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1563 Drayton born at Hartshill, Warwickshire.
1572? Drayton a page in the house of Sir
Henry Goodere, at
Polesworth.
c. 1574 Anne Goodere born?
Feb. 1591 Drayton in London. Harmony of Church.
1593 Idea, the Shepherd’s Garland. Legend of Peirs Gaveston.
1594 Ideas Mirrour. Matilda.
Lucy Harrington becomes Countess
of
Bedford.
1595 Sir Henry Goodere the elder dies. Endimion
and Phoebe,
dedicated
to Lucy Bedford.
1595-6 Anne Goodere married to Sir Henry Rainsford.
1596 Mortimeriados. Legends of Robert, Matilda, and Gaveston.
1597 England’s Heroical Epistles.
1598 Drayton already at work on the Polyolbion.
1599 Epistles and Idea sonnets,
new edition. (Date of Portrait
of
Drayton in National Portrait Gallery.)
1600 Sir John Oldcastle.
1602 New edition of Epistles and Idea.
1603 Drayton made an Esquire of the Bath, to
Sir Walter Aston.
To
the Maiestie of King James. Barons’ Wars.
1604 The Owle. A Pean Triumphall.
Moyses in a Map of his
Miracles.
1605 First collected edition of Poems.
Another edition of
Idea
and Epistles.
1606 Poemes Lyrick and Pastorall. Odes.
Eglogs.
The
Man in the Moone.
1607 Legend of Great Cromwell.
1608 Reprint of Collected Poems.
1609 Another edition of Cromwell.
1610 Reprint of Collected Poems.
1613 Reprint of Collected Poems. First Part of Polyolbion.
1618 Two Elegies in FitzGeoffrey’s Satyrs and Epigrames.
1619 Collected Folio edition of Poems.
1620 Second edition of Elegies, and reprint of 1619 Poems.
1622 Polyolbion complete.
1627 Battle of Agincourt, Nymphidia, &c.
1630 Muses Elizium. Noah’s Floud.
Moses his Birth and
Miracles.
David and Goliah.
1631 Second edition of 1627 folio. Drayton
dies towards the end
of
the year.
1636 Posthumous poem appeared in Annalia Dubrensia.
1637 Poems.
Michael Drayton was born in 1563, at Hartshill, near Atherstone, in Warwickshire, where a cottage, said to have been his, is still shown. He early became a page to Sir Henry Goodere, at Polesworth Hall: his own words give the best picture of his early years here.[1] His education would seem to have been good, but ordinary; and it is very doubtful if he ever went to a university.[2] Besides the authors mentioned in the Epistle to Henry Reynolds, he was certainly familiar with Ovid and Horace, and possibly with Catullus: while there seems no reason to doubt that he read Greek, though it is quite true that his references to Greek authors do not prove any first-hand acquaintance. He understood French, and read Rabelais and the French sonneteers, and he seems to have been acquainted with Italian.[3] His knowledge of English literature was wide, and his judgement good: but his chief bent lay towards the history, legendary and otherwise, of his native country, and his vast stores of learning on this subject bore fruit in the Polyolbion.
While still at Polesworth, Drayton fell in love with his patron’s younger daughter, Anne;[4] and, though she married, in 1596, Sir Henry Rainsford of Clifford, Drayton continued his devotion to her for many years, and also became an intimate friend of her husband’s, writing a sincere elegy on his death.[5] About February, 1591, Drayton paid a visit to London, and published his first work, the Harmony of the Church, a series of paraphrases from the Old Testament, in fourteen-syllabled verse of no particular vigour or grace. This book was immediately suppressed by order of Archbishop Whitgift, possibly because it was supposed to savour of Puritanism.[6] The author, however, published another edition in 1610; indeed, he seems to have had a fondness for this style of work; for in 1604 he published a dull poem, Moyses in a Map of his Miracles, re-issued in 1630 as Moses his Birth and Miracles. Accompanying this piece, in 1630, were two other ’Divine poems’: Noah’s Floud, and David and Goliath. Noah’s Floud is, in part, one of Drayton’s happiest attempts at the catalogue style of bestiary; and Mr. Elton finds in it some foreshadowing of the manner of Paradise Lost. But, as a whole, Drayton’s attempts in this direction deserve the oblivion into which they, in common with the similar productions of other authors, have fallen. In the dedication and preface to the Harmony of the Church are some of the few traces of Euphuism shown in Drayton’s work; passages in the Heroical Epistles also occur to the mind.[7] He was always averse to affectation, literary or otherwise, and in Elegy viij deliberately condemns Lyly’s fantastic style.
Probably before Drayton went up to London, Sir Henry Goodere saw that he would stand in need of a patron more powerful than the master of Polesworth, and introduced him to the Earl and Countess of Bedford. Those who believe[8] Drayton to have been a Pope in petty spite, identify the ‘Idea’ of his earlier poems with Lucy, Countess of Bedford; though they are forced to acknowledge as self-evident that the ‘Idea’ of his later work is Anne, Lady Rainsford. They then proceed to say that Drayton, after consistently honouring the Countess in his verse for twelve years, abruptly transferred his allegiance, not forgetting to heap foul abuse on his former patroness, out of pique at some temporary withdrawal of favour. Not only is this directly contrary to all we know and can infer of Drayton’s character, but Mr. Elton has decisively disproved it by a summary of bibliographical and other evidence. Into the question it is here unnecessary to enter, and it has been mentioned only because it alone, of the many Drayton-controversies, has cast any slur on the poet’s reputation.
In 1593, Drayton published Idea, the Shepherds Garland, in nine Eclogues; in 1606 he added a tenth, the best of all, to the new edition, and rearranged the order, so that the new eclogue became the ninth. In these Pastorals, while following the Shepherds Calendar in many ways, he already displays something of the sturdy independence which characterized him through life. He abandons Spenser’s quasi-rustic dialect, and, while keeping to most of the pastoral conventions, such as the singing-match and threnody, he contrives to introduce something of a more natural and homely strain. He keeps the political allusions, notably in the Eclogue containing the song in praise of Beta, who is, of course, Queen Elizabeth. But an over-bold remark in the last line of that song was struck out in 1606; and the new eclogue has no political reference. He is not ashamed to allude directly to Spenser; and indeed his direct debts are limited to a few scattered phrases, as in the Ballad of Dowsabel. Almost to the end of his literary career, Drayton mentions Spenser with reverence and praise.[9]
It is in the songs interspersed in the Eclogues that Drayton’s best work at this time is to be found: already his metrical versatility is discernible; for though he doubtless remembered the many varieties of metre employed by Spenser in the Calendar, his verses already bear a stamp of their own. The long but impetuous lines, such as ’Trim up her golden tresses with Apollo’s sacred tree’, afford a striking contrast to the archaic romance-metre, derived from Sir Thopas and its fellows, which appears in Dowsabel, and it again to the melancholy, murmuring cadences of the lament for Elphin. It must, however, be confessed that certain of the songs in the 1593 edition were full of recondite conceits and laboured antitheses, and were rightly struck out,
Having paid his tribute to one poetic fashion, Drayton in 1594 fell in with the prevailing craze for sonneteering, and published Ideas Mirrour, a series of fifty-one ‘amours’ or sonnets, with two prefatory poems, one by Drayton and one by an unknown, signing himself Gorbo il fidele. The title of these poems Drayton possibly borrowed from the French sonneteer, de Pontoux: in their style much recollection of Sidney, Constable, and Daniel is traceable. They are ostensibly addressed to his mistress, and some of them are genuine in feeling; but many are merely imitative exercises in conceit; some, apparently, trials in metre. These amours were again printed, with the title of ‘sonnets’, in 1599[10], 1600, 1602, 1603, 1605, 1608, 1610, 1613, 1619, and 1631, during the poet’s lifetime. It is needless here to discuss whether Drayton were the ‘rival poet’ to Shakespeare, whether these sonnets were really addressed to a man, or merely to the ideal Platonic beauty; for those who are interested in these points, I subjoin references to the sonnets which touch upon them.[11] From the prentice-work evident in many of the Amours, it would seem that certain of them are among Drayton’s earliest poems; but others show a craftsman not meanly advanced in his art. Nevertheless, with few exceptions, this first ‘bundle of sonnets’ consists rather of trials of skill, bubbles of the mind; most of his sonnets which strike the reader as touched or penetrated with genuine passion belong to the editions from 1599 onwards; implying that his love for Anne Goodere, if at all represented in these poems, grew with his years, for the ‘love-parting’ is first found in the edition of 1619. But for us the question should not be, are these sonnets genuine representations of the personal feeling of the poet? but rather, how far do they arouse or echo in us as individuals the universal passion? There are at least some of Drayton’s sonnets which possess a direct, instant, and universal appeal, by reason of their simple force and straightforward ring; and not in virtue of any subtle charm of sound and rhythm, or overmastering splendour of diction or thought. Ornament vanishes, and soberness and simplicity increase, as we proceed in the editions of the sonnets. Drayton’s chief attempt in the jewelled or ornamental style
In 1593 and 1594 Drayton also published his earliest pieces on the mediaeval theme of the ‘Falls of the Illustrious’; they were Peirs Gavesson and Matilda the faire and chaste daughter of the Lord Robert Fitzwater. Here Drayton followed in the track of Boccaccio, Lydgate, and the Mirrour for Magistrates, walking in the way which Chaucer had derided in his Monkes Tale: and with only too great fidelity does Drayton adapt himself to the dullnesses of his model: fine rhetoric is not altogether wanting, and there is, of course, the consciousness that these subjects deal with the history of his beloved country, but neither these, nor Robert, Duke of Normandy (1596), nor Great Cromwell, Earl of Essex (1607 and 1609), nor the Miseries of Margaret (1627) can escape the charge of tediousness.[12] England’s Heroical Epistles were first published in 1597, and other editions, of 1598, 1599, and 1602, contain new epistles. These are Drayton’s first attempt to strike out a new and original vein of English poetry: they are a series of letters, modelled on Ovid’s Heroides,[13] addressed by various pairs of lovers, famous in English history, to each other, and arranged in chronological order, from Henry II and Rosamond to Lady Jane Grey and Lord Guilford Dudley. They are, in a sense, the most important of Drayton’s writings, and they have certainly been the most popular, up to the early nineteenth century. In these poems Drayton foreshadowed, and probably inspired, the smooth style of Fairfax, Waller, and Dryden. The metre, the grammar, and the thought, are all perfectly easy to follow, even though he employs many of the Ovidian ‘turns’ and ‘clenches’. A certain attempt at realization of the different characters is observable, but the poems are fine rhetorical exercises rather than realizations of the dramatic and passionate possibilities of their themes. In 1596, Drayton, as we have seen, published the Mortimeriados, a kind of epic, with Mortimer as its hero, of the wars between King Edward II and the Barons.[14] It was written in the seven-line stanza of Chaucer’s Troilus and Cressida and Spenser’s Hymns.
About this time, we find Drayton writing for the stage. It seems unnecessary here to discuss whether the writing of plays is evidence of Drayton’s poverty, or his versatility;[17] but the fact remains that he had a hand in the production of about twenty. Of these, the only one which certainly survives is The first part of the true and honorable historie, of the life of Sir John Oldcastle, the good Lord Cobham, &c. It is practically impossible to distinguish Drayton’s share in this curious play, and it does not, therefore, materially assist the elucidation of the question whether he had any dramatic feeling or skill. It can be safely affirmed that the dramatic instinct was nor uppermost in his mind; he was a Seneca rather than a Euripides: but to deny him all dramatic idea, as does Dr. Whitaker, is too severe. There is decided, if slender, dramatic skill and feeling in certain of the Nymphals. Drayton’s persons are usually, it must be said, rather figures in a tableau, or series of tableaux; but in the second and seventh Nymphals, and occasionally in the tenth, there is real dramatic movement. Closely connected with this question is the consideration of humour, which is wrongly denied to Drayton. Humour is observable first, perhaps, in the Owle (1604); then in the Ode to his Rival (1619); and later in the Nymphidia, Shepheards Sirena, and Muses Elyzium. The second Nymphal shows us the quiet laughter, the humorous twinkle, with which Drayton writes at times. The subject is an [Greek: agon] or contest between two shepherds for the affections of a nymph called Lirope: Lalus is a vale-bred swain,
On the accession of James I, Drayton hastened to greet the King with a somewhat laboured song To the Maiestie of King James; but this poem was apparently considered to be premature: he cried Vivat Rex, without having said, Mortua est eheu Regina, and accordingly he suffered the penalty of his ’forward pen’,[19] and was severely neglected by King and Court. Throughout James’s reign a darker and more satirical mood possesses Drayton, intruding at times even into his strenuous recreation-ground, the Polyolbion, and manifesting itself more directly in his satires, the Owle (1604), the Moon-Calfe (1627), the Man in the Moone (1606), and his verse-letters and elegies; while his disappointment with the times, the country, and the King, flashes out occasionally even in the Odes, and is heard in his last publication, the Muses Elizium (1630). To counterbalance the disappointment in his hopes from the King, Drayton found a new and life-long friend in Walter Aston, of Tixall, in Staffordshire; this gentleman was created Knight of the Bath by James, and made Drayton one of his esquires. By Aston’s ‘continual bounty’ the poet was able to devote himself almost entirely to more congenial literary work; for, while Meres speaks of the Polyolbion in 1598,[20] and we may easily see that Drayton had the idea of that work at least as early as 1594,[21] yet he cannot have been able to give much time to it till now. Nevertheless, the ’declining and corrupt times’ worked on Drayton’s mind and grieved and darkened his soul, for we must remember that he was perfectly prosperous then and was not therefore incited to satire by bodily want or distress.
In 1604 he published the Owle, a mild satire, under the form of a moral fable of government, reminding the reader a little of the Parlement of Foules. The Man in the Moone (1606) is partly a recension of Endimion and Phoebe, but is a heterogeneous mass of weakly satire, of no particular merit. The Moon-Calfe (1627) is Drayton’s most savage and misanthropic excursion into the region of Satire; in which, though occasionally nobly ironic, he is more usually coarse and blustering, in the style of Marston.[22] In 1605 Drayton brought out his first ‘collected poems’, from which the Eclogues and the Owle are omitted; and in 1606 he published his Poemes Lyrick and Pastorall, Odes, Eglogs, The Man in the Moone. Of these the Eglogs are a recension of the Shepherd’s Garland of 1593: we have already spoken of The Man in the Moone. The Odes are by far the most important and striking feature of the book. In the preface, Drayton professes to be following Pindar, Anacreon, and Horace, though, as he modestly implies, at a great distance. Under the title of Odes he includes a variety of subjects, and a variety of metres; ranging from an Ode to his Harp or to his Criticks, to a Ballad of Agincourt, or a poem on the Rose compared with his Mistress. In the edition of 1619 appeared several more Odes, including some of the best; while many of the others underwent careful revision, notably the Ballad. ’Sing wee the Rose,’ perhaps because of its unintelligibility, and the Ode to his friend John Savage, perhaps because too closely imitated from Horace, were omitted. Drayton was not the first to use the term Ode for a lyrical poem, in English: Soothern in 1584, and Daniel in 1592 had preceded him; but he was the first to give the name popularity in England, and to lift the kind as Ronsard had lifted it in France; and till the time of Cowper no other English poet showed mastery of the short, staccato measure of the Anacreontic as distinct from the Pindaric Ode. In the Odes Drayton shows to the fullest extent his metrical versatility: he touches the Skeltonic metre, the long ten-syllabled line of the Sacrifice to Apollo; and ascends from the smooth and melodious rhythms of the New Year through the inspiring harp-tones of the Virginian Voyage to the clangour and swing of the Ballad of Agincourt. His grammar is possibly more distorted here than anywhere, but, as Mr. Elton says, ’these are the obstacles of any poet who uses measures of four or six syllables.’ His tone throughout is rather that of the harp, as played, perhaps, in Polesworth Hall, than that of any other instrument; but in 1619 Drayton has taken to him the lute of Carew and his compeers. In 1619 the style is lighter, the fancy gayer, more exquisite, more recondite. Most of his few metaphysical conceits are to be found in these later Odes, as in the Heart,
In 1607 and 1609, Drayton published two editions of the last and weakest of his mediaeval poems—the Legend of Great Cromwell; and for the next few years he produced nothing new, only attending to the publication of certain reprints and new editions. During this time, however, he was working steadily at the Polyolbion, helped by the patronage of Aston and of Prince Henry. In 1612-13, Drayton burst upon an indifferent world with the first part of the great poem, containing eighteen songs; the title-page will give the best idea of the contents and plan of the book: ’Poly-Olbion or a Chorographicall Description of the Tracts, Riuers, Mountaines, Forests, and other Parts of this renowned Isle of Great Britaine, With intermixture of the most Remarquable Stories, Antiquities, Wonders, Rarityes, Pleasures, and Commodities of the same: Digested in a Poem by Michael Drayton, Esq. With a Table added, for direction to those occurrences of Story and Antiquities, whereunto the Course of the Volume easily leades not.’ &c. On this work Drayton had been engaged for nearly the whole of his poetical career. The learning and research displayed in the poem are extraordinary, almost equalling the erudition of Selden in his Annotations to each Song. The first part was, for various reasons, a drug in the market, and Drayton found great difficulty in securing a publisher for the second part. But during the years from 1613 to 1622, he became acquainted with Drummond of Hawthornden through a common friend, Sir William Alexander of Menstry, afterwards Earl of Stirling. In 1618, Drayton starts a correspondence; and towards the end of the year mentions that he is corresponding also with Andro Hart, bookseller, of Edinburgh. The subject of his letter was probably the publication of the Second Part; which Drayton alludes to in a letter of 1619 thus: ’I have done twelve books more, that is from the eighteenth book, which was Kent, if you note it; all the East part and North to the river Tweed; but it lies by me; for the booksellers and I are in terms; they are a company of base knaves, whom I both scorn and kick at.’ Finally, in 1622, Drayton got Marriott, Grismand, and Dewe, of London, to take the work, and it was published with a dedication to Prince Charles, who, after his brother’s death, had given Drayton patronage. Drayton’s preface to the Second Part is well worth quoting:
’To any that will read it. When I first undertook this Poem, or, as some very skilful in this kind have pleased to term it, this Herculean labour, I was by some virtuous friends persuaded, that I should receive much comfort and encouragement therein; and for these reasons; First, that it was a new, clear, way, never before gone by any; then, that it contained all the Delicacies, Delights, and Rarities of this renowned Isle, interwoven with the Histories of the Britons, Saxons, Normans, and the later English: And further that there is scarcely any of the Nobility or Gentry of this land, but that he is in some way or other by his Blood interested therein. But it hath fallen out otherwise; for instead of that comfort, which my noble friends (from the freedom of their spirits) proposed as my due, I have met with barbarous ignorance, and base detraction; such a cloud hath the Devil drawn over the world’s judgment, whose opinion is in few years fallen so far below all ballatry, that the lethargy is incurable: nay, some of the Stationers, that had the selling of the First Part of this Poem, because it went not so fast away in the sale, as some of their beastly and abominable trash, (a shame both to our language and nation) have either despitefully left out, or at least carelessly neglected the Epistles to the Readers, and so have cozened the buyers with unperfected books; which these that have undertaken the Second Part, have been forced to amend in the First, for the small number that are yet remaining in their hands. And some of our outlandish, unnatural, English, (I know not how otherwise to express them) stick not to say that there is nothing in this Island worth studying for, and take a great pride to be ignorant in any thing thereof; for these, since they delight in their folly, I wish it may be hereditary from them to their posterity, that their children may be begg’d for fools to the fifth generation, until it may be beyond the memory of man to know that there was ever other of their families: neither can this deter me from going on with Scotland, if means and time do not hinder me, to perform as much as I have promised in my First Song:
Till through the sleepy main,
to Thuly I have gone,
And seen the Frozen Isles,
the cold Deucalidon,
Amongst whose iron Rocks,
grim Saturn yet remains
Bound in those gloomy caves
with adamantine chains.
