Consumes my lire, revive me after this!
And make me (with the happy bird) the sam¢
That dies to lire, by favour of thy bliss !
This deed of thine will show a goddess' power ;
In so long death to grant one living hour.

SONNET IV.

E^RS, VOWS and prayers gain the hardest hearts :
Tears, vows and prayers have I spent in vain.
Tears cannot soften flint, nor vows convert.
Prayers prevail not with a quaint disdain.
I lose my teaçs, where I have lost my love,
I vow my faith, where faith is hOt regarded,
I pçay in vain a merciless to more ;
So rare a faith ought better be rewarded.
Though frozen will may hot be thawed with tcars,
Though my soul's idol scorneth ail my vows,
Though ail my prayers be ruade to deafened ears,
No favour though the cruel Fait allows ;
Yet will I weep, vow, pray to cruel She :
Flint, frost, disdain ; wears, melts and yields, wc sec.

.Dai*l.'lt,.,.j SONNETS AFTER ,t4 ,$ T,R O,P,I',E Z, ¢î C. 9 I

SONNET V.
HY DOTH my mistress credit.so her glass
Gazing her beauty, deigned her by the skies
And doth not rather look on him, alaa!
Whose state best shows the force of murdering eyes.
The broken tops of lofty trees declare
The fury of a mercy-wanting storm :
And of what force your wounding graces are,
Upon myself, you best may find the form.
Then leave your glass, and gaze yourself on me I
That mirror shows the power of your face :
To admire your form too much may danger be,
NARClSSIJS changed fo flower in such a case.
I fear your change ! Not flower nor hyacinth ;
MEDUSA'S eye may turn your heart to flint.

SONNET Vl.
HEsE AMBER locks are those same nets, my Dearl
Wherewith my liberty thou didst surprise.
Love was the flame that fired me so near.
The darts transpiercing were these crystal eyes.
Strong is the net, and fervent is the flame,
Deep is the stroke, my sighs can well report :
Yet do I love, adore and praise the sarne ;
That holds, that burns, that wounds me in that sort.
I list not seek to break, to quench, to heal
This bond, this flame, this wound that festereth so;
By knife, by liquor or by salve to deal :
So m uch I please to perish in my woe.
Yet, lest long travels be above my strength
Good Lady! loose, quench, hem me now at length!

SONNET Vil.
EHOLD WHAT hap PYGMALION had, to frame
And carre his grief himself upon a stone :
My heavy fortune is much like the same,
I work on flint, and that's the cause I moan.
For hapless 1o even with mine own desires,
I figured on the table of my heart ;
The goodliest shape that the world's eye admires :
And so did perish by my proper art.
And still I toil to change the marble breast
Of ber whose sweet Idea I adore:
Yet cannot find her breathe unto my rest.
Hard is her heart, and woe is me therefore.
O blessed he that joys his stone and art |
Unhappy I l to love a stony heart.

SONNET VIII.
l'Reprinted in Daniel's29elia, editon 59 , but tat in tbe final editlon
Ir ^ro in vain my rebel thoughts bave ventured
To stop the passage of my vanquished heart ;
And close the way, my friendly foe first entered :
Striving thereby to free my better part.
Whilst guarding thus the windows of my thought,
Where my heart's thief to vex me ruade her choice ;
And thither ail my forces to transport :
Another passage opens at ber voice.
Her voice betrays me to ber hand and eye,
My freedom's tyrant, glorying in her art:
But, ah ! sweet foe! small is the victory,
With three such powers to plague one silly heart.
Yet my soul's sovereign ! since I must resign;
Reign in my thoughts ! My love and lire are thine!

S'D'I SONNETS AFTER .,I..çTROPHEI,, ,"C. 93

SONNET IX.

EIGN 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
O such as spoil thy whole afflicted state.
For whilst they strive which shall be Lord of ail,
AIl my poor lire by them is trodden down :
They ail erect their triumphs on my rail,
And yield me nought ; who gains them there renown.
When back I look, and 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 cruel hand,
What can I do but yield ? and yield I do;
And serve them ail, and yet they spoil me too !

SONNET X.
[Hot reprnted |n Dtlia, Daniel' authorised collection, 159»4. ]
H. s.',' Enchanter, when to work his will
And secret wrong on some forespoken wight ;
Frames wax in form to represent aright
The poor unwitting wretch he means to kill :
And pricks the image, framed by magic's skill,
Whereby to vex the party day and night.
Like hath she done, whose show bewitched my sight
To beauty's charms, her lover's blood fo spill.
For first, like wax she framed me by her eyes ;
Whose "Nays ! " sharp-pointed set upon my breast
Martyr my lire; and plague me in this wise
With ling'ring pain to perish in unrest.
Nought could, save this, my sweetest fait suffice,
To try her art on him that loves her best.

94 SONNETS AFTER xSTRO.PItEI 3C [S. Danitl.t .,.

SONNET XI.
EsToRE TH$ v treasure to the golden ore !
Yield CYTHEREA'S son those arks of love !
Bequeath the heavens, the stars that I adore!
And to the Orient do thy pearls remove !
Yield thy hands' lride unto the ivory whitè I
To Arabian odour give thy breathing sweet !
Restore thy blush unto AURORA bright !
To THETI$ give the honour of thy feet l
Let VENUS have the graces she resigned !
And thy sweet voice yield to HERMONIUS' spheres !
But yet restore thy tierce and cruel mind
To Hyrcan tigers and to ruthless bears !
Yield to the marble thy hard heart again t
o shalt thou cease to plague, and I to pain.

SONNET XII.
[Not teprlnted in l)dla, Dani¢l's authorl*ed collection, t59-4.|
HE TABLET Of my heavy fortunes here
Upon thine altar, Paphian Power l I place.
The grievous shipwrack of my travels dear
In bulged bark, ail perished in disgrace.
That traitor LOVE ! was pilot to my woe ;
My sails were Hope, spread with my Sighs of Grief;
The twin lights which my hapless course did show
Hard by th'inconstant sands of false relief,
Were two bright stars which led my view apart.
A SIREN'S voice allured me corne so near
To perish on the marble of her heart :
A danger which my soul did never fear.
Lo, thus he rares that trusts a calm too much
And thus fare I whose credit hath been such.

S. Dauit.'lta»t.j SONNE'FS AFTER JSTROPttEL -C. 95

SONNET XIII.
Y CYu'rniA hath the waters of mine eyes,
The ready handmaids on her Grace attending,
That never fall to ebb, nor ever die ;
For to their flow she never grants an ending.
The Ocean never doth attend more duly
Upon his sovereign, the night wand'ring Queen;
Nor ever hath his impost paid more truly,
Than mine, to my soul's Queen bath ever been.
Yet her hard rock, firm fixt for aye removing,
No comfort to my cares she ever giveth :
Yet had I rather languish in her loving,
Than to embrace the fairest she that liveth.
I fear to find such pleasure in my reigning ;
As now I taste in compass of complaining.

SONNET XIV.
F , TRUC. heart and faith unfeigned ;
If a sweet languish with a chaste desire ;
If hunger-starven thoughts so long retained,
Fed but with smoke, and cherished but with tire ;
And if a brow with C^R.'s characters painted;
Bewray my love, with broken words hall spoken,
To her which sits in my thoughts' temple, sainted ;
And lay to view my vulture-gnawen heart open :
If I have wept the day and sighed the night,
While thrice the sun approached his northern bound ;
If such a faith hath ever wrought aright,
And well deserved, and yet no favour round.
Let this surface ; the whole wodd it may see,
The fault is hers, though mine the most hurt be.

96 SOUIETS AFTER MSrXOaL O'C.
I x$9x.

SONNET XV.

lscv. Tn- first look that led me to this error,
To this thoughts' maze to my confusion tending ;
Still bave I lived in grief, in hope, in terror ;
The circle of my sorrows never ending.
Yet cannot have her love, that holds me hateful ;
Her eyes exact it, though her heart disdains me.
See what reward he hath that serves th'ungrateful ?
So long and pure a faith no favour gains me.
Still must I whet my young desires abated,
Upon the flint of such a heart r.ebelling :
And all in vain ; her pride is so imated,
She yields no place at ail for PXTY'S dwelling.
Oft have I told her that my soul did love her,
And that with tears : yet all this will not move her.

SONNET XVI.
[Not repr;nted ;n Delin, Daniel's authori¢d collection, zSg,a.4. |
'EIGH BUT the cause! and give me leave to plain me,
For all my hurt, that my heart's Queen hath
wrought it ;
She whom I love so dent, the more to pain me,
Withholds my right, where I have dearly bought it.
Dearly I bought that was so highly rated,
Even with the price of blood and body's wasting;
She would hot yield that ought might be abated,
For all she saw my love was pure and lasting :
And yet now scorns performance of the passion ;
And with her presence JusTIcE overruleth.
She tells me fiat her beauty bears no action ;
And so my plea and process she excludeth.
What xvrong she doth, the world may well perceive it:
To accept my faith at fil'st» and then to leave it.

S. Dtoiel. SONNETS AFTER xISTROPHE z (C. 97

SONNET XVII.

HILST B¥ her eyes pursued, my poor heart flew it
Into the sacred bosom of my Dearest ;
She there, in that sweet sanctuary, slew it,
When it had hoped his safety to he nearest.
My faith of privilege could no whit protect it;
That was with blood, and three years' witness signed :
Whereby she had no cause once to suspect it,
For well she saw my love, and how I pined.
Yet no hope's letter would her brow reveal me,
No comfort's hue which falling spirits erecteth ;
What boots to laws of succour to appeal me ?
Ladies and tyrants never laws respecteth.
Then there I die, where I had hope to liven ;
And by her hand that better might have given.

SONNET XVIII.
OoK lU my griefs [ and blame me not to mourn,
From thought to thought that lead a life so had:
log'tu.'s orphan ! Her's and the world's scorn !
Whose clouded hrow doth make my days so bad.
Long are their nights, whose cares do never sleep ;
Loathsome their days, whom never sun yet joyed ;
pleasing grief impressèd hath so deep,
That thus I live hoth day and night annoyed.
Yet since the sweetest root doth yield thus much,
Her praise from my complaint I must not part :
love the effect, because the cause is such ;
praise her face, and hlame her flinty heart.
Whilst that we make the world admire at us ;
Her for disdain, and me for loving thus.

t. G 8

9 8 SONNETS AFFER .,/IsTxOttt'Z 7C- [S. Daniel.!,Sg,.

SONNET XIX.
kPP¥ IN sleep; waking, content to languish ;
Ebracing clouds by night ; in day time mourn;
All things I loathe save her and mine own anguish ;
Pleased in my heart moved to lire forlorn.
Nought do I crave but love, death or my lady.
Hoarse with crying, " Mercy ! " (Mercy yet my merit),
So many vows and prayers ever made I ;
That now at length to yield, mere pity were it.
Yet since the Hydra of my cares renewing,
Revives still sorrows of her fresh disdaining :
Still must I go the summer winds pursuing,
And nothing but her love and my heart's paining.
Weep hours ! grieve days ! sigh months ! and stili
mourn yearly !
Thus must I do because I love her dearly.

SONNET XX.
F Br^tJa'' bright be doubled with a frown,
l'hat P1-rY cannot shinë through to my bliss ;
And DISDAIN'S vapours are thus overgrown,
That my life's light to me quite darkened is.
Why trouble I the world then with my cries,
The air with sighs, the earth below with tears ?
Since I lire hateful to those ruthful eyes;
Vexing with my untuned moan, her dainty ears.
If I bave loved ber dearer than my breath,
(My breath that calls the heaven to witness it)
And still hold her most dear until my death;
And if that ail this cannot more one whit :
Yet let ber say that she hath done me wrong,
q-'o use me thus and know I loved so long.

$'D'nId"ISONNETS AFTER tsTROPHEL ¢C. 99

SONNET XXI.
OME DE^'rH ! the anchor hold of ail my thoughts,
My last resort whereto my soul appealeth
For all too long on earth my Fancy dotes,
hile dearest blood my fiery passions sealeth.
That heart is now the prospective of horror
That honoureà hath the cruel'st Fair that liveth;
The cruelest Fait that knows I languish for her,
And never mercy to my merit giveth ;
This is the laurel and her triumph's prize,
To treaà me àown with foot of her àisgrace ;
Whilst I àià builà my fortune in her eyes,
And laid my soul's test on so fait a face.
That test I lost ; my love, my life and ail:
Thus high attempts to low àisgrace ào fali.

SONNET XXII.
F THIS be love, to draw a weary breath,
To paint on floods till the shore cry to the air ;
}Vith prone aspect still treading on the earth.
Sad horror ! pale grief! prostrate despair !
If this be love, to war against my soul,
Rise up to wail, fie down to sigh, to grieve me,
With ceaseless toil CARE'S restless stones to roll,
Still to complain and moan, whilst none relieve me.
If this be love, to languish in such care
Loathing the light, the world, myself and all,
With interrupted sleeps, fresh griefs repair;
And breathe out horror in perplexed thraIl.
If this be love, to live a living death :
Lo thên love I, and draw this weary breath.

IOO SONNETS AFTER x''STROPttEL r..roEC. LS.D.nI.L

SONNET XXIII.
[Not reprinted in ¢Iia» Daniel's autoriscd collectlon x594-]
'Y V^Rs'draw on my everlasting night,
'And HORROR'S sable clouds dira my life's sun ;
That my life's sun, and Thou my worldly light
Shall fise no more to me. My days are done !
l'Il go before unto the myrtle shades,
To attend the presence of my world's dear:
And dress a bed of flowers that never fade,
And ail things fit against her coming there.
If any ask, "Why that so soon I came-? "
l'Il hide her fault, and say " It was my lot."
In lire and death l'Il tender her good naine ;
bly lire and death shall never be her blot.
Although the world this deed of hers may blame ;
The Elysian ghosts shall never know the saine.

SONNET XXIV.
H. ST^R of my mishap imposed my paining
To spend the April of my years in erying ;
That never round my fortune but in waining,
With still fresh cares my blood and body trying.
Yet her I blame not, though she might have blest me ;
But my DEsm.'s wings so high aspiring :
Now melted with the sun that bath possest me
Down do I fall from off my high desiring.
And in my rail do ery for mercy speedy,
No piteous eye looks baek upon my mourning ;
No help I find, when now most favour need I :
My ocean tears drown me, and quench my burning.
And this my death must ehristen ber anew,
Whiles faith doth bid my cruel Fair, " Adieu !"
Var. kct. cares.

$'Daaiel'-] SOIqNETS AFTER x4SIOr/- (C. IO1

SONNET XXV.

0 I-I.^R the impost of a faith not feigning,
That duty pays, and her disdain extorteth :
These bear the message of my woeful paining,
These olive branches mercy still exhorteth.
These tributary plaints with chaste desires,
I send those eyes, the cabinets of love ;
The paradise whereto my soul aspires,
From out this hell, which my afflictions prove:
Wherein, poor soul ! I lire exiled from mirth,
Pensive alone, none but despair about me.
My joys' liberties perished in their birth,
My cares long lived, and xvill not die without me.
What shall I do, but sigh and wail the while;
My martyrdom exceeds the highest style.

SONNET XXVI.

ONCE MA'/see, when years may wreck my wrong:
And golden hairs may change to silver wire;
And those bright rays (that kindle all this tire)
Shall rail in force, their power not so strong.
Her beauty, now the burden of my song,
Whose glorious blaze the world's eye doth admire ;
Must yield her praise to tyrant TIm's desire :
Then fades the flower, which fed her pride so long.
When if she grieve to gaze her in her glass,
Which then presents ber winter-withered hue :
Go you my verse ! go tell her what she was !
For what she was, she best may find in you.
Your fiery heat lets not her glory pass,
But Phoenix-like to make her live anew.

SONNET XXVII.
AIsIUG Mv hope on hills of high desire,
Thinking to scale the heaven of her heart ;
My slender mean presumes too high a part :
For DISDAIN'S thunderbolt ruade me retire,
And threw me down to pain in ail this tire.
Where 1o, I languish in so heavy smart
Because th'attempt was far above my art :
Her state brooks not poor souls should corne so nigh her.
Yet I protest my high aspiring will
Was hot to dispossess her of her right :
Her sovereignty should have remainèd still,
I only sought the bliss to have her sight.
Her sight contented thus to see me spill,
Framed my desires fit for her eyes to kill.

FINIS.

[SAMuE L] D^NIEL.

gont«nt.-1SONNETS AFTER xztsTRO2°ttI. ¢'C. IO3

Çanto prDno.

ARK ALL you ladies that do sleep l
The Fairy Queen PIOSEIPNA
Bids you awake ! and pity them that weep !
You may do in the dark
What the day doth forbid ;
Fear hot the dogs that bark,
Night will have ail hid.

But if you let your loyers moan ;
The Fait Queen PROSERPINA
Will send abroad ber fairies every one :
That shall pinch black and blue
Your white hands and fait arms ;
That did hOt kindly rue
Your paramours' harms.

In myrtle arbours on the downs,
The Fail'y Queen PIOSERPIN^
This night by moonshine, leading merry rounds,
Holds watch with sweet LovE,
Down the dale, up the hill.
No plaints nor griefs may more
Their holy vigil.

Ail you that will hold watch with LovE,
The Fairy Queen PROSERPINA
Will make you tairer than DANA'S dove.
Roses red, lilies white,
And the clear damask hue ;
Shall on your cheeks alight.
LOVE will adorn you.

IO 4 SONNETS AFTER ._çTROPI'IF- ("Co L ,»,.
Ail you that love ! or loved before !
The Fairy Queen PROSERPINA
Bids you increase that loving humour more !
They that have not yet fed
On delight amorous ;
She vows that they shall lead
Apes in Avernus.

Canto secundo.

H^T FAIR pomp have I spied of glittering Ladies ;
XVith locks sparkled abroad, and rosy coronet
On their ivory brows, trackt to the dainty thighs
With robes iike Amazons, blue as violet,
With gold aiglets adorned, some in a changeable
Pale; with spangs wavering taught to be movable.

Then those Knights that afar off with dolorous viewing,
Cast their eyes hitherxvard : lo, in an agony
All unbraced, cry aloud, their heavy state rueing:
Moist cheeks with blubbering, painted as ebony
Black ; their feitred hair torn with wrathful hand :
And whiles astonied, stark in a maze they stand.

But hark ! what merry sound ! what sudden harmony !
Look ! look near the grove ! where the Ladies do tread
With their Knights the measures weighed by the melody.
Wantons ! whose traversing make men enamoured ;
Now they fain an honour, now by the slender waist
He must her aloft, and seal a kiss in haste.

Straight down under a shadow for weariness they lie
With pleasant dalliance, hand knit vith arm in arm;
Now close, now set aloof, they gaze with an equal eye,
Changing kisses alike ; straight with a false alarm,
Mocking kisses alike, pout with a lovely lip.
Thus drowned with jollities, their merry days do slip.

But stay ! now I discern they go on a pilgrimage
Towards LovE's holy land, fair Paphos or Cyprus.
Such devotion is meet for a blithesome age;
With sweet youth, it agrees well to be amorous.
Let old angry fathers lurk in an hermitage :
Corne, we'll associate this jolly pilgrimage !

Canto tertio.

Y LOVE bound me with a kiss
That I should no longer stay :
When I felt so sweet a bliss,
I had less power to pass away.
Ala.s! that women do hot know,
Kisses make men loth to go.

Canto çua rto.

Ovl WHETS the dullest wits, his plagues be such :
But makes the wise by pleasing, dote as much.
So vit is purchased by this dire disease.
0 let me dote! so Love be bent to please,

-ContenL
o6 ONNETS AFTER xS'ROtItEI. 3C. L t,»

anto uinto.

DA'/', a night, an hour of sweet content
Is worth a xvorld consumed in fretful care.
Unequal gods! in your arbitrement !
To sort us days whose sorrows endless are !
And yet what were it ? as a fading flower ;
To swim in bliss a day, a night, an hour.

What plague is greater than the grief of mind ?
The grief of mind that eats in every vein,
In every vein that leads such clods behind,
Such clods behind as breed such bitter pain.
So bitter pain that none shall ever find,
What plague is greater than the grief of mind ?

Doth sorrow fret thy soul ? O direful spirit !
Doth pleasure feed thy heart ? O blessed man !
Hast thou been happy once ? O heavy plight 1
Are thy mishaps forepast ? O happy then !
Or hast thou bliss in eld ? O bliss too late !
But hast thou bliss in youth ? O sweet estate [

.FINIS.

CON"I'B H"I'.

EarlofOorà.-I SONNET$ AFXER A..ç2rROIIdEZ ¢'C. IO 7

Mezliora spero.

ACTION

THAT ever dwells in Court where
wit excels,
Hath set defiance.
FORTUNE and LOVE have sworn that they
were never born
Of une alliance.

CUPID which doth aspire tu be god of Desire,
Swears he "gives laws;
That where his arrows hit, some joy, some sorrow it :
FORTUNE no cause."

FORTUNE swears "weakest hearts," the books of CUPID'S arts,
"turned with her wheel,
Senseless themselves shall prove. Venture hath place in love.
Ask them that feell "

This discord it begot atheists, that honour hot.
NATURE thought good
FORTUNE should ever dwell in Court where wits excel ;
Love keep the wood.

Su tu the wood went I, with Love tu live and die.
FORTUNE'S forlorn.
Experience of my youth made me think humble TRUTH
In deserts born.

IO8 SONNETS AFTER .,4.-çTO2rl'lEL t7"C. FEarloOfol.

My saint I keep to me, and JoAlq herself is free,
JoAlq fair and true 1
She that doth only move passions of love with Lors.
FoaTuNE ! adieu !

FINIS.

E. O. [i.e. EDW^RD DE VERE» Earl of OXFORD.]

F FLOODS of tears could cleanse my follies past
And smokes of sighs might sacrifice for sin ;
If groaning cries might salve my fault at last ;
Or endless moan for error, pardon win :
Then would I cry, weep, sigh, and ever
moaI'l
Mine error, fault, sins, follies past and gone.

I see my hopes must wither in their bud,
I see my iavours are no lasting flowers,
I see that words will breathe no better good
Than loss of rime, and lightning but at hours.
Then when I see, then this I say therefore,
That favours, hopes and words can blind no more.

FINIS.

Sir PHILIV SIDNEY.

Sonnets and Poetical OEranslations.

[The following pieces were hot printed in tlae quartos of 159z. They ail appeared in the
s598 edition of S,dney°s works. "/'lac opening sonnet and seven others, laich are duly indicated
here were printecl foc the first rime in Constable's Diana, t594- Sec vol. il. pp. 89, 95-]

INCE shunning pain, I ease can never find;
Since bashful dread seeks where he knows
me harmed ;
Since will is won, and stoppèd ears are
charmed ;
Since force doth faint, and sight doth make
me blind ;
Since loosing long, the faster still I bind ;
Since naked sense can conquer reason armed ;
Since heart in chilling fear, with ice is warmed ;
In fine, since strife of thought but mars the mind :
I yield, 0 Lovnl unto thy loathèd yoke.
Yet craving law of arms, whose rule doth teach ;
That hardly used, whoever prison broke--
In justice quit--of honour makes no breach :
Whereas if I a grateful Guardian bave I
Thou art my lord ! and I, thy vowèd slave.

IIO SONNETS AND TRANSLATIONS. E sirP'sid"ey'!

[¥t pfinted n Consta|e's D[, xSç4. See vol. . p.
HEN LovE, puft up with rage of high disdatn,
Resolved to make me pattern of his might ;
Like foc, whose wits inclined to deadl' spire,
Would often kill, to breed more feeling pain ;
He would not, armed with beauty, only reign
On those affects, which easily yield to sight ;
But virtue sets so high, that reason's light»
For all his strife, can only bondage gain.
So that I live to pay a mortal fee.
Dead palsy sick of all my chiefest parts :
Like those, whom dreams make ugly monsters see,
And can cry, " Help ! " with nought but groans and starts.
Longing to have, having no wit to wish :
To starving minds, such is god CUPID's d.sh !

To the tune of Non credo gia che plu infelice amante.

HE FIRE to see my wrongs, for anger burneth ;
The Air in rain, for my affliction weepeth;
The Sea to ebb, for grief, his flowing turneth ;
The Earth with pity dull, the centre keepeth :
Faine is with wonder blazed ;
Time runs away for sorrow;
Peace standeth still, amazed,
To see my night of evils, which hath no morrow.
Alas, a lovely She no pity taketh,
To know my miseries ; but, chaste and cruel,
My fall her glory maketh :
Yet still her eyes give to my flames, their fuel.

Fire, burn me quite, till sense of burning leave me !
Air, let me draw no more thy breath in anguish !

Sltl'.ïd=.] SONNETS AND TRANSLATIONS. III

Sea, drowned in thee, of tedious lire bereave me !
Earth, take this earth, wherein my spirits languish |
Faine, say I was hot born l
Time, haste my dying hourl
Place, sec my grave uptorn !
Fire, air, sea, earth, lame, time, place showyour power
Alas, from ail their help, I am exiled:
For hers ara I, and death fears her displeasure.
Fie, death ! thou art beguiled !
Though I be hers, she makes of me no treasure.

To tire saine tune.
H. Nightingale--as soon as April bringeth
Unto her rested sense, a peffeet waking;
While late bare earth, proud of new elothing,
springeth--
Sings out ber woes, a thorn her song book making.
And mournfully bewailing,
Her throat in tunes expresseth
What grief her breast oppresseth
For TnEauus' force, on her chaste will prevailing.
0 PnLOUE.^ fair ! 0 take some glaclness !
That here is juster cause of plaint[ul sadness.
Thine earth now springs ! mine fadeth ;
Thy thorn without ! my thorn my heart invadeth.

Alas, she hath no other cause of anguish
But THEREUS' love ; on her, by strong hand wroken ;
Wherein she suffering, ail her spirits languish,
Full woman-like, complains her will was broken,
But I--who, daily craving,
Cannot bave to content me--
Have more cause to lament me ;
Since wanting is more woe than too much havlng.

II2 SONNETS AND TRANSLATIONS. [irPoSidny.

0 Pmt,oMEt,^ fair! 0 take some gladness !
That here is juster cause of plaintful sadness.
Thine earth now springs ! mine fadeth :
Thy thorn without ! my thorn my heart invadeth.

To tke lune of Basciami vita mia.
" LEEP, baby mine, DEsmsl" Nurse BEAUT¥
singeth.
"Thy cries, 0 baby! set mine head on aching." The babe cries "Wayl thy love doth keep me
waking."

" Lully, lully, my babe ! HoPE cradle bringeth ;
Unto my children always good rest taking."
The babe cries " Way ! thy love doth me keep waking."

" Since, baby mine ! from me, thy watching springeth,
Sleep then a little ! pap, CONTeNX is making :"
The babe cries " Nay I for that abide I waking."

To tke tune of the Sanish sont Se tu sefiora
no dueles de mi.

F.41R ! 0 sweet ! when I do look on tI,.ee,
In whom all joys so well agree ;
Heart and soul ào sing in me.
This you hear is hot my tongue,
Which once said what I conceived ;
For it was of use bereaved,
With a cruel answer stung.
No! though tongue to roof be eleaved,
Fearing lest he chastised be ;
Heart and soul do sing in me,

Slrl.ïd-t.] SONNETS AND TRANSLATIONS.

0 fait ! 0 sweet ! wh¢n I do look on
In whom all joys so wdl agr¢¢ ;
H¢arl and soul do sing in me.
Just accord ail music makes :
In thee just accord excelleth
Where each part in such peace dwelleth,
One of other, beauty takes.
Since then truth to ail minds telleth
That in thee, lives harmony :
Heart and soul do sing in me.

0 fait ! 0 sueet ! wMn I do look on fhee,
In whom all joys so wdl agree ;
Heart and seul do sing in me.
They that heaven bave known, do say
That whoso that grace obtaineth
To see what fait sight there reigneth,
Forcèd are to sing alway.
So then, since that heaven remaineth
In thy face, I plainly see:
Heart and soul do sing in me.

0 fait ! 0 sweet I when I do look on thee,
In whom all joys so well agree ;
Heart and soul do sing in me.
Sweet ! think hot I ara at ease,
For beeause my chier part singeth :
This song, from death's sorrow springeth ;
As fo swan in last disease.
For no dumbness, nor death bringeth
Stay totrue love's melody:
Heart and soul do sing in me.

l H S

II 4 SONNETS AND TRANSLATIONS. ['SiP.$idn«yoT

These four following Sonnels were ruade, when
his Lady had tain in ber face.
[Thee four sonnets were f]rst printed in Constable's Diana. 1594- Sec vol. p- -]
HE scourge of life, and death's extreme disgrace,
The smoke of hell, the monster callèd P^IN ;
Long shamed to be accurst in every place,
By them who of his rude resort complain ;
Like crafty wretch, by t'line and travail taught,
His ugly evil in others' good to hide ;
Late harbours in her face, whom Nature wrought
As Treasure House where her best gifts do bide.
And so, by privilege of sacred seat--
A seat where beauty shines, and virtue reignsw
He hopes for some small praise, since she hath great ;
Within her beams, wrapping his cruel stains.
Ah, saucy P^IN ! Let hOt thy error last.
More loving eyes she draws, more hate thou hast t

OE! woetome! On me, returnthesmartl
My burning tongue hath bred my mistress pain.
For oft, in pain, to PmN, my painful heart,
With her due praise, did of my state complain.
I praised her eyes, whom never chance doth more ;
Her breath, which makes a sour answer sweet ;
Her milken breasts, the nurse of childlike love ;
Her legs, 0 legs ! Her aye well stepping feet :
P^ heard her praise, and full of inward tire
(First sealing up my heart, as prey of his)
He flies to her ; and boldened with desire,
tIer face, this Age's praise, the thief doth kiss !
0 P^IN ! I now recant the praise I gave,
And swear she is hOt worthy thee to have.

u'P. ïdey.] SONNETS AND TRANSLATIONS. Il 5

Hou PAIN ! the only gucst of loathcd CONSTRAINT,
The child of CURSE, MAN'S WEAKNSS' fostcr-child,
Brothcr to Wo, and fathcr of COMPLAIN" :
Thou PAIN! thou hated PAIN ! from heaven exiled.
How hold'st thou ber, whosc eycs constraint doth fcar ?
Whom curst, do bless; whose weakncss, virtues arm ;
Who, othcr's woes and plaints can chastely bcar;
In whose sweet heaven, angels of high thoughts, swarm.
What courage strangc, bath caught thy caitiff hcart ?
Fear'st hot a face that oft whole hearts devours ?
Or art thou from above bid play this part,
And so no help 'gainst envy of those powers ?
If thus, alas, yet while those parts have woe,
Eo stay her tongue, that she no more say, " No !"

ND have I heard her say, " 0 cruel pain !"
And doth she know what mould her beauty bears ?
Mourns she, in truth ; and thinks that others feign ?
Fears she to feel, and feels hot other's fears ?
Or doth she think all pain the mind forbears ;
That heavy earth, hot fiery spirits may plain ?
That eyes weep worse than heart in bloody tears ?
That sense feels more that what doth sense contain ?
No ! no ! She is too wise ! She knows hcr fa,:e
Hath not such pain, as it makes others have.
She knows the sickness of that perfect place
Hath yet such health, as it my !ire can save.
But this she thinks, " Our pain, high cause excuseth :
Where her who should rule pain ; false pain abuseth."

II6 SONNET$ AND TRANSLATIONS. [sirl'.Sia.r

Translated from HoAcE, whieh begins Rectius vives.

Ou better sure shail live, hOt evermore
Trying high seas ; nor while seas rage, you flee,
Pressing too much upon iii harboured shore.

The golden mean who loves, lives safely free
From filth of foresworn house ; and quiet iives,
Released from Court, where envy needs must be.

The winds most oft the hugest pine tree grieves ;
The stately towers come down with greater fall ;
The highest hills, the boit of thunder cleaves.

Evil haps do fill with hope ; good haps appai
With fear of change, the courage well prepared :
Foui winters, as they corne; away, they shalll

Though present times and past with eviis be snared,
They shali hot iast : with cithem, silent Muse,
APOLLO wakes ; and bow, hath sometimes spared.

In hard estate ; with stout show, valour use !
The saine man stiil, in whom wise doom prevaiis,
In too full wind, draw in thy swelling sailsl

Out of C, rvzz us.

ULLI Se dicit roulier mea nubere malle,
Q.uam mihi non si se UPIrER i2bse etat,
Didt s«d rnuli«r CUPlDO quoe didt amanti,
In vento aut ra2bida scribem o2btet aqua.

se.st-.] SONN-T AND TRANSLATIONS.

" N'ro nobody," my woman saith, "she had rather a
wife be
Than to myself; not though Jov. grew a suitor
of hers."
These be her words, but a woman's words to a love that is
eager,
In wind or water's stream do require to be writ.
UI scettra scevus duro imterio regit,
Timet timentes, metus in authorem redit.

AIR ! seek not to be feared. Most lovely! beloved by
thy servants [
For true itis, "that they fear man}, ; whom many

IKI as the dove, which, sealed up, doth fly;
Is neither free, nor yet to service bound :
But hopes to gain some help by mounting high,
Till want of force do force her fall to ground.
Right so my mind, caught by his guiding eye,
And thence cast off, where his sweet hurt he found,
Hath never leave to live, nor doom to die ;
Nor held in evil, nor suffered to be sound.
But with his wings of fancies, up he goes
To high conceits, whose fruits are oft but small ;
Till wounded, blind and wearied spirit lose
Both force to fly, and knowledge where to fall.
0 happy dove, if she no bondage tried !
More happy I, might I in bondage 'bide!

I18 SONNETS AND TRANSLATIONS

Sonnet t.,v [Sir] E['DW',RD'].

RotETI-IEtS, when first from heaven high,
He brought down tire, ere then on earth not seen ;
Fond of delight, a Satyr, standing
Gave it a kiss, as it like sweet had been.
Feeling forthwith the other burning power,
Wood with the smart, with shouts and shrieking shrill,
He sought his ease in river, field, and bower ;
But, for the rime, his grief went with him still.
So, silly I, with that unwonted sight,
In human shape an Angel from above
Feeding mine eyes, the impression there did light
That since, I run and rest as pleaseth love.
The difference is, the Satyr's lips, my heart
He, for a while; I evermore bave smart.

[Answerin Sonnet 3y Sir P ri t L I P S I D N E Y. ]

i SATYR once did run away for dread,
With sound of horn, which he himself did bloxv :
Fearing and feared, thus from himself he fled ;
Deeming strange evil in that he did not know.
Such causeless fears, when coward minds do take ;
It makes them fly that which they fain would have :
As this poor beast who did his test forsake
Thinking not" Why !" but how himself to save.
Even thus might I, for doubts which I conceive
Of mine own words, my own good hap betray :
And thus might I, for fear of " May be," leave
The sweet pursuit of my desirèd prey.
Better like I thy Satyr, dearest DYER !
Who burnt his lips to kiss fait shining tire.

