A Defence of Poesie and Poems
Have you not seen, on some great day,
Two goodly horses, white and bay,
Which were so beauteous in their pride,
You knew not which to choose or ride?
Such are these two; you scarce can tell,
Which is the daintier bonny belle;
And they are such, as, by my troth,
I had been sick with love of both,
And might have sadly said, ‘Good-night
Discretion and good fortune quite;’
But that young Cupid, my old master,
Presented me a sovereign plaster:
Mopsa! ev’n Mopsa! (precious pet)
Whose lips of marble, teeth of jet,
Are spells and charms of strong defence,
To conjure down concupiscence.
How oft have I been reft of sense,
By gazing on their excellence,
But meeting Mopsa in my way,
And looking on her face of clay,
Been healed, and cured, and made as sound,
As though I ne’er had had a wound?
And when in tables of my heart,
Love wrought such things as bred my smart,
Mopsa would come, with face of clout,
And in an instant wipe them out.
And when their faces made me sick,
Mopsa would come, with face of brick,
A little heated in the fire,
And break the neck of my desire.
Now from their face I turn mine eyes,
But (cruel panthers!) they surprise
Me with their breath, that incense sweet,
Which only for the gods is meet,
And jointly from them doth respire,
Like both the Indies set on fire:
Which so o’ercomes man’s ravished sense,
That souls, to follow it, fly hence.
No such-like smell you if you range
To th’ Stocks, or Cornhill’s square Exchange;
There stood I still as any stock,
Till Mopsa, with her puddle dock,
Her compound or electuary,
Made of old ling and young canary,
Bloat-herring, cheese, and voided physic,
Being somewhat troubled with a phthisic,
Did cough, and fetch a sigh so deep,
As did her very bottom sweep:
Whereby to all she did impart,
How love lay rankling at her heart:
Which, when I smelt, desire was slain,
And they breathed forth perfumes in vain.
Their angel voice surprised me now;
But Mopsa, her Too-whit, Too-whoo,
Descending through her oboe nose,
Did that distemper soon compose.
And, therefore, O thou precious owl,
The wise Minerva’s only fowl;
What, at thy shrine, shall I devise
To offer up a sacrifice?
Hang Æsculapius, and Apollo,
And Ovid, with his precious shallow.
Mopsa is love’s best medicine,
True water to a lover’s wine.
Nay, she’s the yellow antidote,
Both bred and born to cut Love’s throat:
Be but my second, and stand by,
Mopsa, and I’ll them both defy;
And all else of those gallant races,
Who wear infection in their faces;
For thy face (that Medusa’s shield!)
Will bring me safe out of the field.
VERSES.
_To the tune of the Spanish song_, “_Si tu señora no ducles de mi_.”
O FAIR! O sweet! when I do look on thee,
In whom all joys so well agree,
Heart and soul do sing in me.
This you hear is not 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 cleaved,
Fearing lest he chastised be,
Heart and soul do sing in me.
O fair! O sweet! when I do look on thee,
In whom all joys so well agree,
Just accord all music makes;
In thee just accord excelleth,
Where each part in such peace dwelleth,
One of other beauty takes.
Since then truth to all minds telleth,
That in thee lives harmony,
Heart and soul do sing in me.
O fair! O sweet! when I do look on thee,
In whom all joys so well agree,
They that heaven have known do say,
That whoso that grace obtaineth,
To see what fair sight there reigneth,
Forcéd are to sing alway:
So then since that heaven remaineth
In thy face, I plainly see,
Heart and soul do sing in me.
O fair! O sweet! when I do look on thee,
In whom all joys so well agree,
Sweet, think not I am at ease,
For because my chief part singeth;
This song from death’s sorrow springeth:
As to swan in last disease:
For no dumbness, nor death, bringeth
Stay to true love’s melody:
Heart and soul do sing in me.
TRANSLATION.
_From Horace_, _Book II. Ode X._, _beginning_ “_Rectius vives_,
_Licini_,” _&c._
YOU better sure shall live, not evermore
Trying high seas; nor, while sea’s rage you flee,
Pressing too much upon ill-harboured shore.
The golden mean who loves, lives safely free
From filth of foreworn house, and quiet lives,
Released from court, where envy needs must be.
The wind most oft the hugest pine tree grieves:
The stately towers come down with greater fall:
The highest hills the bolt of thunder cleaves.
Evil haps do fill with hope, good haps appall
With fear of change, the courage well prepared:
Foul winters, as they come, away they shall.