And as for those cattle whereof I spake before, Odi profanum vulgus, et arceo, of which I account them, be they never so great, and so I leave them. To my friends, and the lovers of my labours, I wish all happiness. Michael Drayton.’
The Polyolbion as a whole is easy and pleasant to read; and though in some parts it savours too much of a mere catalogue, yet it has many things truly poetical. The best books are perhaps the xiij, xiv, and xv, where he is on his own ground, and therefore naturally at his best. It is interesting to notice how much attention and space he devotes to Wales. He describes not only the ‘wonders’ but also the fauna and flora of each district; and of the two it would seem that the flowers interested him more. Though he was a keen observer of country sights and sounds (a fact sufficiently attested by the Nymphidia and the Nymphals), it is evident that his interest in most things except flowers was rather momentary or conventional than continuous and heart-felt; but of the flowers he loves to talk, whether he weaves us a garland for the Thame’s wedding, or gives us the contents of a maund of simples; and his love, if somewhat homely and unimaginative, is apparent enough. But the main inspiration, as it is the main theme, of the Polyolbion is the glory and might and wealth, past, present, and future, of England, her possessions and her folk. Through all this glory, however, we catch the tone of Elizabethan sorrow over the ’Ruines of Time’; grief that all these mighty men and their works will perish and be forgotten, unless the poet makes them live for ever on the lips of men. Drayton’s own voluminousness has defeated his purpose, and sunk his poem by its own bulk. Though it is difficult to go so far as Mr. Bullen, and say that the only thing better than a stroll in the Polyolbion is one in a Sussex lane, it is still harder to agree with Canon Beeching, that ‘there are few beauties on the road’, the beauties are many, though of a quietly rural type, and the road, if long and winding, is of good surface, while its cranks constitute much of its charm. It is doubtless, from the outside, an appalling poem in these days of epitomes and monographs, but it certainly deserves to be rescued from oblivion and read.
In 1618 Drayton contributed two Elegies to Henry FitzGeoffrey’s Satyrs and Epigrames. These were on the Lady Penelope Clifton, and on ’the death of the three sonnes of the Lord Sheffield, drowned neere where Trent falleth into Humber’. Neither is remarkable save for far-fetched conceits; they were reprinted in 1610, and again, with many others, in the volume of 1627. In 1619 Drayton issued a folio collected edition of his works, and reprinted it in 1620. In 1627 followed a folio of wholly fresh matter, including the Battaile of Agincourt; the Miseries of Queene Margarite, Nimphidia, Quest of Cinthia, Shepheards Sirena, Moone-Calfe, and Elegies upon sundry occasions. The Battaile of Agincourt is a somewhat otiose expansion, with purple patches, of the Ballad; it is, nevertheless, Drayton’s best lengthy piece on a historical theme. Of
In his later years Drayton enjoyed the patronage of the third Earl and Countess of Dorset; and in 1630 he published his last volume, the Muses Elizium, of which he dedicated the pastoral part to the Earl, and the three divine poems at the end to the Countess. The Muses Elizium proper consists of Ten Pastorals or Nymphals, prefaced by a Description of Elizium. The three divine poems have been mentioned before, and were Noah’s Floud, Moses his Birth and Miracles, and David and Goliah. The Nymphals are the crown and summary of much of the best in Drayton’s work. Here he departed from the conventional type of pastoral, even more than in the Shepherd’s Garland; but to say that he sang of English rustic life would hardly be true: the sixth Nymphal, allowing for a few pardonable exaggerations by the competitors, is almost all English, if we except the names; so is the tenth with the same exception; the first and fourth might take place anywhere, but are not likely in any country; the second is more conventional; the fifth is almost, but not quite, English; the third, seventh, and ninth are avowedly classical in theme; while the eighth is a more delicate and subtle fairy poem than the Nymphidia. The fourth and tenth Nymphals are also touched with the sadder, almost satiric vein; the former inveighing against the English imitation of foreigners and love of extravagance in dress; while the tenth complains of the improvident and wasteful felling of trees in the English forests. This last Nymphal, though designedly an epilogue, is probably rather a warning than a despairing lament, even though we conceive the old satyr to be Drayton himself. As a whole the Nymphals show Drayton at his happiest and lightest in style and metre; at his moments of greatest serenity and even gaiety; an atmosphere of sunshine seems to envelope them all, though the sun sink behind a cloud in the last. His music now is that of a rippling stream, whereas in his earlier days he spoke weightier and more sonorous words, with a mouth of gold.[24]
To estimate the poetical faculty of Drayton is a somewhat perplexing task; for, while rarely subtle, or rising to empyrean heights, he wrote in such varied styles, on such various themes, that the task, at first, seems that of criticizing many poets, not one. But through all his work runs the same eminently English spirit, the same honesty and clearness of idea, the same stolidity of purpose, and not infrequently of execution also; the same enthusiasm characterizes all his earlier, and much of his later work; the enthusiasm especially characteristic of Elizabethan England, and shown by Drayton in his passion for England and the English, in his triumphant joy in their splendid past, and his certainty of their future glory. As a poet, he lacked imagination and fine fury; he supplied their place by the airiest and clearest of fancies, by the
Thy Bowe, halfe broke, is
peec’d with old desire;
Her Bowe is beauty with ten
thousand strings....
are rare enough. Drayton, in fact, comes as near controverting the statement Poeta nascitur, non fit, as any one in English literature: by diligent toil and earnest desire he won a place for himself in the second rank of English poets: through love he once set foot in the circle of the mightiest. Sincere he was always, simple often, sensuous rarely. His great industry, his careful study, and his great receptivity are shown in the unusual spectacle of a man who has sung well in the language of his youth, suddenly learning, in his age, the tongue spoken by the younger generation, and reproducing it with individuality and sureness of touch. It is in rhetoric, splendid or rugged, in argument, in plain statement or description, in the outline sketch of a picture, that Drayton excels; magic of atmosphere and colouring are rarely present. Stolidity is, perhaps, his besetting sin; yet it is the sign of a slow, not a dull, intellect; an intellect, like his heart, which never let slip what it had once taken to itself.
As a man Drayton would seem to have been an excellent type of the sturdy, clear-headed, but yet romantic and enthusiastic Englishman; gifted with much natural ability, sedulously increased by study; quietly humorous, self-restrained; and if temporarily soured by disappointment and the disjointed times, yet emerging at last into a greater serenity, a more unadulterated gaiety than had ever before characterized him. It is possible, but from his clear and sane balance of mind improbable, that many of his light later poems are due to deliberate self-blinding and self-deception, a walking in enchanted lands of the mind.
Of Drayton’s three known portraits the earliest shows him at the age of thirty-six, and is now in the National Portrait Gallery. A look of quiet, speculative melancholy seems to pervade it; there is, as yet, no moroseness, no evidence of severe conflict with the world, no shadow of stress or of doubt. The second and best-known portrait shows us Drayton at the age of fifty, and was engraved by Hole, as a frontispiece to the poems of 1619. Here a notable change has come over the face; the mouth is hardened, and depressed at the corners through disappointment and disillusionment; the eyes are full of a pathos increased by the puzzled and perturbed uplift of the brows. Yet a stubbornness and tenacity of purpose invests the features and reminds us that Drayton is of the old and sound Elizabethan stock, ‘on evil days though fallen.’ Let it be remembered, that he was in 1613, when the portrait was taken, in more or less prosperous circumstances; it was the sad degeneracy, the meanness and feebleness of the generation around him, that chiefly depressed and embittered him. The final portrait, now in the Dulwich Gallery, represents the poet as a man of sixty-five; and is quite in keeping with the sunnier and calmer tone of his later poetry. It is the face of one who has not emerged unscathed from the world’s
He died in 1631, possibly on December 23, and was buried under the North wall of Westminster Abbey. Meres’s[27] opinion of his character during his early life is as follows: ’As Aulus Persius Flaccus is reported among al writers to be of an honest life and vpright conuersation: so Michael Drayton, quem totics honoris et amoris causa nomino, among schollers, souldiours, Poets, and all sorts of people is helde for a man of uertuous disposition, honest conversation, and well gouerned cariage; which is almost miraculous among good wits in these declining and corrupt times, when there is nothing but rogery in villanous man, and when cheating and craftines is counted the cleanest wit, and soundest wisedome.’[28] Fuller also, in a similar strain, says, ’He was a pious poet, his conscience having the command of his fancy, very temperate in his life, slow of speech, and inoffensive in company.’
In conclusion I have to thank Mr. H.M. Sanders, of Pembroke College, Oxford, for help and advice, and Professor Raleigh and Mr. R.W. Chapman for help and criticism while the volume was in the press. Above all, I am at every turn indebted to Professor Elton’s invaluable Michael Drayton,[29] without which the work of any student of Drayton would be rendered, if not impossible, at least infinitely harder.
CYRIL BRETT.
ALTON, STAFFORDSHIRE.
[Footnote 1: Cf. Elegy viij, To Henery Reynolds, Esquire, p. 108.]
[Footnote 2: Sir Aston Cokayne, in 1658, says that he went to Oxford, while Fleay asserts, without authority, that his university was probably Cambridge.]
[Footnote 3: Cf. the motto of Ideas Mirrour, the allusions to Ariosto in the Nymphidia, p. 129; and above all, the Heroical Epistles; Dedic. of Ep. of D. of Suffolk to Q. Margaret: ’Sweet is the French Tongue, more sweet the Italian, but most sweet are they both, if spoken by your admired self.’ Cf. Surrey to Geraldine, ll. 5 sqq., with Drayton’s note.]
[Footnote 4: Cf. Sonnet xij (ed. 1602), p. 42, ’’Tis nine years now since first I lost my wit.’ (This sonnet may, of course, occur in the supposed 1600 ed., which would fix an earlier date for Drayton’s beginning of love.)]
[Footnote 5: Elegy ix, p. 113.]
[Footnote 6: Cf. Morley’s ed. of Barons’ Wars, &c. (1887), p. 6.]
[Footnote 7: Cf. E.H. Ep. ‘Mat. to K.J.,’ 100 sqq., &c.]
[Footnote 8: Professor Courthope and others. There was some excuse for blunders before the publication of Professor Elton’s book; and they have been made easier by an unfortunate misprint. Professor Courthope twice misprints the first line of the Love-Parting Sonnet, as ’Since there’s no help, come let us rise and part’, and, so printed, the line supports better the theory that the poem refers to a patroness and not to a mistress. Cf. Courthope, Hist. Eng. Poetry, iii. pp. 40 and 43.]
[Footnote 9: Cf. E. and Phoebe, sub fin.; Shep. Sir. 145-8; Ep. Hy. Reyn. 79 sqq.]
[Footnote 10: Those reprints which were really new editions are in italics.]
[Footnote 11: 1594 ed., Pref. Son. and nos. 12, 18, 28; 1599 ed., nos. 3, 31, 46; 1602 ed., 12, 27, 31; and 1603 ed., 47.]
[Footnote 12: Meres thought otherwise. Cf. Palladis Tamia (1598), ’As Accius, M. Atilius, and Milithus were called Tragediographi, because they writ tragedies: so may wee truly terme Michael Drayton Tragaediographus for his passionate penning the downfals of valiant Robert of Normandy, chast Matilda, and great Gaueston.’ Cf. Barnefield, Poems: in diuers humors (ed. Arber, p. 119), ’And Drayton, whose wel-written Tragedies, | And Sweete Epistles, soare thy fame to skies. | Thy learned name is equall with the rest; | Whose stately Numbers are so well addrest.’]
[Footnote 13: Cf. Meres, Palladis Tamia (1598), ’Michael Drayton doth imitate Ouid in his England’s Heroical Epistles.’]
[Footnote 14: Cf. id., ibid., ’As Lucan hath mournefully depainted the ciuil wars of Pompey and Caesar: so hath Daniel the ciuill wars of Yorke and Lancaster, and Drayton the civill wars of Edward the second and the Barons.’]
[Footnote 15: Cf. Elegy viij. 126-8.]
[Footnote 16: Cf. Morley’s ed., Barons’ Wars, &c., 1887, pp. 6-7.]
[Footnote 17: Cf. Elron, pp. 83-93, and Whitaker, M. Drayton as a Dramatist (Public. Mod. Lang. Assoc. of America, vol. xviij. 3).]
[Footnote 18: Cf. Nl. ij. 127 sqq., p. 172.]
[Footnote 19: Cf. Elegy ij. 20.]
[Footnote 20: Cf. Palladis Tamia: ’Michael Drayton is now in penning, in English verse, a Poem called Poly-olbion, Geographicall & Hydrographicall of all the forests, woods, mountaines, fountaines, riuers, lakes, flouds, bathes, & springs that be in England.’]
[Footnote 21: Cf. Amours (1594), xx and xxiv.]
[Footnote 22: Cf. Sonnet vj (1619 edition); which is a dignified summary of much that he says more coarsely in the Moone-Calfe.]
[Footnote 23: Cf. Morley’s ed. Barons’ Wars, &c., p. 8.]
[Footnote 24: Charles FitzGeoffrey, Drake (1596), ’golden-mouthed Drayton musical.’ Guilpin, Skialetheia (1598), ’Drayton’s condemned of some for imitation, But others say, ’tis the best poet’s fashion ... Drayton’s justly surnam’d golden-mouth’d.’ Meres, Palladis Tamia (1598),’ In Charles Fitz-Jefferies Drake Drayton is termed “golden-mouth’d” for the purity and pretiousnesse of his stile and phrase.’]
[Footnote 25: Cf. E. H. E., pp. 90, 99 (ed. 1737); Elegy i; and Ode written in the Peak.]
[Footnote 26: Elegy viij, ad init.]
[Footnote 27: Palladis Tamia (1598).]
[Footnote 28: Cf. Returne from Parnassus, i. 2 (1600) ed. Arb. p. 11.]
[Footnote 29: Michael Drayton. A Critical Study. Oliver Elton, M.A. London: A. Constable & Co., 1905.]
[from the Edition of 1594]
To the deere Chyld of the Muses, and his euer
kind Mecaenas, Ma. Anthony
Cooke,
Esquire
Vovchsafe to grace these rude
vnpolish’d rymes,
Which long (dear friend) haue
slept in sable night,
And, come abroad now in these
glorious tymes,
Can hardly brook the purenes
of the light.
But still you see their desteny
is such,
That in the world theyr fortune
they must try,
Perhaps they better shall
abide the tuch,
Wearing your name, theyr gracious
liuery.
Yet these mine owne:
I wrong not other men,
Nor trafique further then
thys happy Clyme,
Nor filch from Portes,
nor from Petrarchs pen,
A fault too common in this
latter time.
Diuine Syr Phillip,
I auouch thy writ,
I am no Pickpurse
of anothers wit.
Yours
deuoted,
M.
DRAYTON.
Reade heere (sweet Mayd) the story of my wo,
The drery abstracts of my endles cares,
With my liues sorow enterlyned so;
Smok’d with my sighes, and blotted with my teares:
The sad memorials of my miseries,
Pend in the griefe of myne afflicted ghost;
My liues complaint in doleful Elegies,
With so pure loue as tyme could neuer boast.
Receaue the incense which I offer heere,
By my strong fayth ascending to thy fame,
My zeale, my hope, my vowes, my praise, my prayer,
My soules oblation to thy sacred name:
Which name my Muse to highest heauen shal raise
By chast desire, true loue, and vertues praise.
Amour 2
My fayre, if thou wilt register
my loue,
More then worlds volumes shall
thereof arise;
Preserue my teares, and thou
thy selfe shall proue
A second flood downe rayning
from mine eyes.
Note but my sighes, and thine
eyes shal behold
The Sun-beames smothered with
immortall smoke;
And if by thee, my prayers
may be enrold,
They heauen and earth to pitty
shall prouoke.
Looke thou into my breast,
and thou shall see
Chaste holy vowes for my soules
sacrifice:
That soule (sweet Maide) which
so hath honoured thee,
Erecting Trophies to thy sacred
eyes;
Those eyes to
my heart shining euer bright,
When darknes hath
obscur’d each other light.