SiP. ïd.ey.] SONNETS AND TRANSLATIONS. II 9

Y MISTRESS lowers, and saith I do not love
I do protest, and seek with service due,
In humble mind, a constant faith to prove :
But for ail this, I eannot her remove
From deep vain thought that I may not be true.

If oaths might serve, even by the Stygian lake,
Which poets say, the gods themselves do fear,
I never did my vowèd word forsake.
For why should I ; whom free choice, slave doth make ?
Else what in face, than in my fancy bear.

My Muse therefore--for only thou canst tell--
Tell me the cause-of this my causeless woe ?
Tell how iii thought disgraced my doing well ?
Tell how my ]oys and hopes, thus foully fell
To so low ebb, that wonted were to flow ?

O this it is ! The knotted straw is found !
In tender hearts, small things engender hate.
A horse's worth laid waste the Trojan ground.
A three-ioot stool, in Greece, ruade trumpets sound.
An ass's shade, ere now, hath bred debate.

If Greeks themselves were moved with so small cause
To twist those broils, which hardly would untwine:
Should ladies fair be tied to such hard laws,
As in their moods to take a lingering pause ?
I would it hot. Their metal is too fine.

" My hand doth not bear witness with my heart."
She saith, " because I make no woful lays,
To paint my living death, and endless smart."
And so, for one that felt god CeID's dart,
She thinks I lead and live too merry days.

120 SONNET$ AND TRANSLATIONS. [SirP. î|dn,,

Are poets then, the only loyers true ?
,Vhose hearts are set on measuring a verse ;
"Vho think themselves well blest, if they renew
Some good old dump, that CHAUCER'S mistress knew ;
And use you but for matters to rehearse.

Then, good APOLLO | do away thy bow !
Take harpl and sing in t'his our versing time!
And in my brain some sacred humour flow,
That ail the earth my woes, sighs, tears may know.
And see you not, that I fall now to rhyme !

As for my mirth--how could I but be glad
Whilst that, me thought, I justly made my boast
That only I, the only mistress had.
But now, if e'er my face with joy be clad ;
Think HANNIBAL did laugh, when Carthage lostl

Sweet Lady ! As for those xvhose sullen cheer,
Compared to me, made me in lightness round ;
Who Stoic-like in cloudy hue appear ;
Who silence force, to make their words more dear;
Whose eyes seem chaste, because they look on ground :
Believe them not l For physic true doth find
Choler adust is joyed in womankind.

[First prlmed in Constable's Din.% '594 Sec vol. il. p. 9.]

N WONTED walks, since wonted fancies change,
Some cause there is, which of strange cause doth
fise ;
For in each thing whereto my eye doth range,
Part of my pain, me seems, engravèd lies.
The rocks, which were of constant mind the mark,
In climbing steep, now hard refusal show;

!' îie.] SONNETS AND TRANSLATIONS. I21
And shading woods seem now my sun to dark ;
And stately hills disdain to look so low.
The restful caves, now restless visions give ;
In dales, I see each way a hard ascent ;
Like late mown meads, late cut from joy I live ;
Alas, sweet brooks do in my tears augment.
Rocks, woods, hills, caves, dales, meads, brooks answer
me :
Infected minds infect each thing they see.

F I COULD think how these my thoughts to leave ;
Or thinking still my thoughts might have good end :
If rebcl sense would reason's law rcceive ;
Or reason foiled would hot in vain contend :
Then might I think what thoughts were best to think ;
Then might I wisely swim, or gladly sink.

If either you would change your cruel heart ;
Or cruel still, time did your beauty stain ;
If from my soul, this love would once depart ;
Or for my love, some love I might obtain :
Then might I hope a change or ease of mind ;
By your good help, or in myself to find.

But since my thoughts in thinking still are spent,
With reason's strife, by sense's overthrow ;
You fairer still, and still more cruel bent ;
I loving still a love, that loveth none :
I yield and strive ; I kiss and curse the pain,
Thought, reason, sense, rime, you and I maintain.

IOEOE ONNE'rS AND "I'RANSLAT|ON$.

Farewell.
OEirst prinled n _,onstab|c's Diane, 594- Sec vol . p. 95.|
FT HAV ! mused, but now at lenKth I find
Why those that die, men say, " they de depatt."
" Depart !" A word se gentle, te my mind»
Weakly did seem te paint death's ugly dart.
But new the stars, with their strange course de bind
Me one te leave, with whom I leave my heart :
I hear a cry of spirits, faint and blind,
That parting thus, my chiefest part, I part.
Part of my life, the loathed part te me,
Lires te impart my weary clay seine breath :
But that good part, wherein ail comforts be,
lqow dead, doth show departure is a death.
Yea, v¢orse than death ! Death parts both v;o¢ and joy.
Frein joy I part, still living in annoy.

!--"--']I,NG those beams, which I must ever love,
,il gl Te mat my mind ; and with my hurt, te please :
I deemed it best seine absence for te prove»
If further place might further me t0 ease.
My eyes thence drawn, where lived ail their light»
Blinded, forthwith in dark despair did lie :
Like te the mole, with want of guiding sight,
Deep plunged in earth, deprivèd of the sky.
In absence blind, and wearied with that woe
Te greater woes, by presence, 1 return :
Even as the fly, which te the flame doth go;
Pleased with the light, that his small corse doth burn,
Fair choice I have, either te lire or die ;
A blindèd mole» or else a burnèd fly I

Si*"lSid'r'] SObrNES AND TRAISLATIObrS. 12 3

T/te Seven IVonders of England.
E^R Wilton sweet, huge heaps of stones are round,
But so confused, that neither any eye
Can count them just ; nor reason, reason try,
What force brought them to so unlikely ground .*

To stranger weights, my mind's waste soil is bound.
Of Passion, hills; reaching to reason's sky ;
From Fancy's earth, passing all numbers bound.
Passing all guess, whence into me should fly
So mazed a mass ? or if in me it grows ?
A simple soul should breed so mixèd woes.

The ]3ruertons have a lake, which when the sun
Approaching, warms--not else ; dead logs up senda
From hideous depth : which tribute, when its ends;
Sore sign it is, the lord's last thread is spun.

My lake is Sense, whose still streams never run,
But when my sun her shining twins there bends ;
Then from his depth with forc, in her begun,
Long drowned Hopes to watery eyes it lends :
But when that fails, m.,« dead hopes up to take ;
Their master is fair warne.d, his will to make.

We have a fish, by strangera :uch admire(,.
Which caught, to cruel search yields his chi,-t part
(With gall cut out) closed up again by art,
Yet lives until his lire be new required.

A stranger fish ! myself, not yet expired,
Though rapt with Beauty's hook, I did impart
/lyself unto th'anatomy desired :
Instead of gall, leaving to her, my heart.
Yet lived with Thoughts closed up ; till that she will
By conquest's right, instead of searching, kill.

'4 SONNETS AND TRANSLATIONS. [SirP. Sîdn,.,

Peak hath a cave, whose narrow entries find
Large rooms within : where drops distil amain,
Till knit with cold, though there unknown remain,
Deck that poor place with alabaster lined.

Mine Eyes the strait, the roomy cave, my Mind ;
Whose cloudy Thoughts let rail an inward rain
Of Sorrow's drops, till colder Reason bind
Their running fall into a constant rein
Of Truth, far more than alabaster pure !
Which, though despised, yet still doth Truth endure.

A field there is ; where, if a stake be prest
Deep in the earh, what bath in earth receipt
Is changed to stone ; in hardness, cold, and weight :
The xvood above, doth soon consuming test.

The earth, ber Ears ; the stake is my Request .-
Of which how much may pierce to that sweet seat
To Honour turned, doth dwell in Honour's nest;
Keeping that form, though void of wonted heat:
But all the test, which Fear durst hot apply ;
Failing themselves, with withered conscience, die.

Of ships, by shipwreck cast on Albion's coast,
"Vhich rotting on the rocks, their death do die ;
From wooden bones and blood of pitch doth fly
A bird, which gets more lire than ship had lost.

lIy ship, Desire ; with wind of Lust long tost,
Brake on fair cliffs of Constant Chastity :
Where plagued for rash attempt, gives up his ghost ;
So deep in seas of Virtue's beauties lie.
But of this death, flies up a purest Love,
Which seeming less, yet nobler lire doth move.

These wonders, England breeds. The last remains.
A lady, in despite of nature, chaste ;
On whom ail love, in whom no love is placed ;
Where fairness yields to wisdom's shortest reins.

An humble pride, a scorn that favour stains ;
A woman's mould, but like an angel graced ;
An angel's mind, but in a woman cast ;
A heaven on earth, or earth that heaven contains.
Now thus this wonder to myself I frame ;
She is the cause, that ail the rest I ara.

7"o tke tune of Wilhemus van Nassau, &c.

Ho hath his fancy pleased,
With fruits of happy sight ;
Let here his eyes be raised,
On Nature's sweetest light.
A light, which doth dissever
And yet unite the eyes ;
A light, which dying nerf.r,
Is cause the looker dies.

She never dies, but lasteth
In lire of lover's heaxt :
He ever dies that wasteth
In love his chiefest part.
Thus is her lire still guarded
In never dying faith,
Thus is his death rewarded,
Since she lires in his death.

AND TRANSLATI01$. [s.do«.

Look then and die! The pleasure
Doth answer well the pain.
Small loss of mortal treasure,
Who may immortal gain.
lmmortal be her graces,
Immortal is her mind :
They fit for heavenly places,
This heaven in it doth bind.

But eyes these beauties see hot,
Nor sense that grace descriea :
Yet eyes; deprivèd be not,
From sight of her fair eyes.
Which as of inward glory
They are the outward seal ;
So may they live still sorry,
Which die not in that weal.

But who hath fancies pleased
With fruits of happy sight ;
Let here his eyes be raised
On Iature's sweetest light I

T,e s»to/es o./" Mdando6,.
[0 HATH ever felt the change of love,
And known those pangs that the Ioosers proveç
May paint my face, without seeing me;
And write the state how my fancies
The Ioathsome buds grovn on Sorrow's Tree.
lut who, by hearsay speaks, and bath hot fully felt
What kind of rires they be in which those spirits melt,
Shall
Feeling my pulse ; miss my disease.

Sbl' s"ey'] SONNETS AND TRANSLATIONS.

O no ! O no [ trial only shows
The bitter juice of forsaken woes ;
Where former bliss, present evils do stain
Nay, former bliss adds to present pain;
While remembrance doth both states contain.

Corne learners then to me [ the model of mishap !
Engulfèd in despair ! slid down from fortune's lapl
And as you like my double lot,
Tread in my steps, or follow not I

For me, alas, I am full r«solved
These bands, alas, shall not be dissolved ;
Hot break my word, though reward come late ;
Nor rail my faith in my failing rate ;
Nor change in change, though change change my state.

But always one myself, with eagle-eyed truth to fly
Up to tbe sun ; although the sun my wings do fry:
For if those flames burn my desire,
Yet shall I die in Phoenix's tire.

HzN, fo my deadly pleasure ;
When, to my lively torment,
Lady! mine eyes remained
]oined, alas, fo your beams.

With violence of hav'nly
Beauty tied to virtue,
Reason abash'd retired ;
Gladly my senses yielded.

I28 SONNETS AND TRANSLATIONSo [$irp.$1do¢.t

Gladly my senses yielding,
Thus to betray my heart's fort ;
Left me devoid of ail lire.

They to the beamy suns went ;
Where by the death of ail deaths-.
Find to what harm they hastened.

Like to the silly Sylvan ;
Burned by the light he best liked,
When with a tire he first met.

Yet, yet, a lire to their death,
Lady ! you have reservèd !
Lady, the lire of ail love l

For though my sense be from me
And I be dead, who want sense ;
Yet do we both live in you l

Turned anew, by your means,
Unto the flower that aye turns,
As you, Mas, my sun bends.

Thus do I fall to rise thus,
Thus do I die to live thus,
Changed to a change, I change hot.

Thus may I hot be from youl
Thus be my senses on you !
Thus what I think is of you I
Thus what I seek is in you 1
All what I ara, it is you !

s,,,.sid..] Sorr.'rs ArD TR.rSt, ATXOrS. X2 9

To the tune of a Neaolitan Song,
beginneth No, no, no, no.
0, NO, no, no, I cannot hate my
A lthough with cruelfire,
First throton on my desire,
She sacks my rendered sprite.
For so fait a flame embraces
AI1 the places
Where that heat of all heats springeth»
That it bringeth
To my dying heart some pleasure :
Since his treasure
Bu»qeth bright in fairest light. No, no, no, no.

No, no, no, no, I cannot hate my foc,
A lthough with cruel tire,
First blown on my desire,
She sacks my rendereà sDrite.
Since out lires be hot immortal,
But to mortal
Fetters tied, do wait the hour
Of death's power,
They have no cause to be sorry
Who with glory
End the way, where ail men stay.

No» ro 130,

No, no, no, no, af cannot hate my foc,
A lthough with cruel tire,
First throton on my desire,
She sacks my rendered sprite.
No man doubts; whom beauty killeth,
Fait death feeleth ;
And in whom fait death proceedeth,
Glory breedeth.
I

I30

SONNETS AND TRANSLATIONS. [SirP. îdn,y

So that I, in her beams dying,
Glory trying ;
Though in pain, cannot complain. No, no, no, no.
7"o lke lune of a Areaibolian Villanelle.
LL my sense thy sweetness gained;
Thy fair hair my heart enchained;
My poor reason thy words moved,
So that thee, like heaven, I loved.

Fa la la leridan, dan dan dan deridan ;
Dan dan dan deridan deridan dei.
While to my mind, the outside stood
For messengers of inward good.

Now thy sweetness souris deemed,
Thy hair, not worth a hair esteemed,
Reason hath thy words removed,
Finding that but words they proved.

Fa la la leridan, dan dan dan deridan ;
Dan dan dan deridan deridan dei.
For no fair sign can credit win,
If that the substance fail within.

No more in thy sweetness, glory !
For thy knitting hair, be sorry !
Use thy words, but to bewail thee !
That no more thy beams avail thee.
Dan, dan, [i.¢., Fa la la leridan, &c.]
Dan, dan.
Lay hot ttay colours more to view !
Without the picture be round true.

su,.s««. SONNETS ÆND TANSLATIONS. 3

Woe to me I alas, she weepeth !
Fool in me [ What folly creepeth |
Was I to blaspheme enraged,
Where my soul I bave engaged ?
Dan, dan,
Dan, dan.
And wretched I I must yield to this ;
The fault I blame, her chasteness

Sweetness [ sweetly pardon folly !
Tie me, hair ! your captive wholly !
Words ! 0 words of heavenly knowledge !
Know my words, their faults acknowledge.
Dan, dan,
Dan, dan.
And all my life, I will confess
The less I love, I lire the less.

Translated out of Diana of J]IONTEMII YO I Spanish,
where SIRENO, a sheiMzerd, pulling out a little of his
mistress DInNa'S Aair, wrapt aout witk green silk ; wAo
had now utterly forsaken him : fo the hair, ke ghus
hewailed himself

H^'r changes here, 0 hairl
I see ? since I saw you.
How ill fits you, this green to wear,
For hope the colour due.
Indeeà l well did hope,
Though hope were mixed with fear,
No other shepherd should have scope
Once to approach this hair.

5ONNETS AND TRANSLATIONS.

Ah, hair! how many days
My DnNA made me sho%v,
With thousand pretty childish plays,
If I wore you or no ?
Alas, how oft with tears,
0 tears of guileful breast !
She seemèd full of jealous fears;
Whereat I did but jest.

Sir P. Sidne.

Tell me, 0 hair of gold l
If I then faulty be,
That trust those killing eyes, I would,
Since they did warrant me.
Have you hot seen her mood ?
What streams of tears she spent !
Till that I swear my faith so stood,
As her words had it bent.

Who hath such beauty seen
In one that changeth so ?
Or where one's love so constant been,
Who ever saw such woe ?
Ah hair! are you hot grieved ?
To corne from whence you be :
Seeing how once you saw I lived ;
To see me, as you see ?
On sandy bank, of late,
I saw this woman sit,
Where " Sooner die, than change my state."
She, with ber finger, writ.
"Ihus my belief was stayed.
"Behold love's mighty hand
On things," were by a woman said,
And wtitten in the sand.

$1, P. ïdu.] SONNETS AND TRANSLATIONS. 133

Tke same SrRvo in lff OVTïrA VOR holding his
mistress's glass kefore /ter; looking uon ]ter, while site
viewed herself ; thus sang:
F "ri-iis high graee, with bliss eonjoined,
No further debt on me is laid;
Sinee that in selfsame metal eoined
Sweet lady! you remain well paid.
For if my place give me great pleasure,
Having before me Nature's treasure ;
In face and eyes unmatehed being :
You have the saine in my hands, seeing
What in your face, mine eyes do measure.

lqor think the match unev'nly made,
That of those beams in you do tarry I
The glass to you, but gives a shade ;
To me, mine eyes the true shape carry.
For such a thought most highly prized,
Which ever hath love°s yoke despised,
Better than one captived perceiveth.
Though he the lively form receiveth ;
The other sees it but disguised.

ING out your bells ! let mourning shows be spread,
For Love is dead.
AIl love is dead, infected
With the plague of deep disdain ;
Worth as nought worth rejected,
And faith, fair scorn doth gain.
From so ungrateful fancy,
Fron sueh a female frenzy,
Fro», them that use men thus,
Good Lord deliver us I

134 SONNET$ AND TRANSLATIONS.

Weep ! neighbours, weep ! Do you not hear it said
That Love is dead.
His deathbed, peacock's Folly ;
His winding sheet is Shame ;
His will, False Seeming wholly ;
His sole executor, BLAME.
From so ungrateful fancy,
From such a female frenzy,
From them that use men thus,
Good Lord deliver us !

Let dirige be sung, and trentals rightly read.
For Love. is dead.
Sir V¢RONç his tomb ordaineth,
My mistress' marble heart ;
V¢hich epitaph containeth
" Her eyes were once his dart."
From so ungrateful fancy,
From such a female frenzy,
From them that use men thus,
Good Lord deliver us !

Alas, I lie. Rage hath this error bred.
Love is not dead.
Lovr is not dead, but sleepeth
In her unmatchèd mind :
Where she his counsel keepeth,
Till due deserts she find.
Therefore from so vile fancy,
To catl su.ch wit a frenzy :
Who love can temlber thus t
Good Lord deliver us !

SiP.S.,,.] SONNETS AND TRANSLATIONS. I35
Hou biind man's mark! thou fool's self-chosen snare
Fond fancy's scum ! and dregs of scattered thought I
Band of all evils cradle of causeless care I
Thou web of will I whose end is never wrought.
DESlRE I DESlRE I bave too dearly bought,
Vith price of mangled mind, thy worthless ware I
Too long ! too long asleep thou hast me brought I
Vho should my mind fo higher things prepare ;
But yet in vain, thou hast my ruin sought !
In vain, thou mad'st me fo vain things aspire !
In vain, thou kindlest ail thy smoky tire 1
For v:.rtue hath this better lesson taught.
Within myself, to seek my only hire :
Desiring nought, but how to kill DESIRE.

E^vE me, 0 love! which reachest but to dust
And thou, my mind I aspire to higher thingsl
Grow rich in that, which never taketh rust
Whatever fades, but fading pleasure brings.
Draw in thy beams, and humble all thy might
To that sweet yoke, where lasting freedoms bel
Which breaks the clouds, and opens forth the light
That doth both shine, and give us sight to see.
0 take fast hold ! Let that light be thy guide
In this small course which birth draws out to death
And think how evil becometh him to slide,
Who seeketh heaven, and cornes of heavenly breath
Then farewell, world ! Thy uttermost I see
Eternal Love, maintain Thy love in me!

Sflendidis losgum valeàico nugs.

THE

TEARS

Fancle.

Loue

Disdained.

JEtna gramus Amor.

Printed at London for William Barley, dwelling
in Gratious streete ouer against Leaden
Hall. I593.

Ov. Idle lines vnpolisht rude and base,
Vnworthy words to blason beauties glory :
(Beauty that hath my restless hart in chase,
Beauty the subiect of my ruefull story.)
I warne thee shunne the bower of ber abiding,
Be hot so bold ne hardy as to view her:
Least shee inraged with thee rail a chiding,
And so her anger proue thy woes renewer.
Yet if shee daigne to rew thy dreadfull smart,
And reading laugh, and laughing so mislike thee :
Bid her desist, and looke within my hart,
Where shee may sec how ruthles shee did strike mec
If shee be pleasde though shee reward thee hot,
What others sa}, of me regard it hot.

SONNET I.

N PRIME of youthly yeares as then hOt wounded,
With Loues impoisoned dart or bitter gall :
Nor minde nor thought son fickle Fancie grounded
But carelesse hunting after pleasures ball.
I tooke delight to laugh at Louers follie,
Accounting beautie but a fading blossome:
What I esteemed prophane, they deemed holie,
Ioying the thraldome which I counted loathsome.
Their plaints were such as no thing might relieue them,
Their harts did wellnie breake loues paine induring:
Yet still I smild to see how loue did grieue them,
Vnwise they were their sorrowes selfe procuring.
Thus whilst they honoured Cuid for a God,
I held him as a boy not past the rocL

SONNET II.

ONG time I fought, and fiercely waged warre,
Against the God of amarous Desire :
Who sets the senses mongst themselues at Jarre,
The hart inflaming with his lustfull tire.
The winged boy vpon his mothers knee,
Wantonlie playing neere to Papho$ shrine :
Scorning that I should checke his Deitie,
VVhose dreaded power tam'd the gods diuine.
From forth his quiuer drew the keenest dart,
VVherewith high Ioue he oftentimes had wounded :
And fiercely aimd it at my stubborne hart,
But backe againe the idle shaft rebounded.
Loue saw and frownd, that he was so beguiled,
I laught outright, and Venus sweetly smiled.

4o THe ïEARS OF FANCIE. [ç.W.Uon.
$93-

SONNET III.

[tEE smild to sec her sonne in such a rage,
I laught to thinke how I had Loue preuented :
He frownd and vowd nought should his ire asswage,
Till I had stoopt to Loue, and loue repented.
The more he rag'd the greater grew out laughter,
The more we laught the fiercer was his ire :
And in his anger sware my poore harts slaughter,
VVhich in my breast beautie should set on tire.
Faire Venus seeing her deere sonne in chollar,
Fearing mishap by his too hasty anger:
Perswaded him that shee would worke my dollor,
And by ber meanes procure my endles langor.
So Loue and loues Queene (Loue hauing consented,)
Agreed that I by Loue should be tormented.

SONNET IV.

11o taking in her lap the God of loue,
Shee lightly mounted through the Christall aire:
And in her Coach ydrawne with siluer Doues,
To Vulcans smokie Forge shee did repaire.
VVhere hauing wonne the Ciclops to her will,
Loues quiuer fraught with arrowes of the best :
His bended bow in hand all armed to kill,
He vowd reuenge and threatned my vnrest.
And to be sure that he would deadly strike me,
His blindfold eies he did a while vncouer :
Choosing an arrow that should much mislike me,
He bad wound him that scornes to be a Louer.
But when he saw his bootles arrow shiuer,
He brake his bow, and cast away his quiuer.

'.w.,,.] THE TEARS OF FANClE. I41

SONNET V.

OPELES and helpeles too, poore loue amated,
To sec himselfe affronted with disdaine :
And all his skill and power spent in vaine,
At me the onely obiect that he hated.
Now Çytherea from Olimpus mount,
Descending from the sphere with her deere sonne:
VVith Douelike wings to Alcidalyon,
Loue on her knee, shee by the Christall fount ;
Aduisde the boy what scandall it would bee,
If Faine should to the open world discouer
How I suruiu'd and scornd Loues sacred power.
Then Cuoid lightly leaping from ber knee,
Vnto his mother vowd my discontenting :
Vnhappie vowe the ground of my lamenting.

SONNET VI.

HEN on the sodainc fast away he fled,
He fled apace as from purguing foc:
Ne euer lookt he backe, ne turnd his head
Vntill he came whereas he wrought my woe.
Tho casting from his backe his bended bow.
He quickly clad himselfe in strange disguise :
In strange disguise that no man might him know,
So coucht himselfe within my Ladies eies.
But in her eies such glorious beames did shine,
That welnigh burnt loues party coloured wings,
VVhilst I stood gazing on her sunne-bright eien,
The wanton boy shee in my bosome flings.
He built his pleasant bower in my brest,
So I in loue, and loue in me doth test.

142 Tn. T-^s OF F.IqCIF_..

SONNET Vil.

Ow Loue triumphed hauing got the da),,
Proudly insulting, tyrannizing still :
As Hawke that ceazeth on the yeelding pray,
So ara I ruade the scorne of Victors will.
Now eies with teares, now hart with sorrow fraught,
Hart sorrowes at my watry teares lamenting :
Eyes shed sait teares to see harts pining thought,
And both that then loue scornd are now repenting.
But ail in vaine too late I pleade repentance,
For teares in eies and sighs in hart must weeld me:
The feathered boy hath doomd my fatall sentence,
That I to tyrannizing Loue must yeeld me.
And bow my necke erst subiect to no yoke,
To Loues false lute (such force hath beauties stroke).

SONNET VIII.

t WHAT a lire is it that Louers ioy,
VVherein both paine and pleasure shrouded
Both heauenly pleasures and eke hells annoy,
Hells fowle annoyance and eke heauenly blisse.
VVherein vaine hope doth feede the Louers hart,
And brittle ioy sustaine a pining thought :
VVhen blacke dispaire renewes a Louers smart,
And quite extirps what first content had wrought.
VVhere faire resemblance eke the mind allureth
To wanton lewd lust giuing pleasure scope:
And late repentance endles paines procureth,
But none of these afflict me saue vaine hope.
And sad dispaire, dispaire and hope perplexing
Vaine hope my hart, dispaire my fancie vexing.

a'W"*n"l TrI: Tv.^RS Or F^NCV.. 43
$9-.J

SONNET XVII.

HEN from her fled my hart in sorrow wrapped.
Like vnto one that shund pursuing slaughter :
Ail welnigh breathles told me what had happed,
How both in Court and countrie he had fought her.
The drerie teares of many loue repenting,
Corriuais in my loue whom rancie stroked ;
Partners in loue and partners in lamenting,
My fellow thralls whose necks as mine were yoked.
The shepheards praises and their harts amis,
Vrged by my Mistres ouerweening pride ;
For none that sees her but captiued is,
And last he told which to my hart did glide ;
How ail the teares I spent were vaine and forceles,
For shee in hart had vowd to be remorceles.

SONNET XVIII.

Ho with a shovre of teares I entertained,
My wounded hart into my breast accloied :
VVith thousand sundrie cares and griefes vn-
fained,
Vnfained griefes and cares my hart annoied.
Annoying sorrowes at my harts returning,
Assaild my thoughts with neuer ceasing horror :
That euen my hart, hart like to ./Etna burning,
Did often rimes conspire for to abhorre her.
But enuious loue still bent to eke my morning,
A grieuous pennance for my fault inflicted :
That eies should weepe and hart be euer groaning ;
So loue to worke my sorrowes was addicted.
But earths sole wonder whose eies my sense appalled,
The fault was loues, then pardon me, for loue is franticke
called.

44 THE TEARS OF FANCII. [.w.t.,s»

SONNET XIX.

'k" HART impos'd this penance on mine eies,
(Eies the first causers of my harts lamenting):
That they should weepe fil[ loue and fancie dies,
Fond loue the last cause of my harts repenting.
Mine eies vpon my hart inflict this paine,
(Bold hart that dard to harbour thoughts of loue)
That it should loue and purchase fell disdaine,
A grieuous penance which my hart doth proue.
Mine eies did weepe as hart had them imposed,
My hart did pine as eies had it constrained :
Eies in their teares m¥ paled face disclosed,
Hart in his sighs did show it was disdained.
So th'one did weepe th'other sighed, both gricued,
For both must liue and loue, both vnrelieued.

SONNET XX.

'1 r HART accus'd mine eies and was offended,
Vowing the cause was in mine eies aspiring :
Mine eies affirmd my hart might well amend it,
If he at first had banisht loues desiring.
Hart said that loue did enter at the eies,
And from the eies descended to the hart:
Eies said that in the hart did sparkes arise,
Which kind[ed flame that wrought the inward smart,
Hart said eies tears might soone haue quencht that ff[ame,]
Eies said harts sighs at first might loue exile:
So hart the eies and eies the hart did blame,
VVhilst both did pine for both the paine did feele.
Hart sighed and bled, eies wept and gaz'd too much,
Yet must I gaze because I see none such.

Tw't°""l TIIE TEARS OF IANCIE. I45

SONNET XXI.

ORTUNE forwearied with my bitter mone,
Did pittie seldome seene my wretched fate:
And brought to passe that I my loue alone
Vnwares attacht to plead my hard estate.
Some sa), that loue makes louers eloquent,
And with diuinest wit doth them inspire :
But beautie my tongues office did preuent,
And quite extinguished my first desire.
As if her eies had power to strike me dead,
So was I dased at her crimson die:
As one that had beheld Medusaes head,
AI1 senses failed their Master but the eie.
Had that sense failed and from me eke beene taken,
Then I had loue and loue had me forsaken.

SONNET XXII.

SAW the obiect of m), pining thought,
VVithin a garden of sweete natures placing :
VVhere in an arbour artificiall wrought,
Bî workemans wondrous skill the garden gracing.

Did boast his glorie, glorie farre renowned,
For in his shadie boughs my Mistres slept :
And with a garland of his branches crowned,
Her daintie forehead from the sunne ykept.
Imperious loue vpon her eielids tending,
Playing his wanton sports at euery becke,
And into euerie finest limbe descending,
From eies to lips from lips to yuorie necke.
And euerie limbe supplide and t'euerie part,
Had free accesse but durst hot touch her hart.
I. ,K

46 TE TEARS OF FANCIE. [r.w«,o.,s»

SONNET XXlII.

$rE me that loue wants power to pierce the hart,
Of my harts obiect beauties rarest wonder :
VVhat is become of that hart-thrilling dart,
VVhose power brought the heauenly powers
vnder.
Ah gentle loue if empty be thy quiuer,
Vnmaske thy selle and looke within my brest :
VVhere thou shalt find the dart that ruade me shiuer,
But can I liue and see my loue distrest.
Ah no that shaft was cause of sorrow endles,
And paine perpetuall should my Lady proue:
If hart were pierst, the deare loue be hot friendles,
Although I neuer found a friend of loue,
I f hot without her hart, her loue be gained,
Let me liue still forlorne and die disdained.

SONNET XXlV.

TILL let me liue forlorne and die disdained,
My hart consenting to continuall languish :
If loue (my harts sore) may hot be obtained,
But with the danger of my Ladies anguish.
Let me oppose m¥ selle gainst sorrowes force,
And arme my hart to beare woes heauy load :
Vnpittied let me die without remorce,
Rather than monster faine shall blase abroad ;
That I was causer of her woes induring,
Or brought faire beauty to so fowle a domage:
If lire or death might be her ioyes procuring,
Both lire, loue, death, and ail should doe her homage.
But shee liues sale in freedomes liberty,
I liue and die in loues extremitie.

rw"l THé- TEARS OF FANC-. 47

SONNET XXV.

..HE priuate place which I did choose to waile,
And deere lainent my loues pride was a groue ;
Plac'd twixt two hills within a lowlie dale,
Which now by faine was cald the raie of loue.
The raie of loue for there I spent my plainings,
Plaints that bewraid my sicke harts bitter wounding:
Loue sicke harts deepe wounds with dispaire me paining,
The bordering hills my sorrowing plaints resounding.
Each tree did beare the figure of ber naine,
VVhich my faint hand vppon their backs ingraued :
And euery tree did seeme her sore to blame,
Calling her proud that mee of ioyes depraued.
But vaine for shee had vowed to forsake mee,
And I to endles anguish must betake mee.

SONNET XXVI.

'T PLEASD my istris once to take the aire,
Amid the raie bf loue for her disporting.
The birds perceauing one so heauenly faire,
With other Ladies to the groue resorting.
Gan dolefully report my sorrowes endles,
But shee nill listen to my woes repeating:
But did protest that I should sorrow friendle
So liue I now and looke for ioyes defeating.
But ioyfull birds melodious harmonie,
Whose siluer tuned songs might well haue moued ber:
lnforst the rest to rewe my miserie,
Though shee denyd to pittie him that lou'd ber.
For shee had vowd ber faire should neuer please me,
Yet nothing but her loue can once appease me.

I48 THE TEARS OF FANCIE. [T.W.
x591.

SONNET XXVII.

HE banke whereon I leand my rest]es head,
Placd at the bottome of a mirtle tree:
I oft had watered with the teares | shed,
Sad teares did with the fallen earth agree.
Since when the flocks that grase vpon the plaine,
Doe in their kind lainent my woes though dumbe :
And euery one as faithfull doth refraine
To eate that grasse which sacred is become.
And euerie tree forbeareth to !et fall,
Their dewie drops mongst any brinish teares:
Onelie the mirth I whose hart as mine is thrall,
To melt in sorrowes sourse no whit forbeare.
So franticke loue with griefe our paind harts wringing,
That still we wept and still the grasse was springing.

SONNET XXVIII.
AsT flowing teares from watery eies abounding,
In tract of time by sorrow so constrained :
And framd a fountaine in which Eccho founding,
The'nd of my plaints (vaine plaints of Loue
disdaJned.)
VVhen to the wel of mine owne eies weeping,
I gan repaire renewing former greeuing:
And endles moane Eccho me companie keeping,
Her vnreuealed woe my woe reuealing.
My sorrowes ground was on ber sorrow grounded,
The Lad was faire but proud that her perplexed :
Her harts deepe wound was in my hart deepe wounded,
Faire and too proud is she that my hart vexed.
But faire and too proud must release harts pining,
Or hart must sigh and burst with ioies declining.
I ? myrrh.

'w"'l, THE TEARS OF FANCIE. 49

SONNET XXIX.

AKING a truce with teares sweete pleasures foe,
I thus began hard by the fountayne side:
O deere copartner of my wretched woe,
No sooner saide but woe poore eccho cride.
Then I againe what woe did thee betide,
That can be greater than disdayne, disdayne:
Quoth eccho. Then sayd I O womens pride,
l'ride answered echo. O inflicting payne,
When wofull eccho payne agayne repeated,
Redoubling sorrow with a sorrowing sound :
For both of vs were now in sorrow seated,
Pride and disdaine disdainefull pride the ground.
That forst poore Eccho mourne ay sorrowing euer,
And me lament in teares ay ioyning t neuer.

