Chapter 38

XXX And yet I cannot reprehend the flight Or blame the attempt, presuming so to soar; The mounting venture, for a high delight, Did make the honor of the fall the more. For who gets wealth, that puts not from the shore? Danger hath honor; great designs, their fame; Glory doth follow, courage goes before; And though the event oft answers not the same, Suffice that high attempts have never shame. The Mean-observer (whom base safety keeps) Lives without honor, dies without a name, And in eternal darkness ever sleeps. And therefore, Delia! 'tis to me no blot To have attempted, though attained thee not.

XXXVI When men shall find thy flower, thy glory pass, And thou, with careful brow, sitting alone, Received hast this message from thy glass, That tells the truth, and says that All is gone; Fresh shalt thou see in me the wounds thou madest, Though spent thy flame, in me the heat remaining: I that have loved thee thus before thou fadest, My faith shall wax, when thou art in thy waning! The world shall find this miracle in me, That fire can burn when all the matter's spent: Then what my faith hath been, thyself shalt see, And that thou wast unkind, thou may'st repent! Thou may'st repent that thou hast scorned my tears, When Winter snows upon thy golden hairs.

XXXIX Look, Delia, how we esteem the half-blown rose The image of thy blush, and Summer's honor! Whilst yet her tender bud doth undisclose That full of beauty Time bestows upon her. No sooner spreads her glory in the air But straight her wide-blown pomp comes to decline; She then is scorned that late adorned the fair; So fade the roses of those cheeks of thine. No April can revive thy withered flowers Whose springing grace adorns thy glory now; Swift, speedy Time, feathered with flying hours, Dissolves the beauty of the fairest brow. Then do not thou such treasure waste in vain, But love now, whilst thou may'st be loved again.

XLV Beauty, sweet Love, is like the morning dew, Whose short refresh upon the tender green Cheers for a time, but till the sun doth show: And straight 'tis gone, as it had never been. Soon doth it fade, that makes the fairest flourish; Short is the glory of the blushing rose: The hue which thou so carefully dost nourish, Yet which, at length, thou must be forced to lose. When thou, surcharged with burthen of thy years, Shalt bend thy wrinkles homeward to the earth; When Time hath made a passport for thy fears, Dated in Age, the Calends of our Death: But ah, no more! This hath been often told; And women grieve to think they must be old.

XLVI I must not grieve my Love, whose eyes would read Lines of delight, whereon her youth might smile! Flowers have a time, before they come to seed; And she is young, and now must sport the while. And sport, Sweet Maid, in season of these years, And learn to gather flowers before they wither! And where the sweetest blossom first appears, Let Love and Youth conduct thy pleasures thither! Lighten forth smiles to clear the clouded air, And calm the tempest which my sighs do raise! Pity and smiles do best become the fair; Pity and smiles shall yield thee lasting praise. I hope to say, when all my griefs are gone, "Happy the heart that sighed for such a one!"

L Let others sing of Knights and Paladines In aged accents and untimely words, Paint shadows in imaginary lines, Which well the reach of their high wit records: But I must sing of Thee, and those fair eyes! Authentic shall my verse in time to come, When the yet unborn shall say, Lo, where she lies! Whose beauty made him speak, that else was dumb! These are the arks, the trophies I erect, That fortify thy name against old age; And these thy sacred virtues must protect Against the Dark, and Time's consuming rage. Though the error of my youth in them appear, Suffice, they showed I lived, and loved thee dear.

LI Care-charmer Sleep, son of the sable Night, Brother to Death, in silent darkness born: Relieve my languish, and restore the light; With dark forgetting of my care, return! And let the day be time enough to mourn The shipwreck of my ill-adventured youth: Let waking eyes suffice to wail their scorn, Without the torment of the night's untruth. Cease, dreams, the images of day-desires, To model forth the passions of the morrow; Never let rising sun approve you liars, To add more grief to aggravate my sorrow. Still let me sleep, embracing clouds in vain; And never wake to feel the day's disdain.

Samuel Daniel [1562-1619]

SONNETS From "Idea" To The Reader Of These Sonnets

Into these Loves, who but for Passion looks, At this first sight, here let him lay them by, And seek elsewhere in turning other books, Which better may his labor satisfy. No far-fetched sigh shall ever wound my breast; Love from mine eye a tear shall never wring; Nor in "Ah me's!" my whining sonnets dressed! A libertine, fantasticly I sing! My verse is the true image of my mind, Ever in motion, still desiring change; And as thus, to variety inclined, So in all humors sportively I range! My Muse is rightly of the English strain, That cannot long one fashion entertain.