My thoughts bred vp with Eagle-birds
of loue,
And, for their vertues I desiered
to know,
Vpon the nest I set them forth,
to proue
If they were of the Eagles
kinde or no:
But they no sooner saw my
Sunne appeare,
But on her rayes with gazing
eyes they stood;
Which proou’d my birds
delighted in the ayre,
And that they came of this
rare kinglie brood.
But now their plumes, full
sumd with sweet desire,
To shew their kinde began
to clime the skies:
Doe what I could my Eaglets
would aspire,
Straight mounting vp to thy
celestiall eyes.
And thus (my faire)
my thoughts away be flowne,
And from my breast
into thine eyes be gone.
Amour 4
My faire, had I not erst adorned
my Lute
With those sweet strings stolne
from thy golden hayre,
Vnto the world had all my
ioyes been mute,
Nor had I learn’d to
descant on my faire.
Had not mine eye seene thy
Celestiall eye,
Nor my hart knowne the power
of thy name,
My soule had ne’er felt
thy Diuinitie,
Nor my Muse been the trumpet
of thy fame.
But thy diuine perfections,
by their skill,
This miracle on my poore Muse
haue tried,
And, by inspiring, glorifide
my quill,
And in my verse thy selfe
art deified:
Thus from thy
selfe the cause is thus deriued,
That by thy fame
all fame shall be suruiued.
Since holy Vestall lawes haue
been neglected,
The Gods pure fire hath been
extinguisht quite;
No Virgin once attending on
that light,
Nor yet those heauenly secrets
once respected;
Till thou alone, to pay the
heauens their dutie
Within the Temple of thy sacred
name,
With thine eyes kindling that
Celestiall flame,
By those reflecting Sun-beames
of thy beautie.
Here Chastity that Vestall
most diuine,
Attends that Lampe with eye
which neuer sleepeth;
The volumes of Religions lawes
shee keepeth,
Making thy breast that sacred
reliques shryne,
Where blessed
Angels, singing day and night,
Praise him which
made that fire, which lends that light.
Amour 6
In one whole world is but
one Phoenix found,
A Phoenix thou, this Phoenix
then alone:
By thy rare plume thy kind
is easly knowne,
With heauenly colours dide,
with natures wonder cround.
Heape thine own vertues, seasoned
by their sunne,
On heauenly top of thy diuine
desire;
Then with thy beautie set
the same on fire,
So by thy death thy life shall
be begunne.
Thy selfe, thus burned in
this sacred flame,
With thine owne sweetnes al
the heauens perfuming,
And stil increasing as thou
art consuming,
Shalt spring againe from th’
ashes of thy fame;
And mounting vp
shall to the heauens ascend:
So maist thou
liue, past world, past fame, past end.
Stay, stay, sweet Time; behold,
or ere thou passe
From world to world, thou
long hast sought to see,
That wonder now wherein all
wonders be,
Where heauen beholds her in
a mortall glasse.
Nay, looke thee, Time, in
this Celesteall glasse,
And thy youth past in this
faire mirror see:
Behold worlds Beautie in her
infancie,
What shee was then, and thou,
or ere shee was.
Now passe on, Time: to
after-worlds tell this,
Tell truelie, Time, what in
thy time hath beene,
That they may tel more worlds
what Time hath seene,
And heauen may ioy to think
on past worlds blisse.
Heere make a Period,
Time, and saie for mee,
She was the like
that neuer was, nor neuer more shalbe.
Amour 8
Vnto the World, to Learning,
and to Heauen,
Three nines there are, to
euerie one a nine;
One number of the earth, the
other both diuine,
One wonder woman now makes
three od numbers euen.
Nine orders, first, of Angels
be in heauen;
Nine Muses doe with learning
still frequent:
These with the Gods are euer
resident.
Nine worthy men vnto the world
were giuen.
My Worthie one to these nine
Worthies addeth,
And my faire Muse one Muse
vnto the nine;
And my good Angell, in my
soule diuine,
With one more order these
nine orders gladdeth.
My Muse, my Worthy,
and my Angell, then,
Makes euery one
of these three nines a ten.
Beauty sometime, in all her
glory crowned,
Passing by that cleere fountain
of thine eye,
Her sun-shine face there chaunsing
to espy,
Forgot herselfe, and thought
she had been drowned.
And thus, whilst Beautie on
her beauty gazed,
Who then, yet liuing, deemd
she had been dying,
And yet in death some hope
of life espying,
At her owne rare perfections
so amazed;
Twixt ioy and griefe, yet
with a smyling frowning,
The glorious sun-beames of
Amour 10
Oft taking pen in hand, with
words to cast my woes,
Beginning to account the sum
of all my cares,
I well perceiue my griefe
innumerable growes,
And still in reckonings rise
more millions of dispayres.
And thus, deuiding of my fatall
howres,
The payments of my loue I
read, and reading crosse,
And in substracting set my
sweets vnto my sowres;
Th’ average of my ioyes
directs me to my losse.
And thus mine eyes, a debtor
to thine eye,
Who by extortion gaineth all
theyr lookes,
My hart hath payd such grieuous
vsury,
That all her wealth lyes in
thy Beauties bookes;
And all is thine
which hath been due to mee,
And I a Banckrupt,
quite vndone by thee.
Thine eyes taught mee the
Alphabet of loue,
To con my Cros-rowe ere I
learn’d to spell;
For I was apt, a scholler
like to proue,
Gaue mee sweet lookes when
as I learned well.
Vowes were my vowels, when
I then begun
At my first Lesson in thy
sacred name:
My consonants the next when
I had done,
Words consonant, and sounding
to thy fame.
My liquids then were liquid
christall teares,
My cares my mutes, so mute
to craue reliefe;
My dolefull Dypthongs were
my liues dispaires,
Redoubling sighes the accents
of my griefe:
My loues Schoole-mistris
now hath taught me so,
That I can read
a story of my woe.
Amour 12
Some Atheist or vile Infidell
in loue,
When I doe speake of thy diuinitie,
May blaspheme thus, and say
I flatter thee,
And onely write my skill in
verse to proue.
See myracles, ye vnbeleeuing!
see
A dumbe-born Muse made to
expresse the mind,
A cripple hand to write, yet
lame by kind,
One by thy name, the other
touching thee.
Blind were mine eyes, till
they were seene of thine,
And mine eares deafe by thy
fame healed be;
My vices cur’d by vertues
sprung from thee,
My hopes reuiu’d, which
long in graue had lyne:
All vncleane thoughts,
foule spirits, cast out in mee
By thy great power,
and by strong fayth in thee.
Cleere Ankor, on whose
siluer-sanded shore
My soule-shrinde Saint, my
faire Idea, lyes;
O blessed Brooke! whose milk-white
Swans adore
The christall streame refined
by her eyes:
Where sweet Myrh-breathing
Zephyre in the spring
Gently distils his Nectar-dropping
Amour 14
Looking into the glasse of
my youths miseries,
I see the ugly face of my
deformed cares,
With withered browes, all
wrinckled with dispaires,
That for my mis-spent youth
the tears fel from my eyes.
Then, in these teares, the
mirror of these eyes,
Thy fayrest youth and Beautie
doe I see
Imprinted in my teares by
looking still on thee:
Thus midst a thousand woes
ten thousand joyes arise.
Yet in those joyes, the shadowes
of my good,
In this fayre limned ground
as white as snow,
Paynted the blackest Image
of my woe,
With murthering hands imbru’d
in mine own blood:
And in this Image
his darke clowdy eyes,
My life, my youth,
my loue, I heere Anotamize.
Now, Loue, if thou wilt proue
a Conqueror,
Subdue thys Tyrant euer martyring
mee;
And but appoint me for her
Tormentor,
Then for a Monarch will I
honour thee.
My hart shall be the prison
for my fayre;
Ile fetter her in chaines
of purest loue,
My sighs shall stop the passage
of the ayre:
This punishment the pittilesse
may moue.
With teares out of the Channels
of mine eyes
She’st quench her thirst
as duly as they fall:
Kinde words vnkindest meate
I can deuise,
My sweet, my faire, my good,
my best of all.
Ile binde her then with my
torne-tressed haire,
And racke her with a thousand
holy wishes;
Then, on a place prepared
for her there,
Ile execute her with a thousand
kisses.
Thus will I crucifie,
my cruell shee;
Thus Ile plague
her which hath so plagued mee.
Amour 16
Vertues Idea in virginitie, By inspiration, came conceau’d with thought: The time is come deliuered she must be, Where first my loue into the world was brought. Vnhappy borne, of all vnhappy day! So luckles was my Babes nativity, Saturne chiefe Lord of the Ascendant lay, The wandring Moone in earths triplicitie. Now, or by chaunce or heauens hie prouidence, His Mother died, and by her Legacie (Fearing the stars presaging influence) Bequeath’d his wardship to my soueraignes eye; Where hunger-staruen, wanting lookes to liue, Still empty gorg’d, with cares consumption pynde, Salt luke-warm teares shee for his drink did giue, And euer-more with sighes he supt and dynde:
And thus (poore Orphan) lying in distresse
Cryes in his pangs, God helpe the motherlesse.
If euer wonder could report
a wonder,
Or tongue of wonder worth
could tell a wonder thought,
Or euer ioy expresse what
perfect ioy hath taught,
Then wonder, tongue, then
ioy, might wel report a wonder.
Could all conceite conclude,
which past conceit admireth,
Or could mine eye but ayme
her obiects past perfection,
My words might imitate my
deerest thoughts direction,
And my soule then obtaine
which so my soule desireth.
Were not Inuention stauld,
treading Inuentions maze,
Or my swift-winged Muse tyred
by too hie flying;
Did not perfection still on
her perfection gaze,
Whilst Loue (my Phoenix bird)
in her owne flame is dying,
Inuention and
my Muse, perfection and her loue,
Should teach the
world to know the wonder that I proue.
Amour 18
Some, when in ryme they of their Loues doe tell, With flames and lightning their exordiums paynt: Some inuocate the Gods, some spirits of Hell, And heauen, and earth doe with their woes acquaint. Elizia is too hie a seate for mee: I wyll not come in Stixe or Phlegiton; The Muses nice, the Furies cruell be, I lyke not Limbo, nor blacke Acheron, Spightful Erinnis frights mee with her lookes, My manhood dares not with foule Ate mell: I quake to looke on Hecats charming bookes, I styll feare bugbeares in Apollos cell.
I passe not for Minerua nor Astraea.
But euer call vpon diuine Idea.
If those ten Regions, registred
by Fame,
By theyr ten Sibils haue the
world controld,
Who prophecied of Christ or
ere he came,
And of his blessed birth before
fore-told;
That man-god now, of whom
they did diuine,
This earth of those sweet
Prophets hath bereft,
And since the world to iudgement
doth declyne,
Instead of ten, one Sibil
to vs left.
Thys pure Idea, vertues
right Idea,
Shee of whom Merlin
long tyme did fore-tell,
Excelling her of Delphos
or Cumaea,
Whose lyfe doth saue a thousand
soules from hell:
That life (I meane)
which doth Religion teach,
And by example
true repentance preach.
Amour 20
Reading sometyme, my sorrowes to beguile, I find old Poets hylls and floods admire: One, he doth wonder monster-breeding Nyle, Another meruailes Sulphure Aetnas fire. Now broad-brymd Indus, then of Pindus height, Pelion and Ossa, frosty Caucase old, The Delian Cynthus, then Olympus weight, Slow Arrer, franticke Gallus, Cydnus cold. Some Ganges, Ister, and of Tagus tell, Some whir-poole Po, and slyding Hypasis; Some old Pernassus where the Muses dwell, Some Helycon, and some faire Simois:
A, fooles! thinke I, had you Idea seene,
Poore Brookes and Banks had no such wonders beene.
Letters and lynes, we see,
are soone defaced,
Mettles doe waste and fret
with cankers rust;
The Diamond shall once consume
to dust,
And freshest colours with
foule staines disgraced.
Paper and yncke can paynt
but naked words,
To write with blood of force
offends the sight,
And if with teares, I find
them all too light;
And sighes and signes a silly
hope affoords.
O, sweetest shadow! how thou
seru’st my turne,
Which still shalt be as long
as there is Sunne,
Nor whilst the world is neuer
shall be done,
Whilst Moone shall shyne by
night, or any fire shall burne:
That euery thing
whence shadow doth proceede,
May in his shadow
my Loues story reade.
Amour 22
My hart, imprisoned in a hopeless
Ile,
Peopled with Armies of pale
iealous eyes,
The shores beset with thousand
secret spyes,
Must passe by ayre, or else
dye in exile.
He framd him wings with feathers
of his thought,
Which by theyr nature learn’d
to mount the skye;
And with the same he practised
to flye,
Till he himself thys Eagles
art had taught.
Thus soring still, not looking
once below,
So neere thyne eyes celesteall
sunne aspyred,
That with the rayes his wafting
pyneons fired:
Thus was the wanton cause
of his owne woe.
Downe fell he,
in thy Beauties Ocean drenched,
Yet there he burnes
in fire thats neuer quenched.
Wonder of Heauen, glasse of
diuinitie,
Rare beautie, Natures joy,
perfections Mother,
The worke of that vnited Trinitie,
Wherein each fayrest part
excelleth other!
Loues Mithridate, the purest
of perfection,
Celestiall Image, Load-stone
of desire,
The soules delight, the sences
true direction,
Sunne of the world, thou hart
reuyuing fire!
Why should’st thou place
thy Trophies in those eyes,
Which scorne the honor that
is done to thee,
Or make my pen her name immortalize,
Who in her pride sdaynes once
to look on me?
It is thy heauen
within her face to dwell,
And in thy heauen,
there onely, is my hell.
Amour 24
Our floods-Queene, Thames, for shyps and Swans is crowned, And stately Seuerne for her shores is praised, The christall Trent for Foords and fishe renowned, And Auons fame to Albyons Cliues is raysed. Carlegion Chester vaunts her holy Dee, Yorke many wonders of her Ouse can tell, The Peake her Doue, whose bancks so fertill bee, And Kent will say her Medway doth excell. Cotswoold commends her Isis and her Tame, Our Northern borders boast of Tweeds faire flood; Our Westerne parts extoll theyr Wilys fame, And old Legea brags of Danish blood:
Ardens sweet Ankor, let thy glory be
That fayre Idea shee doth liue by thee.
The glorious sunne went blushing
to his bed,
When my soules sunne, from
her fayre Cabynet,
Her golden beames had now
discouered,
Lightning the world, eclipsed
by his set.
Some muz’d to see the
earth enuy the ayre,
Which from her lyps exhald
refined sweet,
A world to see, yet how he
ioyd to heare
The dainty grasse make musicke
with her feete.
But my most meruaile was when
from the skyes,
So Comet-like, each starre
aduanc’d her lyght,
As though the heauen had now
awak’d her eyes,
And summond Angels to this
blessed sight.
No clowde was
seene, but christalline the ayre,
Laughing for ioy
upon my louely fayre.
Amour 26
Cupid, dumbe-Idoll, peeuish
Saint of loue,
No more shalt thou nor Saint
nor Idoll be;
No God art thou, a Goddesse
shee doth proue,
Of all thine honour shee hath
robbed thee.
Thy Bowe, halfe broke, is
peec’d with old desire;
Her Bowe is beauty with ten
thousand strings
Of purest gold, tempred with
vertues fire,
The least able to kyll an
hoste of Kings.
Thy shafts be spent, and shee
(to warre appointed)
Hydes in those christall quiuers
of her eyes
More Arrowes, with hart-piercing
mettel poynted,
Then there be starres at midnight
in the skyes.
With these she
steales mens harts for her reliefe,
Yet happy he thats
robd of such a thiefe!
My Loue makes hote the fire
whose heat is spent,
The water moisture from my
teares deriueth,
And my strong sighes the ayres
weake force reuiueth:
Thus loue, tears, sighes,
maintaine each one his element.
The fire, vnto my loue, compare
a painted fire,
The water, to my teares as
drops to Oceans be,
The ayre, vnto my sighes as
Eagle to the flie,
The passions of dispaire but
ioyes to my desire.
Onely my loue is in the fire
ingraued,
Onely my teares by Oceans
may be gessed,
Onely my sighes are by the
ayre expressed;
Yet fire, water, ayre, of
nature not depriued.
Whilst fire, water,
ayre, twixt heauen and earth shal be,
My loue, my teares,
my sighes, extinguisht cannot be.
Amour 28
Some wits there be which lyke
my method well,
And say my verse runnes in
a lofty vayne;
Some say, I haue a passing
pleasing straine,
Some say that in my humour
I excell.
Some who reach not the height
of my conceite,
They say, (as Poets doe) I
vse to fayne,
And in bare words paynt out
my passions payne:
Thus sundry men their sundry
minds repeate.
I passe not I how men affected
be,
Nor who commend, or discommend
my verse;
It pleaseth me if I my plaints
rehearse,
And in my lynes if shee my
loue may see.
I proue my verse
autentique still in thys,
Who writes my
Mistres praise can neuer write amisse.
O eyes! behold your happy
Hesperus,
That luckie Load-starre of
eternall light,
Left as that sunne alone to
comfort vs,
When our worlds sunne is vanisht
out of sight.
O starre of starres! fayre
Planet mildly moouing,
O Lampe of vertue! sun-bright,
euer shyning,
O mine eyes Comet! so admyr’d
by louing,
O cleerest day-starre! neuer
more declyning.
O our worlds wonder! crowne
of heauen aboue,
Thrice happy be those eyes
which may behold thee!
Lou’d more then life,
yet onely art his loue
Whose glorious hand immortal
hath enrold thee!
O blessed fayre!
now vaile those heauenly eyes,
That I may blesse
mee at thy sweet arise.
Amour 30
Three sorts of serpents doe
resemble thee;
That daungerous eye-killing
Cockatrice,
Th’ inchaunting Syren,
which doth so entice,
The weeping Crocodile; these
vile pernicious three.
The Basiliske his nature takes
from thee,
Who for my life in secret
wait do’st lye,
And to my heart send’st
poyson from thine eye:
Thus do I feele the paine,
the cause yet cannot see.