SONNET XXX.

BOUT the ,vell which from mine eies did flow,
The woefull witnes of harts desolation ".
Yet teares nor woe nor ought could worke
compassion,
Did diuers trees of sundry natures growe.
The mirrhe sweet bleeding in the latter wound,
Into the christall waues her teares did power:
As pittying me on whome blind loue did lower,
Vpon whose backe I wrote my sorrows ground,
And on her rugged rind I wrote forlorne,
Forlorne I wrote for sorrowe me oppressed :
Oppressing sorrowe had my hart distressed,
And ruade the abject outcast of loues scorne,
The leaues conspiring with the winds sweet sounding,
With gentle murmor playnd my harts deepe wounding.
a ? ioying.

I50 THE TEAgS OF FANCIE. [T.W.,,,,r.

SONNET XXXI.

VVROTE vpon there sides to eke their plaining,
If sad laments might multiply their sorrowe :
My loues faire lookes and eke my loues disdaining,
My loues coy lookes constraines me pine for woe.
My loues disdaine which was her louers dolour :
My loues proud hart which my harts blisse did banish:
My loues transparent beames and rosy colour,
The pride of which did cause my ioyes to vanish.
My loues bright shining beeautie like the starre,
That early riseth fore for the sunnes appearance :
A guide vnto my thoughts that wandring arre,
Doth force me breath abroad my woes indurance.
O lire forlorne, O loue vnkindly frowning,
Thy eies my heart dispaire my sad hope drowning.

SONNET XXXII.

HOSE whose kind harts sweet pittie did attaint,
With ruthfull teares bemond my miseries :
Those which had heard my neuer ceasing plaint,
Or read my woes ingrauen on the trees.
At last did win my Ladie to consort them,
Vnto the fountaine of my flowing anguish :
VVhere she vnkind and they might boldly sport them,
VVhilst I meanewhile in sorrows lappe did languish,
Their meaning was that she some teares should shed,
Into the well in pitty of my pining :
She gaue consent and putting forth her head,
Did in the well perceaue her beautie shining.
VVhich seeing she withdrew her head puft vp with prid
And would hot shed a teare should I haue died.

r.w,to,.-] THE TEARS OF FANCIE. I5I

SONNET XXXIII.

OM. say that women loue for to be praised,
But droope when as they thinke their faire must
die :
Ioying to haue their beauties glorie raised,
By lames shril trompe aboue the starrie skie.
I then whome want of skill might be with drawing,
Extold her beautie not as ).et deserued :
She said my words were flatterie and fayning,
For good intent to bad euent soone swerued.
Some sa), againe they will denie and take it,
I gaue my hart, my hart that dearly cost me :
No sooner offerd but she did forsake it,
Scorning my proffered gift so still she crost me.
But were I (alas I ara hot) false and truthles :
Then had she reason to be sterne and ruthles.

SONNET XXXIV.

Hv liue I wretch and see my ioyes decay,
VVhy liue I and no hope of loues aduancing:
VVhy doe myne eies behold the sunnie da),,
VVhy liue I wretch in hope of bettet chancing.
O wherefore tells my toung this dolefull tale,
That euer¥ eare ma), heare my bitter plaint :
VVas neuer hart that ),et bemond my baie,
VVhy liue I wretch m¥ pangs in vaine to paint.
VVhy striue l gainst the streame or gainst the hill,
VVh)' are my sorrowes buried in the dust :
VVhy doe I toile and loose my labour still,
VVhy doe I feede on hope or bild on trust.
Since hope had neuer hap and trust finds treason,
VVhy liue I wretch disdainde and see no reason ?

102 THE TEAR$ OF FANCIE.

SONNET XXXV.

_ MOIGST the Idle toyes that tosse my brayne,
And reaue my troubled mynd from quiet test:
Vyle cruell loue I find doth still remayne,
To breede debate within my grieued brest.
VVhen weary woe doth worke to wound my will,
And hart surchargd with sorrow liues opressed :
My sowlen eyes then cannot wayle there fill,
Sorrow is so far spent and I distressed.
My toung hath not the cunning skill to teli,
The smallest greife that grîpes my throbbing hart :
Myne eies haue hot the secret power to sweil,
Into such hugie seas of wounding smart.
That will might melt to waues of bitter woe,
And 1 might swelt or drowne in sorrowes so.

SONNET XXXVI.

¥ WATERIE eies let fall no trickling teares,
But flouds that ouer flow abundantly :
VVhose spring and fountaine first inforst
feares,
Doth drowne my hart in waues of misery.
My voice is like vnto the raging wind,
VVhich roareth still and neuer is at test :
The diuers thoughts that tumble in my minde,
Are restlesse like the wheele that wherles alway.
The smokie sighes that boyle out of my brest,
Are farre vnlike to those which others vse :
For Louers sighes sometimes doe take their test,
And lends their minds a little space to muse.
But mine are like vnto the surging seas,
VVhom tempest calme nor quiet can appease.

x.w.u«.] THE TEARS OF FANCI.-. 15. 3
$93- J

SONNET XXXVII.

HERE may I now my carefull corps conuay,
From company the worker of my woe :
How may I winke or bide mine eies alwaies,
VVhich gase on that whereof my griefe doth
growe,
How shall I seeme my sighes for to suppresse,
VVhich helpe the hart which else would swelt in sunder,
VVhich hurts the helpe that makes my torment lesse :
VVhich helps and hurts, O woefull wearie wonder,
How now, but thus in solitarie wise :
To step aside and make hie waie to moane,
To make two fountaines of my dasled eies,
To sigh my fill till breath and ail be gone.
To die in sorrow and in woe repent me,
That loue at last would though too late lament me.

SONNET XXXVIII.

VVOULD my loue although too late lainent mee,
And pitty take of teares from eies distilling:
To beare these sorrowes well I could content me,
And ten times more to surfer would be willing.
If she would daine to grace me with her fauour,
The thought thereof sustained greife should banish :
And in beholding of her rare behauiour,
A smyle of her should force dispaire to vanishe :
But she is bent to tiran[i]ze vpon me,
Dispaire perswades there is no hope to haue her:
My hart doth whisper I ara woe begone me,
Then cease my vaine plaints and desist to craue her.
Here end my sorrowes, here my sait teares stint I,
For shes obdurate, sterne, remorseles, flintie.

54 THE TEURS OF FC-. ['r.w,,.,,.

SONNET XXXIX.

ERE end my sorrow, no here my sorrow springeth,
Here end my woe, no here begins my wailing :
Here cease my griefe, no here my griefe deepe
wringeth
Sorrow, woe, griefe, nor ought else is auailing.
Here cease my teares, no here begins eies weeping,
Here end my plaints, no here begins my pining :
Here hart be free, no sighes in hart still keeping,
Teares, plaints, and sighes, ail cause of ioyes declining.
Here end my loue, no here doth loue inspire me,
Here end my lire, no let hOt death desire me,
Loue, hope, and life, and ail with me must perish.
For sorrow, woe, griefe, teares, and plaints oft plained,
Sighes, loue, hope, lire, and I, must die disdained.

SONNET XL.

Hv. common ioye, the cheere of companie,
Twixt myrth and mone doth plague me euermore:
For pleasant talke or musicks melodie,
Yelds no such salue vnto my secret sore.
For still I liue in spight of cruell death,
And die againe in spight of lingring life:
Feede still with hope which doth prolong my breath,
But choackt with feare and strangled still with strife,
VVitnes the daies which I in dole consume,
And weary nights beare record of my woe:
O wronge full world which makst my rancie fume,
Fie fickle Fortune fie, thou art my foe.
O heauie hap so froward is my chance,
No da/es nor nights noç worlds can me aduance.

SONNET XLI.

MPERIOUS loue who in the prime of ¥outh,
I light esteemed as an idle toy :
Though late thy fierie dart hath causd m¥ ruth,
And turned sweet happines to dark anno¥.
VVhy hast thou pleasure in my harts deepe groning,
And dost hOt rew and pittie m¥ vexations ?
VVh" hast thou ioy at m¥ laments and moning,
And art hot moued at my imprecations ?
VVh¥ hast thou stroke m¥ hart with swift desire,
And perst m¥ Ladies eies with fell disdaine ?
VVhy bath fond fancie set my thoughts on tire,
And pent m¥ hart in prison of sad paine ?
VVh¥ am I drownd in dolors neuer ceasing,
M¥ Joies still fading, and m" woes increasing.

SONNET XLII.

THOU that rulest in Ramnis golden gate,
Let pittie pierce the vnrelenting mind :
Vnlade me of the burthen cruell fate,
(Fell enuious fates too cruell and vnkind)
Haue heapt vpon me by too froward loue,
Too froward loue the enemie of fortune:
Whose tierce assaults my hart (too late) did proue,
My sillie hart which sorrow did importune.
Yet in thy power is my harts redeeming,
My harts redeeming from vile thraldomes force :
Vile thrall to one my sorrowes hot esteeming,
Though shee be cruell yet haue thou remorce.
Be thou to me no more inconstant variable,
But let thy fickle wheele rest firme and stable.

I56 THE Tv.^lS or FANCIE.
s593.

SONNET XLIII.

'ONG haue I swome against the wished waue,
But now constrained by a lothsome life :
I greedilie doe seeke the greedie graue,
To make an end of ail these storrnes and strife.
Sweete death giue end to my tormenting woes,
And let my passions penetrate thy brest :
Surfer my heart which doth such griefes inclose
By timelie fates inioie eternall test.
Let me not dwell in dole sith thou maist ease me,
Let me hOt languish in such e**dles durance:
One happie stroke of thy sad hand will please me,
Piease me good àeath itis thy procurance.
To end my harts griefe (heart shee did abhorre thee)
O hast thee gentle death I linger for thee.

SONNET XLIV.

IONG haue I sued to fortune death and loue,
But fortune, loue, nor death will daine to hear me:
I fortunes frowne, deaths spight, loues horror
proue,
And must in loue dispairing liue I feare me.
Loue wounded me, yet nill recure my wounding,
And ]cet my plaints haue often him inuoked :
Fortune hath often heard my sorrowes sounding,
Sorrowes which my poore hart haue welnigh choked.
Death well might haue beene moued when I lamented,
But cruell death was deafe when I complained :
Death, loue, and fortune ail rnight haue relented,
But fortune, loue, and death, and ail disdained.
To pittie me or ease my restles minde,
How can they choose since they are bold and blinde.

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SONNET XLV.

IHEN neither sighs nor sorrowes were of force
1 let my Mistres see my naked brest :
Where view of wounded hart might worke re-
morce,
And moue her mind to pittie my vnrest.
VVith stedfast eie shee gazed on my hart,
Wherein shee saw the picture of her beautie :
Which hauing seene as one agast shee start,
Accusing ail my thoughts with breach of duetie.
As if my hart had robd her of her faire,
No, no, her faire bereaud my hart of ioy:
And rates disdaine hath kild me with dispaire,
Dispaire the fountaine of my sad annoy.
And more, Mas, a cruell one I serued,
Lest loued of her whose loue I most deserued.

SONNET XLVI.

Y MISTRES seeing her faire counterfet
So sweetelie framed in my bleeding brest
On it her fancie shee so firmelie set,
Thinking her selle for want of it ditrest.
Enuying that anie should inioy her Image
Since ail vnworthie were of such an honor :
Tho gan shee me command to leaue my gage,
The first end of my ioy, last cause of dolor.
But it so fast was fixed to my hart.
Ioind with vnseparable sweete commixture,
That nought had force or power them to part :
Here take my hart quoth I, with it the picture.
But oh coy Dame intollerable smart,
Rather then touch my hart or corne about it,
She turnd her face and chose to goe without it.

lSg THE TEARS OF FANCIE.
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SONNET XLVII.

EHOLD deare Mistres how each pleasant greene,
Will now renew his sommers liuerie :
The fragrant flowers which haue hot long beene
seene,
Will flourish now ere long in brauerie.
But I alas within whose mourning mind,
The grafts of griefe are onelie giuen to grow :
Cannot inioy the spring which others find,
But still my will must wither ail in woe.
The lustie ver that whilome might exchange,
My griefe to ioy, and my delight increase :
Springs now else where and showes to me but strange,
My winters woe therefore can neuer cease.
In other coasts his sunne doth clearly shine,
And comfort lend to euery mould but mine.

SONNET XLVIII.

HE tender buds whom cold hath long kept in,
And winters rage inforst to hide their head :
Will spring and sprowt as they doe now begin,
That euerie one will ioy to see them spread.
But cold of care so nips my ioies at roote,
There is no hope to recouer what is lost :
No sunne doth shine that well can doe it boote,
Yet still I striue but loose both toile and cost.
For what can spring that feeles no force of ver,
What flower can flourish where no sunne doth shine:
These balles deare loue, within my brest I beare,
To breake my barke and make my pith to pine.
Needs must I fall, I fade both root and rinde,
My branches bowe at blast of euerie winde.

TlW'tl°t'l Tl-Ig- TEARS OF FAI¢IE. I59
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SONNET XLIX.
IAvA and her nimphs in siluane brooke,
Did wash themselues in secret farÆe apart :
But bold A«t«on dard on them to looke,
For which faire P/rob« turnd him to a Hart.
His hounds vnweeting of his sodaine change,
Did hale and pull him downe with open crie:
He then repenting that he so did range,
Would speake but could hot, so did sigh and die.
But my Diana fairer and more cruel,
Bereft me of my hart and in disdaine :
Hath turnd it out to feede on fancies fuel,
And liue in hondage and eternal pairie.
So hartles doe I liue yet cannot die,
Desire the dog, doth chase it to and fro :
Vnto her brest for succour it doth flic,
If shee debarre it whither shall it go.
Now liues my hart in danger to be slaine,
Vnlesse her hart my hart wil entertaine.

SONNET L.
AND, hart and eie, tucht thought and did behold,
The onelie glorie that on earth doth grow :
Hand quakt, hart sighd, but eie was foolish bold,
To gaze til gazing wrought harts grounded woe
The obiect of these senses heauenlie saint,
With such a maiestie did me appall :
As hand to write her praise did feare and faint,
And heart did bleede to thinke me ]3eauties thrall.
But eie more hardie than the hand or hart,
Did glorie in her eies reflecting light:
And yet that light did breede my endles smart.
And >'et mine eies nill leaue there former sight.
But gazing pine, which eie, hand, hart doth trie,
And what I loue, is but hand, hart, and eie.

60 THï TEAR$ OF FANCI.
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SONN ET LI.
Acll tree did boast the wished spring rimes pride,
When solitarie in the raie of loue,
I hid my selle, so from the wor]d to hide
The vncouth passions which m¥ hart did proue.
No tree whose branches did not brauelie spring,
No branch whereon a fine bird did hot sit :
No bird but did her shriil notes sweetelie sing,
No song but did containe a louelie dit.
Trees, branches, birds, and songs were frmed faire.
Fit to allure fraile minde to careles case:
But carefuli wa» my thought, yet in dispaire,
I dweit, for brittle hope me cannot please.
For when I view my loues faire eies reflecting,
I entertaine dispaire, vaine hope reiecting.

SONNET LII.

AcH Creature ioyes Appollos happie sight,
And feede them selues with his fayre beames
reflecting.
Nyght wandering trauelers at Cinthias sight,
Clere vp their clowdy thoughts fond fere reiecting
But darke disdayne eclipsed hath my sun,
VVhose shining beames my wandering thought were
guiding,
For want whereof my little worlde is done
That I vnneath can stay my mind from sliding :
O happie birds that at your pleasure maie,
Behold the glorious light of sols a raies:
Most wretched I borne in some dismall daie,
That cannot see the beames my sun displaies,
My glorious sun in whome ail vErtue shrowds,
That iight the worid but shines to me in ciowds.

'.w,o.] THE TEARS OF FANCIE. 16!

SONNET LIII.

N CLOWDES she shines and so obscurel, shineth,
That like a mastles shipe at seas I wander :
For want of her to guide my hart that pineth,
Yet can I hot entreat ne yet command her.
So ara I tied in Laborinths of fancy,
In darke and obscure Laborinths of loue :
That euerie one may plaine behold that can see,
How I ara fetterd and what paines I proue.
The Lampe whose light should lead my ship about,
Is placed vpon my Mistres heauenlie face.
Her hand doth hold the clew must lead me out,
And free my hart from thraldomes lothed place.
But cleaue to lead me out or Lampe to light me,
She scornefullie denide, the more to ipight me.

SONNET LIV.

LAME me hOt deere loue though I talke at randon.
Terming thee scornefull, proud, vnkind, disdaineful
Since all I doe cannot my woes abandon,
Or ridde me of the yoake I feele so painefuII.
If I doe paint thy pride or want of pittie,
Consider likewise how I blase thy beautie:
Inforced to the first in mournefull dittie,
Constrained to the last by seruile dutie :
And take thou no offence if I misdeemed,
Thy beauties glorie quencheth thy prides blemish :
Better it is of ail tobe esteemed,
Faire and too proud than hOt faire and too squemishe.
And seeing thou must scorne and tis aprooued,
Scorne tobe ruthles since thou art beloued.
!. L 8

16:2 THE TEAR$ OF FANCIE.
t$9.

SONNET LV.

'¥ LOUE more bright than Cinthias horned head,
That spreads her wings to beautifie the heauens
When Titan coucheth in his purple bed,
Thou liuest by Titan and inioiest his beames.
Shee flies when he begins to run his race,
And hides ber head, his beautie staines ber brightnes :
Thou staiest, thy beautie yeelds the sunne no place,
For thou excelst his beames in glories sweetnes.
Shee bath eclips, thou neuf doest eclips,
Shee sometimes wanes, thy glorie still doth waxe :
None but Endymyon hangeth at her lips,
Thy beautie burnes the world as tire doth flaxe.
Shee shines by months, thou houres, months, and yeares
Oh that such beautie should înforce such teares.

SONNET LVI.

ERE words dissolued to sighs, sighs {nto teares,
And eurie teare to torments of the mind :
The minds distresse into those deadly feares,
That find more death than death it selfe tan find
VVere all the woes of ail the world in one,
Sorrow and death set downe in ail their pride :
ret were they insufficient to bemone,
The restles horrors that my hart doth hide.
Where blacke dispaire doth feede on euerie thought,
And deepe dispaire is cause of endles griefe :
Where euerie sense with sorrowes ouer-wrought,
Liues but in death dispairing of reliefe.
Whilst thus my heart with loues plague tome asunder,
May of the world be cald the wofull wonder.

SONNET LVII.

HE hunted Hare sometime doth leaue the Hound,
My Hart alas is neuer out of chace :
The liue-hounds lire sometime is yet vnbound,
My bands are hopeles of so high a grace.
For natures sickenes sometimes may haue ease,
Fortune though fickle sometime is a friend :
The minds affliction patience may appease,
And death is cause that many torments end.
Yet I am sicke, but shee that should restore me,
VVithholds the sacred flame that would recure me:
And fortune eke (though many eyes deplore me,)
Nill lend such chance that might to ioy procure me.
Patience wants power to appease my weeping,
And death denies what I haue long beene seeking.

SONNET LVIII.

HEN as I marke the ioy of euery wight,
Howe in their mindes deepe throbbing sorrow
ceaseth
And by what meanes they nourish their delight.
Their sweet delight my paine the more increaseth.
For as the Deare that sees his fellow feede,
Amid the lusty heard, himselfe sore brused :
Or as the bird that feeles her selfe to bleede,
And lies aloofe of all her pheeres refused.
So haue I found and now too deerely trie,
That pleasure doubleth pairie and blisse annoy :
Yet still I twit my selfe of Surcuidrie,
As one that ara vnworthy to inioy.
The lasting frute of such a heauenly loue,
For whom these endles sorrowes I approue.

6 4 TI-IE TEARS OF FANCIE. [x.w--uo...s»

SONNET LIX.

,FT haue I raild against loue many, waies,
[g{Li] But pardon loue I honour now thy power:
[ For were my Pallace Greece Pyramides,
Cupid should there erect a stately bower.
And in my Pallace sing his sugred songs,
And Venus Doues my selle will finely" feede :
And nurce her sparrowes and her milke white Swans.
Yea, in my restles bosome should they breede.
And thou deare Ladie sacred and diuine,
Shalt haue thy place within my hart assignd :
Thy picture yea thy fierie darting eien,
Ile carrie painted in my grieued mind.
The chiefest coullers shall be scarlet blood,
Which Cupid pricketh from my wofull hart:
And teares commixt shall further forth my good,
To paint thy glories cording their desart.
I now ara changed from what I woont tobe,
Cu, pid is God, And there is none but he.

SONNET LX,

Ho taught thee first to sigh Alasse sweet heart? loue.
[t\/Ç/ad] I VVho taught thy tongue to marshall words
!]: of plaint ? loue.
i VVho fild thine eies with teares of bitter
smart ? loue.
VVho gaue thee griefe and mode thy ioyes so faint? loue.
VVho first did paint with coullers pale thy face ? loue.
VVho first did breake thy sleepes of quiet test ? loue.
VVho forst thee vnto wanton loue giue place ? loue.
VVho thrald thy thouthts in fancie so distrest ? loue.
VVho mode thee bide both constant firme and sure? loue.
VVho mode thee scorne the world and loue thy friend? loue.
VVho mode thy mind with patience paines indure ? loue.
VVho mode thee settle stedfast to the end. loue.
Then loue thy choice though loue be neuer gained,
Stîll liue in loue, dispaire not though disdained.
FINIS. T.W.

Parthenophil
Parthenophe.

and

Sonnets»

Madrigals,
Odes.

Elegies, and

To the right noble and virtuous gentleman,
M. WII.I.IaM PEIner, Esq., his dearest friend.

[ TAc Iower part of tac Title-lkage is mrn away in tac only coiby at
lkresent known (in tire libra, of the Duke of Donshire) ; but tre is
the folIowing entoE in trie Statior Registers in 93-
o ij.
JOHN WOLF. Euoeed for his copies twoo okes aucthoris by
mter HARTWELL vnder his hand. th[e]one...
th[e]other intituled. PARH8NOH a PARH»
OPE c. By B. BARES ...... xijd S.

167

To the Learned
the

Gentlemen Readers,
Printer

HEsE labours following, being corne of late into
my hands barely, without title or subscription;
partly moved by certain of my dear friends, but
especially by the worth and excellency of the
Work, I thought it well deserving my labour, to participate
them to your judicial views: where, both for variety ot
conceits, and sweet Poesy, you shall doubtless find that
which sha.ll be most cornmendable, and worth your reading.
The Author, though at the first unknown (.yet [has been]
enforced to accord to certain of his friends' importunacy
herein, to publish them, by their means, and for their sakes)
[is] unwilling, as it seemeth, to acknowledge them, for their
levity ; till he bave redeemed them, with some more excellent
work hereafter. Till when, he requesteth your favourable
and indifferent censures of these his over-youthful Poems;
submitting them to your friendly patronages.
Farewelll thi« of May, 1593-

i68

0, BASTARD Orphan ! Pack thee hencel
And seek some Stranger for defence [
Now 'gins thy baseness to be known !
Nor date I take thee for mine own ;
Thy levity shall be descried !
But if that any bave espied,
And questioned with thee, of thy Sire ;
Or Mistress of his vain Desire ;
Or ask the Place from whence thou came :
Deny thy Sire ! Love ! Place ! and Naine t.
And if I chance, un'wares to meet thee,
Neither acknowledge me, nor greet me 1
Adroit I blush (perchance, I shall),
Pass by ! regard me hot at all !
Be secret, wise, and circumspect |
And modesty sometimes affect !
Some good man, that shall think thee witty,
Will be thy Patron ! and take pity ;
And when some men shall call thee base
He, for thy sake, shall them disgrace !
Then, with his countenance backed, thou shalt
Excuse the nature of thy fault.
Then, if some lads, when they go by,
Thee, " Bastard ! " call ; give them the liei
So, get thee packing ! and take heed !
And, though thou go in beggar's weed,
Hereafter (when I better may)
l'Il send relief, some other dayl

I69

[SONNETS.]

SONNET I.

ISTRESS !

Behold, in this true speaking
Glass,
Thy Beauty's graces! of ail women rarest!
Where thou may'st final how laxgely they
surpass
And stain in glorious loveliness, the fairest.
But read, sweet Mistress! and behold it
nearer [
Pond'ring my sorrow's outrage with some pity.
Then shalt thou find no worldly creature dearer,
Than thou to me, thyself, in each Love Ditty [
But, in this Mirror, equally compare
Thy matchless beauty, with mine endless grief !
There, like thyself none can be round so fait;
Of chiefest pains, there, are my pains the chief.
Betwixt these both, this one doubt shalt thou find!
V¢hether are, here, extremest, in their kind ?

7o So.Ts . tl R î,, tl br O .P tl i I " [ l. l,ut-
! ay x93,

SONNET II.
[wILES, with strong chains of hardy tempered stee],
I bound my thoughts, still gaddig fast and faster;
hen they, through rime, the diff rentes did feel,
Betwixt a Mistress' service and a Master.
Keeping in bondage, jealously enthra]led,
In prisons of neglect, his nature's mildness ;
Him, I with solitary studies walled,
By thraldom, choking his outrageous wildness.
On whom, my careful thoughts I set to watch,
Guarding him closely, lest he should out issue
To seek thee, LAYAI who still wrought to catch
And train my tender boy, that ¢ould not miss ),ou
(So you bewitched him once ! when he did kiss you),
That, by such slights as never were found out»
To serve your turn, he daily wcnt about.

SONNET III.

E, WHZN continual vigil moved my Watch
Some deal, by chance, with careful guard to slumber:
The prison's keys from them did slowly snatch ;
Which of the rive, were only three in number.
The first was Sight, by which he searched the wards ;
The next was Hearing, quickly to perceive,
Lest that thc Watchmen heard, which were his guards ;
Third, Touch, which VOLCAN'S cunning could deceive.
These (though the springs, wards, bolts, or gimbols werc
The miracles of VULCAN's forgery)
Laid open ail, for his escape. Now, there,
The watchmen grinned for his impiety.
What crosses bred this contrariety,
That by these kcys, my thoughts, in chains be left ;
And by these keys, I, of mine heart bereft ?

SONNET IV.

,AYA, soon sounding out his nature throughly
Found that he was a lovely virgin Boy.
Causeless, why did thou then deal with him roughly?
Not yet content with him, sometimes, to toy ;
But jealously kept, lest he should run from thee !
Whom if thou kindly meant to love, 'twas needless !
Doubtless lest that he should run back to me !
If of him, any deal thou didst stand heedless.

Thou coop'st him in thy closet's secret corners ;
And then, thy heart's dear playfellow didst make him 1
Whom thou in person guardest ! (lest suborners
Should work his freelege, or in secret take him)
And to this instant, never would forsake him !
Since for soft service, slavish bonds be changed !
Why didst thou, from thy jealous master range ?

SONNET V.

T Cr^rCED, after, that a youthful Squire,
Such as, in courting, could thc crafty guise,
Beheld light L^Y^. She, with fresh Desire,
Hoping th'achievement of some richer prizc,
Drew to the Courtier ; who, with tender Mss,
(As are their guileful fashions which dissemble)
First him saluted ; then (with forged bliss
Of doubtless hope) sweet words, by pause, did tremble.
So whiles she slightly glosed with her new prey,
My heart's eye (tending his false mistress' train)
Unyoked himself, and closely 'scaped away ;
And to PARTHIHOPHE did post amain,
For liberal pardon ; which she did obtain.
" And judge ! PARrHEtoPaR ! (for thou canst tell l)
That his escape from L^YA pleased me well."

la¥

SONNET VI.

|M when I caught, what chains had I provided
What fetters had I framed ! \Vhat locks of Reason
What Keys of Continence had I devised
(Impatient of the breach) 'gainst any treason
But fair PARTHnNOPrln did urge me still
To liberal pardon, for his former fault ;
Which, out alasl prevailèd with my will.
Yet moved I bonds, lest he should make default :
Which willingly She seemed to undertake,
And said, "As I ara virgin! I will be
His bail for this offence ; and if he make
Another such vagary, take of me
A pawn, for more assurance unto thee
" Your love to me," quoth I, "your pawn shall make
8o that, for his default, I forfeit take."

SONNET VI I.

ER love to me, She forthwith did impaxvn,
And was content to set at liberty
My trembling Heart ; which straight began to fawn
Upon his Mistress' kindly courtesy.
Not many days were past, when (like a wanton)
He secretly did practise to depart ;
And to IARTHENOPHE did send a canton,
\Vhere, with sighs' accents, he did loves impart.
And for because She deigned him that great sign
Of gentle favours, in his kind release ;
He did conclude, all duty to resign
To fair IARTHENOPHI : which doth increase
These woes, nor shall my restless Muses cease !
For by her, of mine heart ara I deprived ;
And by ber, my first sorrows' heat revived.

ay,»2 IN.O PIRTHENO.PHE, SONNET$,

SONNET VIII.

IH.N to PARTHENOPHE, with all post haste
(As full assurèd of the pawn fore-pledged),
I made; and, with these words disordered placed,
Smooth (though with fury's sharp outrages edged).
Quoth I, " Fait Mistress! did I set mine Heart
At liberty, and for that, ruade him free ;
That you should arm him for another start,
Whose certain bail you promisèd to be ! "
"Tush !" quoth PARTHENOPHE, " belote he go,
l'Il be his bail at last, and doubt it not
"Why then," said I, " that Mortgage must I show
Of your true love; which at your hands I got
Ay me ! She was, and is his bail, I wot :
But when the Mortgage should bave cured the sore
She passed it off, by Deed of Gift belote.

SONNET IX.
0 did PARTHENOPHE release mine Heart ]
So did She rob me of mine heart's rich treasure
Thus shall She be his bail before they part !
Thus in ber love She made me such hard measure !
Ay me ! nor hope of mutual love by leisure,
Nor any type of my poor Heart's release
Remains to me. How shall I take the seizuri
Of her love's forfeiture ? which took such peace
Combinèd with a former love. Then cease
To vex with sorrows, and thy griefs increase
'Tis for P^R'HENOPHE ! thou surfer'st smart.
Wild Nature's wound's not curable by Art.
Then cease, which choking sighs and heart-swoll'n throbs,
To draw thy breath, broke off with sorrow's sobs I

SONNET X.

ET give me leave, since ail my joys be perished,
Heart-less, to moan for my poor Heart'sdeparture !
Nor should I mourn for him, if he were cherished.
Ah, no ! She keeps him like a slavish martyr.
Ah, me ! Since merciless, she ruade that charter,
Sealed with the wax of steadfast continence,
Signed with those hands which never can unwrite it,
Writ with that pen, which (by preeminence)
Too sure confirms whats'ever was indightit :
What skills to wear thy girdle, or thy garter;
When other arms shall thy small waist embrace?
How great a waste of mind and body's weal !
Now melts my soul ! I, to thine eyes appeal !
If they, thy tyrant champions, owe me grace.

SONN ET XI.

Hv didst thou, then, in such disfigured guise,
Figure the portrait of mine. overthrow ?
Why, man-like, didst thou mean to tyrannize ?
No man, but woman would have sinnèd so!
Why, then, inhuman, and my secret foe!
Didst thou betray me ? yet would be a woman !
From my chier wealth, outweaving me this woe,
Leaving thy love in pawn, till time did corne on
When that thy trustless bonds were to be tried !
And when, through thy default, I thee did summon
Into the Court of Steadfast Love, then cried,
CAs it was promised, here stands his Heart's bail
And if in bonds to thee, my love be tied ;
Then by those bonds, take Forfeit of the Sale !"

May,s.l 4ND »4RTI-EtVOPI-E. ONNET-qo

MADRIGAL x.

POWERS Celestial ! with what sophistry
Took She delight, to blank my heart by sorrow!
And in such riddles, act my tragedy :
Making this day, for him ; for me, to-morrow !

Where shall I Sonnets borrow ?
Where shall I find breasts, sides, and tongue,
Which my great wrongs might to the world dispense
Where my defence ?
My physic, where ? For how can I live long,
That have foregone my Heart ? l'Il steal from hence,
From restless souls, mine hymns! from seas, my tears
From winds, my sides ! from concave rocks and steel
My sides and voice's echo! reeds which feel
Calm blasts still moving, which the shepherd bears
For wailful plaints, my tongue shall be !
The land unknown to rest and comfort me.

MADRIGAL z.

IGHT hot this be for man's more certainty,
By Nature's laws enactit,
That those which do true meaning falsify,
Making such bargains as were precontractit,
Should forfeit freelege of love's tenancy
To th' plaintiff grieved, if he exact it.
Think on my love, thy faith! yet hast thou cracked it.
Nor Nature, Reason, Love, nor Faith can make thee
To pity me ! My prisoned heart to pity,
Sighs, no fit incense, nor my plaints can wake thee!
Thy nose, from savour, and thine ears, from sound
Stopped and obdurate, nought could shake thee!
Think on, when thou such pleasure round
To read my lines! and reading, termed them witty!
Whiles lines, for love ; and brains, for beauty witless ;
I for Thee, lever scorched; yet Thou still fitless!

SO NNET XII.

EXT with th'assaults of thy conceivèd beauty,
I restless, on thy favours meditate !
And though despairful love, sometimes, my suit tie
Unto these faggots (figures of my state),
Which bound with endless line, by leisure wait
That happy moment of your heart's reply !
Yet by those lines I hope to find the gate;
Which, through love's labyrinth, shall guide me right.
Whiles (unacquainted exercisel) I try
Sweet solitude, I shun my life's chief light !
And all because I would forger thee quite.
And (working that) methinks, it's such a sin
(As I take pen and paper for to write)
Thee to forger; that leaving, I beginl

SONNET XIII.

HEN none of these, my sorrows would allege ;
I sought to find the means, how I might hate thee l
Then hateful Curiousness I did in-wedge
Within my thoughts, which ever did await thee!
I framed mine Eyes for an unjust controlment ;
And mine unbridled Thoughts (because I date hot
Seek to compel) did pray them, take enrolment
Of Nature's fault in ber ] and, equal, spare not !
They searched, and round " her eyes xvere sharp and fiery,
A mole upon ber forehead coloured pale,
Her hair disordered, brown, and crispèd wiry,
Her cheeks thin speckled with a summer's mme."
This told, men weened it was a pleasing tale
Her to disgrace, and make my follies fade.
And please, it did ! but her, more gracious ruade.