Though present times, and past, with evils be snared,
They shall not last: with cithern silent Muse,
Apollo wakes, and bow hath sometime spared.
In hard estate, with stout shows, valour use,
The same man still, in whom wisdom prevails;
In too full wind draw in thy swelling sails.
A SONNET BY SIR EDWARD DYER.
PROMETHEUS, when first from heaven high
He brought down fire, till then on earth not seen;
Fond of delight, a satyr, standing by,
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 time, his grief went with him still.
So silly I, with that unwonted sight,
In human shape an angel from above,
Feeding mine eyes, th’ 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, have smart.
SIR PHILIP SIDNEY’S SONNET IN REPLY.
A SATYR once did run away for dread,
With sound of horn which he himself did blow:
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 rest forsake,
Thinking not why, but how, himself to save.
Ev’n 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 desiréd prey.
Better like I thy satyr, dearest Dyer,
Who burnt his lips to kiss fair shining fire.
MUST LOVE LAMENT?
MY 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 all this, I cannot her remove
From deep vain thought that I may not be true.
If oaths might serve, ev’n by the Stygian lake,
Which poets say the gods themselves do fear,
I never did my vowéd 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 ill thought disgraced my doing well?
Tell, how my joys 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-foot stool in Greece made trumpets sound;
An ass’s shade e’er 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 ling’ring pause?
I would it not, their metal is too fine.
My hand doth not bear witness with my heart,
She saith, because I make no woeful lays,
To paint my living death and endless smart:
And so, for one that felt god Cupid’s dart,
She thinks I lead and live too merry days.
Are poets then the only lovers true,
Whose hearts are set on measuring a verse?
Who think themselves well blest, if they renew
Some good old dump that Chaucer’s mistress knew;
And use but you for matters to rehearse.
Then, good Apollo, do away thy bow:
Take harp and sing in this our versing time,
And in my brain some sacred humour flow,
That all the earth my woes, sighs, tears may know;
And see you not that I fall low to rhyme.
As for my mirth, how could I but be glad,
Whilst that methought 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 lost.
Sweet lady, as for those whose sullen cheer,
Compared to me, made me in lightness sound;
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, for physic true doth find,
Choler adust is joyed in woman-kind.
A DIALOGUE BETWEEN TWO SHEPHERDS.
_Uttered in a Pastoral Show at Wilton_.
_Will_. Dick, since we cannot dance, come, let a cheerful voice
Show that we do not grudge at all when others do rejoice.
_Dick_. Ah Will, though I grudge not, I count it feeble glee,
With sight made dim with daily tears another’s sport to see.
Whoever lambkins saw, yet lambkins love to play,
To play when that their lovéd dams are stolen or gone astray?
If this in them be true, as true in men think I,
A lustless song forsooth thinks he that hath more lust to cry.
_Will_. A time there is for all, my mother often says,
When she, with skirts tucked very high, with girls at football plays
When thou hast mind to weep, seek out some smoky room:
Now let those lightsome sights we see thy darkness overcome.
_Dick_. What joy the joyful sun gives unto blearéd eyes;
That comfort in these sports you like, my mind his comfort tries.
_Will_. What? Is thy bagpipe broke, or are thy lambs miswent;
Thy wallet or thy tar-box lost; or thy new raiment-rent?
_Dick_. I would it were but thus, for thus it were too well.
_Will_. Thou see’st my ears do itch at it: good Dick thy sorrow tell.
_Dick_. Hear then, and learn to sigh: a mistress I do serve,
Whose wages make me beg the more, who feeds me till I starve;
Whose livery is such, as most I freeze apparelled most,
And looks so near unto my cure, that I must needs be lost.
_Will_. What? These are riddles sure: art thou then bound to her?
_Dick_. Bound as I neither power have, nor would have power, to stir.
_Will_. Who bound thee?
_Dick_. Love, my lord.
_Will_. What witnesses thereto?
_Dick_. Faith in myself, and Worth in her, which no proof can undo.
_Will_. What seal?
_Dick_. My heart deep graven.
_Will_. Who made the band so fast?
_Dick_. Wonder that, by two so black eyes the glitt’ring stars be
past.
_Will_. What keepeth safe thy band?
_Dick_. Remembrance is the chest
Lock’d fast with knowing that she is of worldly things the best.
_Will_. Thou late of wages plain’dst: what wages may’sh thou have?
_Dick_. Her heavenly looks, which more and more do give me cause to
crave.