Faire-mayd no more, but Mayr-maid
be thy name,
Who with thy sweet aluring
harmony
Hast playd the thiefe, and
stolne my hart from me,
And, like a Tyrant, mak’st
my griefe thy game.
The Crocodile,
who, when thou hast me slaine,
Lament’st
my death with teares of thy disdaine.
Sitting alone, loue bids me
goe and write;
Reason plucks backe, commaunding
me to stay,
Boasting that shee doth still
direct the way,
Els senceles loue could neuer
once indite.
Loue, growing angry, vexed
at the spleene,
And scorning Reasons maymed
Argument,
Straight taxeth Reason, wanting
to invent
Where shee with Loue conuersing
hath not beene.
Reason, reproched with this
coy disdaine,
Dispighteth Loue, and laugheth
at her folly,
And Loue, contemning Reasons
reason wholy,
Thought her in weight too
light by many a graine.
Reason, put back,
doth out of sight remoue,
And Loue alone
finds reason in my loue.
Amour 32
Those teares, which quench
my hope, still kindle my desire,
Those sighes, which coole
my hart, are coles vnto my loue,
Disdayne, Ice to my life,
is to my soule a fire:
With teares, sighes, and disdaine,
this contrary I proue.
Quenchles desire makes hope
burne, dryes my teares,
Loue heats my hart, my hart-heat
my sighes warmeth;
With my soules fire my life
disdaine out-weares,
Desire, my loue, my soule,
my hope, hart, and life charmeth.
My hope becomes a friend to
my desire,
Whilst thus mine eyes doe
surfet with delight,
My wofull hart, imprisond
in my breast,
Wishing to be trans-formd
into my sight,
To looke on her by whom mine
eyes are blest;
But whilst mine eyes thus
greedily doe gaze,
Behold! their obiects ouer-soone
depart,
And treading in this neuer-ending
maze,
Wish now to be trans-formd
into my hart:
My hart, surcharg’d
with thoughts, sighes in abundance raise,
My eyes, made dim with lookes,
poure down a flood of tears;
And whilst my hart and eye
enuy each others praise,
My dying lookes and thoughts
are peiz’d in equall feares:
And thus, whilst
sighes and teares together doe contende,
Each one of these
doth ayde vnto the other lende.
Amour 34
My fayre, looke from those
turrets of thine eyes,
Into the Ocean of a troubled
minde,
Where my poor soule, the Barke
of sorrow, lyes,
Left to the mercy of the waues
and winde.
See where she flotes, laden
with purest loue,
Which those fayre Ilands of
thy lookes affoord,
Desiring yet a thousand deaths
to proue,
Then so to cast her Ballase
ouerboard.
See how her sayles be rent,
her tacklings worne,
Her Cable broke, her surest
Anchor lost:
Her Marryners doe leaue her
all forlorne,
Yet how shee bends towards
that blessed Coast!
Loe! where she
drownes in stormes of thy displeasure,
Whose worthy prize
should haue enricht thy treasure.
See, chaste Diana,
where my harmles hart,
Rouz’d from my breast,
his sure and safest layre,
Nor chaste by hound, nor forc’d
by Hunters arte,
Yet see how right he comes
vnto my fayre.
See how my Deere comes to
thy Beauties stand,
And there stands gazing on
those darting eyes,
Whilst from theyr rayes, by
Cupids skilfull hand,
Into his hart the piercing
Arrow flyes.
See how he lookes vpon his
bleeding wound,
Whilst thus he panteth for
his latest breath,
And, looking on thee, falls
vpon the ground,
Smyling, as though he gloried
in his death.
And wallowing
in his blood, some lyfe yet laft;
His stone-cold
lips doth kisse the blessed shaft.
Amour 36
Sweete, sleepe so arm’d
with Beauties arrowes darting,
Sleepe in thy Beauty, Beauty
in sleepe appeareth;
Sleepe lightning Beauty, Beauty
sleepes, darknes cleereth,
Sleepes wonder Beauty, wonders
to worlds imparting.
Sleep watching Beauty, Beauty
waking, sleepe guarding
Beauty in sleepe, sleepe in
Beauty charmed,
Sleepes aged coldnes with
Beauties fire warmed,
Sleepe with delight, Beauty
with loue rewarding.
Sleepe and Beauty, with equall
forces stryuing,
Beauty her strength vnto sleepes
weaknes lending,
Sleepe with Beauty, Beauty
with sleepe contending,
Yet others force the others
force reuiuing,
And others foe
the others foe imbrace.
Myne eyes beheld
thys conflict in thy face.
I euer loue where neuer hope
appeares,
Yet hope drawes on my neuer-hoping
care,
And my liues hope would die
but for dyspaire;
My neuer certaine ioy breeds
euer-certaine feares.
Vncertaine dread gyues wings
vnto my hope,
Yet my hopes wings are loden
so with feare,
As they cannot ascend to my
hopes spheare,
Yet feare gyues them more
then a heauenly scope.
Yet this large roome is bounded
with dyspaire,
So my loue is still fettered
with vaine hope,
And lyberty depriues him of
hys scope,
And thus am I imprisond in
the ayre:
Then, sweet Dispaire,
awhile hold vp thy head,
Or all my hope
for sorrow will be dead.
Amour 38
If chaste and pure deuotion
of my youth,
Or glorie of my Aprill-springing
yeeres,
Vnfained loue in naked simple
truth,
A thousand vowes, a thousand
sighes and teares;
Or if a world of faithful
seruice done,
Words, thoughts, and deeds
deuoted to her honor,
Or eyes that haue beheld her
as theyr sunne,
With admiration euer looking
on her:
A lyfe that neuer ioyd but
in her loue,
A soule that euer hath ador’d
her name,
A fayth that time nor fortune
could not moue,
A Muse that vnto heauen hath
raised her fame.
Though these,
nor these deserue to be imbraced,
Yet, faire vnkinde,
too good to be disgraced.
Die, die, my soule, and neuer
taste of ioy,
If sighes, nor teares, nor
vowes, nor prayers can moue;
If fayth and zeale be but
esteemd a toy,
And kindnes be vnkindnes in
my loue.
Then, with vnkindnes, Loue,
reuenge thy wrong:
O sweet’st reuenge that
ere the heauens gaue!
And with the swan record thy
dying song,
And praise her still to thy
vntimely graue.
So in loues death shall loues
perfection proue
That loue diuine which I haue
borne to you,
By doome concealed to the
heauens aboue,
That yet the world vnworthy
neuer knew;
Whose pure Idea
neuer tongue exprest:
I feele, you know,
the heauens can tell the rest.
Amour 40
O thou vnkindest fayre! most
fayrest shee,
In thine eyes tryumph murthering
my poore hart,
Now doe I sweare by heauens,
before we part,
My halfe-slaine hart shall
take reuenge on thee.
Thy mother dyd her lyfe to
death resigne,
And thou an Angell art, and
from aboue;
Thy father was a man, that
will I proue,
Yet thou a Goddesse art, and
so diuine.
And thus, if thou be not of
humaine kinde,
A Bastard on both sides needes
must thou be;
Our Lawes allow no land to
basterdy:
By natures Lawes we thee a
bastard finde.
Then hence to
heauen, vnkind, for thy childs part:
Goe bastard goe,
for sure of thence thou art.
Rare of-spring of my thoughts,
my dearest Loue,
Begot by fancy on sweet hope
exhortiue,
In whom all purenes with perfection
stroue,
Hurt in the Embryon makes
my ioyes abhortiue.
And you, my sighes, Symtomas
of my woe,
The dolefull Anthems of my
endelesse care,
Lyke idle Ecchoes euer answering;
so,
The mournfull accents of my
loues dispayre.
And thou, Conceite, the shadow
of my blisse,
Declyning with the setting
of my sunne,
Springing with that, and fading
straight with this,
Now hast thou end, and now
thou wast begun:
Now was thy pryme,
and loe! is now thy waine;
Now wast thou
borne, now in thy cradle slayne.
Amour 42
Plac’d in the forlorne
hope of all dispayre
Against the Forte where Beauties
Army lies,
Assayld with death, yet armed
with gastly feare,
Loe! thus my loue, my lyfe,
my fortune tryes.
Wounded with Arrowes from
thy lightning eyes,
My tongue in payne my harts
counsels bewraying,
My rebell thought for me in
Ambushe lyes,
To my lyues foe her Chieftaine
still betraying.
Record my loue in Ocean waues
(vnkind)
Cast my desarts into the open
ayre,
Commit my words vnto the fleeting
wind,
Cancell my name, and blot
it with dispayre;
So shall I bee
as I had neuer beene,
Nor my disgraces
to the world be seene.
Why doe I speake of ioy, or
write of loue,
When my hart is the very Den
of horror,
And in my soule the paynes
of hell I proue,
With all his torments and
infernall terror?
Myne eyes want teares thus
to bewayle my woe,
My brayne is dry with weeping
all too long;
My sighes be spent with griefe
and sighing so,
And I want words for to expresse
my wrong.
But still, distracted in loues
lunacy,
And Bedlam like thus rauing
in my griefe,
Now rayle vpon her hayre,
now on her eye,
Now call her Goddesse, then
I call her thiefe;
Now I deny her,
then I doe confesse her,
Now I doe curse
her, then againe I blesse her.
Amour 44
My hart the Anuile where my
thoughts doe beate,
My words the hammers fashioning
my desire,
My breast the forge, including
all the heate,
Loue is the fuell which maintaines
the fire:
My sighes the bellowes which
the flame increaseth,
Filling mine eares with noise
and nightly groning,
Toyling with paine my labour
neuer ceaseth,
In greeuous passions my woes
styll bemoning.
Myne eyes with teares against
the fire stryuing,
With scorching gleed my hart
to cynders turneth;
But with those drops the coles
againe reuyuing,
Still more and more vnto my
torment burneth.
With Sisiphus
thus doe I role the stone,
And turne the
wheele with damned Ixion.
Blacke pytchy Night, companyon
of my woe,
The Inne of care, the Nurse
of drery sorrow,
Why lengthnest thou thy darkest
howres so,
Still to prolong my long tyme
lookt-for morrow?
Thou Sable shadow, Image of
dispayre,
Portraite of hell, the ayres
black mourning weed,
Recorder of reuenge, remembrancer
of care,
The shadow and the vaile of
euery sinfull deed.
Death like to thee, so lyue
thou still in death,
The graue of ioy, prison of
dayes delight.
Let heauens withdraw their
sweet Ambrozian breath,
Nor Moone nor stars lend thee
their shining light;
For thou alone
renew’st that olde desire,
Which still torments
me in dayes burning fire.
Amour 46
Sweete secrecie, what tongue
can tell thy worth?
What mortall pen sufficiently
can prayse thee?
What curious Pensill serues
to lim thee forth?
What Muse hath power aboue
thy height to raise thee?
Strong locke of kindnesse,
Closet of loues store,
Harts Methridate, the soules
preseruatiue;
O vertue! which all vertues
doe adore,
Cheefe good, from whom all
good things wee deriue.
O rare effect! true bond of
friendships measure,
Conceite of Angels, which
all wisdom teachest;
O, richest Casket of all heauenly
treasure,
In secret silence which such
wonders preachest.
O purest mirror!
wherein men may see
The liuely Image
of Diuinitie.
The golden Sunne vpon his
fiery wheeles
The horned Ram doth in his
course awake,
And of iust length our night
and day doth make,
Flinging the Fishes backward
with his heeles:
Then to the Tropicke takes
his full Careere,
Trotting his sun-steeds till
the Palfrays sweat,
Bayting the Lyon in his furious
heat,
Till Virgins smyles doe sound
his sweet reteere.
But my faire Planet, who directs
me still,
Vnkindly such distemperature
Amour 48
Who list to praise the dayes
delicious lyght,
Let him compare it to her
heauenly eye,
The sun-beames to the lustre
of her sight;
So may the learned like the
similie.
The mornings Crimson to her
lyps alike,
The sweet of Eden to
her breathes perfume,
The fayre Elizia to
her fayrer cheeke,
Vnto her veynes the onely
Phoenix plume.
The Angels tresses to her
tressed hayre,
The Galixia to her
more then white.
Praysing the fayrest, compare
it to my faire,
Still naming her in naming
all delight.
So may he grace
all these in her alone,
Superlatiue in
all comparison.
Define my loue, and tell the
ioyes of heauen,
Expresse my woes, and shew
the paynes of hell;
Declare what fate vnlucky
starres haue giuen,
And aske a world vpon my life
to dwell.
Make knowne that fayth vnkindnes
could not moue;
Compare my worth with others
base desert:
Let vertue be the tuch-stone
of my loue,
So may the heauens reade wonders
in my hart.
Behold the Clowdes which haue
eclips’d my sunne,
And view the crosses which
my course doth let;
Tell mee, if euer since the
world begunne,
So faire a Morning had so
foule a set?
And, by all meanes,
let black vnkindnes proue
The patience of
so rare, diuine a loue.
Amour 50
When I first ended, then I
first began;
The more I trauell, further
from my rest;
Where most I lost, there most
of all I wan;
Pyned with hunger, rysing
from a feast.
Mee thinks I flee, yet want
I legs to goe,
Wise in conceite, in acte
a very sot;
Rauisht with ioy amidst a
hell of woe,
What most I seeme, that surest
I am not.
I build my hopes a world aboue
the skye,
Yet with a Mole I creepe into
the earth:
In plenty am I staru’d
with penury,
And yet I serfet in the greatest
dearth.
I haue, I want,
dispayre, and yet desire,
Burn’d in
a Sea of Ice, and drown’d amidst a fire.
Goe you, my lynes, Embassadours of loue, With my harts tribute to her conquering eyes, From whence, if you one tear of pitty moue For all my woes, that onely shall suffise. When you Minerua in the sunne behold, At her perfections stand you then and gaze, Where in the compasse of a Marygold, Meridianis sits within a maze. And let Inuention of her beauty vaunt When Dorus sings his sweet Pamelas loue, And tell the Gods, Mars is predominant, Seated with Sol, and weares Mineruas gloue:
And tell the world, that in the world there is
A heauen on earth, on earth no heauen but this.
FINIS.
[from the Edition of 1599]
The worlds faire Rose, and Henries frosty fire, Iohns tyrannie; and chast Matilda’s wrong, Th’inraged Queene, and furious Mortimer, The scourge of Fraunce, and his chast loue I song; Deposed Richard, Isabell exil’d, The gallant Tudor, and fayre Katherine, Duke Humfrey, and old Cobhams haplesse child, Couragious Pole, and that braue spiritfull Queene; Edward, and that delicious London Dame, Brandon, and that rich dowager of Fraunce, Surrey, with his fayre paragon of fame, Dudleys mishap, and vertuous Grays mischance;
Their seuerall loues since I before haue showne,
Now giue me leaue at last to sing mine owne.
Sonet 2
To the Reader of his Poems
Into these loues who but for
passion lookes,
At this first sight, here
let him lay them by,
And seeke elsewhere in turning
other bookes,
Which better may his labour
satisfie.
No far-fetch’d sigh
shall euer wound my brest,
Loue from mine eye, a teare
shall neuer wring,
Nor in ah-mees my whyning
Sonets drest,
(A Libertine) fantasticklie
I sing;
My verse is the true image
of my mind,
Euer in motion, still desiring
change,
To choyce of all varietie
inclin’d,
And in all humors sportiuely
I range;
My actiue Muse
is of the worlds right straine,
That cannot long
one fashion entertaine.
Many there be excelling in
this kind,
Whose well trick’d rimes
with all inuention swell,
Let each commend as best shall
like his minde,
Some Sidney, Constable,
some Daniell.
That thus theyr names familiarly
I sing,
Let none think them disparaged
to be,
Poore men with reuerence may
speake of a King,
And so may these be spoken
of by mee;
My wanton verse nere keepes
one certaine stay,
But now, at hand; then, seekes
inuention far,
And with each little motion
runnes astray,
Wilde, madding, iocond, and
irreguler;
Like me that lust,
my honest merry rimes,
Nor care for Criticke,
nor regard the times.
Sonet 5
My hart was slaine, and none
but you and I,
Who should I thinke the murder
should commit?
Since but your selfe, there
was no creature by
But onely I, guiltlesse of
murth’ring it.
It slew it selfe; the verdict
on the view
Doe quit the dead and me not
accessarie;
Well, well, I feare it will
be prou’d by you,
The euidence so great a proofe
doth carry.
But O, see, see, we need enquire
no further,
Vpon your lips the scarlet
drops are found,
And in your eye, the boy that
did the murther,
Your cheekes yet pale since
first they gaue the wound.
By this, I see,
how euer things be past,
Yet heauen will
still haue murther out at last.
Nothing but no and I, and
I and no,
How falls it out so strangely
you reply?
I tell yee (Faire) Ile not
be aunswered so,
With this affirming no, denying
I,
I say I loue, you slightly
aunswer I?
I say you loue, you pule me
out a no;
I say I die, you eccho me
with I,
Saue me I cry, you sigh me
out a no:
Must woe and I, haue naught
but no and I?
No, I am I, If I no more can
haue,
Aunswer no more, with silence
make reply,
And let me take my selfe what
I doe craue;
Let no and I,
with I and you be so,
Then aunswer no,
and I, and I, and no.
Sonet 9
Loue once would daunce within
my Mistres eye,
And wanting musique fitting
for the place,
Swore that I should the Instrument
supply,
And sodainly presents me with
her face:
Straightwayes my pulse playes
liuely in my vaines,
My panting breath doth keepe
a meaner time,
My quau’ring artiers
be the Tenours Straynes,
My trembling sinewes serue
the Counterchime,
My hollow sighs the deepest
base doe beare,
True diapazon in distincted
sound:
My panting hart the treble
makes the ayre,
And descants finely on the
musiques ground;
Thus like a Lute
or Violl did I lye,
Whilst the proud
slaue daunc’d galliards in her eye.