MADRIGAL 3.
NcB in an arbour was my Mistress sleeping,
With rose and woodbine woven,
Whose person, thousand graces had in keeping,
Where for mine heart, her heart's hard flint was
cloven
To keep him safe. Behind, stood, pertly peeping,
Poor CJPID, softly creeping,
And drave small bilds out of the myrtle bushes,
Scared with his arrows, who sate cheeping
On every sprig; whom CJPID calls and hushes
From branch to branch : whiles I, poor soul ! sate weeping
To see her breathe (not knowing)
Incense into the clouds, and bless with breath
The winds and air; whiles CIJPID, underneath,
With birds, with songs, nor any posies throwing,
Could her awake.
lach noise, sweet lullaby was, for her sake !

MADRIGAL 4.
171BRE, had my ZEUXI$ place and rime, to draw
My Mistress' portrait; which, on platane table,
(With Nature, matching colours), as he saw
Her leaning on her elbow; though not able,
He 'gan with vermil, gold, white, and sable
To shadow forth; and with a skilful knuckle
Lively set out my fortunes' fable.
On lips, a rose ; on hand, a honeysuckle.
For Nature framed that arbour, in such orders
That roses did with woodbines buckle ;
Whose shadow trembling on her lovely face,
He left unshadowed. There Art Iost his grace !
And that white lily leaf, with fringèd borders
Of angels' gold, veiled the skies
Of mine heaven's hierarchy, which closed ber eyes.
.vl 8

SONNET XIV.

ttEN him controlling, that he left undone,
Her eyes' bright circle thus did answer make ;
"Rest's mist, with silver cloud, had closed her sun.
Nor could he draw them, till she were awake."
"Why then," quoth I, " were not these leaves' dark shade
Upon ber cheeks, depainted, as you see them ? "
"Shape of a shadow cannot well be made !"
Was answered "for shade's shadows, none can eye them
This reason proves sure argument for me,
That my grief's image, I can hot set out ;
Which might with lively colours blazèd be.
Wherefore since nought can bring the means about,
That thou, my sorrow's cause, should view throughout ;
Thou wilt not pity me
ZEuxls had neither skill, nor colours fit.

SONNET XV.

HERE, or to whom, then, shall I make complaint
By guileful wiles, of mine heart's guide deprived
With right's injustice, and unkind constraint
Barred from her fores, which my deserts achieved !
This though thou sought to choke, far more revived
Within mine restless heart, left almost senseless.
O, make exchange ! Surrender thine, for mine
Lest that my body, void of guide, be fenceless.
So shalt thou pawn to me, sign for a sign
Of thy sweet conscience ; when I shall resign
Thy love's large Charter, and thy Bonds again.
O, but I fear mine hopes be void, or menceless !
No course is left, which might thy loves attain,
Whether with sighs I sue, or tears complain !

B.
,aw,..j AND P.4R1"Itl!NOPtI. ONNETS, 179

SONNET XVI.

Ea, that accursed Deed, before unsealed,
Is argument of thy first constancy !
Which if thou hadst fo me before revealed ;
I had not pleaded in such fervency.
Yet this delights, and makes me triumph much,
That mine Heart, in her body lies imprisoned !
For, 'mongst ail bay-crowned conquerors, no such
Can make the slavish captive boast him conquered,
Except PARTHENOPHE ; whose fiery gleams
(Like Jovs's swift lightning raging, which rocks pierceth)
Heating them inly with his sudden beams,
And secret golden mines with melting searseth
Eftsoons with cannon, his dread rage rehearseth ;
Yet nought seems scorched, in apparent sight.
So first, She secret burnt ; then, did affright !

SONNET XVII.

Ow then succeedeth that, amid this woe,
(Where Reason's sense doth from my soul divide)
By these vain lines, my fits be specified ;
Which from their endless ocean, daily flow ?
Where was it born ? Whence, did this humour grow,
Which, long obscured with melancholy's mist,
Inspires my giddy brains unpurified
So lively, with sound reasons, to persist
In framing tuneful Elegies, and Hymns
For her, whose names my Sonnets note so friras ;
That nought but her chaste naine so could asist ?
And my Muse in first tricking out her limbs,
Found in her lifeless Shadow such delight ;
That yet She shadows ber, when as I write.

SONNET XVIII.

Rrr. ! write! help! help, sweet Muse! and never
j In cndlcss labours, pcns and paper tire l
Until I purchasc my long wishcd Desirc.
Brains, with my Rcason, ncvcr rcst in peacc [
Wastc breathlcss words ! and brcathful sighs incrcasc!
Till of my wocs, rcmorseful, you cspy her ;
Till shc with me, bc burnt in cqual tire.
I ncvcr wiIl, from labour, wits rcleasc I
My senscs ncvcr shall in quiet rcst ;
Till thou bc pitiful, and love alikc !
And if thou ncvcr pity my distrcsscs ;
Thy cruclty, with cndlcss force shall strikc
Upon my wits, to ccasclcss writs addrest !
My carcs, in hopc of somc rcvcngc, this fesses.

SONNET XIX.

'MPERIOUS Jov., with sweet lipped MERCURY
Learned I,IINERVA; PHOEBUS, God of Light ;
Vein-swelling BACCHUS; VENUS, Queen of Beauty;
With light-foot PHOEBE, Lamp of silent Night
These have, with divers deities beside,
Borrowed the shapes of many a mortal creature
But fair PARTHENOPHE, graced with the pride
Of each of these, sweet Queen of lovely feature
As though she were, with pearl of all their skill,
By heaven's chief nature garnished. She knits
In wrath, JovE's forehead ; with sweet noting quill,
She matcheth MERCURY, ItlNERVA'S wits;
In goldy locks, bright TITAN ; ]3ACCHUS sits
In her hands conduit pipes ; sweet VENUS' face
DIANA'S leg, the Tyrian buskins grace.

t Mayst.J AND .AR THENOPHE. ONNETS. I1

SONNET XX.

H-s- Eyes (thy Beauty's Tenants i) pay due tears
For occupation of mine Heart, thy Freehold,
In Tenure of Love's service ! If thou behold
With what exaction, it is held through fears;
And yet thy Rents, extorted daily, bears.
Thou would not, thus, consume my quiet's gold !
And yet, though covetous thou be, to make
Thy beauty rich, with renting me so roughly,
And at such sums : thou never thought dost take,
But still consumes me ! Then, thou dost misguide ail !
Spending in sport, for which I wrought so toughly !
When I had felt ail torture, and had tried ail;
And spent my Stock, through 'strain of thy extortion;
On that, I had but good hopes, for my portion.

SONNET XXI.

EA, but uncertain hopes are Anchors feeble,
When such faint-hearted pilots guide my ships,
Of ail my fortune's Ballast with hard pebble,
Whose doubtful voyage proves not worth two chips.
If when but one dark cloud shall dim the sky,
The Cables of hope's happiness be cut;
When bark, with thoughts-drowned mariners shall lie,
Prest for the whirlpool of grief's endless glut.
If well thou mean, PARTHENOPHI ! then ravish
Mine heart, with doubtless hope of mutual love !
If otherwise ; then let thy tongue run lavish !
For this, or that, ara I resolved to prove !
And both, or either ecstasy shall move
Me! ravished, end with surfeit of relief;
Or senseless, daunted, die with sudden grief.

blay x$9.

SONNET XXII,

Rots thine heart's ever burning Vestai tire,
The torchlight of two suns is nourished still ;
Which, in mild compass, still surmounting higher,
Their orbs, which circled harmony fulfrl ;
Whose rolling wheels run on meridian's line,
And turning, they turn back the misty night.
Report of which clear wonder did incline
Mine eyes to gaze upon that uncouth light.
On it till I was sunburnt, did I gaze !
Which with a fervent agony possessed me ;
Then did I sweat, and swelt ; mine eyes daze
Tiil that a burning fever had oppressed me :
Which ruade me faint. No physic bath repressed me ;
For I try ail [ yet, for to make me sound,
Ay, me ! no grass, nor physic may be round.

SONNET XXIII.

HEN, with the Dawning of my first delight,
The Daylight of lo, ve's Delicacy moved me ;
][} Then from heaven s disdainful starry iight,
The Moonlight of ber Chastity reprovcd me.
Her forehead's threatful clouds from hope removed me,
Till Midnight reared on the mid-noctial line;
Her heart whiles Pity's slight had undershoved me,
Then did I force ber downward to decline
Till Dawning daylight cheerfully did shine ;
And by such happy revolution drew
Her Morning's blush to joyful smiles incline.
And now Meridian heat dries up my dew ;
There rest, fair Planets ! Stay, bright orbs of dayl
Still smiling at my dial, next eleven !

AND ARTHIVOPH. SOIqNETS. I8 3

SONNET XXIV.
HESE, mine heart-eating Eyes do never gaze
Upon thy sun's harmonious marble wheels,
But from these eyes, through force of thy sun's
blaze,
Rain tears continual, whiles my faith's true steels,
Tempered on anvil of thine heart's cold Flint,
Strike marrow-melting tire into mine eyes';
The Tinder, whence my Passions do hot stint
As Matches to thosc sparkles wh/ch arise.
Which, when the Taper of mine heart is lighted,
Like salamanders, nourish in the flame:
And ail the Loves, with my new Torch delighted,
Awhile, like gnats, did flourish in the same ;
But burnt their wings, nor any way could frame
To fly from thence, since Jov's proud bird (that bears
His thunder) viewed my sun; but shed down tears.

S O N N E T X XV.
HEN count it not disgrace ! if view
any
me,
Sometime to shower down rivers of sait tears,
From tempest of my sigh's despairful fears.
Then scorn me hot, alas, sweet friends ! but rue me !
Ah, pity ! pity me ! For if you knew me !
How, with her looks, mine heart amends and wears ;
Now calm, now ragious, as my Passion bears :
You would lament with me ! and She which slew me,
She which (Ay me !) She which did deadly wound me,
And with her beauty's balm, though dead, keeps lively
My lifeless body ; and, by charms, bath bound me,
For thankless meed, to serve her : if she vively
Could see my sorrow's maze, which none can tread ;
She would be sort and light» though flint and lead I

SONNET XXVI.

HEN lovely wrath, my Mistress' heart assaileth,
LovE's golden darts take aim from her bright eyes;
And PsYcHE, VENUS' rosy couch empaleth,
Placed in her cheeks, with lilies, where she lies
And when She smiles, from her sweet looks and cheerful,
Like PHOEBt;S, when through sudden clouds he starteth
(After stern tempests, showers, and thunder fearful)
So She, my world's delight, with her smiles hearteth
AtJRORA, yellow looks, when my Love blushes,
Wearing her hair's bright colour in her face !
And from love's ruby portal lovely rushes,
For every word She speaks, an angel's grace !
If She be silent, every man in place
With silence, wonders ber ! and if She sleep,
Air doth, with her breath's murmur, music keep !

SONNET XXVII.

HY do I draw this cool relieving air,
And breathe it out in scalding sighs, as fast ?
Since ail my hopes die buried in despair ;
In which hard soil, mine endless knots be cast.
Where, when I corne to walk, be sundry Mazes
With Beauty's skilful finger linèd out ;
And knots, whose borders set with double daisies,
Doubles my dazed Muse with endless doubt.
How to final easy passage through the rime,
With which my Mazes are so long beset,
That I can never pass, but fall and climb
According to my Passions (which forger
The place, where they with Love's Guide should have met) :
But when, faint-wealàed, ail (methinks) is past ;
The Maze returning, makes me turn as fast.

SONNET XXVIII,

0 BE my labours endless in their turns.
Turn! turn, PARTHENOPHE! Turn, and relent!
Hard is thine heart, and never will repent !
See how this heart within my body burns !
Thou see'st it hot! and therefore thou rejournes
My pleasures! Iii my days been overspent.
When I beg grace, thou mine entreaty spurns ;
Mine heart, with hope upheld, with fear returns.
Betwixt these Passions, endless is my fit.
Then if thou be but human, grant some pity!
Or if a Saint ? sweet mercies are their meeds 1
Fair, lovely, chaste, sweet spoken, learned, witty;
These make thee Saint-like ! and these, Saints befit:
But thine hard heart makes ail these graces, weeds!

SONNET XXlX.

LEss still the myrrh tree, VENUS ! for thy meed!
For to the weeping myrrh, my Tears be due.
Contentious winds, which did from TIT^U breed
The shaking Aspine tree belongs to you :
To th' Aspine, I bequeath my ceaseless Tongue !
And PHOeBus, let thy laurels ever flourish!
To still-green laurel, my Loves do belong.
Let mighty JovE, his oak's large branches nourish
For to strong oak, mine Heart is consecrate.
Let dreadful PLUTO bless black heben ' trecl
To th' Heben, my Despair is dedicate.
And Naiads, let your willows lovèd be !
To them, my Fortunes still removèd be.
So shall my tears, tongue, Passions never cease ;
Nor heart decay, nor my despair decrease.

blay t$9 ].

S O N N E T X X X.
.10 THIS continual fountain of my Tears,
From that hatd rock of her sweet beauty trickling ;
So shall my Tongue on her love's music tickling;
So shall my Passions, fed with hopes and fears ;
So shall mine Heart, which wearing, never wears,
But soft, is hardened with her beauty's prickling;
On which, Despair, my vulture seized, stands pickling
Yet never thence his maw full gorgèd bears ;
Right so, my Tears, Tongue, Passions, Heart, Despair ;
With floods, complaints, sighs, throbs, and endless
sorrow ;
In seas, in volumes, winds, earthquakes, and hell ;
Shall float, chant, breathe, break, and dark mansion borrow!
And, in them, I be blessed for my Fair;
That in these torments, for her sake I dwell.

SONNET XXXI.

[ BURN, yet am I cold ! I am a cold, yet burn !
In pleasing, discontent ! in discontentment, pleased !
Diseased, I ara in health! and healthful, am
diseased !
In turning back, proceed ! proceeding, I return !
In mourning, I rejoice ! and in rejoicing, mourn !
In pressing, I step back! in stepping back, I pressed !
In gaining, still I lose ! and in my losses, gain !
Grounded, I waverstill [ and wavering, still am grounded !
Unwounded, yet not sound ! and being sound, am wounded !
Slain, yet am I alive ! and yet alive, ara slain !
Hounded, my heart tests still! still resting, is it hounded !
In pain, I feel no grief! yet void of grief, in pain !
Unmoved, I vex myself! unvexed, yet am I moved !
Beloved, She loves me hot ; yet is She my beloved !

SONNET XXXII.

ARCE twice seven times had PHOEBUS' waggon wheel
Obliquely wandered through thc Zodiac's line,
Since Nature first to Ovs did me resign,
When in mine youthful rein, I well could feel
A lustful rage, which, Reason's chains of steel
(With headstrong force of Lust) did stiil untwine.
To wanton Fancies I did then incline ;
Whilst mine unbridled PHm-TON did reel
With heedless rage, till that his chariot came
To take, in fold, his resting with the Rare.
But bootless, ail ! For such was his unrest
That, in no limits, he could be contained !
To lawless sports and pleasures, ever prest ;
And his swift wheels, with their sweet oil distained !

SONNET XXXIII.

EXT, when the boundless fury of my sun
Began in higber climates, to take tire ;
And with it, somewhat kindled my Desire.
Then, lest I should have wholly been undone ;
(For now mine age have thrice seven winters run)
With studies, and with labours did I tire
Mine itching Fancies ! which did still aspire.
Then, from those objects (which their force begun,
Through wandering fury, to possess mine heart),
Mine eyes, their vain seducers, I did fix
On PALLAS, and on MARS ! home, and in field
And armed strongly (lest my better part
To milder objects should itself immix),
I vowed, " I never would, to Beauty yield ! "

SONNET XXXIV.
U'r when, in May, my world's bright fiery sun
Had past in Zodiac, with his golden team,
To place his beams, which in the Twins begun :
The blazing twin stars of my world's bright beam,
My Mistress' Eyes ! mine heaven's bright Sun and Moon !
The Stars by which, poor Shepherd I, am warned
To pin in late, and put my flocks out soon ;
My flocks of Fancies, as the signs me learned :
Then did my love's first Spring begin to sprout,
So long as my sun's heat in these signs reigned.
But wandering ail the Zodiac throughout,
From her May's twins, my sun such heat constrained :
That where, at first, I little had complained ;
From Sign to Sign, in such course he now posteth !
Which, daily, me, with hotter flaming toasteth.

SONNET XXXV
ExT, when my sun, by progress, took his ho]d
In Cancer, of my Mistress' crafty mind ;
How retrograde seemed She! when as I told
That "in his claws, sueh torehes I did find ;
V¢hieh if She did hot to my tears lay plain
That they might quenchèd be from their outrage ;
My love's hot .]une should be consumed in pain,
Unless her pity make my grief assuage."
O, how She frowns! and like the Crab, back turns!
When I request her put her beams apart ;
Yet with her beams, my soul's delight, She burns !
She pities not to think upon my smart l
Nor from her Cancer's claws can I depart :
For there, the torch of my red-hot Desire
Grieves and relieves me, xvith continual tire.

AND PARTII2O'IIE. SONNETSo I8 9

SONNET XXXVl.
ND thus continuing with outrageous tire,
My sun, proceeding forward (fo my sorrow
Took up his Court; but wflling fo retire
Within the Lion's den, his rage did borrow.
But whiles within that Mansion te rema/ned,
How cruel was PARTHENOPHE to me [
And when of my great sorrows I compla/ned,
She L/on-like, wished "they might tenfold be ["
Then did I rage ; and in unkindly Passions,
I rent mine hair, and razed my tender skin ;
And raving in such frantic fashions,
That with such cruelty she did begin
To feed the tire wh/ch I was burnèd in.
Can woman brook fo deal so sore with men ?
She, man's woe ! learned it in the Lion's den

SONNET XXXVII.
'r Pity, which sometimes doth lions, move,
Removed my su, n from moody Lion s cave;
And into Virgo s bower did next remove
His fiery wheels. But then She answer gave
That " She was ail vowed to virginity ! "
Yet said, "'Bove ail men, She would most affect me ! "
Fie, Delian goddess ! In thy company
She learned, with honest colour, to neglect me !
And underneath chaste veils of single lire,
She shrouds her crafty claws, and lion's heart !
Which, with my senses, now, do mingle strife
'Twixt lovcs and virtues, which provoke my smart.
Yet from thcse Passions can I never part,
But still I make my suits importunate
To thee ! which makes my case unfortunate.

SONNET XXXVIII.
HEN thine heart-piercing answers could not hinder
Mine heart's hot hammer on thy steel to batter ;
Nor could excuses cold, quench out that cinder
W'hich in me kindled was : She weighed the matter,
And turning my sun's chariot, him did place
In Libra's equal Mansion, taking pause,
And casting, with deep judgement, to disgrace
My love, with cruel dealing in the cause.
She, busily, with earnest care devised
How She might make her beauty tyrannous,
And I, for ever, fo ber yoke surprised :
The means found out, with cunning perilou,
She tumed the wheels, with force impetuous,
And armed with woman-like contagion
My sun She lodgèd in the Scorpion.

SONNET XXXIX.
HEN (from her Venus, and bright Mercury,
My heaven's clear planets),did She shoot such blazes
As did infuse, with heat's extremity,
Mine heart, which on despair's bare pasture grazes.
Then, like the Scorpion, did She deadly sting me;
And with a pleasing poison pierced me 1
Which, to these utmost sobs of death, did bring me,
And, through my soul's faint sinews, searched me.
Yet might She cure me with the Scortion's Oil !
If that She were so kind as beautiful :
But, in my hale, She joys to see me boil ;
Though be my Passions dear and dutiful,
Yet She, remorseless and unmerciful.
But when my thought of ber is such a thing
To strike me dead ; judge, if herself tan sting !

! Msyi. MND .IRTroPIE. SONNETS. I91

SONNET XL.
U'r, ah, my p|ague, through timCs outrage, increased
For when my sun his task had finished
"vVithin the Scorpion's Mansion, he hot ceased,
Nor yet his heat's extremes diminished,
Till that dead-aiming Archer 'dressed his quiver,
In which he closely couchèd, at the last!
That Archer, which does pierce both heart and liver,
With hot gold-pointed shafts, which rankle fast!
That proud, commanding, and swift-shooting Archer
Far-shooting PniJs, which doth overshoot !
And, more than PIJit3s, is an inward parcher !
That with thy notes harmonious and songs soot
Allured my sun, to tire mine heart's soft foot !
And with thine ever-wounding golden arrow,
First pricked my soul, then pierced my body's marrow

SONNET XLI.
HEN my sun, CU'ID, took his next abiding
'Mongst craggy rocks and mountains, with the Goat;
Ah then, on beauty did my senses doat!
Then, had each Fait regard, my fancies guiding !
Then, more than blessed was I, if one tiding
Of female favour set mine heart afloat [
Then, to mine eyes each Maid was made a moat !
My fickle thoughts, with divers fancies sliding,
With wanton rage of lust, so me did tickle [
Mine heart, each Beauty's captived vassal [
Nor vanquished then (as now) but with love's prickle !
Not deeply moved (till love's beams did discover
That lovely Nymph, P.I'IJENO'IJE !), no lover l
Stop there, for fear I Love's privilege doth pass alll

SONNET XLII.
Ass ail ! Ah, no ! No jot will be omitted,
Now though sun
my within the water rest ;
Yet doth his scalding fui 3, still infest
Into this sign. While that my PHOEBUS flitted,
Thou moved these streams ; whose courses thou committed
To me, thy Water-man bound ! and addrest
To pour out endless drops upon that soil
Which withers most, when itis watered best !
Cease, floods ! and to your channels, make recoil t.
Strange floods, which on my tire burn like oil !
Thus whiles mine endless furies higher tan,
Thou ! thou, PARTHlZNOPHIZ ! my rage begun ;
Sending thy beams, to heat my fiery sun :
Thus am I Water-man, and Fire-man !

SONNET XLIII.
Ow in my Zodiac's last extremest sign,
My luckless sun, his hapless Mansion made ;
And in the water, willing more to wade,
To Pistes did his chariot wheels incline:
For me (poor Fish!) he, with his golden line
Baited with beauties, all the river lade,
(For who, of such sweet baits would stand afraid ?)
There nibbling for such food as ruade me pine,
LovE's Golden Hook, on me took sudden hold ;
And I down swallowed that impoisoned gold.
Since then, devise what any wisher tan,
Of fiercest torments ! since, ail joys devise l
Worse griefs, more joys did my true heart comprise
Such, were LovE's baits ! my cmfty Fisherman.

B. Barn«.3
May,»_] AND AR'HENOPHE. ONNETS. i93

MADRIGAL 5-

,,UcH strange elïects wrought by thought-wounding
CUPID
In changing me to fish, his baits to swallow ;
With poison choking me, unless that you bid
Him to my stomach give some antidote!
Fly, little god, with wings of swallow !
Or if thy feathers fast float,
That antidote from my heart's Empress bring!
My feeble senses to revive :
Lest (if thou wave it with an eagle's wing)
Too late thou corne, and find me hOt alive I

MADRIGAL 6.

WHt loved I ? For love, to purchase hatredl
Or wherefore hates She ? but that I should love ber !
Why were these cheeks with tears bewatered ?
Because my tears might quenchthose sparks
Which with heat's pity more her l
Her cloudy frown, with mist ber beauty darks,
To make it seem obscurèd at my smiles.
In dark, true diamonds will shine !
Her hate, my love; ber heat, my tears beguilesl

Fear makes ber doubttul; yet ber heart is mine l
N

I94 SONNET$. .P A R T H E N O P H I L t taayso.

MADRIGAL 7-
OUTH'S wanton Spring, when in the raging Bull
My sun was lodged, gave store of flowers,
With leaves of pleasure, stalks of hours ; [full
Which soon shaked off the leaves, when they were
Of pleasures, beauty dewed, with April showers.
My Summer love, whose buds were beautiful,
Youthful desires, with heats unmerciful,
Parched; whose seeds, when harvest rime was corne,
Were cares, against my suits obdurate.
With sheaves of scorn bound up, which did benumb
Mine heart with grief; yet ruade ber heart indurate.
0 chaste desires, which held her heart immurate
In walls of adamant unfoiled !
My Winter spent in showers of sorrow's tears !
Hailstones of hatred ! frosts of fears !
My branches bared of pleasure, and despoiled !

MADRIGAL 8.
HY am I thus in mind and body wounded ?
O mind, and body mortal, and divine!
On what sure rock is your fort grounded ?
Ondeath? Ah, no! Foratit, yourepine!
Nay, both entombed in her beauty's shrine
Will live, though shadow-like ; that men astounded
At their anatomies, when they shall view it,
May pitifully rue it.
Yea, but her murdering beauty doth so shine,
(O yet much merciless l)
That heart desires to live with her, that slew it !
And though She still rest pitiless,
Yet, at her beauty, will I wonder I
Though sweet graces (past repeat)
Never appear, but when they threat ;
Firing my secret heart, with dart and thunder.

SONNET XLIV.

D^n" and thunder I whose tierce violence
Surmounting Rhetoric's dart and thunder bolts,
Can never be set out in eloquence !
Whose might ail metals' mass asunder moults !
Where be the famous Prophets of old Greece ?
Those ancient Roman poets of account ?
Mus-us, who went for the Golden Fleece
With J.,,soN, and did HERO'S love recount !
And thou, sweet N,so, with thy golden verse ;
Whose lovely spirit ravished CmAR'S daughter I
And that sweet Tuscan, PwrRARCH, which did pierce
His L.,,vRA with Love Sonnets, when he sought her !
Where be ail these ? That all these might have taught her.
That Saints divine, are known Saints by their mercy!
And Saint-like beauty should hot rage with pierce eye!

SONNET XLV.

WE'r Beauty's rose ! in whose fair purple leaves,
LovE's Queen, in richest ornament doth lie;
Whose graces, were they hot too sweet and high,
Might here be seen, but since their sight bereaves
AIl senses ; he (that endless bottom weaves,
Which did PqLOeE) who that shall try,
Then wonder, and in admiration die
At Nature-passing Nature's holy frame !
Her beauty, thee revives ! Thy Muse upheaves
To draw celestial spirit from the skies !
To praise the Work and Worker whence it came
This spirit, drawn from heaven of thy fair eyes !
Whose gilded cognizance, left in mine heart,
Shews me thy faithful servant, to my smart !

SONNET XLVII.

IvE me my Heart ! For no man liveth heartlessl
And now deprived of heart, I ara but dead,
(And since thou hast it ; in his tables read !
Whether he rest at ease, in joy and smartless ?
Whether beholding him, thine eyes were dartless ?
Or to what bondage, his enthralment leads ?)
Return, dear Heart ! and me, to mine restore !
Ah, let me thee possess ! Return to me !
I find no means, devoid of skill and artless.
Thither return, where thou triumphed beiore !
Let me of him but repossessor be !
And when thou gives to me mine heart again ;
Thyself, thou dost bestow! For thou art She»
Whom I call Heart ! and of whom, I complain.

AND PARTtlENOPHE. ONNET$. I9

SONNET XLVIII.

H WISH no rich refined Arabian gold I
Nor orient Indian pearl, rare Nature's wonder !
No diamonds, th' Egyptian surges under [
No rubies of America, dear sold !
Nor saphires, which rich Afric sands enfold !
(Treasures far distant, from this isle asunder)
Barbarian ivories, in contempt I hold !
But only this; this only, VENUS, grant !
That I, my sweet PARTHENOPHE may get!
Her hairs, no grace of golden wires want i
Pure pearls, with perfect rubines are inset ;
True diamonds, in eyes; saphires, in veins :
Nor can I, that sort ivory skin forget !
England, in one small subject, such contains!

SONNET XLIX.

Oot. { cool in waves, thy beams intolerable,
O sun { No son, but most unkind stepfather!
By law, nor Nature, Sire ; but rebel rather !
Fool ! fool ! these labours are inextricable ;
A burden whose weight is importable ;
A Siren which, xvithin thy breast, doth bathe ber ;
A Fiend which doth, in Graces' garments grath ber ;
A fortress, whose force is impregnable ;
From my love's 'lembic, still 'stilled tears. O tears !
Quench ! quench mine heat ! or, with your sovereigntv,
Like NIoBE, convert mine heart to marble !
Or with fast-flowing pine, my body dry,
And rid me from Despair's chilled fears ! 0 fears,
Which on mine heben harp's heartstrings do warble !

SONNET L.

[0 WARBLE out )'our tragic notes of sorrow,
I.i Black harp of liver-pining Melancholy !
Black Humour, patron of my Fancy's folly !
Mere follies, which from Fancy's tire, borrow
Hot tire ; which burns day, night, midnight, and morrow.
Long morning which prolongs my sorrows solely,
And ever overrules my Passions wholly :
So that my fortune, where it first made sorrow,
Shall there remain, and ever shall it plow
The bowels of mine heart ; mine heart's hot bowels |
And in their furrows, sow the Seeds of Love ;
Which thou didst sow, and newly spring up now
And make me write vain words : no words, but Vowels !
For nought to me, good Consonant would prove.

SONNET Ll.

AME Consonants, of member-Vowels robbed !
What perfect sounding words can you compose,
Wherein you might my sorrow's flame disclose ?
Can you frame maimed words, as you had throbbed ?
Can you ,vith sighs, make signs of Passions sobbed ?
Or can your Characters, make Sorrow's shows ?
Can Liquids make them ? I, with tears make those!
But for my tears, with taunts and frumps are bobbed.
Could Mutes procure good words, mute would I be !
But then who should my Sorrow's Image paint ?
No Consonants, or Mutes, or Liquids will
Set out my sorrows ; though, with grief I faint.
If with no letter, but one Vowel should be ;
An A, with H, my Sonnet would fulfil.

B. Barne.'l
Mazs9.J AND .[:ARZIIEOPIIE SONNETS. Içç

SONNET LII.
I]THOUGHT, CALLIOPI did from heaven descend
To sing, fair Mistress ! thy sweet beauty's praise.
Thy sweet enchanting voice did ORPIUS raise ;
Who, with his harp (which down the gods did send)
Celestial concord to the voice did lend.
His music, ail wild beasts so did arnaze
That they, submissive to thy Iooks did bend.
Hills, trees, towns, bridges, from their places wend.
Hopping and dancing. Ail the winds be still
And listen ; whiles the nightingales fulfil,
W{th larks and thrushes, all defects of pleasure.
Springs sang thy praises, in a rnurmur shrill.
Whiles I, enraged by music, out of france,
Like B^CCHUS's priest, did, in thy presence dance.

MADRIGAL 9.

01 glory, pleasure, and fair flourishing ;
Sweet singing, courtly dancing, curious love,
A rich remembrance ; virtue's nourishing ;
For sacred tare of heavenly things ;
For voice's sweetness, music's notes above,
When she divinely speaks or sings :
Cmo, dismount ! EtJ'rERPE, silent be!
TH^LIA, for thy purple, put on sackcloth !
Sing hoarse, MLPOMNE ! with Jov's Harpies three
I'RPSICrORE, break off thy galliard dances !
Leave, EI^TO, thy daliance ! court in black cloth
Thy praises, POLYttYMNI^! She enhances.
For heavenly zeal, URANI^, She outreacheth.
Plead not, C^LLIOPI3 ! Sing hot to thy lute!
Jov and Mruosi, both, be mute!
While rny P^RTIaI-NOPHE, your daughters teacheth.

" I. FLrnS.
200 S o N N E T S. A DA R TH E N O P //1 L Lyxsg»

MADRIGAL o.
[Cf. Percy'a Codla» vol. ii. p. ,46, and Didla, vol. ii. p. 304,
Hou scaled my fort, blind Captain of Conceit !
But you, sweet Mistress ! entered at the breach !
There, you made havoc of my heart
There, you to triumph, did my tyrant teach 1
Beware I He knows to win you by deceit
Those ivory Walls cannot endure his dart
That Turret, framed with heaven's rare art,
Immured with whitest porphyry, and inset
With roses, checking Nature's pride of ruby
Those two true diamonds which their Windows fret,
Arched with pure gold, yet mourn in sable shade
Warn not these, that in danger you be ?
Vanquish her, little tyrant I I will true be
And though She will not yield to me ;
Yet none could thrall my heart, but Shel

MADRIGAL II.
HINE Eyes, mine heaven ! (which harbour lovely test,
And with their beams all creatures cheer)
Stole from mine eyes their clear ;
And ruade mine eyes dim mirrolds of unrest.
And from ber lily Forehead, smooth and plain,
My front, his withered furrows took ;
And through ber grace, his grace forsook.
From sort Cheeks, rosy red,
My cheeks their leanness, and this pallid stain.
The Golden Pen of Nature's book,
(For ber Tongue, that task undertook l)
Which fo the Graces' Secretory led,
And sweetest Muses, with sweet music fed,
Inforced my Muse, in tragic tunes to sing :
But from her heart's hard frozen string,
Mine heart his tenderness and heat possest.

B.
Ms9..J 4NL) 4THNO.PHo ONNETS. 201

MADRIGAL x-.

lg to the Mountains, are mine high desires ;
Level to thy love's highest point :
Grounded on faith, which thy sweet graee requires.
For Springs, tears fise in endless source.
For Summer's flowers, Love's fancies I appoint.
The Trees, with storms tossed out of course,
Figure my thoughts, still blasted with Despair.
Thunder, lightning, and bail
Make histrees mourn : thy frowns make me bewail !
This only difference ! Here, tire ; there, snows are !

SONNET LIII.

HY do I draw my breath, vain sighs to feed ;
Since ail my sighs be breathed out in vain ?
Why be these eyes the conduits, whence proceed
These ceaseless tears, which,for your sake ! do rain ?
Why do I write my woes ! and writing, grieve
To think upon them, and their sweet contriver ;
Begging some comfort, which might me relieve,
When the remembrance is my cares' reviver ?
Why do I sue to kiss; and kiss, to love;
And love, to be tormented ; hot beloved ?
Can neither sighs, nor tears, my sorrows more
By lines, or words ? nor will they be removed ?
Then tire hot, Tyrant ! but on mine heart tire!
That unconsumed, I burn, in my Desire.

SONNET LIV.

,HEN I was young, indued with Nature's graces ;
I stole blind LovE's strong bow and golden arrows,
'L[ï To shoot at redbreasts, goldfinches, and sparrows ;
At shrewd girls; and at boys, in other places.
I shot, when I was vexèd gith disgraces.
I pierced no skin, but melted up their marrows.
How many boys and girls wished mine embraces l
How many praised my favour, 'bove ail faces[
But, once, PARTHENOPtIE by thy sweet side sitting,
Lovp had espied me, in a place most fitting :
Betrayed by thine eyes' beams (which make blind see)
He shot at me; and said, "for thine eyes' light ;
This daring boy (that durst usurp my right)
Take him ! a wounded slave to LOVE and Thee !"

SONNET LV.

