A Defence of Poesie and Poems
FAINT amorist, what, dost thou think
To taste Love’s honey, and not drink
One dram of gall? or to devour
A world of sweet, and taste no sour?
Dost thou ever think to enter
Th’ Elysian fields, that dar’st not venture
In Charon’s barge? a lover’s mind
Must use to sail with every wind.
He that loves and fears to try,
Learns his mistress to deny.
Doth she chide thee? ’tis to show it,
That thy coldness makes her do it:
Is she silent? is she mute?
Silence fully grants thy suit:
Doth she pout, and leave the room?
Then she goes to bid thee come:
Is she sick? why then be sure,
She invites thee to the cure:
Doth she cross thy suit with “No?”
Tush, she loves to hear thee woo:
Doth she call the faith of man
In question? Nay, she loves thee than;
And if e’er she makes a blot,
She’s lost if that thou hit’st her not.
He that after ten denials,
Dares attempt no farther trials,
Hath no warrant to acquire
The dainties of his chaste desire.
SONNETS
SINCE shunning pain, I ease can never find;
Since bashful dread seeks where he knows me harmed;
Since will is won, and stoppéd 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, O Love, unto thy loathed yoke,
Yet craving law of arms, whose rule doth teach,
That, hardly used, who ever prison broke,
In justice quit, of honour made no breach:
Whereas, if I a grateful guardian have,
Thou art my lord, and I thy vowéd slave.
When Love puffed up with rage of high disdain,
Resolved to make me pattern of his might,
Like foe, whose wits inclined to deadly spite,
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 naught but groans and starts:
Longing to have, having no wit to wish,
To starving minds such is god Cupid’s dish.
SONG.
_To the tune of_ “_Non credo gia che piu infelice amante_.”
THE nightingale, as soon as April bringeth
Unto her rested sense a perfect waking,
While late bare earth, proud of new clothing, springeth,
Sings out her woes, a thorn her song-book making;
And mournfully bewailing,
Her throat in tunes expresseth
What grief her breast oppresseth,
For Tereus’ force on her chaste will prevailing.
O Philomela fair! O 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.
II.
Alas! she hath no other cause of anguish,
But Tereus’ love, on her by strong hand wroken,
Wherein she suffering, all her spirits languish,
Full womanlike, complains her will was broken,
But I, who daily craving,
Cannot have to content me,
Have more cause to lament me,
Since wanting is more woe than too much having.
O Philomela fair! O 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.
SONG.
_To the tune of_ “_Basciami vita mia_.”
SLEEP, baby mine, Desire’s nurse, Beauty, singeth;
Thy cries, O baby, set mine head on aching:
The babe cries, “’Way, thy love doth keep me waking.”
Lully, lully, my babe, Hope cradle bringeth
Unto my children alway good rest taking:
The babe cries, “Way, thy love doth keep me waking.”
Since, baby mine, from me thy watching springeth,
Sleep then a little, pap Content is making;
The babe cries, “Nay, for that abide I waking.”
I.
THE scourge of life, and death’s extreme disgrace;
The smoke of hell, the monster calléd Pain:
Long shamed to be accursed in every place,
By them who of his rude resort complain;
Like crafty wretch, by time and travel 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 reigns,
He hopes for some small praise, since she hath great,
Within her beams wrapping his cruel stains.
Ah, saucy Pain, let not thy terror last,
More loving eyes she draws, more hate thou hast.
II.
Woe! woe to me, on me return the smart:
My burning tongue hath bred my mistress pain?
For oft in pain, to pain my painful heart,
With her due praise did of my state complain.
I praised her eyes, whom never chance doth move;
Her breath, which makes a sour answer sweet;
Her milken breasts, the nurse of child-like love;
Her legs, O legs! her aye well-stepping feet:
Pain heard her praise, and full of inward fire,
(First sealing up my heart as prey of his)
He flies to her, and, boldened with desire,
Her face, this age’s praise, the thief doth kiss.
O Pain! I now recant the praise I gave,
And swear she is not worthy thee to have.
III.
Thou pain, the only guest of loathed Constraint;
The child of Curse, man’s weakness foster-child;
Brother to Woe, and father of Complaint:
Thou Pain, thou hated Pain, from heaven exiled,
How hold’st thou her whose eyes constraint doth fear,
Whom cursed do bless; whose weakness virtues arm;
Who others’ woes and plaints can chastely bear:
In whose sweet heaven angels of high thoughts swarm?
What courage strange hath caught thy caitiff heart?
Fear’st not 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;
So stay her tongue, that she no more say, “O.”
IV.
And have I heard her say, “O 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 not others’ fears?
Or doth she think all pain the mind forbears?
That heavy earth, not fiery spirits, may plain?
That eyes weep worse than heart in bloody tears?
That sense feels more than what doth sense contain?
No, no, she is too wise, she knows her face
Hath not such pain as it makes others have:
She knows the sickness of that perfect place
Hath yet such health, as it my life can save.
But this, she thinks, our pain high cause excuseth,
Where her, who should rule pain, false pain abuseth.
* * * * *
LIKE as the dove, which seeléd up doth fly,
Is neither freed, 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 neither 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:
O happy dove, if she no bondage tried!
More happy I, might I in bondage bide!
* * * * *
IN wonted walks, since wonted fancies change,
Some cause there is, which of strange cause doth rise:
For in each thing whereto mine eye doth range,
Part of my pain, me-seems, engravéd lies.
The rocks, which were of constant mind the mark,
In climbing steep, now hard refusal show;
The 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.
IF I could think how these my thoughts to leave,
Or thinking still, my thoughts might have good end;
If rebel sense would reason’s law receive;
Or reason foiled, would not 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 beauties 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 senses overthrown;
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, time, You, and I, maintain.
A FAREWELL.
OFT have I mused, but now at length I find
Why those that die, men say, they do depart:
Depart: a word so gentle to my mind,
Weakly did seem to paint Death’s ugly dart.
But now the stars, with their strange course, do bind
Me one to 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 loathéd part to me,
Lives to impart my weary clay some breath;
But that good part wherein all comforts be,
Now dead, doth show departure is a death:
Yea, worse than death, death parts both woe and joy,
From joy I part, still living in annoy.
* * * * *
FINDING those beams, which I must ever love,
To mar my mind, and with my hurt to please,
I deemed it best, some absence for to prove,
If farther place might further me to ease.
My eyes thence drawn, where livéd all their light,
Blinded forthwith in dark despair did lie,
Like to the mole, with want of guiding sight,
Deep plunged in earth, deprivéd of the sky.
In absence blind, and wearied with that woe,
To greater woes, by presence, I return;
Even as the fly, which to the flame doth go,
Pleased with the light, that his small corse doth burn:
Fair choice I have, either to live or die
A blinded mole, or else a burnéd fly.
THE SEVEN WONDERS OF ENGLAND.
I.
NEAR Wilton sweet, huge heaps of stones are found,
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 number’s 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 mixéd woes.
II.
The Bruertons have a lake, which, when the sun