Loue in an humor played the
prodigall,
And bids my sences to a solemne
feast,
Yet more to grace the company
withall,
Inuites my heart to be the
chiefest guest;
No other drinke would serue
this gluttons turne,
But precious teares distilling
from mine eyne,
Which with my sighs this Epicure
doth burne,
Quaffing carouses in this
costly wine,
Where, in his cups or’come
with foule excesse,
Begins to play a swaggering
Ruffins part,
And at the banquet, in his
drunkennes,
Slew my deare friend, his
kind and truest hart;
A gentle warning,
friends, thus may you see
What ’tis
to keepe a drunkard company.
Sonet 11
To the Moone
Phaebe looke downe, and here
behold in mee,
The elements within thy sphere
inclosed,
How kindly Nature plac’d
them vnder thee,
And in my world, see how they
are disposed;
My hope is earth, the lowest,
cold and dry,
The grosser mother of deepe
melancholie,
Water my teares, coold with
humidity,
Wan, flegmatick, inclind by
nature wholie;
My sighs, the ayre, hote,
moyst, ascending hier,
Subtile of sanguine, dy’de
in my harts dolor,
My thoughts, they be the element
of fire,
Hote, dry, and piercing, still
inclind to choller,
Thine eye the
Orbe vnto all these, from whence,
Proceeds th’
effects of powerfull influence.
To nothing fitter can I thee
compare,
Then to the sonne of some
rich penyfather,
Who hauing now brought on
his end with care,
Leaues to his son all he had
heap’d together;
This newe rich nouice, lauish
of his chest,
To one man giues, and on another
spends,
Then here he ryots, yet amongst
the rest,
Haps to lend some to one true
honest friend.
Thy gifts thou in obscuritie
doost wast,
False friends thy kindnes,
borne but to deceiue thee,
Thy loue, that is on the unworthy
plac’d,
Time hath thy beauty, which
with age will leaue thee;
Onely that little
which to me was lent,
I giue thee back,
when all the rest is spent.
Sonet 13
You not alone, when you are
still alone,
O God from you that I could
priuate be,
Since you one were, I neuer
since was one,
Since you in me, my selfe
since out of me
Transported from my selfe
into your beeing
Though either distant, present
yet to eyther,
Senceles with too much ioy,
each other seeing,
And onely absent when we are
together.
Giue me my selfe, and take
your selfe againe,
Deuise some means but how
I may forsake you,
So much is mine that doth
with you remaine,
That taking what is mine,
with me I take you,
You doe bewitch
me, O that I could flie
From my selfe
you, or from your owne selfe I.
To the Soule
That learned Father which so firmly proues The soule of man immortall and diuine, And doth the seuerall offices define, Anima. Giues her that name as shee the body moues, Amor. Then is she loue imbracing Charitie, Animus. Mouing a will in vs, it is the mind, Mens. Retayning knowledge, still the same in kind; Memoria. As intelectuall it is the memorie, Ratio. In judging, Reason onely is her name, Sensus. In speedy apprehension it is sence, Conscientia. In right or wrong, they call her conscience. Spiritus. The spirit, when it to Godward doth inflame.
These of the soule the seuerall functions bee,
Which my hart lightned by thy loue doth see.
You cannot loue my pretty
hart, and why?
There was a time, you told
me that you would,
But now againe you will the
same deny,
If it might please you, would
to God you could;
What will you hate? nay, that
you will not neither,
Nor loue, nor hate, how then?
what will you do,
What will you keepe a meane
then betwixt eyther?
Or will you loue me, and yet
hate me to?
Yet serues not this, what
next, what other shift?
You will, and will not, what
Sonet 22
An euill spirit your beauty
haunts me still,
Where-with (alas) I haue been
long possest,
Which ceaseth not to tempt
me vnto ill,
Nor giues me once but one
pore minutes rest.
In me it speakes, whether
I sleepe or wake,
And when by meanes to driue
it out I try,
With greater torments then
it me doth take,
And tortures me in most extreamity.
Before my face, it layes all
my dispaires,
And hasts me on vnto a suddaine
death;
Now tempting me, to drown
my selfe in teares,
And then in sighing to giue
vp my breath:
Thus am I still
prouok’d to euery euill,
By this good wicked
spirit, sweet Angel deuill.
To the Spheares
Thou which do’st guide this little world of loue, Thy planets mansions heere thou mayst behold, My brow the spheare where Saturne still doth moue, Wrinkled with cares: and withered, dry, and cold; Mine eyes the Orbe where Iupiter doth trace, Which gently smile because they looke on thee, Mars in my swarty visage takes his place, Made leane with loue, where furious conflicts bee. Sol in my breast with his hote scorching flame, And in my hart alone doth Venus raigne: Mercury my hands the Organs of thy fame, And Luna glides in my fantastick braine;
The starry heauen thy prayse by me exprest,
Thou the first moouer, guiding all the rest.
Love banish’d heauen,
in earth was held in scorne,
Wandring abroad in neede and
beggery,
And wanting friends though
of a Goddesse borne,
Yet crau’d the almes
of such as passed by.
I like a man, deuout and charitable;
Clothed the naked, lodg’d
this wandring guest,
With sighs and teares still
furnishing his table,
With what might make the miserable
blest;
But this vngratefull for my
good desart,
Entic’d my thoughts
against me to conspire,
Who gaue consent to steale
away my hart,
And set my breast his lodging
on a fire:
Well, well, my
friends, when beggers grow thus bold,
No meruaile then
though charity grow cold.
Sonet 25
O why should nature nigardly
restraine,
The Sotherne Nations relish
not our tongue,
Else should my lines glide
on the waues of Rhene,
And crowne the Pirens with
my liuing song;
But bounded thus to Scotland
get you forth:
Thence take you wing vnto
the Orcades,
There let my verse get glory
I gaue my faith to Loue, Loue
his to mee,
That hee and I, sworne brothers
should remaine,
Thus fayth receiu’d,
fayth giuen back againe,
Who would imagine bond more
sure could be?
Loue flies to her, yet holds
he my fayth taken,
Thus from my vertue raiseth
my offence,
Making me guilty by mine innocence;
And surer bond by beeing so
forsaken,
He makes her aske what I before
had vow’d,
Giuing her that, which he
had giuen me,
I bound by him, and he by
her made free,
Who euer so hard breach of
fayth alow’d?
Speake you that
should of right and wrong discusse,
Was right ere
wrong’d, or wrong ere righted thus?
Sonet 29
To the Sences
When conquering loue did first
my hart assaile,
Vnto mine ayde I summond euery
sence,
Doubting if that proude tyrant
should preuaile,
My hart should suffer for
mine eyes offence;
But he with beauty, first
corrupted sight,
My hearing bryb’d with
her tongues harmony,
My taste, by her sweet lips
drawne with delight,
My smelling wonne with her
breaths spicerie;
But when my touching came
to play his part,
(The King of sences, greater
than the rest)
That yeelds loue up the keyes
vnto my hart,
And tells the other how they
should be blest;
And thus by those
of whom I hop’d for ayde,
To cruell Loue
my soule was first betrayd.
To the Vestalls
Those Priests, which first
the Vestall fire begun,
Which might be borrowed from
no earthly flame,
Deuisd a vessell to receiue
the sunne,
Beeing stedfastly opposed
to the same;
Where with sweet wood laid
curiously by Art,
Whereon the sunne might by
reflection beate,
Receiuing strength from euery
secret part,
The fuell kindled with celestiall
heate.
Thy blessed eyes, the sunne
which lights this fire,
My holy thoughts, they be
the Vestall flame,
The precious odors be my chast
desire,
My breast the fuell which
includes the same;
Thou art my Vesta,
thou my Goddesse art,
Thy hollowed Temple,
onely is my hart.
Me thinks I see some crooked
Mimick ieere
And taxe my Muse with this
fantastick grace,
Turning my papers, asks what
haue we heere?
Making withall, some filthy
anticke face;
I feare no censure, nor what
thou canst say,
Nor shall my spirit one iote
of vigor lose,
Think’st thou my wit
shall keepe the pack-horse way,
That euery dudgen low inuention
goes?
Since Sonnets thus in bundles
are imprest,
And euery drudge doth dull
our satiate eare,
Think’st thou my loue,
shall in those rags be drest
That euery dowdie, euery trull
doth weare?
Vnto my pitch
no common iudgement flies,
I scorne all earthlie
dung-bred scarabies.
Sonet 34
To Admiration
Maruaile not Loue, though
I thy power admire,
Rauish’d a world beyond
the farthest thought,
That knowing more then euer
hath beene taught,
That I am onely staru’d
in my desire;
Maruaile not Loue, though
I thy power admire,
Ayming at things exceeding
all perfection,
To wisedoms selfe, to minister
direction,
That I am onely staru’d
in my desire;
Maruaile not Loue, though
I thy power admire,
Though my conceite I farther
seeme to bend,
Then possibly inuention can
extend,
And yet am onely staru’d
in my desire;
If thou wilt wonder,
heers the wonder loue,
That this to mee
doth yet no wonder proue.
Whilst thus my pen striues to eternize thee, Age rules my lines with wrincles in my face, Where in the Map of all my misery, Is modeld out the world of my disgrace, Whilst in despight of tyrannizing times, Medea like I make thee young againe, Proudly thou scorn’st my world-outwearing rimes, And murther’st vertue with thy coy disdaine; And though in youth, my youth vntimely perrish, To keepe thee from obliuion and the graue, Ensuing ages yet my rimes shall cherrish, Where I entomb’d, my better part shall saue;
And though this earthly body fade and die
My name shall mount vpon eternitie.
Sonet 44
Muses which sadly sit about
my chayre,
Drownd in the teares extorted
by my lines,
With heauy sighs whilst thus
I breake the ayre,
Paynting my passions in these
sad dissignes,
Since she disdaines to blesse
my happy verse,
The strong built Trophies
to her liuing fame,
Euer hence-forth my bosome
be your hearse,
Wherein the world shal now
entombe her name,
Enclose my musick you poor
sencelesse walls,
Sith she is deafe and will
not heare my mones,
Soften your selues with euery
teare that falls,
Whilst I like Orpheus
sing to trees and stones:
Which with my
plaints seeme yet with pitty moued,
Kinder then she
who I so long haue loued.
Thou leaden braine, which
censur’st what I write,
And say’st my lines
be dull and doe not moue,
I meruaile not thou feelst
not my delight,
Which neuer felt my fiery
tuch of loue.
But thou whose pen hath like
a Pack-horse seru’d,
Whose stomack vnto gaule hath
turn’d thy foode,
Whose sences like poore prisoners
hunger-staru’d,
Whose griefe hath parch’d
thy body, dry’d thy blood.
Thou which hast scorned life,
and hated death,
And in a moment mad, sober,
glad, and sorry,
Thou which hast band thy thoughts
and curst thy breath,
With thousand plagues more
then in purgatory.
Thou thus whose
spirit Loue in his fire refines,
Come thou and
reade, admire, applaud my lines.
Sonet 55
Truce gentle loue, a parly
now I craue,
Me thinks, ’tis long
since first these wars begun,
Nor thou nor I, the better
yet can haue:
Bad is the match where neither
party wone.
I offer free conditions of
faire peace,
My hart for hostage, that
it shall remaine,
Discharge our forces heere,
let malice cease,
So for my pledge, thou giue
me pledge againe.
Or if nothing but death will
serue thy turne,
Still thirsting for subuersion
of my state;
Doe what thou canst, raze,
massacre, and burne,
Let the world see the vtmost
of thy hate:
I send defiance,
since if ouerthrowne,
Thou vanquishing,
the conquest is mine owne.
A Consonet
Eyes with your teares, blind
if you bee,
Why haue these teares such
eyes to see,
Poore eyes, if yours teares
cannot moue,
My teares, eyes, then must
mone my loue,
Then eyes, since
you haue lost your sight,
Weepe still, and
teares shall lend you light,
Till both desolu’d,
and both want might.
No, no, cleere eyes, you are
not blind,
But in my teares discerne
my mind:
Teares be the language which
you speake,
Which my hart wanting, yet
must breake;
My tongue must
cease to tell my wrongs,
And make my sighs
to get them tongs,
Yet more then
this to her belongs.
To Lucie Countesse of Bedford
Great Lady, essence of my
chiefest good,
Of the most pure and finest
tempred spirit,
Adorn’d with gifts,
enobled by thy blood,
Which by discent true vertue
do’st inherit:
That vertue which no fortune
can depriue,
Which thou by birth tak’st
from thy gracious mother,
Whose royall minds with equall
motion striue,
Which most in honour shall
excell the other;
Vnto thy fame my Muse herself
To the Lady Anne Harington
Madam, my words cannot expresse
my mind,
My zealous kindnes to make
knowne to you,
When your desarts all seuerally
I find;
In this attempt of me doe
claim their due,
Your gracious kindnes that
doth claime my hart;
Your bounty bids my hand to
make it knowne,
Of me your vertues each doe
claime a part,
And leaue me thus the least
part of mine owne.
What should commend your modesty
and wit,
Is by your wit and modesty
commended
And standeth dumbe, in much
admiring it,
And where it should begin,
it there is ended;
Returning this
your prayses onely due,
And to your selfe
say you are onely you.
[from the Edition of 1602]
To Lunacie
As other men, so I my selfe
doe muse,
Why in this sort I wrest Inuention
so,
And why these giddy metaphors
I vse,
Leauing the path the greater
part doe goe;
I will resolue you; I am lunaticke,
And euer this in mad men you
shall finde,
What they last thought on
when the braine grew sick,
In most distraction keepe
that still in minde.
Thus talking idely in this
bedlam fit,
Reason and I, (you must conceiue)
are twaine,
’Tis nine yeeres, now,
since first I lost my wit
Beare with me, then, though
troubled be my braine;
With diet and
correction, men distraught,
(Not too farre
past) may to their wits be brought.
If hee from heauen that filch’d
that liuing fire,
Condemn’d by Ioue
to endlesse torment be,
I greatly meruaile how you
still goe free,
That farre beyond Promethius
did aspire?
The fire he stole, although
of heauenly kinde,
Which from aboue he craftily
did take,
Of liueles clods vs liuing
men to make,
Againe bestow’d in temper
of the mind.
But you broke in to heauens
immortall store,
Where vertue, honour, wit,
and beautie lay,
Which taking thence, you haue
escap’d away,
Yet stand as free as ere you
did before.
But old Promethius
punish’d for his rape,
Thus poore theeues
suffer, when the greater scape.
Sonnet 25
To Folly
With fooles and children good
discretion beares,
Then honest people beare with
Loue and me,
Nor older yet, nor wiser made
by yeeres,
Amongst the rest of fooles
and children be;
Loues still a Baby, playes
with gaudes and toyes,
And like a wanton sports with
euery feather,
And Idiots still are running
after boyes,
Then fooles and children fitt’st
to goe together;
He still as young as when
he first was borne,
No wiser I, then when as young
as he,
You that behold vs, laugh
vs not to scorne,
Giue Nature thanks, you are
not such as we;
Yet fooles and
children sometimes tell in play,
Some wise in showe,
more fooles in deede, then they.
I heare some say, this man
is not in loue,
Who, can he loue? a likely
thing they say:
Reade but his verse, and it
will easily proue;
O iudge not rashly (gentle
Sir) I pray,
Because I loosely tryfle in
this sort,
As one that faine his sorrowes
would beguile:
You now suppose me, all this
time in sport,
And please your selfe with
this conceit the while.
You shallow censures; sometime
see you not
In greatest perills some men
pleasant be,
Where fame by death is onely
to be got,
They resolute, so stands the
case with me;
Where other men,
in depth of passion cry,
I laugh at fortune,
as in iest to die.
Sonnet 31
To such as say thy loue I
ouer-prize,
And doe not sticke to terme
my praises folly,
Against these folkes that
think them selues so wise,
I thus appose my force of
reason wholly,
Though I giue more, then well
affords my state,
In which expense the most
suppose me vaine,
Would yeeld them nothing at
the easiest rate,
Yet at this price, returnes
me treble gaine,
They value not, vnskilfull
how to vse,
And I giue much, because I
gaine thereby,
I that thus take, or they
that thus refuse,
Whether are these deccaued
then, or I?
In euery thing
I hold this maxim still,
The circumstance
doth make it good or ill.
Deare, why should you commaund
me to my rest
When now the night doth summon
all to sleepe?
Me thinks this time becommeth
louers best,
Night was ordained together
friends to keepe.
How happy are all other liuing
things,
Which though the day disioyne
by seuerall flight,
The quiet euening yet together
brings,
And each returnes vnto his
loue at night.
O thou that art so curteous
vnto all,
Why shouldst thou Night abuse
me onely thus,
That euery creature to his
kinde doost call,
And yet tis thou doost onely
seuer vs.
Well could I wish
it would be euer day,
If when night
comes you bid me goe away.
Sonnet 58
To Prouerbe
As Loue and I, late harbour’d in one Inne, With Prouerbs thus each other intertaine; In loue there is no lacke, thus I beginne? Faire words makes fooles, replieth he againe? That spares to speake, doth spare to speed (quoth I) As well (saith he) too forward as too slow. Fortune assists the boldest, I replie? A hasty man (quoth he) nere wanted woe. Labour is light, where loue (quoth I) doth pay, (Saith he) light burthens heauy, if farre borne? (Quoth I) the maine lost, cast the by away: You haue spunne a faire thred, he replies in scorne.
And hauing thus a while each other thwarted,
Fooles as we met, so fooles againe we parted.
To the high and mighty Prince, James, King of Scots
Not thy graue Counsells, nor
thy Subiects loue,
Nor all that famous Scottish
royaltie,
Or what thy soueraigne greatnes
may approue,
Others in vaine doe but historifie,
When thine owne glorie from
thy selfe doth spring,
As though thou did’st,
all meaner prayses scorne:
Of Kings a Poet, and the Poets
King,
They Princes, but thou Prophets
do’st adorne;
Whilst others by their Empires
are renown’d,
Thou do’st enrich thy
Scotland with renowne,
And Kings can but with Diadems
be crown’d,
But with thy Laurell, thou
doo’st crowne thy Crowne;
That they whose
pens, euen life to Kings doe giue,
In thee a King,
shall seeke them selues to liue.
Sonnet 66
To the Lady L.S.