,¥MPH$, which in beauty mortal creatures stain,
And Satyrs, which none but fait Nymphs behold ;
They, to the Nymphs; and Nymphs to them,
complain :
And each, in spite, my Mistress' beauty told.
Till soundly sleeping in a myrtle grove,
A wanton Satyr had espied her there ;
Who deeming she was dead, in a|| haste strove
To fetch the Nymphs; which in the forests were.
They flocking fast, in triumph of her death,
Lightly beheld : and, deeming she was dead,
Nymphs sang, and Satyrs dancèd out of breath.
Whilst Satyrs, with the Nymphs Lt Voltas led ;
My Mistress did awake ! Then, they which cama
To scorn her beauty, tan away for shamc !

»h,sg/ .4ND .4RItF. NOPItI. ONNETS. 203

SONNET LVI.

H- Dial ! love, which shews how my days spend.
The leaden Plummets sliding to the ground !
My thoughts, which to dark melancholy bend.
The rolling Wheels, which turn swift hours round!
.Thine eyes, P^RTHEOPH[ my Fancy's guide.
The Watch, continually which keeps his stroke [
By whose oft turning, every hour doth slide ;
Figure the sighs, which from my liver smoke,
Whose oft invasions finish my life's date.
The Watchman, which, each quarter, strikes the bell
Thy love, which doth each part exanimate ;
And in each quarter, strikes his forces fell.
That Hammer and great Bell, which end each hour!
Death, my life's victor, sent by thy love's power.

SONNET LVII.

.'H'z beauty is the Sun, which guides my day,
And with his beams, to my world's lire gives
light ;
With whose sweet favour, all my fancies play,
And as birds singing, still enchant my sight.
But when I seek to get my Iove's chier pleasure,
Her frowns are like the night led by the Lamp
Of PHEB.'S chaste desires; whilst, without leisure,
Graces like Stars, through all her face encamp.
Then all my Fancy's birds lie whisht, for fear ;
Soon as her frowns procure their shady sorrow :
Saving my heart, which secret shot doth bear,
And nature from the nightingale doth borrow;
Which from laments, because he will hot test,
Hath love's thorn-prickle pointed at his breast.

204 S O N N ET S. t>1R THENOPtllL mlys9.

SONNET LVIII.
AR CLYTIE doth flourish with the Spring;
And, eftsoons, withered like thy golden Hair!
And Io-'s violets grow flourishing, [bear !
But soon defaced; which thine Eyes semblance
Anemone with hyacinth, Spring's pride,
(Like to thy Beauty ) lose their Iovely gloss :
So will thy Cheeks, with graces beautified,
Return to wrinldes, and fo Nature's dross !
Roses, as from thy lips, sweet odours send,
Which herbs (in them whilst juice and virtues rest)
From some diseases' rigour, life defend :
These (as Thyself !) once withered, men detest !
Then love betimes! These withered flowers of yore
Reviv¢ ! Thy beauty lost, returns no more !

SONNET LIX.

,H E ! sweet beauty lost, returns no more.
And how I fear mine heart fraught with disdain !
Despair of her disdain, casts doubt belote ;
And makes me thus of mine heart's hope
complain.
Ah, me ! nor mine heart's hope, nor help. Despairl
Avoid my Fancy I Fancy's utter bane !
My woes' chier worker ! Cause of ail my care !
Avoid my thoughts ! that Hope may me restore
To mine heart's heaven, and happiness again !
Ah, wilt thou not ? but still depress my thought !
Ah, Mistress ! if thy beauty, this hath wrought,
That proud disdainfulness shall in thee reign :
Yet, think! when in thy forehead wrinkles be ;
Men will disdain thee, then, as thou dost me!

t May.sg». 42VD P.4RTH#E2VOI'H#E. SONNETS. 205

SONNET LX.
HILST some, the Trojan wars in verse recount,
And all the Grecian conquerors in 6ght ;
Somc, valiant Roman wars 'bove stars do mount,
V¢ith ail their warlike leaders, men of might :
Whilst some, of British ARTHUR'S valour sing,
And register thc praise of CHARLEMAGNE ;
And some, of doughty GODFRE%' tidings bring,
And some, thc Ocrman broils, and wars of Spain :
In none of those, myself I woundcd tind,
Neithcr with horseman, nor with man on foot ;
But from a clear bright eye, one Captain blind
(V¢hose puissance fo resist, did nothing boot)
V¢ith men in golden arms, and darts of gold,
V¢oundcd my heart, and all which did bchold I

SONNET LXI.

0 UOUE but to PROMETHEUS, me compare [
From sacred heaven, he stole that holy tire.
I, from thine eyes, stole tire [ My judgements are
For to be bound, with chains of strong Desire,
To that hard rock of thy thrice cruel heart !
The ceaseless waves, which on the rocks do dash
Yet never pierce, but forcèd, backward start ;
Those be these endless tears, my cheeks which wash
The vulture, which is, by my goddess' doom,
Assigned to feed upon mine endless liver ;
Despair, by thee procured ! which leaves no room
For JOCULUS to jest with CuPID'S quiver.
This swaIIows worlds of livers, spending few ;
But not content--O god ! shall this be true ?

SONNET LXII.
"IE ! fie, fierce Tyrant ! Quench this furlous rage
O quench this rageous fury, little god!
Nay, mighty god! my fury's heat assuage
Nor are thine, little darts, nor brittle rod
Ah, that thou hadst a sweet recu.ring dart
Or such a rod, as înto hea|th might whip me [
V/th this, to level at my troub|ed heart ;
To warn with scourge, that no bright eye might trip me !"
Vain words, which vanish with the clouds, why speak I I
And bootless options, buildd with void air!
How oft, enraged in hopeless Passions, break I
How oft, in false vain hope, and blank despair
How oft, left lifeless at thy cloudy frown !
How oft, in Passion mounted, and Ilucked down !

MADRIGAL x 3.
OIT, lovely, rose-like lips, conjoined with mine
Breathing out precious incense such !
(Such as, at Paphos, smoke to VENUS' shrine)
Making my lips immortal, with their touch !
My cheeks, with touch of thy sort cheeks divine ;
Thy soft warm cheeks, which V.lqOS favours much !
Those arms, such arms! which me embraced,
Me, with immortal cincture girding round
Of everlasting bliss ! then bound
With her enfolded thighs in mine entangled ;
And both in one self-soul placed,
Made a hermaphrodite, with pleasures ravished !
There, heat for heat's, soul for soul's empire wrangled
Why died not I, with love so largely lavished ?
For 'wake (not finding truth of dreams before)
It secret vexeth ten times more !

MADRIDGAL 4.
H, TV.N times worse tormented than bei'ore [
Ten rimes more pity shouldst thou take of me ]
I have endured ; then, Sweet ! restore
That pleasure, which procured this pain!
Thou scorn'st my lines! (a Saint, which make of thee
Where true desires of thine hard heart complain,
There thou, 'bore STELLA placed ;
'Bore LAJRA ; with ten thousand more irstalled :
And now, proud, thinks me graced,
That am to thee (though merciless [) enthralled.

SONNET LXIII.

Ovv- for EURO'A's love, took shape of Bull ;
And for CALISTO, played DIANA'S part:
And in a golden shower, he filled full
The lap of DANAv-, with celestial art.
Would I were changed but to my Mistress' gloves,
That those white lovely fingers I might hide [
That I might kiss those hands, which mine heart loves
Or else that chain oi" pearl (her neck's vain pride)
Made proud with her neck's veins, that I might fold
About that lovely neck, and her paps tickle !
Or her to compass, like a belt of gold !
Or that sweet wine,which down her throat doth trickle,
To kiss her lips, and lie next at her heart,
Run through her veins, and pass by Pleasure's part

SONNET LXIV.

F axz. the Loves were lost, and should be round ;
And all the Graces" glories were decaved :
In the¢, the Graces" ornaments abound !
In me, the Loves, by thy sweet Graces laid !
And if the Muses had their voice foregone ;
And VE.=s" husband's forge had lost his tire :
The Muses" voice should, by thy voice, be known !
And Vvta:.,,-'s heat be round in my Desire !
I will accuse thee to the gods, of theft !
For PXLLS" eye, and VE.vs" rosy cheek,
And PHOEII'S forhead ; which thou ha.st bereft !
Complain of me, to C=P ! Let him seek
In vain, for me, each where, and in all parts
For, 'gainst my will, I stole one of his darts.

SONNET LXV.

Tç I had no heart ! as I have none.
(For thou, mine heart's fur spirit hast possessed )
Then should mine Argument be hot of moan !
Then under Love's yoke, should I hOt be pressed !
O that without mine e 3 es I had been born !
Then had I hot my M/stress' beauty vieed I
OEhen had I nevex been so far forlorn !
Then had I never wept I. Then, never rued !
O that I never had been born at al] !
Or bemg, had been born of shepherds" brood !
Then should I not in such mischances fall!
Quiet, my water; and Content, my food !
But now disquieted, and still tormented ;
1"ith adverse rate, preforce, must rest contented !

Shy3. J 4ND ,4RTHENOFIE, SONNETS. 209

SONNET LXVI.
H, SWEET Content ! where is thy mild abode ?
Is it with Shepherds, and light-hearted Swains,
Which sing upon the downs, and pipe abroad,
Tending their flocks and cattle on the plains ?
Ah, sweet Content ! where dost thou safely rest ?
In heaven, with angels ? which the praises sing
Of Him that ruade, and rules at His behest,
The minds and hearts of every living thing.
Ah, sweet Content ! where doth thine harbour hold ?
Is it in churches, with Religious Men,
Which please the gods with prayers manifold ;
And in their studies meditate it then ?
Whether thou dost in heaven, or earth appear ;
Be where thou wilt ! Thou wilt not harbour here !

SONNET LXVII.

F CUPID keep his quiver in thine eye,
And shoot at over-daring gazers' heartsl
Alas, why be hot men afraid ! and fly
As from MEDUs^'s, doubting after smarts ?
Ah, when he draws his string, none sees his bow !
Nor hears his golden-feathered arrows sing !
Ay me ! till it be shot, no man doth know ;
Until his heart be prickèd with the sting.
Like semblance bears the musket in the field :
It hits, and kills unsecn I till unawares,
To death, the wounded man his body yield.
And thus a peasant, C-SAR's glory dares.
This difference left 'twixt M,«as his field, and Love?s;
That CUPID'S soldier shot, more torture proves !
l. O 8

1_ B. Brae
210 S ON N ETS. 2 R TII VO.Plll" May3.

SONNET LXVIII.
_ .OtmD GOD (when I beheld thy beauteous face.
And golden tresses rich with pear] and stone) !
MEDUSA'S visage had appeared in place,
With snaky Iocks, looking on me alone !
Then had ber dreadful charming looks me changed
Into a senseless stone. O, were I senseless !
Then rage, through rash regard, had never rangeà :
Whereas to Love, I stood disarmed and fenceless.
Yea, but that divers object of thy face
In me contrarious operations wrought.
A moving spirit pricked with Beauty's grace.
No pity's grace in thee ! which I have sought :
Which makes me deem, thou did'st ]V[EDUSA see 1
And should thyself, a moving marble be.

SONNET LXlX.

Hp. leafless branches of the lifeless boughs,
Carve Winter's outrage in their withered barks :
The withered wrinkles in my careful brows,
Figure from whence they drew those crooked marks !
Down from the Thracian mountains, oaks of might
And Iofty firs, into the vaIley 4"all :
Sure sign where BOREA$ bath usurped his right ;
And that, long there, no Sylvans daIIy shaIl.
Fields, with prodigious inundations drowned ;
For N EPTUNF?S rage, with AMPHITRITE weep.
My Iooks and Passions likewise shew my wound ;
And how some fait regard did strike it deep.
These branches, blasted trees, and fields so wat'red ;
For wrinkles, sighs, and tears, foreshew thine hatred !

B.
ay»..J A,VD AR"EVOPE. ONNETS. II

SONNET LXX.

HAT can these wrinkles and vain tears portend,
But thine hard favour, and indurate heart ?
What shew these sighs, which from my soul I send,
But endless smoke, raised from a fiery smart ?
Canst thou hot pity my deep wounded breast ?
Canst thou hot frame those eyes tu cast a smile ?
Wilt thou, with no sxveet sentence make me blest ?
Tu make amends, wilt thou hot sport a while ?
Shall we hOt, once, with our opposed ey'n,
In interchange, send golden darts rebated ?
With short reflexion, 'twixt thy brows and mine;
Whilst love with thee, of my griefs hath debated ?
Those eyes of love were ruade for love tu see 1
And cast regards on others, hot on me l

SONNET LXXI.

HosE hairs of angels' gold, thy nature's treasure.
(For thou, by Nature, angel-like art framed !)
Those lovely brows, broad bridges of sweet pleasure,
Arch two clear springs of Graces gracious named
There Graces infinite du bathe and sport !
Under, on both sides, those two precious hills,
Where PHOEBE and VENUS bave a several fort.
Her couch, with snowy lilies, PHOEBE fills,
But VENUS, with red roses, hers adorneth ;
There, they, with silent tokens, du dispute
Whilst PHOEBE, VENUS ; VENUS, PHOEBE scorncth
And all the Graces, judgers there sit mute
Tu give their verdict ; till great JOVE said this,
" DIANA'S arrows wound not, like thy kiss ! "

SONNET L, XXI l.

Y MISTRESS' beauty matchcd with the Graces'
'Twixt PHOEB' and JuNo should be judgèd therc :
Where She, with mask, had veilcd the lovcly places;
And Graccs, in likc sort, i-maskèd wcrc.
But when their lovely beauties werc disclosed ;
"This Nymph," quoth JuNo, "ail thc Graces passeth !
For beauteous favours, in hcr face disposed,
Love's goddess, in love's graccs she surpasseth !"
"She doth hot pass thc Graccs ! " PHOEBS said,
"Though in her cheeks the Graces richly sit ;
For they bc subjects to her beauty ruade.
The glory for this fair Nymph is most fit !
Therc, in hcr cheeks, thc Graces blush for shame !
That in her cheeks to strive, the subjects came."

SONNET LXXIII.

HY did rich Nature, Graccs grant to thec ?
Sincc Thou art such a niggard of thy gracc !
Or how can Graces in thy body be ?
Where neither they, nor pity final a place !
Ah, thcy bc Handmaids to thy Beauty's Fury !
Making thy face to tyrannizc on mon.
Condemned before thy Bcauty, by Lovc's Jury ;
And by thy frowns, adjudged to Sorrow's Den :
Grant me some gracc ! forThou, with gracc art wealthy ;
And kindly may'st afford some gracious thing.
Mine hopes all, as my mind, weak and unhcalthy ;
Ail her looks gracious, yet no gracc do bring
To me, poor wrctch ! Yet bc thc Graces therc !
But I, thc Furics in my breast do bear !

tM,.W» AN) .ARTHNOPHo SONNETSo

SONNET LXXIV.

E^sE, over-tired Muses ! to complain i
In vain, thou pours out words! in vain, thy tears!
In vain, thou writes thy verses ! all in vain !
For to the rocks and wall, which never hears,
Thou speakes ! and sendes complaints, which find no grace
But why compare I thee to rocks, and walls ?
Yes, thou descendes from stones and rocks, by race
But rocks will answer to the latter calls.
Yea, rocks will speak each sentence's last word,
And in each syllable of that word agree ;
But thou, nor last, nor first, wilt me afford !
Hath Pride, or Nature, bred this fault in thee ?
Nature and Pride bave wrought in thee these evils
For women are, by Nature, proud as devilsl

SONNET LXXV.

OvE is a name too lovely for the god !
He naked goes, red coloured in his skin,
And bare, all as a boy fit for a rod.
Hence into Afric ! There, seek out thy
Amongst the Moors! and swarthy men of Ind
Me, thou, of joys and sweet content hast hindered
Hast thou consumed me ! and art of my kind ?
Hast thou enraged me ! yet art of my kindred?
Nay, Ismarus, or Rhodope thy father!
Or craggy Caucasus, thy crabbed sire
Vesuvius, else ? or was it Etna rather ?
For thou, how many dost consume with tire
Fierce tigers, wolves, and panthers gave thee suckl
For lovely VElts had hot such evil luck!

2I 4 S ONN ETS..PIR T]NOP]IL ayz$»

SONNET LXXVI.

E BLIND, mine Eyes ! whlch saw that stormy frown.
\Vither, long-watering Lips! which may hot kiss.
Pine, Arms ! which wished-for sweet embraces miss.
And upright parts of pleasure ! fall you down.
Waste, wanton tender Thighs! Consume for this;
To ber thigh-elms, that you were hot ruade vines !
And my long pleasure in her body grafted.
But, at my pleasure, ber sweet thought repines.
My heart, with her fait colours, should be wafted
Throughout this ocean of my deep despair :
Why do I longer lire ? but me prepare
My lire, together with my joys, to finish !
And, long ere this, had I died, with my care;
But hope of joys to corne, did all diminish.

SONNET LXXVII.

Ow can I live in mind's or body's health,
When all f.o,ur Elements, my griefs conspire ?
Of ail heart s joys depriving me, by stealth,
AIl yielding poisons to my long Desire.
The Fire, with heat's extremes mine heart enraging.
Water, in tears, from Despair's fountain flowing.
ly soul in sighs, Air to Love's soul engaging.
/¢ly Fancy's coals, Earth's melancholy blowing.
Thus these, by Nature, made for my relief;
Through that bold charge of thine imperious eye !
Turn all their graces into bitter grief.
As I were dead, should any of them die !
And they, my body's substance, ail be sick;
It follows, then, I cannot long be quick !

SONNET LXXVIII.
HE proudest Planet in his highest sphere,
Saturn, enthronist in thy frowning brows !
Next awful Jove, thy majesty doth bearl
And unto dreadful Mars, thy courage bows!
Drawn from thy noble grandfathers of might.
Amongst the laurel-crowned Poets sweet,
And sweet Musicians, take the place by right !
For Phoebus, with thy graces thought it meet.
Venus doth sit upon thy lips, and chin !
And Hermes hath enriched thy wits divine !
Phoebe with chaste desires, thine heart did win !
The Planets thus to thee, their powers resign 1
Whom Planets honour thus, is any such ?
My Muse, then, cannot honour her too much!

SONNET LXXIX.
OVETOUS Eyes! What did you late behold ?
My Rival gracèd with a sun-bright smile [
Where he, with secret signs, was sweetly told
Her thoughts; with winks, which ail men mlght
beguile !
Audacious, did I see him kiss that hand
Which holds the teins of my unbridled heart:
And, softly wringing it, did closely stand
Courting with love terres, and in lover's art !
Next (with his fingers kissed) he touched her middle !
Then saucy, (with presumption uncontrolled)
To hers, from his eyes, sent regards by riddle !
At length, he kissed her cheek ! Ah me [ so bold !
To bandy with bel-guards in interchange.
Blind mine eyes, Envy [ that they may hot range!

SON N ET LXXX.

,ONç-wished for Death ! sent by my Mistress' doom;
Hold! Take thy prisoner, full resolved to die !
But first as chier, and in the highest room,
My Soui, to heaven I do bequeath on high ;
Now ready to be severed from Thy love !
My Sighs, to air ! to crystal springs, my Tears !
My sad Complaints (which Thee could never mov¢ !
To mountains desolate and deaf! My Fears,
To lambs beset with lions ! My Despair,
To night, and irksome dungeons full of dread !
Then shalt Thou find (when I ara past this care)
My torments, which thy cruelties have bred,
In heavens, clouds, springs, hard mountains, lambs, and
night:
Here, once united ; then, dissevered quite.

SONNET LXXXI.

KINGLY Jealousy! which canst admit
No thought of compeers in thine high Desire 1
Love's bastard daughter, for true-loves unfit,
Scalding men's hearts with force of secret tire
Thou poisoned Canker of much beauteous Love!
Fostered with Envy's paps, with wrathful rage !
Thou (which dost still thine own destruction move)
With eagle's eyes, which secret watch doth wage!
With peacock's feet, to steal in unawares !
With PROçSE'S wings, to false suspect which files
Which virtues hold in durance, rashly dares [
Provoker and maintainer of vain lies !
Who, with rich virtues and fait love possessed,
Causeless ! hast Ail, to thine heart's hell addressed

I.
M»J .'INZ) PA THNOH. SONNETS, 217

SONNET LXXXII.
HE Chariot, with the Steed is drawn along.
Ships, winged with Winds, swift hover on the waves.
The stubborn Ploughs arc hauled with Oxcn strong.
Hard Adamant, the strongest Iron craves.
But I am with thy beauty strongly forced ;
Which, full of courage, draws me like the Steed.
Those Winds, thy spirit ; whence cannot bc divorced.
My hcart thc Ship, from danger ncver freed.
That strong conceit on thy sweet beauty lade ;
The strong-necked Ox which draws my Fancy's Plow,
Thine heart that Adamant, whose force hath madc
My strong desires stand subject unto you !
Would I were Horse, Ox, Adamant, or Wind 1
Thcn had I never carcd for Womankind.

SONNET LXXXIII.

AK Night ! Black Image of my foui Dcspair !
With gricvous fancies, cease to vex my soul !
With pain, sore smart, hot rires, cold fears, long
care !
(Too much, alas, this ceaseless stone to roll).
My days be spentin penning thy sweet praises 1
In pleading to thy beau!y, never matched !
In looking on thy face I whose sight amazes
My Sense; and thus my long days be despatched.
But Night (forth from the misty region rising),
Fancies, with Fear, and sad Despair, doth send !
Mine heart, with horror, and vain thoughts agrising.
And thus the fearful tedious nights I spend !
Wishing the noon, to me were silent night ;
And shades nocturnal, turnèd to daylight.

SONNET LXXXIV.

Y SWEET PARTHENOPHE ] within thy face,
My Passions' Calendar may plain be read 1
The Golden Number told upon thine head !
The Sun days (which in card, I holy place,
And which divinely bless me with their grace)
Thy cheerful Smiles, which can recali the dead !
My Working days, thy Frowns, from favours fled !
Which set a work the furies in my breast.
These days are six to one more than the test.
My Leap Year is (0 when is that Leap Year ?)
When all my cares I overleap, and feast
V'ith her, fruition ! vhom I hold most dear.
And if some Calendars, the truth tell me ;
Once in few years, that happy Leap shall be !

SONNET LXXXV.

ROM East's bed rosy, whence AURORA riseth ;
Be thy cheeks figured, which their beams display
In smiles! xvhose sight mine heart with joy sur-
priseth ;
And which my Fancy's flowers do fair array,
Cleared with the gracious dews of her regard.
The West, whence evening cornes ; ber frowning brow,
Where Discontentment ploughs his furrows hard !
(There doth She bury her affections now !)
The North, whence storms with mists and frosts proceed ;
My black Despair [ long Sorrows ! and cold Fear !
The South, whence showers, in great abundance breed,
And where hot sun doth to meridian rear ;
My Eyes, whose object nought but tears require !
And my sort Heart, consumed with rage of tire !

AND i,4TllOPII. ONNV.T$. 2I

SONNET LXXXVI.

FIERY Rage ! when wilt thou be consumed ?
Thou, that hast me consumed, in such sort
As never was, poor wretch ! (which so presumed)
But for surveying of that beauteous Fort !
Kept in continual durance, and enchained
With hot desires, which have my body pined
My mind, from pleasures and content restrained;
My thoughts, to Care, and Sorrow's Ward assigned
There, with continual melancholy placed,
In dismal horror, and continual fear,
I pass these irksome hours ! scorned and disgraced
Of her ; whose cruelty no breast can bear!
No thought endure ! no tortures can outmatch
Then burn on, Rage of Fire ! but me despatch

SONNET LXXXVII.

URN on, sweet Fire ! For I live by that fuel,
Whose smoke is as an incense to my soul!
Each sigh prolongs my smart. Be tierce and cruel,
My fair P^RTrlEqOPnE I Frown and control !
Vex ! torture ! scald ! disgrace me ! Do thy will !
Stop up thine ears! With flint, immure thine heart !
And kill me with thy looks, if they would kill !
Thine eyes (those crystal phials which impart
The perfect balm to my dead-wounded breast !)
Thine eyes, the quivers, whence those darts were drawn,
Which me, to thy love's bondage have addresst.
Thy smile, and frown [ night star, and daylight's dawnl
Burn on ! Frown on ! Vex ! Stop thine ears ! Torment me 1
More, for thy beauty borne! would not repent me.

220 0 NNETS. PAR 7"tlEOPtlIL sa»

SONNET LXXXVIII.

ITH[N thine eyes, mine heart takes ail his test !
In which, still sleeping, ail my sense'is drowned.
The dreams, with which my senses are opprest,
Be thousand lovely fancies turning round
The restless wheel of my much busy brain.
The morning ; which from resting doth awake me,
Thy beauty ! banished from my sight again,
When I to long melancholy betake me.
Then full of errors, ail my dreams I find !
And in their kinds contrarious, till the day
(Which is her beauty) set on work my mind ;
Which never will cease labour ! never stay !
And thus my pleasures are but dreams with me ;
Whilst mine hot fevers, pains quotidian be.

SONNET LXXXIX.
[For s;milar 'echo' poems, sec pp. 73-6, and 3o ifra, and vol. il. pp. 48 and 337.]
}HAT be those hairs dyed like the marigold ?
EcHo, Gold !
What is that brow, whose frown make any moan ?
Ecno, Anemone l
What were ber eyes,when the great Iords controlled ?
Eco, Rolled !
What be they, when from them, be loves thrown ?
Ecno, Lov.'s throne!
What were ber cheeks (when blushes rose) like ?
EcHo, Rose-like !
What are those lips, which 'bove peads' rew be ?
Ecno, Ruby !
Her ivory shoulders, what be those like ?
Ecno, Those like I

M.y,»j .4/VD .4RIEIVOPHE. SONNETS. 22I

What saints are like her ? speak, if you bel
ECHO, Few be !
Thou dwell'st in rocks, hart-like ! somewhat then ?
ECHO, What then ?
And rocks dwell in ber heart ! is 'tis true?
ECHO, Tis true !
Whom she loves best ? know this, cannot men !
ECHO, Not men !
Pass him, she loathes! Then I dismiss you !
EcHo, Miss you t
What sex to whom, men sue so vain much ?
EcHo, Vain much !
Furies there rires, and I complain such ?
EcHo, Plain such !

SONNET XC.

¥ MISTRESS' Arms, are these ; fair, clear, and bright.
Argent in midst, whe, r,e is an Ogress set,
Within an azure ann let, placèd right.
The Crest, two golden bows, almost near met:
And by this Crest, her power abroad is known.
These Arms, She bearetb in the Field of Love,
By bloody colours, where LovE's wrath is shown :
But in kind Passion, milder than the dove,
Her goodly silver ensign, She displays,
Semi de roses : at whose lovely sight,
AIl loyers are subdued ; and vanquished, praise
Those glorious colours, under which they fight.
I, hy these Arms, her captive thrall was ruade !
And to those Colours, in that Field, betrayed [

222 S O N N E T$ , .DA R T II N O P II I Z Mx ,.w.

SONNET XCl.

Hstz bittcr gusts, which vex my troubled seas,
And move with force, my sorrow's floods fo flow ;
My Fancy's ship tost hcrc and thcrc by thcsc,
Still floats in danger, ranging to and fro.
llow fcars my Thoughts' swift pinnacc, thinc hard rock !
Thinc hcart's hard rock, lcast thou mine Hcart (his pilot)
Togcthcr with himsclf, should rashly knock
And bcing quitc dcad-strickcn, thcn should cry [arc,
"Ah me ! " too latc to thy rcmorselcss self.
Now whcn thy mcrcics all bccn banishcd,
And blown upon thinc hard rock's ruthlcss shclf;
My soul in sighs is spcnt and vanishcd.
Be pitiful, alas ! and take remorsc !
Thy beauty too much practiseth his force !

SONNET XCII.
InT thou know wonders, by thy beauty wrought ?
Bchold (hot secn) an cndlcss burning tire
Of Fancy's fuel ! kindled with a thought !
Without a flame, yet still inflamdd higherl
No flames' appearance, yet continual smoke [
Drawn cool, to kindle ; breathed out hot again !
Two diamonds, which this secret tire provokc ;
Making two crystals, with their heat, to rain
A skin, where beauteous Graces rest at ease!
A tongue, whose sweetness mazes ail the Muses !
And yet, a heart of marble matched with these !
A tongue, besidcs, which sweet replies refuses[
These wonders, by thy beauty wrought alone,
Through thy proud eye, which ruade thine heart a stone.

B. Barne.-]

SONNET XCIII.
EGs Love ! which whilom was a deity ?
I list no such proud beggars at my gate!
For alms, he, 'mongst cold Arctic folk doth wait;
And sunburnt Moors, in contrafiety :
Yet sweats, nor freezes more! Then is it piet¥
To be remorseful at his bare estate !
His reach, he racketh at a higher rate.
He joins with proudest in society !
His eyes are blind, forsooth ! and men must pty
A naked poor boy, which doth no man harm !
He is hot blind ! Such beggar boys be witty!
For he marks, hits, and wounds hearts with his arm ;
Nor coldest North can stop his naked race ;
For where he cornes, he warmeth every place !

SONNET XCIV.

ORTH from mine eyes, xvith full tide, flows a river;
And in thine eyes, two sparkling chrysolites.
Mine eye, still covct to bchold those lights.
Thine eye, still fillcd with arrows, is Lov's Quivcr !
Through mine eye, thine eyes' tire inflames my livcr.
Mine eyes, in heart, thine eyes' clcar fancies writc ;
Thus is thine eye to me, my fancies givcr !
Which fi'om thine cyes, to mine eyes take their flight.
Then pierce the secret centre of my heart ;
And feed my fancies with inflamèd fuel !
This only grievcs ! Mine eyes had hot that art
Thine to transpierce : thy nature was so cruel !
But eyes and fancies, in this, triumph make ;
That they wcre blind and raging, for hcr sake !

SONNET XCV.
.Hou bright beam-spreading LovE's thrice happy
Star !
Th' Arcadian Shepherd's ASTROPI-IEL'S ¢]ear guide ]
Thou that, on swft-winged Pegasus, dost ride,
AURORA'S harbinger ! Surpassing, far ]
AURORA carried in ber rosy car.
Bright Planer! Teller of clear evening-tide !
Star of all stars ! Fait favoured night's chier pride !
Which day, from night ; and night, from day dost bar !
Thou that hast worlds of hearts, with thine eye's glance,
To thy love's pleasing bondage, taken thrall
Behold (where Graces, in love's circles dance l)
Of two clear stars, outsparkling Planers all !
For stars, her beauty's arrow-bearers be !
Then be the subjects ; and superior, She!

SONNET XCVI.

HE Sun in Pisces; VENUS did intend
To seek sick FLORA; whose soil (since by Kind
-I'ITAN to th'Antipodes, his beams resigned)
No pleasant flowers, to welcome ber did send.
To whom, for need, P^R'HENOPHE did lend
At Nature's suit, rich Heliochrise, which shined
In her fait hair ; white lilies which combined
With ber high.smoothed brows, which bent, love bend.
Violets from eyes, sweet blushing eglantine
From ber clear cheeks, and from her lips, sweet roses.
Thus VENUS' Paradise was ruade divine
Which such, as Nature in my Lady doses.
Then, since with her, LovE's Queen was glorified !
Why was not my sweet Lady deified ?

tMa,s93.jAND PARTHENOPHE. ONNETS. 22

SONNET XCVII.

WHv should Envy, with sweet Love consort
But that, with Love's excess, Scven Sins unite
Pride, that, in high respect of my delight,
I scorn all others ! Lust, that with disport
In thought of ber, I sometimes take comfort !
Wrath, that, with those, in secret heart I fight,
Which smile on her ! and Envy, that, I spite
Such meats and wines, as to her lips resort
And touch that tongue, which I can never kiss!
Sloth, that, secure in too much love, I sleep;
And nuzzled so, ara to be freed remiss !
And Covetous, I never mean can keep
In craving, wishing, and in working this ;
Though still I kiss and touch, still touch and kiss

SONNET XCVIII.

Hv. Sun, my Lady's Beauty represents !
Whose fiery-pointed beams each creature heats :
S uch lrorce her grace, on whom it counterbeats,
Doth practice ; which the patient still torments.
And to her vil-tues, the bright Moon assents ;
With whose pure Chastity, my love she threats !
Whose thought itself in her cool circle seats.
And as the Moon, her bright habiliments,
Of her bright brother PnoEBus, borroweth ;
So from her beauty, doth her chaste desire,
Her brightness draw. For which, none dare aspire
To tempt so rare a beauty. Yet forgive!
He that, for thy sake ! so long sorroweth,
Cannot but longer love, if longer lire !
. P 8

[" B Barttet.

SONNET XCIX.
HIs careful head, with divers thoughts distressed,
My Fancy's Chronicler ! my Sorrow's Muse !
These watchful eyes, whose heedless aire I curse,
Love's Sentinels ! and Fountains of Unrest !
This tongue still trembling, Herald fit addressed
To my Love's grief ! (than any torment worse ! )
This heart, true Fortress of my spotless love,
And rageous Furnace of my long desire !
Of these, by Nature, ara I hot pussessed
(Though Nature, their first means in me did more)
But thou, dear Sweet ! with thy love's holy tire,
My head, Grief's Anvil ruade ! with cares oppressed
Mine eyes, a Spring ! my tongue, a Leaf wind-shaken
My heart, a wasteful Wilderness forsaken !

SONNET C.

IEADING {or pity to my Mistress' eyes ;
Urging on duty .favours as deserts ;
Complaining mine hid flames, and secret smarts:
She, with disdainful grace, in jest, replies,
" Her eyes were never made man's enemies !"
Then me with my conceit she overthwarts,
Urging my Fancy (which vain thoughts imparts)
To be the causer of mine injuries,
Saying, "I am hot vexed, as I complained !
How Melancholy bred this light conceit t. ,,
Hard-hearted Mistress ! Canst thou think I feigned ?
That I, with fancies vain, vain woe repeat?
Ah, no ! For though thine eyes none else offend ;
Yet by thine Eyes and "Noes ! " my woes want end !

SONNET CI.
At) I been banished frorn the native soli,
Where, with my lire, I first receivèd light !
For my first cradles, had rny tomb been digi,t
Or changed my pleasure for a ceaseless toil!
Had I for nurse, been ieft to lion's spoil !
Had I for freedom, dwelt in shady night,
Cooped up in loathsome dungeons frorn men's sight !
These first desires, which in my breast did boil,
From which, thy loves (Unkind l) thou banishèd!
Had hOt been such an exile to my bliss.
If life, with my love's infancy, were vanishèd ;
It had hOt been so sore a death as this,
If lionesses were, instead of nurses ;
Or night, for day! Thine hate deserves more curses!

SONNET Cil.