IV Bright Star of Beauty! on whose eyelids sit A thousand nymph-like and enamored Graces, The Goddesses of Memory and Wit, Which there in order take their several places; In whose dear bosom, sweet delicious Love Lays down his quiver, which he once did bear, Since he that blessed paradise did prove; And leaves his mother's lap, to sport him there. Let others strive to entertain with words! My soul is of a braver mettle made: I hold that vile, which vulgar wit affords, In me's that faith which Time cannot invade! Let what I praise be still made good by you! Be you most worthy, whilst I am most true!

XX An evil Spirit (your Beauty) haunts me still, Wherewith, alas, I have been long possessed; Which ceaseth not to attempt me to each ill, Nor give me once, but one poor minute's rest. In me it speaks, whether I sleep or wake; And when by means to drive it out I try, With greater torments then it me doth take, And tortures me in most extremity. Before my face, it lays down my despairs, And hastes me on unto a sudden death; Now tempting me, to drown myself in tears, And then in sighing to give up my breath. Thus am I still provoked to every evil, By this good-wicked Spirit, sweet Angel-Devil.

XXXVII Dear! why should you command me to my rest, When now the night doth summon all to sleep? Methinks this time becometh lovers best! Night was ordained together friends to keep. How happy are all other living things, Which, through the day, disjoined by several flight, The quiet evening yet together brings, And each returns unto his Love at night! O thou that art so courteous else to all, Why shouldst thou, Night, abuse me only thus! That every creature to his kind doth call, And yet 'tis thou dost only sever us? Well could I wish it would be ever day, If, when night comes, you bid me go away!

XL My heart the Anvil where my thoughts do beat; My words the Hammers fashioning my Desire; My breast the Forge including all the heat, Love is the Fuel which maintains the fire. My sighs the Bellows which the flame increaseth, Filling mine ears with noise and nightly groaning. Toiling with pain, my labor never ceaseth; In grievous Passions, my woes still bemoaning. My eyes with tears against the fire striving, Whose scorching glede my heart to cinders turneth: But with those drops, the flame again reviving Still more and more it to my torment burneth. With Sisyphus thus do I roll the stone, And turn the wheel with damned Ixion.

XLII How many paltry, foolish, painted things, That now in coaches trouble every street, Shall be forgotten, whom no poet sings, Ere they be well wrapped in their winding-sheet? Where I to thee eternity shall give, When nothing else remaineth of these days, And queens hereafter shall be glad to live Upon the alms of thy superfluous praise; Virgins and matrons reading these my rhymes, Shall be so much delighted with thy story, That they shall grieve they lived not in these times, To have seen thee, their sex's only glory: So shalt thou fly above the vulgar throng, Still to survive in my immortal song.

LXI Since there's no help, come, let us kiss and part! Nay, I have done. You get no more of me! And I am glad, yea, glad with all my heart, That thus so cleanly I myself can free. Shake hands for ever! Cancel all our vows! And when we meet at any time again, Be it not seen in either of our brows That we one jot of former love retain. Now at the last gasp of Love's latest breath, When, his pulse failing, Passion speechless lies, When Faith is kneeling by his bed of death, And Innocence is closing up his eyes: Now, if thou wouldst, when all have given him over, From death to life thou might'st him yet recover!

Michael Drayton [1563-1631]

SONNETS From "Diana"

IX My Lady's presence makes the Roses red, Because to see her lips they blush for shame. The Lily's leaves, for envy pale became; And her white hands in them this envy bred. The Marigold the leaves abroad doth spread, Because the sun's and her power is the same. The Violet of purple color came, Dyed in the blood she made my heart to shed. In brief, all flowers from her their virtue take; From her sweet breath, their sweet smells do proceed; The living heat which her eyebeams doth make Warmeth the ground, and quickeneth the seed. The rain, wherewith she watereth the flowers, Falls from mine eyes, which she dissolves in showers.