Bright starre of Beauty, on
whose eyelids sit,
A thousand Nimph-like and
enamoured Graces,
The Goddesses of memory and
wit,
Which in due order take their
seuerall places,
In whose deare bosome, sweet
delicious loue,
Layes downe his quiuer, that
he once did beare,
Since he that blessed Paradice
did proue,
Forsooke his mothers lap to
sport him there.
Let others striue to entertaine
with words,
My soule is of another temper
made;
I hold it vile that vulgar
wit affords,
Deuouring time my faith, shall
not inuade:
Still let my praise
be honoured thus by you,
Be you most worthy,
whilst I be most true.
[from the Edition of 1605]
Why should your faire eyes
with such soueraine grace,
Dispearse their raies on euery
vulgar spirit,
Whilst I in darknes in the
selfesame place,
Get not one glance to recompence
my merit:
So doth the plow-man gaze
the wandring starre,
And onely rests contented
with the light,
That neuer learnd what constellations
are,
Beyond the bent of his vnknowing
sight.
O why should beautie (custome
Sonnet 46
Plain-path’d Experience
the vnlearneds guide,
Her simple followers euidently
shewes,
Sometime what schoolemen scarcely
can decide,
Nor yet wise Reason absolutely
knowes:
In making triall of a murther
wrought,
If the vile actor of the heinous
deede,
Neere the dead bodie happily
be brought,
Oft hath been prou’d
the breathlesse coarse will bleed;
She comming neere that my
poore hart hath slaine,
Long since departed, (to the
world no more)
The auncient wounds no longer
can containe,
But fall to bleeding as they
did before:
But what of this?
should she to death be led,
It furthers iustice,
but helpes not the dead.
In pride of wit, when high
desire of fame
Gaue life and courage to my
labouring pen,
And first the sound and vertue
of my name,
Won grace and credit in the
eares of men:
With those the thronged Theaters
that presse,
I in the circuite for the
Lawrell stroue,
Where the full praise I freely
must confesse,
In heate of blood a modest
minde might moue:
With showts and daps at euerie
little pawse,
When the prowd round on euerie
side hath rung,
Sadly I sit vnmou’d
with the applawse,
As though to me it nothing
did belong:
No publique glorie
vainely I pursue,
The praise I striue,
is to eternize you.
Sonnet 50
As in some Countries far remote
from hence,
The wretched creature destined
to die,
Hauing the iudgement due to
his offence,
By Surgeons begg’d,
their Art on him to trie:
Which on the liuing worke
without remorce,
First make incision on each
maistring vaine,
Then stanch the bleeding,
then transperce the coarse,
And with their balmes recure
the wounds againe,
Then poison and with Phisicke
him restore,
Not that they feare the hopelesse
man to kill,
But their experience to encrease
the more;
Euen so my Mistresse works
vpon my ill,
By curing me,
and killing me each howre,
Onely to shew
her beauties soueraigne powre.
Calling to minde since first my loue begunne, Th’ incertaine times oft varying in their course, How things still vnexpectedly haue runne, As please the fates, by their resistlesse force: Lastly, mine eyes amazedly haue scene, Essex great fall, Tyrone his peace to gaine, The quiet end of that long-liuing Queene, This Kings faire entrance, and our peace with Spaine, We and the Dutch at length our selues to seuer. Thus the world doth, and euermore shall reele, Yet to my goddesse am I constant euer; How ere blind fortune turne her giddy wheele:
Though heauen and earth proue both to mee vntrue,
Yet am I still inuiolate to you.
Sonnet 57
You best discern’d of
my interior eies,
And yet your graces outwardly
diuine,
Whose deare remembrance in
my bosome lies,
Too riche a relique for so
poore a shrine:
You in whome Nature chose
herselfe to view,
When she her owne perfection
would admire,
Bestowing all her excellence
on you;
At whose pure eies Loue lights
his halowed fire,
Euen as a man that in some
traunce hath scene,
More than his wondring vttrance
can vnfolde,
That rapt in spirite in better
worlds hath beene,
So must your praise distractedly
be tolde;
Most of all short,
when I should shew you most,
In your perfections
altogether lost.
In former times, such as had
store of coyne,
In warres at home, or when
for conquests bound,
For feare that some their
treasures should purloyne,
Gaue it to keepe to spirites
within the ground;
And to attend it, them so
strongly tide,
Till they return’d,
home when they neuer came,
Such as by art to get the
same haue tride,
From the strong spirits by
no means get the same,
Neerer you come, that further
flies away,
Striuing to holde it strongly
in the deepe:
Euen as this spirit, so she
alone doth play,
With those rich Beauties heauen
giues her to keepe:
Pitty so left,
to coldenes of her blood,
Not to auaile
her, nor do others good.
To Sir Walter Aston, Knight of the honourable
order
of the Bath, and my most
worthy
Patron
I will not striue m’
inuention to inforce,
With needlesse words your
eyes to entertaine,
T’ obserue the formall
ordinarie course
That euerie one so vulgarly
doth faine:
Our interchanged and deliberate
choise,
Is with more firme and true
election sorted,
Then stands in censure of
the common voice.
That with light humor fondly
is transported:
Nor take I patterne of another’s
praise,
Then what my pen may constantly
avow.
Nor walke more publique nor
obscurer waies
Then vertue bids, and iudgement
will allow;
So shall my tone,
and best endeuours serue you,
And still shall
studie, still so to deserue you.
Michaell
Drayton.
[from the Edition of 1619]
1
Like an aduenturous Sea-farer am I,
Who hath some long and dang’rous Voyage beene,
And call’d to tell of his Discouerie,
How farre he sayl’d, what Countries he had seene,
Proceeding from the Port whence he put forth,
Shewes by his Compasse, how his Course he steer’d,
When East, when West, when South, and when by North,
As how the Pole to eu’ry place was rear’d,
What Capes he doubled, of what Continent,
The Gulphes and Straits, that strangely he had past,
Where most becalm’d, wherewith foule Weather spent,
And on what Rocks in perill to be cast?
Thus in my Loue, Time calls me to relate
My tedious Trauels, and oft-varying Fate.
6
How many paltry, foolish,
painted things,
That now in Coaches trouble
eu’ry Street,
Shall be forgotten, whom no
Poet sings,
Ere they be well wrap’d
in their winding Sheet?
Where I to thee Eternitie
shall giue,
When nothing else remayneth
of these dayes,
And Queenes hereafter shall
be glad to liue
Vpon the Almes of thy superfluous
prayse;
Virgins and Matrons reading
these my Rimes,
Shall be so much delighted
with thy story,
That they shall grieve, they
liu’d not in these Times,
To haue seene thee, their
Sexes onely glory:
So shalt thou
flye aboue the vulgar Throng,
Still to suruiue
in my immortall Song.
8
There’s nothing grieues
me, but that Age should haste,
That in my dayes I may not
see thee old,
That where those two deare
sparkling Eyes are plac’d,
Onely two Loope-holes, then
I might behold.
That louely, arched, yuorie,
pollish’d Brow,
Defac’d with Wrinkles,
that I might but see;
Thy daintie Hayre, so curl’d,
and crisped now,
Like grizzled Mosse vpon some
aged Tree;
Thy Cheeke, now flush with
Roses, sunke, and leane,
Thy Lips, with age, as any
Wafer thinne,
Thy Pearly teeth out of thy
head so cleane,
That when thou feed’st,
thy Nose shall touch thy Chinne:
These Lines that
now thou scorn’st, which should delight thee,
Then would I make
thee read, but to despight thee.
15
His Remedie for Loue
Since to obtaine thee, nothing
me will sted,
I haue a Med’cine that
shall cure my Loue,
The powder of her Heart dry’d,
when she is dead,
That Gold nor Honour ne’r
had power to moue;
Mix’d with her Teares,
that ne’r her true-Loue crost,
Nor at Fifteene ne’r
long’d to be a Bride,
Boyl’d with her Sighes,
in giuing vp the Ghost,
That for her late deceased
Husband dy’d;
Into the same then let a Woman
breathe,
That being chid, did neuer
word replie,
With one thrice-marry’d’s
Pray’rs, that did bequeath
A Legacie to stale Virginitie.
If this Receit
haue not the pow’r to winne me,
Little Ile say,
but thinke the Deuill’s in me.
21
A witlesse Gallant, a young
Wench that woo’d,
(Yet his dull Spirit her not
one iot could moue)
Intreated me, as e’r
I wish’d his good,
To write him but one Sonnet
to his Loue:
When I, as fast as e’r
my Penne could trot,
Powr’d out what first
from quicke Inuention came;
Nor neuer stood one word thereof
to blot,
Much like his Wit, that was
to vse the same:
But with my Verses he his
Mistres wonne,
Who doted on the Dolt beyond
all measure.
But soe, for you to Heau’n
for Phraze I runne,
And ransacke all APOLLO’S
golden Treasure;
Yet by my Troth,
this Foole his Loue obtaines,
And I lose you,
for all my Wit and Paines.
27
Is not Loue here, as ’tis
in other Clymes,
And diff’reth it, as
doe the seu’rall Nations?
Or hath it lost the Vertue,
with the Times,
Or in this land alt’reth
with the Fashions?
Or haue our Passions lesser
pow’r then theirs,
Who had lesse Art them liuely
to expresse?
Is Nature growne lesse pow’rfull
in their Heires,
Or in our Fathers did the
more transgresse?
I am sure my Sighes come from
a Heart as true,
As any Mans, that Memory can
boast,
And my Respects and Seruices
to you
Equall with his, that loues
his Mistris most:
Or Nature must
be partiall in my Cause,
Or onely you doe
violate her Lawes.
36
Cupid coniured
Thou purblind Boy, since thou
hast been so slacke
To wound her Heart, whose
Eyes haue wounded me,
And suff’red her to
glory in my Wracke,
Thus to my aid, I lastly coniure
thee;
By Hellish Styx (by
which the THUND’RER sweares)
By thy faire Mothers vnauoided
Power,
By HECAT’S Names, by
PROSERPINE’S sad Teares,
When she was rapt to the infernall
Bower,
By thine own loued PSYCHES,
by the Fires
Spent on thine Altars, flaming
vp to Heau’n;
By all the Louers Sighes,
Vowes, and Desires,
By all the Wounds that euer
thou hast giu’n;
I coniure thee
by all that I haue nam’d,
To make her loue,
or CUPID be thou damn’d.
48
Cupid, I hate thee, which
I’de haue thee know,
A naked Starueling euer may’st
thou be,
Poore Rogue, goe pawne thy
Fascia and thy Bow,
For some few Ragges, wherewith
to couer thee;
Or if thou’lt not, thy
Archerie forbeare,
To some base Rustick doe thy
selfe preferre,
And when Corne’s sowne,
or growne into the Eare,
Practise thy Quiuer, and turne
Crow-keeper;
Or being Blind (as fittest
for the Trade)
Goe hyre thy selfe some bungling
Harpers Boy;
They that are blind, are Minstrels
often made,
So may’st thou liue,
to thy faire Mothers Ioy:
That whilst with
MARS she holdeth her old way,
Thou, her Blind
Sonne, may’st sit by them, and play.
52
What dost thou meane to Cheate
me of my Heart,
To take all Mine, and giue
me none againe?
Or haue thine Eyes such Magike,
or that Art,
That what They get, They euer
doe retaine?
Play not the Tyrant, but take
some Remorse,
Rebate thy Spleene, if but
for Pitties sake;
Or Cruell, if thou can’st
not; let vs scorse,
And for one Piece of Thine,
my whole heart take.
But what of Pitty doe I speake
to Thee,
Whose Brest is proofe against
Complaint or Prayer?
Or can I thinke what my Reward
shall be
From that proud Beauty, which
was my betrayer?
What talke I of
a Heart, when thou hast none?
Or if thou hast,
it is a flinty one.
61
Since there ’s no helpe,
Come let vs kisse and part,
Nay, I haue done: You
get no more of Me,
And I am glad, yea glad withall
my heart,
That thus so cleanly, I my
Selfe can free,
Shake hands for euer, Cancell
all our Vowes,
And when we meet at any time
againe,
Be it not scene in either
of our Browes,
That We one iot of former
Loue reteyne;
Now at the last gaspe of Loues
latest Breath,
When his Pulse fayling, Passion
speechlesse lies,
When Faith is kneeling by
his bed of Death,
And Innocence is closing vp
his Eyes,
Now if thou would’st,
when all haue giuen him ouer,
From Death to
Life, thou might’st him yet recouer.
[from the Edition of 1619]
And why not I,
as hee
That’s greatest, if as free,
(In sundry strains that striue,
Since there so many be)
Th’ old Lyrick
kind reuiue?
I will, yea, and
I may;
Who shall oppose my way?
For what is he alone,
That of himselfe can say,
Hee’s Heire of Helicon?
10
APOLLO, and the
Nine,
Forbid no Man their Shrine,
That commeth with hands pure;
Else be they so diuine,
They will not him indure.
For they be such
coy Things,
That they care not for Kings,
And dare let them know it;
Nor may he touch their Springs,
That is not borne a Poet.
20
Pyreneus, King The Phocean_ it did proue,
of_ Phocis, Whom when foule Lust did moue,
attempting to Those Mayds vnchast to make,
rauish the Muses. Fell, as with them he stroue,
His
Neck and iustly brake.
That instrument
ne’r heard,
Strooke by the skilfull Bard,
It strongly to awake;
But it th’ infernalls skard,
And made Olympus quake.
30
Sam. lib. 1. As those Prophetike strings
cap. 16. Whose sounds with fiery Wings,
Draue
Fiends from their abode,
Touch’d
by the best of Kings,
That
sang the holy Ode.
Orpheus the So his, which Women slue, Thracian Poet. And it int’ Hebrus threw, Caput, Hebre, Such sounds yet forth it sent, lyramque Excipis. The Bankes to weepe that drue, &c. Ouid. lib. 11. As downe the streame it went. 40 Metam. Mercury inuentor That by the Tortoyse shell, of the Harpe, as To MAYAS Sonne it fell, Horace Ode 10. The most thereof not doubt lib. 1. curuaq; But sure some Power did dwell, lyra parente. In Him who found it out.
Thebes fayned The Wildest of the field,
to haue beene And Ayre, with Riuers t’
yeeld,
raysed by Which mou’d; that sturdy
Glebes,
Musicke. And massie Oakes could weeld,
To
rayse the pyles of Thebes. 50
And diuersly though
Strung,
So anciently We sung,
To it, that Now scarce knowne,
If first it did belong
To Greece, or if our
Owne.
The ancient The Druydes imbrew’d, British Priests With Gore, on Altars rude so called of With Sacrifices crown’d, their abode in In hollow Woods bedew’d, woods. Ador’d the Trembling sound. 60
Pindar Prince of Though wee be All to seeke,
the Greeke Of PINDAR that Great Greeke,
lyricks, of whom To Finger it aright, Horace:
Pindarum The Soule with power to strike, quisquis
studet, His hand retayn’d such Might. &c.
Ode 2. lib. 4. Horace first of Or him that
Rome_ did grace the_ Romans in Whose Ayres
we all imbrace, that kind. That
scarcely found his Peere,
Nor
giueth PHOEBVS place,
For
Strokes diuinely cleere. 70
The Irish The Irish I admire,
Harpe. And still cleaue to
that Lyre,
As
our Musike’s Mother,
And
thinke, till I expire,
APOLLO’S
such another.
As Britons,
that so long
Haue held this Antike Song,
And let all our Carpers
Forbeare their fame to wrong,
Th’ are right skilfull
Harpers. 80
Southerne, an Southerne, I long
thee spare,
English Lyrick. Yet wish thee well to
fare,
Who
me pleased’st greatly,
As
first, therefore more rare,
Handling
thy Harpe neatly.
To those that with
despight
Shall terme these Numbers slight,
Tell them their Iudgement’s
blind,
Much erring from the right,
It is a Noble kind.
90
An old English Nor is ’t the Verse
doth make,
Rymer. That giueth, or doth
take,
’Tis
possible to clyme,
To
kindle, or to slake,
Although
in SKELTON’S Ryme.
Rich Statue, double-faced,
With Marble Temples graced,
To rayse thy God-head hyer,
In flames where Altars shining,
Before thy Priests diuining,
Doe od’rous Fumes expire.
Great IANVS, I thy pleasure,
With all the Thespian
treasure,
Doe seriously
pursue;
To th’ passed yeere
returning, 10
As though the old adiourning,
Yet bringing in
the new.
Thy ancient Vigils yeerely,
I haue obserued cleerely,
Thy Feasts yet
smoaking bee;
Since all thy store abroad
is,
Giue something to my Goddesse,
As hath been vs’d
by thee.
Giue her th’ Eoan
brightnesse,
Wing’d with that subtill
lightnesse, 20
That doth trans-pierce
the Ayre;
The Roses of the Morning
The rising Heau’n adorning,
To mesh with flames
of Hayre.
Those ceaselesse Sounds, aboue
all,
Made by those Orbes that moue
all,
And euer swelling
there,
Wrap’d vp in Numbers
flowing,
Them actually bestowing,
For Iewels at
her Eare. 30
O Rapture great and holy,
Doe thou transport me wholly,
So well her forme
to vary,
That I aloft may beare her,
Whereas I will insphere her,
In Regions high
and starry.
And in my choise Composures,
The soft and easie Closures,
So amorously shall
meet;
That euery liuely Ceasure
40
Shall tread a perfect Measure
Set on so equall
feet.
That Spray to fame so fertle,
The Louer-crowning Mirtle,
In Wreaths of
mixed Bowes,
Within whose shades are dwelling
Those Beauties most excelling,
Inthron’d
vpon her Browes.
Those Paralels so euen,
Drawne on the face of Heauen,
50
That curious Art
supposes,
Direct those Gems, whose cleerenesse
Farre off amaze by neerenesse,
Each Globe such
fire incloses.
Her Bosome full of Blisses,
By Nature made for Kisses,
So pure and wond’rous
cleere,
Whereas a thousand Graces
Behold their louely Faces,
As they are bathing
there. 60
O, thou selfe-little blindnesse,
The kindnesse of vnkindnesse,
Yet one of those
diuine;
Thy Brands to me were leuer,
Thy Fascia, and thy
Quiuer,
And thou this
Quill of mine.