AIr gallants ! whose much longing spirits tickle ;
Whose brains swell with abundance of much wit,
And would be touched fain with an amorous fit :
0 lend your eyes, and bend your fancies ficklel
You, whom Affection's dart did never prickle
You, which hold loyers, fools; and argue
Gaze on rny Sun! and if tears do not trickle
From your much mastered eyes (where Fancies sit) :
Then, Eagles ! will I terre you, for your eyes ;
But Bears ! or Tigers ! for your savage hearts 1
But, if it chance, such fountains should arise,
And you ruade like partakers of my smarts ;
Her, for ber piercing eyes, an Eagle, naine
But, for ber heart, a Tiger, never tame

ay xSç3.

MADRIGAL x 5.
ATURE'S pride, Love's pearl, Virtue's perfection,
In sweetness, beauty, grace,
Of body, face, affection
Hath glory, brightness, place
In rosy cheeks, clear eyes, and heavenly mind ;
Ail which, with wonder, honour, praise, take race
To charm, to shine, to fly, with Fame's protection.
Mine heart the first, mine eyes next, third my thought
Did wound, did blind, did bind ;
Which grieved, obscured, and wrought
Heart, eyes, and senses with such imperfection,
That in their former comfort, sight, and kind
They moved, gazed, and sought,
Yet round hot, in what order, sort, and case
Of tears, plaints, sighs, with seas, with murmur, wind
To find, to get, t' embrace
Nature's pride, Love's pearl, Virtue's perfection.

MADRIGAL 16.
LEEP PHOEBUS still, in glaucy THETIS' lap!
JovE's eagle's piercing eyes, be blind.
Sort things whose touch is tickle to the mind,
Give no like touch, ail joys in one to wrap.
Ail instruments, ail birds and voices
Make no such heavenly music in their kind.
No fruits have such sweet sap,
No root such juices,
No balm so much rejoices.
O breath, exceeding every rich perfume [

M.y,sg»_j AND .ARTHLeNOPHL e. SONNETS. 229
For love, all pleasures in a Kiss did lap.
Her eyes did give bright glances.
Sight is no sight, all light with that consume.
She touched my check ! at which touch, mine heart dances
Mine eyes, in privy combat, did prcsume,
Charging my hands, to charge her middle ;
Whilst they threw wounding darts, and healing lances.
She kissed and spoke, at once, a riddle,
But such swect mcaning in dark sense,
As shewed the drift of hcr dear sweet prctence,
More pleasing than the chord of harp or lute.
On heavenly chcrrics thcn I feed,
Vv'hose sap deliciouscr than angels' food,
Vv'hose brcath more sweet than gum, herb, flower, or bood.
0 kiss ! that did all sense excced !
No man can speak those joys I Then, Muse, be mute !
But say I for sight, smcll, hearing, taste, and touch ;
In any one thing, was there cvcr such ?

MADRIGAL 7-
Nvzous air, all Nature's public nurse,
Lend to my lire, no spirit [
Not that I prosper worse
Than erst of yore; for I, the state inherit,
Which gods in Paradise, 'bove man demerit ;
But for I highly scorn
Thy common vapour shou[d
With ber sweet breath immix ! I cannot bear it ]
Cold air's infusion cannot be foreborn ;
0 kiss ! 0 sou], which could

3 o

SONNETS. p.RTHFNOPtlIZ
AIl wailings bave outworn !
Angcl of Bliss ! which chccrs me night and morn [
Swcct Cloud ! which now, with my soul dost cnfold !
Salve fo my Soul ! once sick.
Let mcn in Inde iborn
Ccase boasting of rich drugs, and swcet perfume !
Egyptian gums, and odours Arabic,
I loath ! and wood, dcar sold,
From myrrh and cypress torn !
Tarry, swcet kiss ! Do hot in clouds consume I
Yct can I fcel thy spirit moving quick.
0 why should air prcsume
To be hcr spirit's rival ?
Whatdol spcak? Noram llunatic!
I cannot live ; else would I hot assume
Cold air, to contrive all
My sorrows, with immixion.
Then dic ! whilst this swcet spirit thee doth prick !
Whilst thy swcet comfort's kisses are alive all !
.And love's swect jurisdiction
Will make thec die possessed
Of all heaven's joys ; which, for most comfort, strive all !
Lest Death, to Pleasure should give interdiction»
Ah let my lips be pressed !
And, with continual kisses,
Pour everlasting spirit fo my lire.
So, shall I always livc! so, still bc blessed !
Kiss still ! and makc no misses [
Doublc ! redouble kisses!
Murmur affections ! War in pleasing strife!
Press lips ! Lips, rest oppressed 1
This Passion is no fiction.

MADRIGAL I8.
FTV.R AUROR^'S blush, the sun arose
And spread his beams !
With whose clear gleams
My prickless rosebud veils his purple leaves !
In whose sweet folds, Morning did pearls enclose,
Where sun his beams, in orb-like circle weaves,
And then t'enrich, stole those
Nature's beauty, PHOEBUS' virtue, Love's incense;
Whose favour, sap, and savour, my sense 'reaves.
My Muse had these for themes :
They, to my Muse ; my Muse, to them, defence.
PHOEBUS, sometimes, LovE's Oracles sends thence.
Thus by my sun, a rose,
(Though a sweet rose prickless !)
Prickles arose ; dear prickle !
\Vhich me diseaseth much, though I be sickless.
Nought me ofjoy bereaves ;
Save favour, sap, and favour, ail be fickle.
Blush not for shame that thy sun spread his wings!
My soul in sunder cleaves [
After AURORA'S blush, the sun arose I

MA D RIGAL I 9 .
H¥ love's conceits are wound about mine heart !
Thy love itself within mine heart, a wound !
Thy torches all a row stick,
Which thy sweet grace about mine heart hath bound!
There, gleaming arrows stick in every part,
Which unto my marrow prick.
Thy beauty's fancy to mine heart is thrall ;
Mine heart, thy beauty's thrall is round !

0 NN ETS. 1 .4 R T H E IV O P H I L I_ Mso

And thou mine heart a Bulwark art !
Conquered by Beauty ! battered to the ground !
And yet though conquered will hOt yield at ail.
For in that conflict, though I fall,
Yet I myself a conqueror repute
In fight continual, like victorious mart
Yet ever yield, as ever overthrown.
To be, still, prisoner [ is my suit.
I will be, still, thy captive known !
Such pleasing Servitude
Victorious Conquest is, and Fortitude !

MADRIGAL o.

Y LOVE, alas, is sick! Fie, cnvious Sickness!
That, at her breast (where rest ail joys and ease),
Thou shouldst take such despite, ber to displease,
In whom, all virtue's health bath quickness!
Thou durst hot corne in living likenessl
For hadst thou come, thou couldst hot ber disease !
Her beauty would hOt let thee press
Sweet graccs, which continually attend her,
At her short brcath, breathe short and sigh so deep }
Which Sickness's sharp furies might appease:
Both Loves and Graces strive to mend ber.
0 never let me rest ; but sigh and weep !
lqcver but weep and sigh ! "Sick is my Love ;
And I love-sick ! Yet physic may befriend her!
But what shall my disease remove ? "

B. Bm"-e."l
Mayz$9$.J AND PAR TH2NOPHE. ONNETS. 233

SONNET CIII.
SLEPT, whcn (undcrncath a laurcI shadc,
My face uprcarcd aIoft unto the hcavcn)
Mcthought I heard this spokcn in a swcavcn,
"Nature, on carth, Love's miracle hath ruade! "
"vVith this, mcthought, upon a bank was laid
An carthly body which was framcd in hcavcn,
To whom, such graccs (by thc Graces givcn)
Swcet music in thcir scvcral organs playcd.
In chier, the silent music of her eye
Softly recorded, with heaven's harmony,
Drew down URANe^ from celestial sphere i
Who mazed, at mazy turning of her ey'n,
(To make Divine perfection) glazed there
Those eyes, with clearest substance crystalline.

MADRIGAL 2x.
HEN this cclcstial goddess had inducd
Hcr cycs with sphcric rcvolution,
VEST^, with the ncxt gift cnsucd,
And lent to Nature that twicc sacrcd tire,
To which, once, JAPHET'S offspring did aspire.
Which ruade a dissolution
Of a strangc otc, cngcndcrcd by the sun,
In gracc, and worth more pure than go]d,
Which ('gainst thc Cyprian triumphs shou]d bc donc)
Gildcd those wheels, which CuPID's chariot roIIed.

MADRIGAL 2.

N CENTRE Of these Stars of Love,
('Bove all conceits in man's capacity,)
An orient jet which did not more,
To CUPiD's chariot wheel, ruade for the nafle,

Was fixed ; which could, with mild rapacity,
Of lighter loyers, draw the lighter chaff.
This, shadow gives to clearer light,
In which, as in a mirrold, there was framed
For those (which love's conditions treat upon)
A glass which should give semblance right
Of ail their physiognomies impassionate.
Those hearts, which tyrant Love doth beat upon,
May here behold, what CU'D works !
Yielding in it, that figure fashionate
Which in the jetty mirror lurks.

MADRIGAL -3-
HoEBts, rich father of eternal light !
And in his hand, a wreath of Heliochrise
He brought, to beautify those tresses,
Whose train, whose softness, and whose gloss
more bright,
APOLLO'S locks did overprize.
Thus, with this garland, whiles her brows he blesses
The golden shadow, with his tincture,
Coloured her locks, I gilded with the cincture.

MADRIGAL -4-
Hus, as She vas, 'bore human glory graced,
The Saint, methought, departed ;
And suddenly upon her feet, she started.
Juqo beheld, and fain would have defaced
That female miracle ! proud Nature's wonder ]
Least Jovs, through heaven's clear windows, should espy her;
And (for her beauty) JuNo's love neglect !
Down she descends; and as she walkèd by her,
A branch of Lilies, Juto tears in sunder.

Then, from her sphere, did VENUS dovn reflect,
Lest MARS, by chance, her beauty should affect.
And with a branch of Roses
She beat upon ber face! Then JuNo closes!
And with white lilies, did ber beauty chasten.
But lovely Graces, in memorial,
Let both the Rose and Lily's colour fall
Within her cheeks, which, to be foremost hasten.

MADRIGAL 25.

I-IILES these two wrathful goddesses did rage,
The little god of might
(Such as might fitter seem with cranes to fight,
Than, with his bow, to vanquish gods and kings)
In a cherry tree sat smiling ;
And lightly waving, with his motley wings,
(Fait wings, in beauty ! boys and girls beguilingl)
And cherry garlands, with his hands compiling :
Laughing, he leaped iight
Unto the Nymph, to try which way best might
Her cheer; and, xvith a cherry branch, he bobbedl
But her soft lovely lips,
The cherries, of their ruddy ruby robbed !
Eftsoons, he, to his quiver skips
And brings those bottles, whence his mother sips
Her Nectar of Delight ;
Which in her bosom, claimèd place by right.

MADRIGAL z6.

DAIE not speak of that thrice holy hill,
Which, spread with silver lilies, lies
Nor of those violets which void veins full fill,
Nor of that mage on love's hili-top :

236

S o NN E T S 1lR THENOPHII- [ "

These secrets must not be surveyed with eyes !
No creature may those flowers crop!
Nor bathe in that clear fountain,
Where none but PHOEB- with chaste virgins wash !
In bottom of that sacred mountain--
But, whither, now ? Thy verses overlash!

SESTINE I.
HEN I waked out of dreaming,
Looking ail about the garden,
Sweet PARTHENOPHE was valking :
0 what fortune brought ber hither !
She much fairer than that Nymph,
Which was beat with rose and lilies.

Her cheeks exceed the rose and lilies.
I was fortunate in dreaming
Of so beautiful a Nymph.
To this happy blessèd garden,
Corne, you Nymphs I corne, Fairies ! hither.
Wonder Nature's Wonder walking !

So She seemèd, in her walking,
As she would make rose and lilies
Ever flourish. O, but hither
Hark! (for I beheld it dreaming)
Lilies blushed within the garden,
Stained with beauties of that Nymph.

The Rose for anger at that Nymph
Was pale! and, as She went on walking,
When She gathered in the garden,
Tears came from the Rose and Lilies !
As they sighed, their breath, in dreaming
I could well perceive hither.

TMy,Sg»J ,4 N D P ,4 R T II E N O P H E. SONNET-q.

When PARTHENOPHE came hither.
At the presence of that Nymph,
(That bill was heaven ! where I lay dreaming)
But when I had espied her walking,
And in hand her Rose and Lilies
As sacrifice given by that garden ;

(To Love, stood sacred that fair garden ! )
I dared the Nymphs to hasten hither.
Make homage to the Rose and Lilies !
Which are sacred to my Nymph.
Wonder, when you see her walking !
(Might I see her, but in dreaming l)
Even the fancy ol that Nymph
Would make me, night and day, corne hither,
To sleep in this thrice happy garden.

SONNET CIV.

OLD ! matchless Mirror of all Womankind !
These Pens and Sonnets, servants of thy praise
Placed in a world of graces, which amaze
All young beholders, through Desire blind.
Thou, to whom conquered COPID bath resigned
His bow and darts, during thy sunny days !
Through thine eyes' force enfeebleà by the rays
Which wonderers, to their cost, in thine eyes find
That there, with beauty's excellence unable,
To write, or bear, my pens, and books refuse ;
Thine endless graces are so amiable!
Passing the spirit of mine humble Muse.
So that the more I write, more graces rise!
Which mine astonished Muse cannot comprise.

FINIS.

ELEGIES.

ELEGY I.
H¥ did thc milk, which first
Spring from N,xcssus' sclf-conccitcd love ?
Why did grcat JovE, for thc Poencian cow,
Devise thc mrblc colourcd violet ?
Or what for PloEus' love, from mountans hilly
Did hyacinth to rosy blushcs movc?
Sincc my swcct Mistrcss, undcr PHOEBUS' brow,
Julo's and fair AoNIs' flowers hath set,
Adown ber neck, N,RCISSVs's gold doth bow,
Io's grey violets in ber crystal lights
Th'oEbalian boy's complexion still alights
Upon ber hyacinthine lips, like ruby.
And with love's purest sanguine, CVIID writes

ALCIDIS
nourishcd,
Ingend'ring with CYBELE, breed the lily ?
Th' Assyrian hunter's blood, why hath it
flourished
The rose with red ? Why did the dag
fadilly

B. B.OE'I .P A R T H E N O.P H I L. ELEGIES.
u, ,sç»J 239

The praise of beauty, through her veins which blue be
Conducted through love's sluice, to thy face rosy,
Where dores and redbreasts sit for VENUS' rights.
In sign that I to Thee, will ever truc bc ;
Thc rose and lilies shall adorn my posy!
The violets and hyacinths shall knit
With daffodil, which shall embellish it !
Such hcavcnly flowers, in earthly posies few be !

ELEGY II.
TH^', some time, thou saw mine endless fits;
When I have somewhat of thy beauty pondered
Thou could hOt be persuaded that my vits
Could once retire so far from Sense asundered !
Furies, themselves, havc at my Passions wondered
Yet thou, PAR'HENOPE ! well pleasèd, sits,
Whilst in me, so thy moisture's hcat hath thundered,
And thine eyes' darts, at every Colon, hits
My soul with double pricks, which mine heart splits:
Whose fainting brcath, with sighing Commas broken,
Draws on the sentence of my death, by pauses
Ever prolonging out mine endless clauses
With " Ifs " Parenthesis, yet find no token
When with my grief, I should stand cven or odd.
My lire still making preparations,
Through thy love's darts, to bear the Period;
Yet stumbleth on Interrogations!

240 E LEG I ES. :)A RTHEVOPH]I. My,5»

These are those scholar-like vexations
Which grieve me, when those studies I apply.
I miss my lesson still ! but, with love's rod,
For each small accent sounded but awry,
Ara I tormented ! Yet, I cannot die !

ELEGY III.
x, VEE'r thraldom, by Lov-'s sweet impression wrought.
Love ! in that bondage ever let me live !
For Love hath brought me bondslave, with a
thought !
And to my thoughts, Love did me bondman give !
Ah me, my thoughts' poor prisoner, shall I rest ?
And shall my thoughts make triumph over me ?
First, to tierce famished lions stand addrest !
Or let huge rocks and mountains cover thee !
Behold one, to his fancies ruade a prey!
A poor Ac'r,oN, with his hounds devoured !
An oak, with his green ivy worn away!
A wretch consumed with plenties great down poured !
A garment with his moth despoiled, and rotten !
A thorn, with his bred caterpillar cankered !
A buried CE^R, with his faine forgotten !
A friend betrayed by those on whom he anchored !
Behold a tire consumed with his own heat !
An iron worn away with his own rust !

But were mine heart of oak, this rage would eat,
Still fresh as ivy, mine hard oak to dust!
And were my pleasures durable as steel,
Despair would force they should Time's canker feel !

ELEQY IV.
HIs day, sweet Mistress ! you to me, did write
(When for so many lines, I begged replyal),
That "From ail hope, you would hot bar me quite !
Nor grant plain Placet ! nor give dead denial ! "
But in my chamber window, while I read it,
A vaspish bee flew round about me buzzing
With full-filled flanks, when my Time's flower had fed it,
(Which there lay strewed); and in my neck, with huzzing,
She fixed her sting ! Then did I take her out;
And in my window left her, where she died.
My neck still smarts, and swelleth round about ;
By which her wrath's dear ransom may be tried.
A mirror to thee, Lady ! which I send
In this small schoede, with commendations tied;
Who, though the sting and anguish stay with me,
Yet for revenge, saw his unlucky end.
Then note th' example of this hapless bee !
And when to me, thou dost thy sting intend ;
Fear some such punishment should chance to thee !

t Q 8

242 E LEGIES. pAR T I-I E I¢ O t' I-I I L t ,,,sç3

ELEGY Vo

To PARTHENOPHIL.

RE you so waspish that, from time to time,
You nourish bees! and to so good an end,
That having sucked your honey, they must climb
Into your bosom, to bethank their friend !
And for a sgn, that they corne to defend,
Reward you with such weapons as they bave !
Nor was it more than your deserts did crave !
Not much unlike unto the viper's youngling,
Who (nourished with the breeder's dearest blood)
" Snarls with his teeth, nor can endure the bongling
Within the viper's belly, but makes food
Of herl Thus Nature worketh in her brood.
So you, forsooth ! (nor was it much amiss ! )
Feed snakes, which thankfully both sting and hiss !
But if that any of our sex did sting you,
Know this, moreover'.. Though you bear the prick ;
And though thelr frowns, to Melancholy bring you :
Yet are we, seldom, or else never, sick!
Nor do we die, like bees ! but still be quick !
And soon recovering what we lost before,
We sting apace ! yet still keep stings in store !

Mzs9s.J IND .P4RTHENOPHE. ELEGIES. 243

ELEGY VI.
EHOLD these tears, my love's true tribute payment !
These plaintive Elegies, my griefs' bewrayers ;
Accoutered, as is meet, in mournful raiment l
My red.swollen eyen, which were mine heart's
betrayers !
And yet, my rebel eye, excuse prepares,
That he was never worker of my wayment,
Plaining my thoughts, that my confusion they meant.
Which thoughts, with sighs (for incense), make dumb
prayers
T'appease the furies of my martyred breast ;
Which witness my true fores, in long lainent.
And with what agonies I ara possesst !
Ah me, poor man ! where shall I find some rest ?
Not in thine eyes, which promise fearful hope !
Thine heart hath vowed, I shall be still distresst !
To test within thine heart, there is no scope !
Ail other places made for body's ease,
As bed, field, forest, and a quiet chamber;
There, ever am I, with sad cares oppresst !
Each pleasant spectacle doth me displease !
Grief and Despair so sore on me did seize,
That day, with tediousness, doth me molest !
And PHOEBE, carried in ber couch of amber,
Cannot close up the fountains ot my woe !

244 E L E G I E
Thus days from nights, my chargèd heart doth not know;
Nor nights, from days
Then punish Fancy

ELEGY VII.

OtTH, full of error ! whither dost thou hail me ?
Down to the dungeon of mine own conceit !
Let me, before, take some divine receipt ;
For well I know, my Gaoler will not bail me!
Then, if thou favour not, ail helps will rail me !
That fearful dungeon, poisoned with Despair,
Affords no casernent to receive sweet air;
There, ugly visions ever will appall me,
Vain Youth misguideth soon, with Love's deceit 1
Deeming false paintèd looks most firmly fair.
N6w to remorseless judges must I sue
For gracious pardon ; whiles they do repeat
Your bold presumption ! threatening me, with you
Yet ara I innocent, though none bewail me !
Ah, pardon ! pardon ! Childish Youth did view
Those two forbidden apples, which they wished for !
And children long for that, which once they rue.
Suffice, he found Repentance! which he fished for,
With great expense of baits and golden hooks.
Those living apples do the suit pursue !
And are you Judges ? See their angry looks I

B. Bamet.'!
tMay,sç»J 4/VD PIRTIIE1VOPHE. ELEGIES. 245

Where, underneath that wrathful canopy,
They use to open their condemning books!
Expect now, nothing but extremity!
Since they be Judges, and in their own cause
Their sights are fixed on nought but cruelty :
Ruling with rigour, as they list ! their laws.
O grant some pity! (placed in Pity's Hall !)
Since our Forefather (for the like offence)
With us, received sufiïcient recompense
For two fait apples, which secured his fall.

ELEGY VIII.
'----------EAsE, Sorrow! Cease, O cease thy rage a little !
Ah, Little Ease! O, grant some little ease !
O Fortune, ever constant, never brittle !
For as thou 'gan, so dost thou still displease.
Ah, ceaseless Sorrow ! take a truce with me !
Remorseless tyrants, sometimes, will take peace
Upon conditions; and l'Il take of thee
Conditions ; so thou wilt, thy fury cease !
And dear conditions ! for io forfeit lire,
So thou vilt end thy plagues, and vex no more ! "
But, out Mas ! he vill not cease his strife !
Lest he should lose his privilege before !
For were I dead, my Sorrow's rule were nought,

And, whiles I live, he, like a tyrant rageth !
" Ah, rage, tierce Tyrant ! for this grief is wrought
By Love, thy counsel ; which my rnind engageth
To thy tierce thraldom, while he spoils mine heart !"
So be my mind and heart imprisoned fast
To tvo tierce Tyrants, which this empire part.
" 0 milder Goddess ! Shall this, for ever, last ?
If that I have these bitter plagues deserved ;
Yet let Repentance (which my soul doth melt)
Obtain some favour, if you be not swerved
From laws of mercy ! " Know what plagues I felt !
Yea, but I doubt enchantment in my breast !
For never man, so rnuch aggrieved as I,
Could live with ceaseless Sorrow's weight opprest,
But twenty thousand times, perforce, should die !
And with eyes, She did bewitch mine heart ;
Which lets it lire, but feel an endless smart.

ELEGY IX.

ITH humble suit, upon my bended knee,
(Though absent far from hence, not to be seen ;
Yet, in thy power, still present, as gods be)
I speak these words (whose bleeding wounds be
green)

ty,s»J ArD PdTHEVOPHE. ELEGIES. 2d7

To thee, dread Cuver) | and thy mother Queen 1
" If it, at any time, hath lawful bccn
Men mortal to speak with a deity ;
0 you great guiders of young Springing Age ;
Whose power immortal ever was, I ween,
As mighty as your spacious monarchy !
0 spare me ! spare my tedious pilgrimage !
Take hence the least brand of your extreme rires
Do hot, 'gainst those which yield, tierce battle wage
I know by this, you will allay your rage !
That you give life unto my long desires :
Which still persuades me, you will pity take.
Life is far more than my vexed soul desires.
0 take my life ! and, after death, torment me l
Then, though in absence of my chier delight,
I shall lainent alone ! My soul requires
And longs to visit the Elizian fields !
Then, that I loved, it never shall repent me !
There (till those days of Jubilee shall corne),
Would I walk pensive, pleased, alone, and dumb
Grant this petition, sweet love's Queen ! (which wields
The heart of forelorn lovers evermore l)
Or else Zancloean CHARBID' me devour !
And through his waters, sent to Stygian poxver !
Or patient, let me burn in Etna's flame!
Or fling myself, in fury, from the shore,
Into the deep waves of the Leucadian god !

Rather than bear this tumult and uproar ;
And, through your means, be scourged with mine own rod !
0 let me die, and not endure the saine!
The suit I make, is to be punished still ;
Nor would I wish not to be wretched there,
But that I might remain in hope and fear !
Sweet lovely Saints [ Let my suit like your will [ "

ELEGY X.

,N ç?UE" silence of the shady night,
Ail places free from noise of men and dogs,
VThen PI4OEBE, carried in her chariot bright,
Had cleared the misty vapours, and night fogs :
Then (when no care the quiet shepherd clogs,
Having his flock sale foddered in the fold)
A lively Vision, to my Fancy's sight
Appeared; which, methought, wake I did behold.
A fiery boy, outmatching the moonlight,
Who, softly whispering in mine ear, had told
" There, thou, thy fait PARTHENOPHE may see ! "
I quickly turning, in a hebene bed
With sable covering, and black curtains spread
With many little LOVES in black, by thee !
Thee! thee, PARTHENOPHE! left almost dead !
Pale cold with fear I did behold. Ay me !

Ah me ! left almost senseless in my bed,
My groans perceived by those which near me lay ;
By them, with much ado recovered.
Which fearful vision so did me affray
That, in a fury set beside my wit,
Sick as before, methought, I saw thee yet
VENUS, thy face, there covered with a veil ;
(Mine heart with horror chills, to think on it l)
The Graces kissed thy lips, and went away.
Then I, with furious raging, did assail
To kiss thee ! lest thou should depart before!
And then (in sight of those, which there did stand),
Thinking that I should never see thee more,
Mistaking thee, I kissed a firebrand [
Burnt with the tire, my senses (which did rail)
Freshly recalled into thcir wits again ;
I round it was a dream ! But, Sweet ! expound it !
For that strange dream, with tears renews my pain ;
And I shall never rest, till I havc found it.

ELEGY XI.

As it decreed by Fate's too certain doom
That under Cancer's Tropic (wherc the Sun
Still doth his race, in hottest circuit run)
My mind should dwell (and in none other re»oto),

20 l' L EG I E $.
Whcre comforts ail be burnt before the bloom
Was it concluded by remorseless Fate
That underneath th' Erymanthian Bear,
Beneath the Lycaonian axletree
(Where ceaseless snows, and frost's extremity
Hold jurisdiction) should remain my Fear;
Where ail mine hopes be nipt before the Bear ?
Was it thus ordered that, till my death's date,
When PHOBUS runs on our meridian line,
When mists rail down beneath our hemisphere,
And CYlqTHIA, with dark antipodes doth shine,
That my Despair should hold his Mansion there
Where did the fatal Sisters this assign ?
Even when this judgement to them was awarded
The silent Sentence issued from her eyne,
Which neither pity, nor my carcs regarded.

ELEGY XII.

NEVER can I sec that sunny light !
That bright contriver of my fiery rage !
Those precious Golden Apples shining bright :
But, out alas t. methinks, some fearful sight
Should battle, with the dear beholders wage.

I fear such precious things should have some folce
Them .to preserve, lest some beholders might
Procure those precious apples by their slight.
Then cruel ATLAS, banished from remorse,
Enters my thoughts, and how he feared away
The poor inhabitants which dwelt about ;
Lest some, of his rich fruit should make a prey:
Although the Orchard, circummured throughout
With walls of steel was; and a vigil stout
Of watchful dragons guarded everywhere,
Which bold attempters vexed with hot pursuit,
So that none durst approach his fruit for fear.
Thus, ATLAS like, thine heart hath dragons set
Tyrannous Hatred, and a Proud Disdain,
Which in that Orchard cruelly did reign,
And with much rigour rule thy lovely eyes !
Immured in steelly walls of chaste Desire,
Which entrance to poor passengers denies,
And death's high danger to them that require.
And even as ATLAS (through tierce cruelty,
And breach to laws of hospitality ;
When lodging to a stranger he denied)
Was turnèd to a stony mountain straight ;
Which on his shoulders, now, supports heaven's welght :
(A just ievenge foi ciuelty and piide !)
Even so, thine heart (for inhumanity,
And wrath to those, that thine eyes' apples love!

And that it will not lodge a lovely guest)
Is turned to rock, and doth the burden bear
Of thousand zealous loyers' dear complaints ;
Vhom thou, with thy tierce cruelty, didst tear!
A huge hard rock, which none can ever move ;
And of whose fruit, no man can be possesst.
Thy golden smiles make none attempts too dear :
But when attempted once those apples be,
The vain Attempter, after, feels the smart ;
Who, by thy dragons, Hatred and Disdain,
Are torn in sunder with extremity !
For having entered, no man can get forth
(So those enchanting apples hinder thee),
Of such dear prize be things of such rare worth ;
But even as PERSEUS, JovE's thrice valiant son,
(Begot of DANAE in a golden shower)
Huge ATLAS conquered, when he first begun ;
Then killed the dragons with his matchless power:
At length, the beauteous Golden Apples won.
So right is he born in a golden hour
(And for his fortune, may from JovE descend),
Who first thine heart (an ATLAS !) hath subdued ;
lqext, Hatred and Disdain brought to their end ;
Fierce dragons, which Attempters all pursued,
And which, before, none ever have eschewed.
At length, who shall these golden apples gain,
He shall, alone, be PERSEUS, for his pain !

tsly,s«.J AV2) ,PARTHNOII. LEGIES. 2
ELEG¥ XZZZ.
WIT AT^L^T^ (hen she lost the prie
By gathering golden apples in her race)
Shews how, by th'apples of thine heavenly eyes,
(Which Fortune did, before my passage place,
When for mine heart's contentment, I did run)
How, I was hindered, and my wager lost !
When others did the wager's worth surprise;
I viewed thine eyes ! Thus eyes viewed to my cost !
Nor could I them enjoy, xvhen ail was done!
But seeming tas they did) bright as the sun,
My course I stayed to view their fiery grace ;
Whose sweet possession I could not comprise.
Th'Idoean Shepherd, when the strife begun
Amongst three goddesses, as Judge decreed,
The golden apple to VEIOS did award
(Cause of the waste and downfall of proud Troy).
But when the Graces had a sweet regard,
How fair PARTHENOPHE did her exceed ;
And VENUS, now, was from the world debarred :
One so much fairer far, as too much coy,
PARTHENOPHE, they chose in VENUS stead.
And since her beauty VENUS' did outgo,
Two golden apples were to her assigned !
Which apples, the outrageous tumults breed
That are heaped up in my distressèd mind :
Whose figure, in inflamed Troy I find;
The chief occasion of mine endless woe.

ELEGY XIV.

HEN I rcmember that accursèd night,
When my dear Beauty said "She mï, s_t depart !
And the next morning, leave the City s sight,"
Ah, then! Even then, black Sorrow shewed his
might !
And placed his empire in my vanquished heart :
Mine heart still vanquished, yet assaulted still,
Burnt vith Love's outrage ; from whose clear torchlight,
Fierce Sorrow finds a vay to spoil and kill.
Ah, Sorrow ! Sorrow ! never satisfied !
And if hot satisfied, work on thy will !
O dear departure of mine only bliss !
When willing, from the City thou did rie;
And I made offer (though then wounded wide)
To go with thee ; thou, rashly, didst refuse
With me distressed, to be accompanied !
And binding words (imperious) didst use !
Commanding me another way to choose.
Ah then ! even then, in spirit crucified,
Mine eyes, with tears ; mine heart, with sighs and throbs ;
Those, almost blind ! that, hard swollen, almost burst !
My brains abjuring harbour to my Muse
Did leave me choked almost, with strait sobs.
Ah ! be that hour and day, for ever curst ;
Which me, of my life's liberty did rob !
For, since that time, I never saw my Love !

M[.].J AND PAR7"IINOOeH. ELEGIES. 2

Long can we not be severed ! I will lrollow
Through woods, through mountains, waves, and caves
ruade hollow !
0 Grief! of grief's extremity the worst !
Still, will I follow! till I find thee out!
And, if my wish, with travel, shall not prove ;
Yet shall my sorrows travel round about
In wailful Elegies, and mournful Verse,
Until they find ! and Thee, with pity pierce !
Meanwhile, to see Thee more, standing in doubt ;
l'Il sing my Plain Song with the turtle dove;
And Prick Song, with thc nightingale rehearse !

ELEGY XV.
DEAR remembrance of my Lady's eyes,
In mind whose rcvolutions I revolve !
To you, mine heart's bright guide stars ! my Soul cries
Upon some happy Sentence to resolve.
A Sentence either of my lire or death !
So bail me from the dungeon of Despairl
On you ! I cry, with interrupted breath,
On you ! and none but you ! to cross my care.
My care to cross, least I be crucified,
Above the patience of a human soul!
Do this ! ah this ! and still be glorified !
Do this! and let eternities enrol

l'hy faine and namel Let them enrol for ever
In lasting records of still lasting steel [
Do this ! ah this ! and famous still persèver !
Which in another Age, thy ghost shall feel.
Yet, howsoever, thou, with me shall deal ;
Thy beauty shall persèver in my Verse !
And thine eyes' wound, which thine heart would not heal !
And my complaints, which could not thine heart pierce !
And thine hard heart, thy beauty's shameful stain !
And that foui stain, thine endless infamy !
So, though Thou still in record do remain,
The records reckon but thine obloquy !
When on the paper, which my Passion bears,
Relenting readers, for my sake ] shed tears.

ELEGY XVI.
H, WERE my tears, as many writers' be,
Mere drops of ink proceeding from my pen !
Then in these sable weeds, you should hot see
Me severed from society of men !
Ah me ! ail colours do mine eyes displease,
Save those two colours of pure white, and red [
And yet I dare hot flourish it in these,
Because I cannot ! For my coiour's dead.
Those colours flourish round about cach where,
But chiefly with my Mistress, in their kind :

tM-T,59»] A2V/ PAR7"I-IEVOI:'I-1E. ELEGIES. 257
And fain I would her lovely colours wear;
So that it rnight be pleasing to ber mindl
But nought will please ber over-cruel eye,
But black and pale, on body, and in face;
Then She triumphs in beauty's tyranny,
When she sees Beauty, Beauty can disgrace !
When her sweet smiling eyes dry Vrsa'A's throne !
Can blubbered blear-eyes, drown in seas of tears !
And laughs to hear poor loyers, how they moan!
Joys in the paper, which ber praises bears !
And, for his sake than sent, that schedule tears!
What but pale Envy doth her heart assail ?
When She would be still fair, and laugh alone ;
And, for ber sake, ail others mourn and pale !