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

Henry Constable (?) [1562-1613]

SONNETS

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

XXIII As an unperfect actor on the stage, Who with his fear is put besides his part, Or some fierce thing replete with too much rage, Whose strength's abundance weakens his own heart; So I, for fear of trust, forget to say The perfect ceremony of love's rite, And in mine own love's strength seem to decay, O'ercharged with burden of mine own love's might. O, let my books be then the eloquence And dumb presagers of my speaking breast; Who plead for love, and look for recompense, More than that tongue that more hath more expressed. O, learn to read what silent love hath writ: To hear with eyes belongs to love's fine wit.

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

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

XXXII If thou survive my well-contented day When that churl Death my bones with dust shall cover, And shalt by fortune once more re-survey These poor rude lines of thy deceased lover, Compare them with the bettering of the time, And though they be outstripped by every pen, Reserve them for my love, not for their rhyme, Exceeded by the height of happier men. O, then vouchsafe me but this loving thought: "Had my friend's Muse grown with this growing age, A dearer birth than this his love had brought, To march in ranks of better equipage: But since he died, and poets better prove, Theirs for their style I'll read, his for his love."

XXXIII Full many a glorious morning have I seen Flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye, Kissing with golden lace the meadows green, Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy. Anon permit the basest clouds to ride With ugly rack on his celestial face, And from the forlorn world his visage hide, Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace: Even so my sun one early morn did shine With all-triumphant splendor on my brow; But out, alack! he was but one hour mine, The region cloud hath masked him from me now. Yet him for this my love no whit disdaineth; Suns of the world may stain when heaven's sun staineth.

LX Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore, So do our minutes hasten to their end; Each changing place with that which goes before, In sequent toil all forwards do contend. Nativity, once in the main of light, Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crowned, Crooked eclipses 'gainst his glory fight, And Time that gave, doth now his gift confound. Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth, And delves the parallels in beauty's brow; Feeds on the rarities of nature's truth, And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow: And yet, to times in hope, my verse shall stand Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand.

LXXI No longer mourn for me when I am dead, Than you shall hear the surly, sullen bell Give warning to the world that I am fled From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell: Nay, if you read this line, remember not The hand that writ it; for I love you so, That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot, If thinking on me then should make you woe. O, if (I say) you look upon this verse, When I perhaps compounded am with clay, Do not so much as my poor name rehearse, But let your love even with my life decay; Lest the wise world should look into your moan, And mock you with me after I am gone.

LXXIII That time of year thou may'st in me behold When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang. In me thou see'st the twilight of such day As after sunset fadeth in the west, Which by and by black night doth take away, Death's second self, that seals up all in rest. In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire That on the ashes of his youth doth lie, As the death-bed whereon it must expire, Consumed with that which it was nourished by. This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

CIV To me, fair friend, you never can be old; For as you were when first your eye I eyed, Such seems your beauty still. Three Winters cold Have from the forests shook three Summers' pride; Three beauteous Springs to yellow Autumn turned In process of the seasons have I seen, Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burned, Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are green. Ah! yet doth beauty, like a dial-hand, Steal from his figure, and no pace perceived; So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand, Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceived: For fear of which, hear this, thou age unbred: Ere you were born was beauty's Summer dead.

CVI When in the chronicle of wasted time I see descriptions of the fairest wights, And beauty making beautiful old rhyme In praise of ladies dead, and lovely knights; Then in the blazon of sweet beauty's best Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow, I see their antique pen would have expressed Even such a beauty as you master now. So all their praises are but prophecies Of this our time, all, you prefiguring; And, for they looked but with divining eyes, They had not skill enough your worth to sing: For we, which now behold these present days, Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise.

CIX O, never say that I was false of heart Though absence seemed my flame to qualify: As easy might I from myself depart As from my soul, which in thy breast doth lie; That is my home of love; if I have ranged, Like him that travels, I return again, Just to the time, not with the time exchanged, So that myself bring water for my stain. Never believe, though in my nature reigned All frailties that besiege all kinds of blood, That it could so preposterously be stained To leave for nothing all thy sum of good! For nothing this wide universe I call, Save thou, my rose: in it thou art my all.

CXVI Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove: O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark That looks on tempests, and is never shaken; It is the star to every wandering bark, Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken. Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle's compass come; Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom: If this be error, and upon me proved, I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

CXXX My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun; Coral is far more red than her lips' red; If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun; If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head. I have seen roses damasked, red and white, But no such roses see I in her cheeks; And in some perfumes is there more delight Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks. I love to hear her speak, - yet well I know That music hath a far more pleasing sound; I grant I never saw a goddess go, - My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground: And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare As any she belied with false compare.