This Heart so freshly bleeding,
Vpon it owne selfe feeding,
Whose woundes
still dropping be;
O Loue, thy selfe confounding,
70
Her coldnesse so abounding,
And yet such heat
in me.
Yet if I be inspired,
Ile leaue thee so admired,
To all that shall
succeed,
That were they more then many,
’Mongst all, there is
not any,
That Time so oft
shall read.
Nor Adamant ingraued,
That hath been choisely ’st
saued, 80
IDEA’S Name
out-weares;
So large a Dower as this is,
The greatest often misses,
The Diadem that
beares.
TO HIS VALENTINE
Muse, bid the Morne awake,
Sad Winter now
declines,
Each Bird doth chuse a Make,
This day ’s
Saint VALENTINE’S;
For that good Bishop’s
sake
Get vp, and let vs see,
What Beautie it shall bee,
That Fortune vs
assignes.
But lo, in happy How’r,
The place wherein
she lyes, 10
In yonder climbing Tow’r,
Gilt by the glitt’ring
Rise;
O IOVE! that in a Show’r,
As once that Thund’rer
did,
When he in drops lay hid,
That I could her
surprize.
Her Canopie Ile draw,
With spangled
Plumes bedight,
No Mortall euer saw
So rauishing a
sight; 20
That it the Gods might awe,
And pow’rfully trans-pierce
The Globie Vniuerse,
Out-shooting eu’ry
Light.
My Lips Ile softly lay
Vpon her heau’nly
Cheeke,
Dy’d like the dawning
Day,
As polish’d
Iuorie sleeke:
And in her Eare Ile say;
O, thou bright Morning-Starre,
30
’Tis I that come so
farre,
My Valentine to
seeke.
Each little Bird, this Tyde,
Doth chuse her
loued Pheere,
Which constantly abide
In Wedlock all
the yeere,
As Nature is their Guide:
So may we two be true,
This yeere, nor change for
new,
As Turtles coupled
were. 40
The Sparrow, Swan, the Doue,
Though VENVS Birds
they be,
Yet are they not for Loue
So absolute as
we:
For Reason vs doth moue;
They but by billing woo:
Then try what we can doo,
To whom each sense
is free.
Which we haue more then they,
By liuelyer Organs
sway’d,
50
Our Appetite each way
More by our Sense
obay’d:
Our Passions to display,
This Season vs doth fit;
Then let vs follow it,
As Nature vs doth
lead.
One Kisse in two let’s
breake,
Confounded with
the touch,
But halfe words let vs speake,
Our Lip’s
imploy’d so much,
60
Vntill we both grow weake,
With sweetnesse of thy breath;
O smother me to death:
Long let our Ioyes
be such.
Let’s laugh at them
that chuse
Their Valentines
by lot,
To weare their Names that
vse,
Whom idly they
haue got:
Such poore choise we refuse,
Saint VALENTINE befriend;
70
We thus this Morne may spend,
Else Muse, awake
her not.
If thus we needs must goe,
What shall our one Heart doe,
This One made of our Two?
Madame, two Hearts we brake,
And from them both did take
The best, one Heart to make.
Halfe this is of your Heart,
Mine in the other part,
Ioyn’d by our equall
Art.
Were it cymented, or sowne,
10
By Shreds or Pieces knowne,
We each might find our owne.
But ’tis dissolu’d,
and fix’d,
And with such cunning mix’d,
No diffrence that betwixt.
But how shall we agree,
By whom it kept shall be,
Whether by you, or me?
It cannot two Brests fill,
One must be heartlesse still,
20
Vntill the other will.
It came to me one day,
When I will’d it to
say,
With whether it would stay?
It told me, in your Brest,
Where it might hope to rest:
For if it were my Ghest,
For certainety it knew,
That I would still anew
Be sending it to you.
30
Neuer, I thinke, had two
Such worke, so much to doo,
A Vnitie to woo.
Yours was so cold and chaste,
Whilst mine with zeale did
waste,
Like Fire with Water plac’d.
How did my Heart intreat,
How pant, how did it beat,
Till it could giue yours heat!
Till to that temper brought,
40
Through our perfection wrought,
That blessing eythers Thought.
In such a Height it lyes,
From this base Worlds dull
Eyes,
That Heauen it not enuyes.
All that this Earth can show,
Our Heart shall not once know,
For it too vile and low.
THE SACRIFICE TO APOLLO
Priests of APOLLO, sacred
be the Roome,
For this learn’d Meeting:
Let no barbarous Groome,
How
braue soe’r he bee,
Attempt
to enter;
But
of the Muses free,
None
here may venter;
This for the Delphian
Prophets is prepar’d:
The prophane Vulgar are from
hence debar’d.
And since the Feast so happily
begins,
Call vp those faire Nine,
with their Violins; 10
They
are begot by IOVE,
Then
let vs place them,
Where
no Clowne in may shoue,
That
may disgrace them:
But let them neere to young
APOLLO sit;
So shall his Foot-pace ouer-flow
with Wit.
Where be the Graces, where
be those fayre Three?
In any hand they may not absent
bee:
They
to the Gods are deare,
And
they can humbly
20
Teach
vs, our Selues to beare,
And
doe things comely:
They, and the Muses, rise
both from one Stem,
They grace the Muses, and
the Muses them.
Bring forth your Flaggons
(fill’d with sparkling Wine)
Whereon swolne BACCHVS, crowned
with a Vine,
Is
grauen, and fill out,
It
well bestowing,
To
eu’ry Man about,
In
Goblets flowing:
30
Let not a Man drinke, but
in Draughts profound;
To our God PHOEBVS let the
Health goe Round.
Let your Iests flye at large;
yet therewithall
See they be Salt, but yet
not mix’d with Gall:
Not
tending to disgrace,
But
fayrely giuen,
Becomming
well the place,
Modest,
and euen;
That they with tickling Pleasure
may prouoke
Laughter in him, on whom the
Iest is broke. 40
Or if the deeds of HEROES
ye rehearse,
Let them be sung in so well-ord’red
Verse,
That
each word haue his weight,
Yet
runne with pleasure;
Holding
one stately height,
In
so braue measure,
That they may make the stiffest
Storme seeme weake,
And dampe IOVES Thunder, when
it lowd’st doth speake.
And if yee list to exercise
your Vayne,
Or in the Sock, or in the
Buskin’d Strayne, 50
Let
Art and Nature goe
One
with the other;
Yet
so, that Art may show
Nature
her Mother;
The thick-brayn’d Audience
liuely to awake,
Till with shrill Claps the
Theater doe shake.
Sing Hymnes to BACCHVS then,
with hands vprear’d,
Offer to IOVE, who most is
to be fear’d;
From
him the Muse we haue,
From
him proceedeth
60
More
then we dare to craue;
’Tis
he that feedeth
Them, whom the World would
starue; then let the Lyre
Sound, whilst his Altars endlesse
flames expire.
Maydens, why spare ye?
Or whether not dare ye
Correct the blind
Shooter?
Because wanton VENVS,
So oft that doth paine vs,
Is her Sonnes
Tutor.
Now in the Spring,
He proueth his Wing,
The Field is his
Bower,
And as the small Bee,
10
About flyeth hee,
From Flower to
Flower.
And wantonly roues,
Abroad in the Groues,
And in the Ayre
houers,
Which when it him deweth,
His Fethers he meweth,
In sighes of true
Louers.
And since doom’d by
Fate,
(That well knew his Hate)
20
That Hee should
be blinde;
For very despite,
Our Eyes be his White,
So wayward his
kinde.
If his Shafts loosing,
(Ill his Mark choosing)
Or his Bow broken;
The Moane VENVS maketh,
And care that she taketh,
Cannot be spoken.
30
To VULCAN commending
Her loue, and straight sending
Her Doues and
her Sparrowes,
With Kisses vnto him,
And all but to woo him,
To make her Sonne
Arrowes.
Telling what he hath done,
(Sayth she, Right mine owne
Sonne)
In her Armes she
him closes,
Sweetes on him fans,
40
Layd in Downe of her Swans,
His Sheets, Leaues
of Roses.
And feeds him with Kisses;
Which oft when he misses,
He euer is froward:
The Mothers o’r-ioying,
Makes by much coying,
The Child so vntoward.
Yet in a fine Net,
That a Spider set,
50
The Maydens had
caught him;
Had she not beene neere him,
And chanced to heare him,
More good they
had taught him.
AN AMOVRET ANACREONTICK
Most good, most faire,
Or Thing as rare,
To call you’s lost;
For all the cost
Words can bestow,
So poorely show
Vpon your prayse,
That all the wayes
Sense hath, come short:
Whereby Report
10
Falls them vnder;
That when Wonder
More hath seyzed,
Yet not pleased,
That it in kinde
Nothing can finde,
You to expresse:
Neuerthelesse,
As by Globes small,
This Mightie ALL
20
Is shew’d, though farre
From Life, each Starre
A World being:
So wee seeing
You, like as that,
Onely trust what
Art doth vs teach;
And when I reach
At Morall Things,
And that my Strings
30
Grauely should strike,
Straight some mislike
Blotteth mine ODE.
As with the Loade,
The Steele we touch,
Forced ne’r so much,
Yet still remoues
To that it loues,
Till there it stayes;
So to your prayse
40
I turne euer,
And though neuer
From you mouing,
Happie so louing.
Wer’t granted
me to choose,
How I would end my dayes;
Since I this life
must loose,
It should be in Your praise;
For there is no Bayes
Can be set aboue
you.
S’ impossibly
I loue You,
And for you sit so hie,
Whence none may
remoue You
In my cleere Poesie,
10
That I oft deny
You so ample Merit.
The freedome of
my Spirit
Maintayning (still) my Cause,
Your Sex not to
inherit,
Vrging the Salique
Lawes;
But your Vertue drawes
From me euery
due.
Thus still You
me pursue,
That no where I can dwell,
20
By Feare made
iust to You,
Who naturally rebell,
Of You that excell
That should I
still Endyte,
Yet will You want
some Ryte.
That lost in your high praise
I wander to and
fro,
As seeing sundry Waies:
Yet which the right not know
To get out of
this Maze. 30
TO THE VIRIGINIAN VOYAGE
You braue Heroique minds,
Worthy your Countries Name;
That Honour still
pursue,
Goe, and subdue,
Whilst loyt’ring Hinds
Lurke here at home, with shame.
Britans, you stay too
long,
Quickly aboard bestow you,
And with a merry
Gale
Swell your stretch’d
Sayle, 10
With Vowes as strong,
As the Winds that blow you.
Your Course securely steere,
West and by South forth keepe,
Rocks, Lee-shores,
nor Sholes,
When EOLVS scowles,
You need not feare,
So absolute the Deepe.
And cheerefully at Sea,
Successe you still intice,
20
To get the Pearle
and Gold,
And ours to hold,
VIRGINIA,
Earth’s onely Paradise.
Where Nature hath in store
Fowle, Venison, and Fish,
And the Fruitfull’st
Soyle,
Without your Toyle,
Three Haruests more,
All greater then your Wish.
30
And the ambitious Vine
Crownes with his purple Masse,
The cedar reaching
hie
To kisse the Sky
The Cypresse, Pine
And vse-full Sassafras.
To whome, the golden Age
Still Natures lawes doth giue,
No other Cares
that tend,
But Them to defend
40
From Winters rage,
That long there doth not liue.
When as the Lushious smell
Of that delicious Land,
Aboue the Seas
that flowes,
The cleere Wind
throwes,
Your Hearts to swell
Approaching the deare Strande.
In kenning of the Shore
(Thanks to God first giuen,)
50
O you the happy’st
men,
Be Frolike then,
Let Cannons roare,
Frighting the wide Heauen.
And in Regions farre
Such Heroes bring yee foorth,
As those from
whom We came,
And plant Our
name,
Vnder that Starre
Not knowne vnto our North.
60
And as there Plenty growes
Of Lawrell euery where,
APOLLO’S
Sacred tree,
You may it see,
A Poets Browes
To crowne, that may sing there.
Thy Voyages attend,
Industrious HACKLVIT,
Whose Reading
shall inflame
Men to seeke Fame,
70
And much commend
To after-Times thy Wit.
This while we are abroad,
Shall we not touch
our Lyre?
Shall we not sing an ODE?
Shall that holy
Fire,
In vs that strongly glow’d,
In this cold Ayre
expire?
Long since the Summer layd
Her lustie Brau’rie
downe,
The Autumne halfe is way’d,
And BOREAS ’gins
to frowne, 10
Since now I did behold
Great BRVTES first
builded Towne.
Though in the vtmost Peake,
A while we doe
remaine,
Amongst the Mountaines bleake
Expos’d
to Sleet and Raine,
No Sport our Houres shall
breake,
To exercise our
Vaine.
What though bright PHOEBVS
Beames
Refresh the Southerne
Ground, 20
And though the Princely Thames
With beautious
Nymphs abound,
And by old Camber’s
Streames
Be many Wonders
found;
Yet many Riuers cleare
Here glide in
Siluer Swathes,
And what of all most deare,
Buckston’s
delicious Bathes,
Strong Ale and Noble Cheare,
T’ asswage
breeme Winters scathes.
30
Those grim and horrid Caues,
Whose Lookes affright
the day,
Wherein nice Nature saues,
What she would
not bewray,
Our better leasure craues,
And doth inuite
our Lay.
In places farre or neere,
Or famous, or
obscure,
Where wholesome is the Ayre,
Or where the most
impure, 40
All times, and euery-where,
The Muse is still
in vre.
HIS DEFENCE AGAINST THE IDLE CRITICK
The Ryme nor marres, nor makes,
Nor addeth it, nor takes,
From that which
we propose;
Things imaginarie
Doe so strangely varie,
That quickly we
them lose.
And what ’s quickly
begot,
As soone againe is not,
This doe I truely
know:
Yea, and what ’s borne
with paine, 10
That Sense doth long’st
retaine,
Gone with a greater
Flow.
Yet this Critick so sterne,
But whom, none must discerne,
Nor perfectly
haue seeing,
Strangely layes about him,
As nothing without him
Were worthy of
being.
That I my selfe betray
To that most publique way,
20
Where the Worlds
old Bawd,
Custome, that doth humor,
And by idle rumor,
Her Dotages applaud.
That whilst he still prefers
Those that be wholly hers,
Madnesse and Ignorance,
I creepe behind the Time,
From spertling with their
Crime,
And glad too with
my Chance. 30
O wretched World the while,
When the euill most vile,
Beareth the fayrest
face,
And inconstant lightnesse,
With a scornefull slightnesse,
The best Things
doth disgrace.
Whilst this strange knowing
Beast,
Man, of himselfe the least,
His Enuie declaring,
Makes Vertue to descend,
40
Her title to defend,
Against him, much
preparing.
Yet these me not delude,
Nor from my place extrude,
By their resolued
Hate;
Their vilenesse that doe know;
Which to my selfe I show,
To keepe aboue
my Fate.
Her lou’d
I most,
By thee that ’s
lost,
Though she were wonne with
leasure;
She was my gaine,
But to my paine,
Thou spoyl’st me of
my Treasure.
The Ship full
fraught
With Gold, farre
sought,
Though ne’r so wisely
helmed,
May suffer wracke
10
In sayling backe,
By Tempest ouer-whelmed.
But shee, good
Sir,
Did not preferre
You, for that I was ranging;
But for that shee
Found faith in
mee,
And she lou’d to be
changing.
Therefore boast
not
Your happy Lot,
20
Be silent now you haue her;
The time I knew
She slighted you,
When I was in her fauour.
None stands so
fast,
But may be cast
By Fortune, and disgraced:
Once did I weare
Her Garter there,
Where you her Gloue haue placed.
30
I had the Vow
That thou hast
now,
And Glances to discouer
Her Loue to mee,
And she to thee
Reades but old Lessons ouer.
She hath no Smile
That can beguile,
But as my Thought I know it;
Yea, to a Hayre,
40
Both when and
where,
And how she will bestow it.
What now is thine,
Was onely mine,
And first to me was giuen;
Thou laugh’st
at mee,
I laugh at thee,
And thus we two are euen.
But Ile not mourne,
But stay my Turne,
50
The Wind may come about, Sir,
And once againe
May bring me in,
And help to beare you out,
Sir.
A SKELTONIAD
The Muse should be sprightly,
Yet not handling lightly
Things graue; as much loath,
Things that be slight, to
cloath
Curiously: To retayne
The Comelinesse in meane,
Is true Knowledge and Wit.
Not me forc’d Rage doth
fit,
That I thereto should lacke
Tabacco, or need Sacke,
10
Which to the colder Braine
Is the true Hyppocrene;
Nor did I euer care
For great Fooles, nor them
spare.
Vertue, though neglected,
Is not so deiected,
As vilely to descend
To low Basenesse their end;
Neyther each ryming Slaue
Deserues the Name to haue
20
Of Poet: so the Rabble
Of Fooles, for the Table,
That haue their Iests by Heart,
As an Actor his Part,
Might assume them Chayres
Amongst the Muses Heyres.
Parnassus is not clome
By euery such Mome;
Vp whose steep side who swerues,
It behoues t’ haue strong
Nerues: 30
My Resolution such,
How well, and not how much
To write, thus doe I fare,
Like some few good that care
(The euill sort among)
How well to liue, and not
how long.
Good Folke, for
Gold or Hyre,
But helpe me to
a Cryer;
For my poore Heart is runne
astray
After two Eyes, that pass’d
this way.
O
yes, O yes, O yes,
If
there be any Man,
In
Towne or Countrey, can
Bring
me my Heart againe,
Ile
please him for his paine;
And by these Marks I will
you show, 10
That onely I this Heart doe
owe.
It
is a wounded Heart,
Wherein
yet sticks the Dart,
Eu’ry piece
sore hurt throughout it,
Faith, and Troth,
writ round about it:
It was a tame Heart, and a
deare,
And
neuer vs’d to roame;
But hauing got this Haunt,
I feare
’Twill
hardly stay at home.