ELEGY XVII.
EAR Mistress ! than rny soul, to me mueh dearer !
Wonder not that another writes my letter ;
For Sorrow, still, mine heart oppresseth nearer,
And extreme sickness doth my sinew fetter.
Of my dear lire, to thy love ana I debtor !
Thine is my soul ! Than soul, what can be meerer ?
Thine, my chier best ! Than that, what can be better
Absented far and (that whieh i far worse)
Unable either for to go or ride ;
Here am I, in perpetual bondage tied !
. R 8

Than if with savage Sauromates, far worse !
This air is loathsome ; and this air, I curse ;
Because, with thy sweet breath it is not blest !
Though hot ; cool waters I cannot abide,
Since the which thy clear eyes as ail the rest.
Be hot, as they sometimes were, purified !
The ground I tread, my footing doth infest;
Because it is not hallowed with thy feet l
I loathe all meat; for ail meat is unmeet,
Which is not eaten, where thy sweet self feedest !
lqothing is pleasant, lovely, rich, or sweet ;
Which doth hot with his grace, thy beauty meet !
Ah, too dear absence ! which this sickness breedest
Of thy dear Sweet, which cannot be too dear l
Yet, if thou will vouchsafe my life to save,
Write but one line ! One line, my life will cheer l
The ransom of my lire, thy naine will pay !
And I be freed from my much doubtful fear.

ELEGY XVIII.
F NEITHER Love, nor Pity can procure
Thy ruthless heart subscribe to my content
But if thou vow that I shall still endure
This dotbtful fear, which ever doth torment
If to thine eyes, thine heart can lend a tire,

:Maysg3.J ,42VD /IRTHEArOPHE. ELEGIES. 29

Whiles cold disdain, upon them sets a lock
To bar forth Pity, which kind hearts desire,
Whiles the distressèd make prayers to a rock
If that thine eyes send out a sunny smile
From underneath a cloudy frown of hate !
Plain love with counterfeasance, to beguile ;
Which, at thy windows, for some grace await
If thou, thine ears can open to thy praise,
And them, with that report delighted, cherish.
And shut them, when the Passionate assays
To plead for pity, then about to perish !
If thou canst cherish graces in thy cheek,
For men to wonder at, which thee behold !
And they find furies, when thine heart they seck,
And yet prove such as are extremely cold !
Now as I find no thought to man's conceit ;
Then must I swear, to woman's, no deceit !

ELEGYXIX.

EAR Sorrow ! Give me leave to breathe a xvhile !
A little leave, to take a longer breath !
Whose easy passage, still, thou dost beguile,
Choked up with sighs, proclaimers of my death.
0 let the tears of ever-thirsty eyes
Return back to the channels of mine heart !

E L EGI ES. .A R THENOHI ,ay,so»

They, to my sight be vowèd enemies
And made a traitorous league not to depart ;
Under the colour of tormenting those
Which were first causers of mine heart's distress.
And closely with mine heart, by guile, did close
Through blinding them, to make my torment iess ;
0 let those fearful thoughts, which still oppress me,
Turn to the dungeon of my troubled brain !
Despair t' accompany ! which doth possess me,
And with his venom poisoneth every vein.
Ugly Despair ! who, with black force, assaults
Me vanquished with conceit, and makes me dwell
With Horror, matched in Melancholy's vaults!
Where I lie burning in my Fancies' Hell.
O thou, dread Ruler of my sorrows' rage [
Of thee and none but thee, I beg remorse !
With thy sweet breath, thou may my sighs assuage!
And make my sorrows' fountains stay their course,
And banish black Despair ! Then help me, now !
Or know, Death can do this, as well as thou !

ELEGY XX.

DR^R vexation of my troubled soul !
My life, with grief, when wilt thou consumate ?
The dear remembrance of my passing soul ;
Mine heart, with some tests, hope doth animate.

How many have those conquering eyes subdued 1
How many vanquished captives to thine heart !
Head iron-hearted Captains (when they viewed)
Wer¢ drawn, till they were wounded with thy dart
O when, I, their haired bodies have beheld,
Their martial stomachs, and oft-wounded face ;
Which bitter tumults and garboils foretelled ;
In which, it seemed they round no coward's place
Then, I recalled how far Love's power exceeds,
Above the bloody menace of rough war !
Where every wounded heart close inward bleeds ;
And sudden pierced, with th¢ twinkling of a star l
Then (when such iron-hearted Captains be,
To thine heart's Bulwark, forcd for to try
Which way to win that Fort by battery ;
And how ail Conquerors, there conquered lie !)
Methinks, thine heart, or else thine eyes be made
(Because they can such iron objects force)
Of hardest adamant ! that men (which laid
Continual siege) be thralled, without remorse.
.Thine heart, of adamant ! because it takes
The hardest hearts, drawn prisoners unto thine.
Thine ey¢ ! because it, wounded many makes.
Yet no transpiercing beams can pierce those eyne
Thine heart of adamant, which none can wourid !
Thine eye of adamant, unpiercèd round I

ELEGY XXI.

,APP¥ ! depart with speed [ Than me, more fortunate
ever !
Poor Letter, go thy ways ! unto my sweet Lady's
hands [
She shall look on thee! and then, with her beautiful eyes
bless [
Smiling eyes (perhaps, thee to delight with a glance)
She shall cast on a line; if a line, there, pleaseth her
humour [
But if a line displease ; then shall appear a frown !
How much she dislikes thy Ioves, and saucy salutings !
0 my life's sweet Light [ know that a frown of thine eye
Can transpierce to my soul, more swift than a Parthian
arrow ;
And more deeply wound than any lance, or a spear !
But thy sweet Smiles can procure such contrary motions;
Which can, alone, that heal, wound afore by thine eyes!
Like to the lance's rust, which healed whilom warlike
ACmLLS
With right hand valiant, doughtily wounded afore.
Not unlike to the men, whose grief the scorpion helpeth
(Whom he, before, did sting), ready to die through pain :
Thou, that Beauty procures to be thy Chastity's handmaid,
With Virtue's regiment gl6rious, ordered alone!
Thou, that those smooth brows, like plates of ivory planèd,

(When any look on them) canst make appear like a cloud
Thou, that those clear eyes, whose light surpasseth a star's
light,
Canst make Love's flames shoot, with cruel anger, abroad
Thou, that those fair cheeks, when a man thy beauty
beholdeth,
(Deeply to wound), canst make sweetly to blush like a rose
Make thy brows (to delight mine heart !) smooth ! Shadow
thy clear eyes !
(Whose, smile is to my soul, like to the sun from a cloud,
When he shines to the world in most pride, after a tempest
And with his heat provokes all the delights of the ground)
Grant me, sweet Lady! this! This, grantl kind Pity
requesteth !
Tears and sighs make a suit ! Pity me ! pity my suit !
Thus to thy sweet graces, will I leave my dreary bewailings
And to thy gracious heart, I recommend my laments !
Thrice blessed ! go thy way, to my Dear ! Go, thrice speedy
Letter !
And for me, kiss them ! since I may hot kiss ber hands.

'64

CANZON .

LL beauty's far perfections rest in thee !
And sweetest grace of graces
Decks thy face, 'bove faces!
AIl virtue takes her glory from thy mind !
The Muses in thy wits have their places
And in thy thoughts ail mercies be !
Thine heart from ail hardness free
An holy place in thy thoughts, holiness doth find !
In favourable speech, kindl
A sacred tongue and eloquent 1
Action sweet and excellent !
Music itself, in joints of her fair fingers is !
She, Chantress of singers
Her plighted faith is firm and permanent !
0 now ! now, help I Wilt thou take some compassion ?
She thinks I flatter, writing on this fashion !

Thy beauty past, with misorder stainèd is !
In the_', no graces find rest 1
In thee, who sought it, saw least!
And ail thy thoughts be vain and vicious !
Thy brains with dulness are oppresst !
Of thee, no mercy gainèd isl

t May Sg]. j PAR7HENOPHIL. CANZON,

Thine heart, hard and feignèd is !
A mind profane, and of the worst suspicious !
In speech not delicious !
A tongue tied, which cannot utter !
Gesture lame, like words which stutter !
Thy hands and mind, unapt in music to rejoice !
For songs unfit, an hoarse volte !
Thy faith unconstant, whatsoe'er thou mutter !
Be gracious ! No ! She thinks my words be bitter!
Through my misfortunes, they for myself be titrer !

265

0 how long ! how long shall I be distresst !
How long in vain shall I moan !
How long in pain shall I groan !
How long shall I bathe in continual tears!
How long shall I sit sad, and sigh alone I
How long shall fear discomfort give 1
How long shall hopes let me lire I
How long shall I lie bound in despairs and fears !
With sorrow still my heart wears !
My sundry fancies subdue me 1
Thine eyes kill me, when they view me!
When thou speaks with my soul ; thy voice music maketh,
And souls from silence waketh !
Thy brow's smiles quicken me ; whose frowns slew me
Then fair Sweet ! behold !See me, poor wretch ! in torment
Thou perceivest well! but thine heart will not relent.

Mine Eyes and Sleep be tierce professèd foes !
Much care and tears did make it :
Nor yet will they forsake it ;
But they will vex my brains, and troubled eyes !
If any sorrow sleep, they will wake it!

[" B. Barnes.
266 CANZON. )ARTI-IEeVOPI-II Lt, M.y sg.

Still, sighing mine heart overthrows l
Yet art Thou cause of these woes !
But what avails I if I make to the deaf, such horrible out-
cries ?
She hears hot my miseries !
0 Sorrow ! Sorrow, cease a while !
Let her but look on me and smile !
And from me, for a time, thou shalt be banished !
My comforts are vanished !
Nor hope, nor time, my sorrows can beguile l
Yet cease I hot to cry for mercy [ vexèd thus ;
But thou wilt hot relieve us, which perplexèd us !

Ah, would Thou set some limits to my woesl
That, after such a rime set
(As penance to some crime set),
Forbearance, through sweet hope, I might endure
But as bird (caught in the fowler's lime set)
No means for his liberty knows ;
Me such despair overgoes,
That I can find no comfortable hope of cure !
Then since nothing can procure
My sweet comfort, by thy kindness;
(Armed in peace, to bear this blindness)
I voluntarily submit to this sorrow,
As erst, each even and morrow.
Can women's hearts harbour such unkindness ?
O, relent! Relent, and change thy behaviour!
Foui is the naine of Tyrant ; sweet, of Saviour I

Long to the rocks, have I made my complaintsl
And to the woods desolate,
My plaints went early and late !
To the forsaken mountains and rivers !

Yet comfortless, and still disconsolate ;
Mine heart, as it was wonted, faints [
Such small help cornes from such Saints!
Why should men which in such pain lire, be called, Livers ?
Such arrows bear love's quivers.
Now, since rocks and woods will not hear;
Nor hills and floods, my sorrows bear:
In sounding echoes and swift waves, the world about,
These papers report it out !
Whose lasting Chronicles shall Time outwear !
Then, take remorse, dear Love ! and to these, united
Shall be thy mercies I with matchless prayers recited.

You hapless winds ! with my sighs infected
Whose fumes, you never let rise
To please ber with sacrifice !
But evermore, in gross clouds them choked ;
So that my Dear could never them comprise !
0 you (that never detected
My plaints, but them neglected !
Which in your murmurs brought, might have her provoked !
When them in clouds you cloaked !)
Know that a prouder spirit flies,
Bearing them to posterities !
And lays them open wide, that the world may view them ;
That ail which read, may rue them ;
When they shall pierce thine ears, though hot thine eyes !
Then, sweet Fair ! pity my long service and duty !
Lest thine hard heart be more famous than thy beauty !
Then do no longer despise,
But, with kind pity, relent thee!
Cease to vex and torment me !
If Shame's fear more not (which all discovers),
Fear plague of remorseless loyers !

268 ITem- FIRST EIDILLION OF ''Y'n'-
May

The First Eidillion of
M o s c H U S describing Love.

ENus aloud, for her son CUPID cried,
" If any spy LOVE gadding in the street,
It is my rogue l He that shall him
betray,
For hire, of VENUS shall have kisses
But :V:uettat brmgs hlm, shall have more
beside,
Thou shalt not only kiss, but as guest stay!
By many marks, the Boy thou mayst bewray !
'Mongst twenty such beside, thou shalt perceive himl
Not of a pale complexion, but like tire !
Quick rolling eyes, and flaming in their gyre t
False heart ! Sweet words, which quickly will deceive him,
To whom he speaks ! 8weet speech, at your desire;
But vex him ! then, as any wasp he stingeth !
Lying, and false ! if you receive him;
A crafty lad ! and cruel pastimes bringeth !

A fair curled head, and a right waggish face
His hands are small ; yet he shoots far away !
For even so far as Acheron, he shooteth !
And to the Infernal Monarch, his darts stray.
Clothesless, he, naked goes in every place !
And vet to know his thoughts, it no man booteth

r,,n..byB..,.. MoscttuS I-SCRI3IU6 Love-.] 269
ay x593.
Swift, as a bird, he flies ! and quickly footeth,
Now to these men and women, now to those
But yet he fits within their vevy marrow
A little bow, and in that bow, an arrow
A small flight-shaff, but still to heavenward goes[
About his neck, a golden da-barrow l
In which, he placeth eve bitter da ;
Which, oRen, even at me I he throws t
Ail full of cruelty I all full of sma t
And yet this thing more wondrous I A small brand
That even the very sun itself doth burn !
If him thou take ; pitiless, lead him, bound !
And, if thou chance to see him weep, retu !
Then (lest he thee deceive), his tears withstand l
And if he laugh, draw him along the ground
If he would kiss, refuse His lips confound l
For those alone be poisoned evermore
But if he say, ' Take[ these I give to thee
AIl those my weapons which belong to me I '
Touch them hot, when he lays them, thee before
Those gifts of his, all false and fie be ! "
FINIS.

=7o

ODES

PASTORAL.

SESTINE .

N SWEE'rEsT pride of youthful May,
Where my poor flocks were wont to stay
About the valleys and high hills,
Which FLORA with her glory fills;
PAR'rlaErOPHm, the gentle Swain,
Perplexèd with a pleasing pain,

Despairing how to slack his pain ;
To woods and floods, these words did say,
" PARTHENOPHE, mine heart's Soverain 1
Why dost thou, my delights delay ?
And with thy cross unkindness kill%
Mine heart, bound martyr to thy wilis ! "

But women will have their own wills,
Alas, why then shouid I complain ?
Since what She lists, ber heart fulfils.
I sigh! I weep! I kneelt Ipray!
When I should kiss, She runs away !
Sighs ! knees ! tears ! prayers ! spent in vain !

ç-,9J l T tt E N O P H L. ODES.

My verses do not please her vain,
Mine heart wears with continual thri[ls
His Epilogue about to play !
My Sense, unsound ; my Wits, in wane;
I still expect a happy day!
Whilst harvest grows, my winter spills !

PARTHENOPHE mine harvest spills!
She robs my storehouse of his grain [
Alas, sweet Wench ! thy rage allay !
Behold, what fountain still distils ;
Whiles thine heat's rage in me doth rain!
Yet moisture will not his flame stay.

PARTHENOPHE [ thy fury stay !
Take hence ! the occasion of these ills
Thou art the cause ! but come again [
Return ! and FLORA'S pride disdain !
Her lilies, rose, and daffodils !
Thy cheeks and forehead disarray

The roses and lilies of their grain
What swans can yield so many quills
As ail her glories can display ?

ODE z.

HEN I walk forth into the Woods,
With heavy Passion to complain
I view the trees with blushing buds
Ashamed, or grieved at my pain
There amaranthe, with rosy stain
{Me pitying) doth his leaves ingrain

O DES. 13A R THEIVOPHII

When I pass pensive to the Shore,
The water birds about me fly,
As if they mourned ! when rivers roar,
Chiding thy wrathful cruelty ;
Halcion watcheth warily
To chide thee, when thou comest by !

May

If to the City, I repair
Mine eyes thy cruelty betray !
And those which view me, find my care :
Swoll'n eyes and sorrows it betray!
Whose figures in my forehead are,
These curse the cause of mine ill rare !

When I go forth to feed my Flocks
As I, so they hang down their heads !
If I complain to ruthless Rocks,
(For that it seems, hard rocks her bred)
Rocks' ruth, in rivers may be readl
Which from those rocks down tricklèd.

When shepherds would know how I rare,
And ask, " How doth PARTHENOPHIL »
" Ill," Ecno answers, in void air;
And with these news, each place doth fill !
Poor herdgrooms, from each cottage, will
Sing my complaints, on every hill l

ODE 2.
[For" 'echo' poems, cf. pp. o- ,tra. and ix 3et ia ; 1o vol. il. pp. 48 nd 337-]
P^, Ecro! tell
With lilies, columbines, and roses,
What their P^Ra'rv-NOPnE composes ? EcHo, Posiesl
0 sacred smell !
For those, which in her lap she doses,
The gods like wellt

B. Bne.']
ç.j 4VD 4R TIEIVOPIE.

Speak, Ecno! tell
With daffodillies, what she doth plet
Which in such order, she doth set
For LOVE fo dwell ?
As She should FLORA'8 chapel let ?
This LovB likes svell !

ECHO, Chaplet !

273

Speak, ECHO! tell
Why lilies and red roses like her ? ECHO, Like her l
No pity with remorse will strike her!
Did Nature well,
Which did, from fairest Graces, pike her
To be mine hell ?

Speak, Ecrlo ! tell
Why columbines she entertains ?
Because the proverb " Watchet" feigns,
"True loves like well !"
And do these therefore like ber veins ? EcHo
There CUæIDS dwell !

Her veins !

Speak, ECHO, tell
Wherefore her chaplets yeilow were like,
When others here, were more her like? ECHO, Hair-like !
Yet, I know well !
Her heart is tiger-like, or bear-like,
To rocks itsell.

CANZON a.

,IINE ! sing, PARTHENOPHIL ! sing ! pipe ! and play w
This feast is kept upon this plain,
__ Amongst th' Arcadian shepherds everywhere,
For ASTROPHEL'S birthday! Sweet ASTROPHEL !
Arcadia's honour ! mighty P^s's chief pride !
Where be the Nymphs ? The Nymphs ail gathered be
To sing ssveet ASTROPHEL'S ssveet praise 1
L S 8

-B. Barnm
274. C, NZO. 4RTttE)roPHIL May a$95.

ECHO! record what feasts be kept to-day
Amongst th'Arcadian shepherd swains!
What keep they, whiles they do the Muses cheer ?
ECHO»

Cheer !

He cheereà the Muses with celestial skill !
Ail Shepherds' praise died with him, when he dieà !
He left no peer I Then, what deservèd he,
At whose pipe's sound, the lambkin bays ?
Et;HO»

Bays I

The bullocks leap ! the fawns dance in array !
Kids skip ! the Satyrs friskins fain !
Here stand a herd of Swains ! Fair Nymphs standthere !
Swains dance! while Nymphs with flowers their baskets fill !
What was he to those Nymphs with garlands tied ?
EcHo, Tied !

What tied him ? Hath he to tell there bound t'ce ?
EcHo, Bounty !
Howl To report his martial days ?
ECHO, Ail days !
Thrice happy man ! that round this happy way !
His praise ail Shepherds' glory stains !
What doth P^ITHENOPHE, my purchase dear ?
EcvIo, Chase dear !
What saith She, to her P^RTtENOPIL ?
ECHO, O fill I

8hepherds ! I fill sweet wines repurified,
And to his blessed Soul, this health have w !
Singing sweet Odes and Roundelays !

B. Bm. 3
May,9._ ) ,NI .,4R'HENOPH. CANZON.

Let every man drink round besides this bayl
Where are the Nymphs and Fairy train ?
S'-LL^, three garlands in her hand doth bear ;
And those, for his sweet sake ! she proffer will,
Unto th'Elizian souls! And I have spied
PARTHENOPHE, with spoil returns to me,
Of three great hearts. Sing Virelays !

Those golden darts fly never void of prey,
And STELLA sits (as if some Chain
Of Fancies bound her l) by that motley bief!
Where, with sweet eglantine and daffodil,
She, chaplets makes, with gold and scarlet dyed.
Here, COLIN sits, beneath that oaken treel
ELIZA singing in his Lays !

Blest is Arcadia's Queenl Kneel Swains, and say
That "She (which here chier Nymph doth reign)
May blessèd lire! to see th'extremest year
For sacrifice, then, lambs and kidlings kill !
And be, by them, ELIz^ glorified !
The Flower of Loves, and pure Virginity !
This Delian Nymph doth amaze I

The fairest deers, which in the forests stay !
Those harts (which proudest herds disdain
And range the forests as without compeer !)
Submissive, yield themselves ! that if She will,
She, them may wound ! or on their swift backs ride !
Lions and bears, with beauty tameth She!
Shepherds ! for Her! your voices raise !

Ecrto [ this favour, if I purchase may I
Do not herdgrooms there feign ?
Ecro, They're fain
What want they ? Speak ! now, they be blest, if e'er!
ECHO, Fear
What be the confines ? Rebels they be still !
Ecro, They be still
What is She, that so many Swains doth there guide ?
Ecro, Their guide
None but herself hath that ability
To rule so many ways!
Her thoughts, sure grounded on Divinity;
For this sweet Nymph, each Shepherd prays I

ODE3.

PoN a holy Saintès Eve
As I took my pilgrimage,
Wand'ring through the forest wary,
Blest be that holy Saint !
I met the lovely Virgin, M^R' !
And kneelèd, with long travel faint,
Performing my due homage.
My tears foretold my heart did grieve,
Yet M^R' would hot me relieve !

Her I did promise, every year,
The firstling femme of my flock ;
That in my love she would me further.
(I curst the days of my first love,
My comfort's spoils, my pleasures' murder.)
She, She, alas, did me reprov¢!
My suits, as to a stony rock,
Were made ; for she would hot give ear:
Ah love ! dear love ! love bought too dear!

ODES.

]VIARY, my Saint chaste and mild!
Pity, ah, pity my suit!
Thou art a virgin, pity
Shine eyes, though pity wanting ;
That she, by them, my grief may see 1
And look on mine heart panting
But her deaf ears, and tongue mute,
Shews her hard heart unreconciled
Hard heart, from ail remorse exiled I

ODE 4-

ACCHUS ! Father of all sport l
Worker of Love's comfort !
VEtUS' best beloved brother !
(Like beloved is none other [)
Greater Father of Felicity 1
Fill lu!l, with thy divinity,
These thirsty and these empty veins !
Thence, fuming up into my brains,
Exceed APOLLO, through thy might !
And make me, by thy motion light,
That, with alacrity, I may
Write pleasing Odes! and still display
PARTHENOPHE, with such high praises,
(Whose beauty, Shepheràs ail amazes)
And, by those means, her !oves obtain l
Then, having filled up every rein,
I shall be set in perfect state
The rights of love to celebrate [
Then, each year, fat from my sheepcot,
Thy sacrifice, a tydie goat 1
And "IrA vo shall be
Loud chanted, everywhere, to theel

ODE 5.

ARrflENOPHE !See what is sent !
By me (fair Nymph !) these Saints salute thee !
Whose presents in this basket here,
Faithful PARTHENOPHIL doth bear!
lor will I prove ingrate ! nor mute be !
If my power were,
Such gifts as these
(If they would please)
Here willingly I would present !

And these, those presents present be !
First, JuNo sent tu thee, these lilies !
In whose stead chaste Affection moves.
VENus bath sent two turtle doves !
N^Rclssus gives thee daffodillies !
For doves, true loves !
For daffodillies
My golden wills !
Which countervails what here is sent theel

FLORA doth greet thee, with sweet roses
THETIS, with rich pearls orient!
LEUCOTHOE, with frankincense !
For roses, my love's chaste pretence !
For pearls, those tears which I have spent!
My sighs' incense,
For sweet perfume !
Thus I presume,
Poor Shepherd ! to present these posies !

Though I be rude, as shepherds are,
Lilies, I know, do stand for whiteness !
And daffodillies, thy golden hair 1
And dores, thy meekness ! figures bear.
Red roses, for a blushing brightness !
Thy teeth, pearls were !
That incense showed
Thy breath that blowed,
. sacrifice ! for which gods care.

Blest is that Shepherd, nine times nine !
Which shall, in bosom, these flowers keep
Bound in one posy; whose sweet smell,
In Paradise may make him dwelll
And sleep a ten times happy sleepl
I dare not mell !
Else with good will
PARTHENOPHIL
XNould to thy lips, one kiss assign I

ODE 6.

FAIR sweet glove !
Divine token
Of her sweet love,
Sweetly broken [
By words, sweet loves She durst hot more !
These gifts, her love to me do prove l
Though never spoken.

On her fair hand,
This glove once was !
None in this land
Did ever 'pass

280

Her hands' fair white ! Corne Loves! here stand
Let Graces' with yours, match her hand l
Hide ! hide, alas I

Graces would smile
If you should match !
Hers, yours beguile !
Hers, garlands catch
From ail the Nymphsl which blush the while
To see their white outmatched a toile !
Which praise did watch.

This glove, I kiss !
And, for thy sake,
1 will hot miss,
But ballads make[
And every shepherd shall know this ;
P$,IqTHENOPHIL in such gracc isl
Muses, awake !

For I will sing
Thy matchless praises !
And my pipes bring,
Which floods amazes!
Wiid Satyrs, friskins shall outfling!
The rocks shall this day's glory ring l
Whiles Nymphs bring daisies.

Some, woodbines bear !
Some, damask roses !
The Muses were
A-binding posies.
lIy goddess' glove to herrye here
Great P^ cornes in, with flowers sear,
And crowns composes !

D. Barne$ "1
y,sçJ A.ArD ./A R THE.Ar0pH£. 0 D E S. 2I

I note this day
Once every year !
An holiday
For Her kept dear !
A hundred Swains, on pipes shall play !
And for the Glove, masque in array
With jolly cheer !

A Glove of Gold,
I will bring in !
For which Swains bold,
Shall strife begin !
And he, which loves tan best unfold ;
And bath in Songs, his mind best told ;
The Glove shall winl

lqymphs shall resort !
And they, with flowers»
Shall deck a Fort
For paramours,
Which for this Glove, shall there contend !
Impartial lqymphs shall judgement end !
And in those bowers»

Pronounce who best
Deserved, of ail !
Then by the test
A Coronal
Of Roses, freshly shall be dresst !
And he, with that rich Glove possesst,
As Principal I

22 ODES PA,THNOPHIL ,,s»

ODE 7.

HEN I did think to write of war,
And martial chiefdens of the field,
DIAtA did enforce to yield
/vly Muse to praise the Western Star!
But Pat, tAs did my purpose bar,
My Muse as too weak, it to wield !

ELlZA'S praises were too high !
Divinest Wits have donc their best!
And yet thc most have provèd least ;
Such was ber Sacred Majesty!
Love's Pride ! Grace to Virginity!
0 could my Muse, in ber praise rest l

VENUS directed me to write
The praise of peerless Beauty's Wonder!
A theme more fit for voice of thunder !
P^RTn-NOPnE, from whose eyes bright,
Ten thousand Graces dared my might,
And willed me, rive degrees write under!

But yet her Fancy wrought so much,
That my Muse did, her praise adventure !
Wherein, of yore, it durst hot enter.
And now her beauty gives that touch
Unto my Muse, in number such ;
Which makes me more and more repent her|

B. B'-I
-,s»J /v/ PtRTHVOPH£. ODES. 283

ODE 8.

N A shady grove of myrtle,
Where birds musical resorted,
With FLORA'S painted flowers fert'le,
Which men with sight and scent comforted,
Whilst turtles equaily disported,
Where each Nymph Iooses
Bunches of posies,
Which into chaplets sweet they sorted !

There, seated in that lovely shade,
"ith LAYA beautiful, there sate
A gentle Shepherd, which had ruade,
'Gainst evening twilight, somewhat iate»
An arbour built in sylvan state»
"here, in exchange,
Their eyes did range,
Giving each other» the checkmateo

He said, " Sweet comfort of my Lire 1
Corne and embrace PARTHENOPHIL ["
" Met we," said She, " to fall at strife i
I will be gone I Ay, that I will 1"
« I loved you long !" "Why, do so still ':
"I cannot choose,
If you refuse !
But shall myself, with sorrow kill."

With that, he sighed, and would have kissed;
And viewed her with a fearful smile :
She turned, and said, "Your aire missed !"
With sighs redoubled, the meanwhile,

0 D E $. ]P,¢! R TI-I,]VOPHIL

The Shepherd sate, but did compile
Green-knotted rushings ;
Then roundelays sirgs !
And pleasant doth twilight beguile !

[ B. Bmes.

At length, he somewhat nearer presst,
And, with a glance, the Nymph deceiving,
He kissed herl She said, " Be at rest ! "
Willing displeased, in the receiving !
Thence, from his purpose, never leaving,
He pressed her furtherl
She would cry " Murder !"
But somewhat was, her breath bereaving !

At length, he doth possess her whole !
Her lips! and ail he would desire !
And would have breathed in her, his soul !
If that his soul he could inspire :
Eft that chanced, which he did require,
A lire soul possesst
Her marron breast--
Then waking, I round Sleep a liar !

ODE 9.
EHOLt, out walking in these vaIleys,
When fait P^R'rmotrm doth tread,
How joysome FLO, with ber dal]ies l
And, at her steps, sweet flowers bred !
lqarcissus yellow,
And Amaranthus ever red,
Which ail her footsteps overspread :
With Hyacinth that firds no fellow.

AND PA R THENOPHE. ODES.

Behold, within that shady thick,
Where my P^'rllZOU doth walk,
Her beauty makes trees moving quick,
Which, of her grace, in murmur talk !
The Poplar trees shed tears;
The blossomed Hawthorn, white as chalk ;
And Aspen trembling on his stalk ;
The tree which sweet frankincense bears ;

The barren Hebene coaly black;
Green Ivy, with his strange embraces;
Daphne, which scorns JovE's thundercrack;
Sweet Cypress, set in sundry places
And singing Atis tells
Unto the rest, my Mistress's graces
From them, the wind, her glory chase
Throughout the West; where it excels.

ODE to.

Hv doth heaven bear a sun
To give the world a heat ?
Why, there, have stars a seat ?
On earth, when ail is done !
PARTHENOPHE'S bright sun
Doth give a greater heat !

And in her heaven there be
Such fair bright blazing stars ;
Which still make open wars
With those in heaven's degree.
These stars far brighter be
Than brightest of heaven's stars!

Why doth earth bring forth roses,
Violets, or lilies,
Or bright daffodillies ?
In her elear eheeks, she doses
Sweet damask roses t
In ber neek, white lilies 1

Violets in her veins !
Why do men sacrifice
Incense to deities ?
Her breath more favour gives,
And pleaseth heavenly veins
/Clore than rich sacrifice l

ODE .

OVELY MAYA .t HERMES' mother,
Of fair FLORA much befriended,
To whom this sweet month is commended,
This month more sweet than any other,
By thy sweet sovereignty defended.

Daisies, cowslips, and primroses,
Fragrant violets, and sweet mynthe,
Matched with purple hyacinth :
Of these, each where, Nymphs make trim posies,
Praising their mother BEYcmrm

Behold, a herd of jolly Swains
Go flocking up and down the meadl
A troup of lovely Nymphs do tread!
And dearnly dancing on yon plains :
Each doth, in course, her hornpipe lead !

B. Bans.

Before the grooms, plays PEURS the Piper.
They bring in hawthorn and sweet briar:
And damask roses, they would bear ;
But them, they leave till they be riper.
The rest, round Morrises dance there !

With frisking gambols, and such glee,
Unto the lovely Nymphs they haste !
Who, there, in decent order placed,
Expect who shall Queen FLORA be ;
And with the May Crown, chiefly graced ?

The Shepherds poopen in their pipe,
One leads his wench a Country Round;
Another sits upon the ground ;
And doth his beard from drivel wipe,
Because he would be handsome round.

To see the frisking, and the scouping !
To hear the herdgrooms wooing speeches !
Whiles one to dance, his girl beseeches.
The lead-heeled lazy luskins louping,
Fling out, in their new motley breeches !

This done, with jolly cheer and game,
The batch'lor Swains, and young Nymphs met ;
Where in an arbour, they were set.
Thither, to choose a Queen, they came,
And soon concluded her to fer.

There, with a garland, they did crown
PARTHENOPHE, my true sweet Love !
Whose beauty ail the Nymphs above,
Did put the lovely Graces down.
The Swains, with shouts, rocks' echoes move!

To see the Rounds, the Morris Dances,
The leaden galliards, for her sake !
To hear those songs, the Shepherds make !
One with his hobby horse still prances !
Whiles some, with flowers, an highway make !

There in a mantle of light green,
(Reserved, by custom, for that day)
PAR'I'HEIqOPHE, they did array !
And did create her, Summer's Queen 1
And Ruler of their merry Mayl

SESTINE 3-
Ou loathed fields and forests,
Infected with my vain sighs I
You stony rocks, and deaf hills,
With my complaints, to speak taught !
You sandy shores, with my tears,
Which learn to wash your dry face !

Behold, and learn in my face,
The state of blasted forests !
If you would learn to shed tears,
Or melt away with oft sighs ;
You shall, of me, be this taught,
As I sit under these hills,

Beating mine arms on these hills,
Laid grovelling on my lean face!
Ily sheep, of me to bleat taught ;
And to wander through the forests !
The sudden winds learn my sighs
AURORA's flowers, my tears!

B.
,.w»j A N Z P A T H N O ' H . ()DES. 2 9

But Shc that should sec my tears,
Swift scuddeth by the high hi[ls,
And sees me spent with long sighs,
And views my blubbered lean face ;
Yet leaves me to thc forests,
Whos¢ solitary paths taught

My wocs, ail comforts untaught.
Thcsc sorrows, sighs, and sait tcars
Fit solitary forests 1
These outcries mect for dcaf hills
These tears, best fitting this face
lhis air, most mcct for these sighs

Consume I consume, with thcsc sighs 1
Such sorrows, thcy to dic taught 1
Which printed are in thy face,
Whose furrows ruade with much tears !
You stony rocks! and high hills 1
You sandy shores I and forests I

Report my seas of sait tears 1
You ! whom I nothing else taught,
But gro.anings I tears I and sad sighs!

ODE

NE night, I did attend my sheep,
Which I, with watchful ward, did keep
For fear of wolves assaulting :
For, many times, they broke my sleep,
And would into the cottage creep,
Till I sent them out halting !
T

I 8

290

0 DE $. PAR Ftt£NOPItlZ

At length, methought, about midnight,
(What time clear C1'bITHIA shineth bright)
Beneath, I heard a rumblingl
At first, the noise did me affright ;
But nought appearèd in my sight,
Yet still heard something tumbling.

[t l. Bagnes.
lay :$93"

At length, good heart I took to rise,
And then myself crossed three times thrice ;
Hence, a sharp sheephook raught
1 feared the wolf had got a prize ;
Yet how he might, could not devise !
I, for his entrance sought.