CXLVI Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth, Pressed by these rebel powers that thee array, Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth, Painting thy outward walls so costly gay? Why so large cost, having so short a lease, Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend? Shall worms, inheritors of this excess, Eat up thy charge? Is this thy body's end? Then, soul, live thou upon thy servant's loss, And let that pine to aggravate thy store; Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross; Within be fed, without be rich no more: So shalt thou feed on Death, that feeds on men; And Death once dead, there's no more dying then.

William Shakespeare [1564-1616]

"ALEXIS, HERE SHE STAYED"

Alexis, here she stayed; among these pines, Sweet hermitress, she did alone repair; Here did she spread the treasure of her hair, More rich than that brought from the Colchian mines. She set her by these musked eglantines, The happy place the print seems yet to bear; Her voice did sweeten here thy sugared lines, To which winds, trees, beasts, birds, did lend their ear. Me here she first perceived, and here a morn Of bright carnations did o'erspread her face; Here did she sigh, here first my hopes were born, And I first got a pledge of promised grace: But, ah! what served it to be happy so, Since passed pleasures double but new woe?

William Drummond [1585-1649]

"WERE I AS BASE AS IS THE LOWLY PLAIN"

Were I as base as is the lowly plain, And you, my love, as high as heaven above, Yet should the thoughts of me, your humble swain, Ascend to heaven in honor of my love. Were I as high as heaven above the plain, And you, my love, as humble and as low As are the deepest bottoms of the main, Wheresoe'er you were, with you my love should go. Were you the earth, dear love, and I the skies, My love should shine on you, like to the sun, And look upon you with ten thousand eyes, Till heaven waxed blind and till the world were done. Wheresoe'er I am, - below, or else above you, - Wheresoe'er you are, my heart shall truly love you.

Joshua Sylvester [1563-1618]

A SONNET OF THE MOON

Look how the pale Queen of the silent night Doth cause the ocean to attend upon her, And he, as long as she is in his sight, With his full tide is ready her to honor: But when the silver wagon of the Moon Is mounted up so high he cannot follow, The sea calls home his crystal waves to moan, And with low ebb doth manifest his sorrow. So you that are the sovereign of my heart, Have all my joys attending on your will, My joys low-ebbing when you do depart, When you return, their tide my heart doth fill. So as you come, and as you do depart, Joys ebb and flow within my tender heart.

Charles Best [fl. 1602]

TO MARY UNWIN

Mary! I want a lyre with other strings, Such aid from Heaven as some have feigned they drew, An eloquence scarce given to mortals, new And undebased by praise of meaner things; That, ere through age or woe I shed my wings, I may record thy worth with honor due, In verse as musical as thou art true, And that immortalizes whom it sings: But thou hast little need. There is a Book By seraphs writ with beams of heavenly light, On which the eyes of God not rarely look, A chronicle of actions just and bright: There all thy deeds, my faithful Mary, shine; And, since thou own'st that praise, I spare thee mine.

William Cowper [1731-1800]

"WHY ART THOU SILENT"

Why art thou silent? Is thy love a plant Of such weak fibre that the treacherous air Of absence withers what was once so fair? Is there no debt to pay, no boon to grant? Yet have my thoughts for thee been vigilant, Bound to thy service with unceasing care - The mind's least generous wish a mendicant For naught but what thy happiness could spare. Speak! - though this soft warm heart, once free to hold A thousand tender pleasures, thine and mine, Be left more desolate, more dreary cold Than a forsaken bird's-nest filled with snow 'Mid its own bush of leafless eglantine - Speak, that my torturing doubts their end may know!

William Wordsworth [1770-1850]

SONNETS From "The House of Life"

IV LOVESIGHT When do I see thee most, beloved one? When in the light the spirits of mine eyes Before thy face, their altar, solemnize The worship of that Love through thee made known? Or when in the dusk hours, (we two alone,) Close-kissed and eloquent of still replies Thy twilight-hidden glimmering visage lies, And my soul only sees thy soul its own? O love, my love! if I no more should see Thyself, nor on the earth the shadow of thee, Nor image of thine eyes in any spring, - How then should sound upon Life's darkening slope The ground-whirl of the perished leaves of Hope, The wind of Death's imperishable wing?