At length, by moonlight, could I espy
A little boy did naked lie
Frettished, amongst the flock ;
I, him approachèd somewhat nigh.
He groaned, as he wer¢ like to die ;
But falsely did me mock [

For pity, he cded, "Well a day !
Good toaster, help me, if you mayl
For I ara almost starved ! "
I pitied him, when he did pray;
And brought him to my couch of hay.
But guess as I was served !

He bare about him a long dart,
Well gilded with fine painter's art ;
And had a pile of steel.
On it I lookèd every part :
Said I, "Will this pile wound a heart ?"
"Touch it l" quoth he, "and feel !"

B,
? Y 93-.J

With that, I touched the javelin's point 1
Eftsoons it piercèd to the joint !
And rageth now so tierce,
That ail the balms which it anoint
Cannot prevail with it, a point;
But it mine heart will pierce.

ODE x3.

N "rr. plains,
Fairy trains
Were a treading measures,
Satyrs played,
Fairies stayed
At the stops' set leisure.

Nymphs begin
To corne in
Quickly, thick, and threefold !
Now the dance !
Now the prance,
Present there to behold I

On her breast
That did best
A jewel rich was placed !
FLOIA chose
Which of those
Best the measures graced.

When he had
Measures lad
PARTHEIOPHE did get it I
Nymphs did chide
When they tried,
Where the judgement set it.

292

Thus they said
"This fair Maid,
Whom you gave the jewel,
Takes no pleasure
To keep measure ;
But it is too too cruel 1"

[1 B. Barne
l[ay x593.

ODE 4.
ARg ! ail you lovely Nymphs forlorn !
With VENUS, chaste Dz^N^ meets !
And one another friendly greets !
Did you not hear her wind a horn ?
Then cease, fair Ladies! Do hot mourn !

Virgins, whom VESVS made offend,
Resort into thc wood Itt even;
And every one shall be forgiven !
There shall ail controversies end I
Dz^s^ shall be VEsus' friend !

Hark, Nymphs forlorn ! what is decreed !
Spotless DASA must hot rail,
But be addressed with VENUS' veil ;
Vmqts must wcar DIANA'S weed.
This veil will shadow, when you need!

If any think a virgin light ;
DL, m' in VEuus veil excuseth,
And her Nymph PnCEBE'S habit useth.
These quaint attires befit you right,
For each a diverse garment chooseth.

13. ea,'ne«.'l

ODE
ULCAN, in Lemnos Isle,
Did golden shafts compile
For CUPID's bow.
Then VENUS did, with honey sweet,
To make it please, anoint the pile.
CtPD below
Dipped it in gall, and ruade it meet
Poor wounded creatures to beguile.
When MaRS returned from war,
Shaking his spear afar;
CtPD beheld
At him, in jest, MaRS shaked his spear
Which Cteu), with his dart did bar
(Which millions quelled).
Then, MaRS desired his dart to bear :
But soon the weight, his force did mat
Then MaRS subdued, desired
(Since he was with it tired)
Ctu, ID to take it.
" Nay, you shall keep it!" CuPD said;
" For first to feel it you required.
Wound I will make it
As deep as yours ! You me did fear ;
And for that, you shall be fired ! "

CANZON 3.
WEET i$ the golden Cowslip bright and fair!
Ten rimes more sweet, more golden, fair, and bright,
Thy T_r,esses !,in rich trammelled knots, resembling.
VENus swan s back is lovely, smooth, and white
More lovely, smooth, and white his feathers are,
The silver lustre of thy Brows dissembling !

294 CANZON.
Bright are the Sunbeams, on the water tremb|ing!
Much brighter, shining like love's holy tire,
On well watered diamonds of those eyes,
Whose heat's reflection, Love's Affection tries |
Sweet is the Censer, whose fume doth aspire
Appeasing Lovî, when for revenge he ies
More sweet the Censer, like thy seemly Nose[
Vhose beauty (than Invention's wonder higher
Nine rimes nine Muses never could disc|ose.
Sweet Eglantine, ! cannot but commend
Thy modest rosy blush ! pure, white, and red
Yet I thy white and red praise more and more
In my sweet Lady's Cheeks since they be shed.
Vhen Grapes to full maturity do tend,
So round, so red, so sweet, ail joy belote
Continually I long for them therefore
Tosuck their sweet, and with my lips to touch |
Not so much for the Muses' nectar sake,
But that they from thy Lips their purpose take.
Sweet ! pardon, though I thee compare to such.
Proud Nature, which so white LovE's dores did make,
And framed their love|y heads, so white and round.
How white and round ! It doth exceed so much,
That nature nothing like thy Chin bath round
Fait Pearls, vhich garnish my sweet Lady's neck :
Far orient pearls ! O, how much I admire you |
Not for your orient gloss, or vrtue's rareness,
But that you touch her Neck, ! much desire you
Whose whiteness so much doth your lustre check,
As whitest liles the Prmrose in fairness
A nec most gorgeous, even in Nature's bareness.
Divine Rosebuds, which, vher Spring doth surrender
His crown to Summer, he last trophy reareth ;
By whch he, from ail seasons, the paire beareth !
lar purple crispèd lo|ds sweet-dewed and ender

B.
tiy,..l ND ,4RTHENOPIIE. CANZON.

Whose sweetness never wears, though moisture weareth»
Sweet ripe red Strawberries, whose heavenly sap
I would desire fo suck; but Loves ingender
A nectar more divine in thy sweet Pap !

O lovely tender paps ! but who shall press them ?
Whose heavenly nectar, and ambrosial juice
Proceed from Violets sweet, and asier-like,
And from the matchless purple Fleur de lu«.
Round rising hills, white hills (sweet Vp.qus bless theml)
Nature's rich trophies, hot those hills unlike,
Which that great monarch, CHARLP-S, whose power did
From th' Arctic to the Antarctic, dignified [strike
With proud Plus ultra : which Cerogralhy
In unknown Characters of Victory,
Nature hath set ; by which she signified
Her conquests' miracle reared up on high !
Soft ivory ballsl with which, whom she lets play,
Above ail mortal men is magnified,
And wagers 'bore ail price shall bear awayl

0 Love's sort hills ! how much I wonder you !
Between whose lovely valleys, smooth and straight,
That glassy moisture lies, that slippery dew !
V¢hose courage touched, could dead men animate |
Old NP-sa'OR (if between, or under you !
He should but touch) his young years might renew !
And with ail youthful joys himself indue I
0 smooth white satin, matchless, soft, and bright !
More smooth than oil ! more white than lily is !
As hard to match, as Love's Mount hilly is !
As sort as down ! clear, as on glass sunlight !
To praise your white, my tongue too much silly is !
How much, at your smooth soft, my sense amazed
Which charms the feeling, and enchants the sight : Ils !
But yet ber bright, smooth, white, soft Skin more praisèd

=96 C^zo. PrNoz
May
How oft have I, the silver Swan commended
For that even chesse of feather in her wingl
So white ! and in such decent ortier placed !
When she, the doly Dirge of Death did ing,
With her young mournful cygnets' train attended
Yet, hot because the milk-white wings ber graced,
But when I think on my Lady's Waist,
Whose ivory sides, a snowy shadow gives
Of ber well-ordered bs, which dse in falling
How oft, the swan I pitied, ber death calling,
With dreary notes Not that she so short lires,
And 'mongst the Muses sings for ber installing;
Dut that so clear a white should be disdained
With one that for Love's suged torment lires
And makes that white a plague to loyers pained.

O, how oft ! how oft did I chide and curse
The brethren Winds, in their power disagreeing !
East, for unwholesome vapour ! South, for rain !
North, for, by snows and whirlwinds, bitter being !
I loved the West, because it was the Nurse
Of FLoP,'s gardens, and to CER-S' grain !
Yet, ten rimes more than these, I did curse again !
Because they are inconstant and unstable
In drought I in moisture ! frosty cold ! and heat 1
Here, with a sunny stalle ! there, stormy threat 1
Much like my Lady's fancies variable !
How oft with feet, did I the marble beat ;
Harming my feet, yet never hurt the stone I
Because, like ber, it was inpenetrable,
And ber heart's nature with it, was all one ?

0 that my ceaseless sighs and tears were able
To counter charm her heart ! to stone converted.
I might work miracles to change again
The hard to sort ! that it might rue my pain.

B. Bam«.'l

But of herself she is so straitly skirted
(Falsely reputing True Love, Honour's Stain)
That I shall never more, and never die,
So many ways her mind I have experted !
Yet shall I lire, through virtue of her eye I

ODE 16.

EFoRE bright TI'^t raised his team
Or lovely Morn with rosy cheek,
With scarlet dyed the Eastern stream,
On PHOZBUS' day, first of the week ;
Early, my goddess did arise,
With breath to bless the morning air.
0 heavens, which made divine mine eyesl
Glancing on such a Nymph ! so fair !
Whose Hair, downspread in curled tresses,
PHOEBuS his glitter and beams withstood :
Much like him, when, through cypresses,
He danceth on the silver flood ;
Or like the golden purlèd clown,
Broached upon the palmed-flowered willows,
Which downward scattered from her crown,
Loosely dishevelled on love's pillows.
Covering her swan-like back below
Like ivory matched with purest gold ;
Like PHOEB when on whitest snow
Her gilded shadow taketh hold.
Her Forehead was like to the rose
Belote A)oms pricked his feet !
Or like the path to heaven which goes,
Where ail the lovely Graces meet !
CuPm's rich Chariot stood under !
Moist pearl about the wheels was set !
Grey agate spokes, not much asunder !

298

O D E $. ./A R THEV O f H]L Ma,s,

The axletree of purest jet !
Her seemly Nose, the rest which graced,
For Cgtx's Trophy was upreared [
Th' imperial Thrones, where Lors was placed
When, of the world, he would be feared.
Where CuID, with sweet Vus sate
Her cheeks with rose and lilies decked,
N ature upon the coach did wait,
And all in order did direct.
Her Cheeks to damask roses sweet,
In scent and colour were so like ;
That honey becs in swarms would meet
To suck ; and, sometimes, She would strike
With dainty plume, the becs to fear !
And being beaten, they would sting !
They round such heavenly honey there;
CUPID, which there sate triumphing,
When he perceived the bec did sting her
Would swell for grief, and curse that bec,
More than the bec that stinged his finger [
Yet still about her they would flee !
Then Lov to V.Nus would complain
Of Nature, which his chariot drest !
Nature would it excuse again,
Saying, "She then shewed her ski!l best !'°
When she drank wine, upon her face,
B^ccHus would dance! and spring to klss !
And shadow, with a blushing grace,
Her cheeks, where loyers build their bliss :
Who, when she drank, would blush for shame
That wanton B«CCHUS she should use ;
Who, V-Nus' brother, might defame
Her, that should such acquaintance choose|
What gloss the scarlet curtains cast
On a bedstead of ivory.
uch like, but such as much surpasst

B. Be.7
ay.»j ANL PAITH£t¢OI'H. ODES. 299

Ail gloss, her cheeks did beautify.
Her roseate Lips, sort lovely swelling,
And full of plcasurc as a chcrry ;
Her Brcath of divine spiccs srnclling,
Which, with tongue brokcn, would make mcrry
Th' infernal souls ; and, with hcr voicc,
Set hcavcn gares open, hcll gares shut,
Movc rnclancholy to rcjoice,
And thrallcd in Paradisc rnight put.
Hcr Voicc, not human, when shc spcakcth
I think sornc angcl or goddcss,
Into cclestial tuncs which brcakcth,
Spcaks likc her, with such cheerfulness.
Ail birds and instruments rnay takc
Thcir notes divine and excellent,
Melodious harrnony to rnakc,
Frorn hcr sweet voices' least accent.
This wc Lovc's Sanctuary call !
Whence Sacred Scntcnccs proceed,
Rolled up in sounds angclical ;
Whose place, swcct Nature hath decrecd,
Just undcr CuPID's Trophy fixcd,
Where music bath its excellence
And such sweets, with Love's spirit rnixed,
As plcasc far more than frankincense,
Thcnce, issue forth Lovc's Oracles
Of Happincss, and lucklcss Tecn !
So strangc be Lovc's rare miracles
In her, as like havc ncvcr bccn !
Her Neck that curious axlctrcc,
Pure ivory like, which doth support
Thc Globe of rny Cosrnography :
Wherc, fo my Planers I resort
To takc judicial signs of skill,
Whcn tcrnpests to rninc hcart will turn ?
When showcrs shall rny fountains fill ?

3oo

And extreme droughts mine heart shall burn ?
There, in that Globe, shall I perceive
When I shall final clear Element ;
There, gloomy mists shall I conceive,
Which shall offend the Firmament !
On this, my studies still be bent,
Where even as rivers from the seas
In branches through the land be sent,
And into crooked sinews press,
Throughout the globe such wise the veins
Clear crystalline throughout her neck
Like sinuous, in their crooked trains,
Wildly the swelling waves did check.
Thence, rise her humble seemly Shoulders.
Like two smooth polished ivory tops ;
Of Love's chief Frame, the chief upholders,
Whiter than that was of PELOPS !
Thence, CuPxD's five-grained mace out brancheth;
Which fivefold, the rive Senses woundeth.
Whose sight the mind of lookers lanceth.
Whose force, ail other force astoundeth.
Thence, to that bed, where LovE's proud Queen,
In silent majesty, sweet sleepeth ;
Where her sort lovely pillows been,
Where CuPm, through love's conduits creepeth.
Pillows of VE};us' turtles' down !
Pillows, than VENUS' turtles softer !
Pillows, the more where Love lies down
More covets tolie down and ofter !
Pillows, on which two sweet Rosebuds,
Dew¢d with ambrosial nectar lie;
Where Love's Milk-Way, by springs and floods,
Through violet paths, smooth slideth by.
But now, with fears and tears, proceed
LOVE'S Place of Torture to declare !
Which such calarnity doth brced

,s,;sç».l ,4N1)PRRTHENOPHE. 5ESTINE. 301
To thosc which thcrc imprisoncd arc ;
VChich, once in chains, arc ncvcr frcc !
Which still for want of succour pinc !
Dry sighs, salt-wat'ry tcars, which bc
For dainty cakes and plcasant winel
Immurcd with pure white ivory,
Fcttcrs of adamant to draw,
l.vcn stccl itsclf, if if be nigh I
A bondagc without right or law !
YVith poor AcTEot ovcrthrown
But for a look l and with an cyc
In his clcar arms, Lovp.'s Scrgcant known,
Arrcsts cach loyer that gocs by.
This is ber Hcart ! Lovc's Prison cal[cd !
Whose conquest is impregnable.
Whence, who so chance to be enthralled,
To corne forth after, are unable.
Further to pass than I havc seen,
Or more to shew than may bc told;
Were too much impudence ! I ween :
Here, therefore, take mine anchor hold !
And with the Roman Poet, deem
Parts unrcvealed to be most sweet ;
Which here dcscribcd, might cvil bcsccm
And for a modest Muse unmeet.
Such blessed mornings seldom be!
Such sights too rare when men go by!
Would I but once the like might see;
Then I might die, beforc I diel
SESTINE 4-
[For 'echo' poems, cf. pp. 2o-z and 72-6 ra, and vol. iL pp. z48 and 33] infra.]
Crtol What shall I do to my Nymph, when I go to behold
her ? EcHo, Hold hcr !
So date I hot ! lest She should think that I make her a prey
then ! EcHo, Pray then !

.3o2

blay sS9 ].

Vea, but at me, She will take scorn, proceeded of honour [
EcIo, On her !
Me bear wili She (with ber, to deal so saucily) never !
ECHO, Ever !
Yea, but I greatly fear She wiii havi pure thoughts to refuse such.
ECHO, Few such I
Then wi[[ I ventue again more bold, if you warn me to do so !
EcHo, Do I

I must write with tears and sighs, belote that I do sol
EcHo, Do so !
But what if my tears and sighs be too weak to remove her?
EcIO, More her !
So shali ye more huge Alps with tears and sighs, ifyou may such !
EcHo» You may suchl
If any that, shall affu'm for a truth ; I shall hoid that they lie then I
Ecno, Lie then 1
If I study fo death, in kind, shali I lie nevir 1
Eco, Ever 1
O I what is it to lie ? Is't not dishonour ?
EcHo, 'Tis honour I

Then io flatter a whi|e ber, is't not dlshonour?
EcIo, Honour !
Then wili I wrest out sighs, and wring forth tears when I do so ?
Eco, Do so !
Lest She find my craft, with her I may toy never ?
Eco, Ever I
Then, if you jest in kind with her, you win her?
Eco, You win herl
Then, what rime She [aughs from her heart, shali I smile then ?
Ecao, Ey, stalle then !
They that like my to.vs ! is it harm, if I kiss such ?
EcIo, lgy, kiss such !

Yea, but most Ladies have disdainful minds, to refuse such !
ECHO, Few such
In what space, shall I know, whether her love resteth in honour?
EcHo, In one hour
O for such a sweet hour ! My e of hours I pray then !
ECHO, Ay then !
Then if I find, as I would; more bold to urge ber, I may be
EcHo, Be so !
But ff she do refuse l then, woe to th'Attempter I
Ecao, Attempt ber !
She will proudly refuse I She speaks in jest never !
Ecao, Ever !

So though still She refuse, She speaks in je.st ever I
ECHO, Ever !
Then such as these, be the t-rue best signs to seek out such ?
Ecno, Seek out such !
Such will I seek I But what shall I do, when I first shall attempt her !
ECHO, Tempt her !
Hov shall I tempt her, ere She stand on terres of her honour ?
ECHO, On her !
O might I corne to that ! I think 'ris even so.
ECHO, 'Tis even so !
Strongly to tempt and more, at first, is surely the best then ?
ECHO. The best then !

What, when they do repugn, yet cry not forth ! will they do then ?
ECHO, Do then !
With such a blunt Proem, Ladies, shall I move never?
ECHO, Ever
I must wait, on an inch, on such Nymphs whom I regard so ;
Ec8o, Guard so !
Those whom, in hearh I love ; my faith doth firmly deserve such.
Ecao, Serve such !
Then to become their slaves, is no great dishonour ?
ECHO, Honour !
But to the Muses, first, I wiil recommend her!
ECHO, Commend her !

They that pity loyers ; is't good. if I praise such ?
Ectlo, EX, praise such 1
If that I write their praise ; by my verse, shail they lire never ?
EcIo, Ever 1
If thy words be truc ; with thanks, take adieu then.
Ectlo, Adieu then !

CA RMEN ANACREONTIUM.

ODE 7-

EVEAL, sweet Muse ! this secret 1
Wherein the lively Senses
Do most triumph in glory ?
Where others talk of eagles,
Searching the sun with quick sight ;
With eyes, in brightness piersant,
PARTHENOPHE, my sweet Nymph,
With Sight more quick than eagle's,
With eyes more clear and piersant,
(And, which exceeds all eagles,
Whose influence gives more heat
Than sun in Cancer's Tropic)
With proud imperious glances
Subduing ail beholders,
Which gaze upon their brightness,
Shall triumph over that Sense.

Reveal, sweet Muse, this secret l
Wherein the lively Senses
Do most triumph in glory?
Where some of heavenly nectar
The Taste's chief comfort talk of
For pleasure and sweet relish ;
Where some, celestial syrups

And sweet Barbarian spices,
For pleasantuess, commeud most :
PARTHENOPHE, ry sweet Nyrnph,
With Lips more sweet than nectar,
Cotaining rnuch moe cornfort
Than all celestial syrups;
And wh/ch exceeds all spices,
On which none can take surfeit,
Shall triumph over that Sense.

Reveal, sxveet Muse, this secret 1
Wherein the lively Senses
Do most triumph in glory ?
When some Panchaian incense,
And rich Arabian odours,
And waters sweet distilled,
Where some of herbs and flowers
Of Ambergrease and sweet roots,
For heavenly spirit, praise most:
PARTHENOPHE, my sweet Nymph,
With Breath more sweet than incense,
Panchaian or Arabic,
Or any sorts of sweet things.
And which exceeds ail odours;
Whose spirit is Love's godhead,
Shall triumph over that Seuse.

Reveal, sweet Muse, this secret
Wherein the lively Senses
Do most triumph in glory ?
Where Music rests in voices,
As SocR'rEs supposed ;
In voice and bodies moving,
As though ARIs'roxnqvs ;
In mind, as TnEoPnRs'rus

306

0 D E S. PA R THgNOFHIZ

Her Voice exceeds ail music,
Her body's comely carriage,
Her gesture, and divine gracc
Doth ravish ail beholders.
Her mind, it is much heavenly,
And which exceeds ail judgement ;
But such sweet looks, sweet thoughts tell
And makes her conquer that Sense.

blay "93-

Reveal, sweet Muse, this secret [
Wherein the lively Senses
Do most triumph in glory ?
Where some of sacred hands talk,
Whose blessing makes things prosper
Where some of well skilled fingers,
Which makes such heavenly music
With wood and touch of sinews :
PARTHI-NOPHE'S divine Hands,
Let them but touch my pale cheeks
Let them but any part touch,
My sorrow shall assuage soon !
Let her check the little string !
The sound to heaven shall charm me.
Thus She, the Senses conquers.

ODE x8.

THAT I could make her, whom I love best,
Find in a face, vith misery wrinkled ;
Find in a heart, with sighs over ill-pined,
Her cruel hatred [
O that I could make her, whom I love best,
Final by my tears, what malady vexeth ;
Find by my throbs, how forcibly love's dart,
Wounds my decayed heart !

0 that I could make her, whom I love best,
Tell with a sweet smile, that she respecteth
Ail my lamentings; and that, in her heart,
Mournfully she rues!
For my deserts vere vorthy the favours
Of such a fair Nymph, might she be fairer l
0 then a firm faith, what may be richer ?
Then to my love yield !
Then will I leave these tears to the waste rocks !
Then will I leave these sighs to the rough winds
0 that I could make her, whom I love best,
Pity my long smart !

ODE 9-
H¢ should I weep in vain, poor and rernedyless ?
Why should I make complaint to the deaf wilder-
ness ?
Vfhy should I sigh for ease? Sighs, they breed
malady !
Why should I groan in heart ? Groans, they bring misery !
Vfhy should tears, plaints, and sighs, mingled with heavy
groans,
Practise their cruelty, whiles I complain to stones ?
0 what a cruel heart, with such a tyranny,
Hardly she practiseth, in grief's extremity ?
Such to make conquered whom she would have depressed,
Such a man to disease, whom she would have oppressed.
0 but, PARTHENOPHE[ turn, and be pitiful !
Cruelty, beauty stains [ Thou, Sweet ! art beautiful !
If that I ruade offence, my love is all the fault
"Which thou can charge me svith, then do hot make assault
With such extremities, for my kind hearty love !
But for love's pity sake, from me, thy frowns remove !

day zsg]-

So shalt thou make me blest ! So shall my sorrows ccase !
So shall I lire at ease ! So shall my joys acrease 1
So shall tears, plaints, and sighs, mingled with heavy groans,
Weary the rocks no more I nor lainent to the stones ,'

ODE o.

ASCLEPIAD.

SWEET, pitiless eye, beautiful orient
(Since my faith is a rock, durable everywhere),
Smile ! and shine with a glance, heartily me to joy
Beauty taketh a place ! Pity regards it hot !
Virtue findeth a throne, settled in every part !
Pity found none at ail, banished everywhere !
Since then, Beauty triumphs (Chastity's enemy),
And Virtue cleped is, much to be pitiful ;
And since that thy delight is ever virtuous :
My tears, PARTHENOPHE! pity ! Be pitiful !
So shall men Thee repute great ! as a holy Saint
So shall Beauty remain, mightily glorified !
So thy lame shall abound, durably chronicled !
Then, sweet PARTHENOPHE ! pity ! Be merciful 1

SONNET CV.

H i.! How many ways have I assayed,
To win my Mistress to my ceaseless suit !
What endless means and prayers have I ruade
To thy fait graces ! ever deaf and mute.
At thy long absence, like an errand page,
With sighs and tears, long journeys did I make
Through paths unknown, in tedious pilgrimage;
And never slept, but always did awake.

I. Bxrnes.'l

And having round Thee ruthless and unkind ;
Sort skinned, hard hearted ; sweet looks, void of pity;
Ten thousand furies ragèd in my mind,
Changing the tenour of my lovely Ditty ;
By whose enchanting Saws and magic Spell,
Thine hard, indurate heart, I must compel.

SESTINE 5.

H.t% first, with locks dishevelled and bare,
Strait girded, in a cheerful calmy night,
Having a tire ruade of green cypress wood,
And with male frankincense on altar kindled ;
I call on threefold HECATE with tears !
And here, with loud voice, invocate the Furies !

For

their assistance to me, with their furies ;
Whilst snowy steeds in coach, bright PI-toEB. bare.
Ay me ! P,R'n.tOPH. smiles at my tears !
I neither take my rest by day or night ;
Her cruel loves in me such heat bave kindled.
Hence, goat ! and bring her to me raging wood !

H.c,x. tell, which way she cornes through the wood!
This wine about this altar, to the Furies
I sprinkle ! whiles the cypress boughs be kindled.
This brimstone, earth within her bowels bare !
And this blue incense, sacred to the night !
This hand, perforce, from this bay his branch tears !

So be She brought ! which pitied not my tears !
And as it burneth with the cypress wood,
So burn She with desire, by day and night !
You gods of vengeance ! and avengeful Furies !
Revenge, to whom I bend on my knees bare.
Hence, goat ! and bring her, with love's outrage kindled !
. u2 8

May

HE(:ATE ! make signs, if She with love corne kindled !
Think on my Passions ! H-CAT. ! and my tears
This Rosemarine (whose branch She chiefly bare,
And lovèd best) I cut, both bark and wood :
Broke with this brazen axe, and, in love's furies,
I tread on it, rejoicing in this night,

And saying, " Let her feel such wounds this nlght !"
About this altar, and rich incense kindled,
This lace and vervine (to love's bitter furies 1)
I bind, and strew ; and, with sad sighs and tears,
About, I bear her Image, raging wood.
Hence, goat t and bring ber from ber bedding bare !

HECATE ! reveal if She like Passions bare !
I knit three true-lovers-knots (this is Love's night I)
Of three discoloured silks, to make her wood ;
But She scorns VElUS, till her loves be kindled,
And till She find the grief of sighs and tears.
"Sweet Queen of Loves ! For mine unpitied furies,

Alike torment ber, with such scalding rires!
And this Turtle, when the loss she bare
Of her dear Make, in her kind, did shed tears
And mourning ; did seek him, ail day and night :
Let such lament in her, for me be kindled !
And mourn she still I till she run raging wood

Hence, goat I and bring ber fo me raging wood !
These letters, and these verses to the Furies,
Which She did write, ail in this flame be kindled.
Me, with these papers, in vain hope She bare,
That She, to day would turn mine hopeless night,
These, as I rent and burn, so fury tears.

M¥,$93.. J 4D 4RTHEzVOPt]E. ESTINE. 3II

Her hardened heart, which pitied not my tears.
The wind-shaked trees make murmur in the wood,
The waters roar at this thrice sacred night,
The winds come whisking shrill to note her furies ;
Trees, woods, and winds, a part in my plaints bare,
And knew my woes ; now joy to see her kindled !

See ! whence She comes, with loves enraged and kindled !
The pitchy clouds, in drops, send down their tears !
Owls screech ! Dogs bark to see her carried bare !
Wolves yowle and cry ! Bulls bellow through the wood !
Ravens croape ! Now, now ! I feel love's fiercest furies !
Seest thou, that black goat ! brought, this silent night,

Through empty clouds, by th' Daughters of the Night !
See how on him, She sits ! with love rage kindled !
Hither, perforce, brought with avengeful Furies !
Now, I wax drowsy ! Now, cease ail my tears ;
Whilst I take rest, and slumber near this wood !
Ah me ! PARTHENOPHE naked and bare !

Come, blessed goat, that my sweet Lady bare[
Where hast thou been, PARTHENOPHE ! this night ?
What, cold ! Sleep by this tire of cypress wood,
Which I, much longing for thy sake, have kindled !
Weep not! Come Loves and wipe away her tears !
At length yet, wilt Thou take away my furies ?

Ay me! Embrace me! See those ugly Furies!
Come to my bed ! lest they behold thee bare ;
And bear thee hence ! They will not pity tears !
And these still dwell in everlasting night !
Ah, Loves, (sweet love!) sweet rires for us bath kindled !
But not inflamed with frankincense or wood.

312 E S T I N E. P4RTItEVO¥ItIL. ay,s

The Furies, they shall hence into the wood !
Whiles CUPID shall make calmer his hot furies,
And stand appeased at our rires kindled.
Join ! join PARTHENOPHE ! Thyself unbare [
None can perceive us in the silent night !
Now will I cease from sighs, laments, and tears !

And cease, PARTHENOPHE ! Sweet ! cease thy tears !
Bear golden apples, thorns in every wood !
Join heavens ! for we conjoin this heavenly night !
Let aider trees bear apricots ! (Die Furies !)
And thistles, pears ! which prickles lately bare !
Now both in one, with equal flame be kindled !

Die

magic boughs ! now die, which late were kindled !
Here is mine heaven ! Loves drop, instead of tears !
It joins ! it joins ! Ah, both embracing bare !
Let nettles bring forth roses in each wood !
Last ever verdant woods ! Hence, former Furies I
O die ! live ! joy ! What ? Last continual, night !

Sleep PHOEBUS still with THETIS ! Rule still, night !
I melt in love ! Love's marrow-flame is kindled !
Here will I be consumed in Love's sweet furies !
I melt ! I melt ! Watch CUPD, my love tears I
If these be Furies, O let me be wood I
If ail the fiery element I bare ;

'Tis now acquitted ! Cease your former tears !
For as She once, with rage my body kindled ;
So in hers, ara I buried this night [

FINIS.

DEDICATORY

SONNETS.]

To THE RIGHT NOBLE LORD
HENRY, EARL OF NORTHUMBERLAND.

And seeking Patronage, bold means doth

IEIGN, mighty Lord [ these verses to peruse,
Which my black mournful Muse pre-
senteth here !
Blushing, at her first entrance, in for fear;
Where of herself, her self She doth
accuse,

use
To shew that duty, which in heart I bear
To your thrice noble House [ which shall outwear
Devouring T/me itself, if my poor Muse
Divine aright : whose viituous excellence
She craves, her ruder style to patronise.
Vouchsafe, then, noble Lord [ to give defence :
Vv'ho, when her brighter glory shall arise,
Shall fly fo fetch Fame, from her Fort of Brass ;
Vv'hich, with your virtues, through the world shall pass [

I 4 E D I C A T 0 R Y 0 N N E T . ! -

To THE RIGHT
HONOURABLE, ,tOST RENOWNED AND VALIANT
ROBERT, EARL OF ESSEX ^o EWE.

OvcHs^tE, thrice valiant Lord ! this Verse to read,
When time from cares of more import, permits ;
The too dear charge of my unchargèd wits !
And that I do my lighter Muses lead
To kiss your sacred hands ! I mildly plead
For pardon ; where ail gracious virtue sits.
Since time of yore, their Lord's firstfruits admits ;
My bashful Muse (which lost her maidenhead
In too dear travail of my restless Love)
To you, my Lord ! her first-born babe presents !
Unworthy such a patron ! for her lightness.
Yet deign her zeal ! though not the light contents ;
Till, from your virtues (registered above),
To make her Love more known, she borrow brightness.

To THE RIGHT NOBLE AND VIRTUOUS LORD,
HENRY, E^RLOF SOUTHAMPTO N.

ECEIVE, s,veet Lord ! with thy thrice sacred hand,
(Which sacred Muses make their instrument)
These worthless leaves ! which I, to thee present
(Sprung from a rude and unmanured land)
That with your countenance graced, they may withstand
Hundred-eyed Envy's rough encounterment ;
Whose Patronage can give encouragement
To scorn back-wounding ZOILU his band.
Vouchsafe, right virtuous Lord! with gracious eyes,
(Those heavenly lamps which give the Muses light,

B. Barnes. I E D I C A T O R Y
My J91-

Sosss'rs.] 35

Which give and take, in course, that holy tire)
To view my Muse with your judicial sight ;
Whom, when rime shall have taught, by flight, to rise
Shall to thy virtues, of much worth, aspire.

To THE MOST VIRTUOUS, LEARNED AND BEAUTIFUL
LADY, M A R Y, COUNTESS OF P E M B R O K E.

RxDE of our English Ladies ! never matched !
Great Favourer of PHOEBUS' offspring !
In whom, even PnoEBus is most flourishing !
Muse's chief comfort ! Of the Muses, hatched !
On whom, URAtIA hath so long rime watched
In Fame's rich Fort, with crown triumphing
Of laurel, ever green in lusty Spring,
After thy mortal pilgrimage, despatched
Unto those planets, where thou shalt have place
With thy late sainted Brother, to give light !
And with harmonious spheres to turn in race.
Vouchsafe, sweet Lady! with a forehead bright,
To shine on this poor Muse ; whose first-born fruit,
That you (of right) would take, she maketh suit !

To THE RIGHT VlRTUOU$ AND MOST BEAUTIFUL
LADY, THE LADY S T R A N G E.

.VEET Lady ! Might my humble Muse presume
Thy beauties' rare perfection to set out
(Whom she, Pride of our English Court reputes)
Ambitious, she would assume
To blazon everywhere about

[D B.
E D I C A T O R Y O I I E T S. I.

Thy beauty ! whose durnb eloquence disputes
With fair Loves' Queen; and her, by right confutes !
But since there is no doubt
But that thy beauty's praise (which shall consume
Even Time itself) exceedeth
AIl British Ladies ; deign my Muse's suits !
Which, unacquainted of your beauty, craves
Acquaintance ! and proceedeth
T'approach s'o boldly ! and behaves
Herself so rudely ! daunted at your sight ;
As eyes in darkness, at a sudden light.

To THE BEAUTIFUL LADY.
THE LADY BRIDGET MANNERS.

Osl of that Garland ! fairest and sweetest
Of ail those sveet and fair flowers !
Pride of chaste CYtTHIA'S rich crown !
Receive this Verse, thy matchless beauty meetest [
Behold thy graces which thou greetest,
And all the secret powers
Of thine, and such like beauties, here set down[
Here shalt thou find thy frown !
Here, thy sunny smiling !
Farne's plumes fly with thy Love's, which should be fleetest !
Here, my loves' tempests and showers !
These, read, sweet Beauty! whom my Muse shall crown !
Who for thee ! such a Garland is compiling,
Of so divine scents and colours,
As is immortal, Time beguiling [

Your ]3eauty's most affectionate servant,
BARNABE BARNtgS.