For Gods sake, walking by
the way, 20
If
you my Heart doe see,
Either impound it for a Stray,
Or
send it backe to me.
TO HIS COY LOVE
I pray thee leaue, loue me
no more,
Call home the
Heart you gaue me,
I but in vaine that Saint
adore,
That can, but
will not saue me:
These poore halfe Kisses kill
me quite;
Was euer man thus
serued?
Amidst an Ocean of Delight,
For Pleasure to
be sterued.
Shew me no more those Snowie
Brests,
With Azure Riuerets
branched, 10
Where whilst mine Eye with
Plentie feasts,
Yet is my Thirst
not stanched.
O TANTALVS, thy Paines n’er
tell,
By me thou art
preuented;
’Tis nothing to be plagu’d
in Hell,
But thus in Heauen
tormented.
Clip me no more in those deare
Armes,
Nor thy Life’s
Comfort call me;
O, these are but too pow’rfull
Charmes,
And doe but more
inthrall me. 20
But see, how patient I am
growne,
In all this coyle
about thee;
Come nice thing, let my Heart
alone,
I cannot liue
without thee.
A HYMNE TO HIS LADIES BIRTH-PLACE
Couentry,
that do’st adorne
The
Countrey wherein I was borne,
Yet
therein lyes not thy prayse
Why
I should crowne thy Tow’rs with Bayes:
Couentry finely ’Tis not thy Wall, me
to thee weds walled. Thy Ports, nor
thy proud Pyrameds, The Shoulder-bone Nor thy
Trophies of the Bore, of a hare of But that
Shee which I adore,
mighty bignesse. Which scarce Goodnesse selfe
can payre,
First
their breathing blest thy Ayre; 10
IDEA,
in which Name I hide
Her,
in my heart Deifi’d,
For
what good, Man’s mind can see,
Onely
her IDEAS be;
She,
in whom the Vertues came
In
Womans shape, and tooke her Name,
She
so farre past Imitation,
As
but Nature our Creation
Could
not alter, she had aymed,
More
then Woman to haue framed: 20
She,
whose truely written Story,
To
thy poore Name shall adde more glory,
Then
if it should haue beene thy Chance,
T’
haue bred our Kings that Conquer’d France.
Had
She beene borne the former Age,
Two famous That house had beene a Pilgrimage,
Pilgrimages, the And reputed more Diuine, one in
Norfolk, Then Walsingham or BECKETS Shrine.
the other in That Princesse, to whom
thou do’st owe Kent. Thy
Freedome, whose Cleere blushing snow, 30 Godiua,
Duke The enuious Sunne saw, when as she
TO THE CAMBRO-BRITANS and their Harpe, his Ballad of AGINCOVRT
Faire stood the Wind for France,
When we our Sayles aduance,
Nor now to proue our chance,
Longer
will tarry;
But putting to the Mayne,
At Kaux, the Mouth
of Sene,
With all his Martiall Trayne,
Landed
King HARRY.
And taking many a Fort,
Furnish’d in Warlike
sort, 10
Marcheth tow’rds Agincourt,
In
happy howre;
Skirmishing day by day,
With those that stop’d
his way,
Where the French Gen’rall
lay,
With
all his Power.
Which in his Hight of Pride,
King HENRY to deride,
His Ransome to prouide
To
the King sending.
20
Which he neglects the while,
As from a Nation vile,
Yet with an angry smile,
Their
fall portending.
And turning to his Men,
Quoth our braue HENRY then,
Though they to one be ten,
Be
not amazed.
Yet haue we well begunne,
Battels so brauely wonne,
30
Haue euer to the Sonne,
By
Fame beene raysed.
And, for my Selfe (quoth he),
This my full rest shall be,
England ne’r
mourne for Me,
Nor
more esteeme me.
Victor I will remaine,
Or on this Earth lie slaine,
Neuer shall Shee sustaine,
Losse
to redeeme me.
40
Poiters and Cressy
tell,
When most their Pride did
swell,
Vnder our Swords they fell,
No
lesse our skill is,
Than when our Grandsire Great,
Clayming the Regall Seate,
By many a Warlike feate,
Lop’d
the French Lillies.
The Duke of Yorke so
dread,
The eager Vaward led;
50
With the maine, HENRY sped,
Among’st
his Hench-men.
EXCESTER had the Rere,
A Brauer man not there,
O Lord, how hot they were,
On
the false French-men!
They now to fight are gone,
Armour on Armour shone,
Drumme now to Drumme did grone,
To
heare, was wonder;
60
That with the Cryes they make,
The very Earth did shake,
Trumpet to Trumpet spake,
Thunder
to Thunder.
Well it thine Age became,
O Noble ERPINGHAM,
Which didst the Signall ayme,
To
our hid Forces;
When from a Medow by,
Like a Storme suddenly,
70
The English Archery
Stuck
the French Horses,
With Spanish Ewgh so
strong,
Arrowes a Cloth-yard long,
That like to Serpents stung,
Piercing
the Weather;
None from his fellow starts,
But playing Manly parts,
And like true English
hearts,
Stuck
close together.
80
When downe their Bowes they
threw,
And forth their Bilbowes drew,
And on the French they flew,
Not
one was tardie;
Armes were from shoulders
sent,
Scalpes to the Teeth were
rent,
Downe the French Pesants
went,
Our
Men were hardie.
This while our Noble King,
His broad Sword brandishing,
90
Downe the French Hoast
did ding,
As
to o’r-whelme it;
And many a deepe Wound lent,
His Armes with Bloud besprent,
And many a cruell Dent
Bruised
his Helmet.
GLOSTER, that Duke so good,
Next of the Royall Blood,
For famous England
stood,
With
his braue Brother;
100
CLARENCE, in Steele so bright,
Though but a Maiden Knight,
Yet in that furious Fight,
Scarce
such another,
WARWICK in Bloud did wade,
OXFORD the Foe inuade,
And cruell slaughter made,
Still
as they ran vp;
SVFFOLKE his Axe did ply,
BEAVMONT and WILLOVGHBY
110
Bare them right doughtily,
FERRERS
and FANHOPE.
Vpon Saint CRISPIN’S
day
Fought was this Noble Fray,
Which Fame did not delay,
To
England to carry;
O, when shall English
Men
With such Acts fill a Pen,
Or England breed againe,
Such
a King HARRY?
120
[from the Edition of 1606]
Ode 4
To my worthy frend, Master John Sauage of the Inner Temple
Vppon this sinfull earth
If man can happy be,
And higher then his birth,
(Frend) take him thus from
me.
Whome promise not deceiues
That he the breach should
rue,
Nor constant reason leaues
Opinion to pursue.
To rayse his mean estate
That sooths no wanton’s
sinne, 10
Doth that preferment hate
That virtue doth not winne.
Nor brauery doth admire,
Nor doth more loue professe
To that he doth desire,
Then that he doth possesse.
Loose humor nor to please,
That neither spares nor spends,
But by discretion weyes
What is to needfull ends.
20
To him deseruing not
Not yeelding, nor doth hould
What is not his, doing what
He ought not what he could.
Whome the base tyrants will
Soe much could neuer awe
As him for good or ill
From honesty to drawe.
Whose constancy doth rise
’Boue vndeserued spight
30
Whose valewr’s to despise
That most doth him delight.
That earely leaue doth take
Of th’ world though
to his payne
For virtues onely sake
And not till need constrayne.
Noe man can be so free
Though in imperiall seate
Nor Eminent as he
That deemeth nothing greate.
40
Ode 8
Singe wee the Rose
Then which no flower there
growes
Is sweeter:
And aptly her compare
With what in that is rare
A parallel none
meeter.
Or made poses,
Of this that incloses
Suche blisses,
That naturally flusheth
10
As she blusheth
When she is robd
of kisses.
Or if strew’d
When with the morning dew’d
Or stilling,
Or howe to sense expos’d
All which in her inclos’d,
Ech place with
sweetnes filling.
That most renown’d
By Nature richly crownd
20
With yellow,
Of that delitious layre
And as pure, her hayre
Vnto the same
the fellowe,
Fearing of harme
Nature that flower doth arme
From danger,
The touch giues her offence
But with reuerence
Vnto her selfe
a stranger. 30
That redde, or white,
Or mixt, the sence delyte
Behoulding,
In her complexion
All which perfection
Such harmony infouldinge.
That deuyded
Ere it was descided
Which most pure,
Began the greeuous war
40
Of York and Lancaster,
That did many
yeeres indure.
Conflicts as greate
As were in all that heate
I sustaine:
By her, as many harts
As men on either parts
That with her
eies hath slaine.
The Primrose flower
The first of Flora’s
bower 50
Is placed,
Soo is shee first as best
Though excellent the rest,
All gracing, by
none graced.
[from the Edition of 1627]
Of his Ladies not Comming to London
That ten-yeares-trauell’d
Greeke return’d from Sea
Ne’r ioyd so much to
see his Ithaca,
As I should you, who are alone
to me,
More then wide Greece
could to that wanderer be.
The winter windes still Easterly
doe keepe,
And with keene Frosts haue
chained vp the deepe,
The Sunne’s to vs a
niggard of his Rayes,
But reuelleth with our Antipodes;
And seldome to vs when he
shewes his head,
Muffled in vapours, he straight
hies to bed. 10
In those bleake mountaines
can you liue where snowe
Maketh the vales vp to the
hilles to growe;
Whereas mens breathes doe
instantly congeale,
And attom’d mists turne
instantly to hayle;
Belike you thinke, from this
more temperate cost,
Treasurer for the English Colony in VIRGINIA
Friend, if you
thinke my Papers may supplie
You, with some strange omitted
Noueltie,
Which others Letters yet haue
left vntould,
You take me off, before I
can take hould
Of you at all; I put not thus
to Sea,
For two monthes Voyage to
Virginia,
With newes which now, a little
something here,
But will be nothing ere it
can come there.
I feare, as I doe Stabbing;
this word, State,
I dare not speake of the Palatinate,
10
Although some men make it
their hourely theame,
And talke what’s done
in Austria, and in Beame,
I may not so; what Spinola
intends,
Nor with his Dutch,
which way Prince Maurice bends;
To other men, although these
To my noble friend Master WILLIAM BROWNE, of the euill time
Deare friend, be silent
and with patience see,
What this mad times Catastrophe will be;
The worlds first Wisemen certainly mistooke
Themselues, and spoke things quite beside
the booke,
And that which they haue of said of God,
vntrue,
Or else expect strange iudgement to insue.
This Isle is a meere Bedlam, and therein,
We all lye rauing, mad in euery sinne,
And him the wisest most men use to call,
Who doth (alone) the maddest thing of
all; 10
He whom the master of all wisedome found,
For a marckt foole, and so did him propound,
The time we liue in, to that passe is
brought,
That only he a Censor now is thought;
And that base villaine, (not an age yet
gone,)
Which a good man would not haue look’d
vpon;
Now like a God, with diuine worship follow’d,
Vpon the three Sonnes of the Lord SHEFFIELD, drowned
in
HVMBER
Light Sonnets hence, and to loose Louers flie,
And mournfull Maydens sing an Elegie
On those three SHEFFIELDS, ouer-whelm’d with waues,
Whose losse the teares of all the Muses craues;
A thing so full of pitty as this was,
Me thinkes for nothing should not slightly passe.
Treble this losse was, why should it not borrowe,
Through this Iles treble parts, a treble sorrowe:
But Fate did this, to let the world to knowe,
That sorrowes which from common causes growe, 10
Are not worth mourning for, the losse to beare,
But of one onely sonne, ’s not worth one teare.
Some tender-hearted man, as I, may spend
Some drops (perhaps) for a deceased friend.
Some men (perhaps) their Wifes late death may rue;
Or Wifes their Husbands, but such be but fewe.
Cares that haue vs’d the hearts of men to tuch
So oft, and deepely, will not now be such;
Who’ll care for loss of maintenance, or place,
Fame, liberty, or of the Princes grace; 20
Or sutes in law, by base corruption crost,
When he shall finde, that this which he hath lost,
Alas, is nothing to his, which did lose,
Three sonnes at once so excellent as those:
Nay, it is feard that this in time may breed
Hard hearts in men to their owne naturall seed;
That in respect of this great losse of theirs,
Men will scarce mourne the death of their owne heires.
Through all this Ile their losse so publique is,
That euery man doth take them to be his, 30
And as a plague which had beginning there,
So catching is, and raigning euery where,
That those the farthest off as much doe rue them,
As those the most familiarly that knew them;
Children with this disaster are wext sage,
And like to men that strucken are in age;
Talke what it is, three children at one time
Thus to haue drown’d, and in their very prime;
Yea, and doe learne to act the same so well,
That then olde folke, they better can it tell. 40
Inuention, oft that Passion vs’d to faine,
In sorrowes of themselves but slight, and meane,
To make them seeme great, here it shall not need,
For that this Subiect doth so farre exceed
All forc’d Expression, that what Poesie shall
Happily thinke to grace it selfe withall,
Falls so belowe it, that it rather borrowes
Grace from their griefe, then addeth to their sorrowes,
For sad mischance thus in the losse of three,
To shewe it selfe the vtmost it could bee: 50
Exacting also by the selfe same lawe,
The vtmost teares that sorrowe had to drawe
All future times hath vtterly preuented
Of a more losse, or more to be lamented.
Whilst in faire youth they liuely flourish’d here,
To their kinde Parents they were onely deere:
But being dead, now euery one doth take
Page 69
Them for their owne, and doe like sorrowe make:
As for their owne begot, as they pretended
Hope in the issue, which should haue discended 60
From them againe; nor here doth end our sorrow,
But those of vs, that shall be borne to morrowe
Still shall lament them, and when time shall count,
To what vast number passed yeares shall mount,
They from their death shall duly reckon so,
As from the Deluge, former vs’d to doe.
O cruell Humber guilty of their gore,
I now beleeue more then I did before
The Brittish Story, whence thy name begun
Of Kingly Humber, an inuading Hun, 70
By thee deuoured, for’t is likely thou
With blood wert Christned, bloud-thirsty till now.
The Ouse, the Done, and thou farre clearer Trent,
To drowne the SHEFFIELDS as you gaue consent,
Shall curse the time, that ere you were infus’d,
Which haue your waters basely thus abus’d.
The groueling Boore yee hinder not to goe,
And at his pleasure Ferry to and fro.
The very best part of whose soule, and bloud,
Compared with theirs, is viler then your mud. 80
But wherefore paper, doe I idely spend,
On those deafe waters to so little end,
And vp to starry heauen doe I not looke,
In which, as in an euerlasting booke,
Our ends are written; O let times rehearse
Their fatall losse, in their sad Aniuerse.
To the noble Lady, the Lady I.S. of worldly crosses
Madame, to shew
the smoothnesse of my vaine,
Neither that I would haue
you entertaine
The time in reading me, which
you would spend
In faire discourse with some
knowne honest friend,
I write not to you. Nay,
and which is more,
My powerfull verses striue
not to restore,
What time and sicknesse haue
in you impair’d,
To other ends my Elegie is
squar’d.
Your beauty, sweetnesse,
and your gracefull parts
That haue drawne many eyes,
wonne many hearts, 10
Of me get little, I am so
much man,
That let them doe their vtmost
that they can,
I will resist their forces:
and they be
Though great to others, yet
not so to me.
The first time I beheld you,
I then sawe
That (in it selfe) which had
the power to drawe
My stayd affection, and thought
to allowe
You some deale of my heart;
but you have now
Got farre into it, and you
haue the skill
(For ought I see) to winne
vpon me still. 20
When I doe thinke
how brauely you haue borne
Your many crosses, as in Fortunes
scorne,
And how neglectfull you have
seem’d to be,
Of that which hath seem’d
terrible to me,
I thought you stupid, nor
that you had felt
Those griefes which (often)
I haue scene to melt
Must I needes
write, who’s hee that can refuse,
He wants a minde, for her
that hath no Muse,
The thought of her doth heau’nly
rage inspire,
Next powerfull, to those clouen
tongues of fire.
Since I knew ought
time neuer did allowe
Me stuffe fit for an Elegie,
till now;
When France and England’s
HENRIES dy’d, my quill,
Why, I know not, but it that
time lay still.
’Tis more then greatnesse
that my spirit must raise,
To obserue custome I vse not
to praise; 10
Nor the least thought of mine
yet ere depended,
On any one from whom she was
descended;
That for their fauour I this
way should wooe,
As some poor wretched things
(perhaps) may doe;
I gaine the end, whereat I
onely ayme,
If by my freedome, I may giue
her fame.
Walking then forth
being newly vp from bed,
O Sir (quoth one) the Lady
CLIFTON’S dead.
When, but that reason my sterne
rage withstood,
My hand had sure beene guilty
of his blood. 20
If shee be so, must thy rude
tongue confesse it
(Quoth I) and com’st
so coldly to expresse it.
Thou shouldst haue giuen a
shreeke, to make me feare thee;
That might haue slaine what
euer had beene neere thee.
Thou shouldst haue com’n
like Time with thy scalpe bare,
And in thy hands thou shouldst
haue brought thy haire,
Casting vpon me such a dreadfull
looke,
As seene a spirit, or th’adst
beene thunder-strooke,
And gazing on me so a little
space,
Thou shouldst haue shot thine
eye balls in my face, 30
Then falling at my feet, thou
shouldst haue said,
O she is gone, and Nature
with her dead.
With this ill
newes amaz’d by chance I past,
By that neere Groue, whereas
both first and last,
I saw her, not three moneths
before shee di’d.
When (though full Summer gan
to vaile her pride,
And that I sawe men leade
home ripened Corne,
Besides aduis’d me well,)
Vpon the noble Lady ASTONS departure for Spaine
I many a time haue greatly marueil’d, why
Men say, their friends depart when as they die,
How well that word, a dying, doth expresse,
I did not know (I freely must confesse,)
Till her departure: for whose missed sight,
I am enforc’d this Elegy to write:
But since resistlesse fate will haue it so,
That she from hence must to Iberia goe,
And my weak wishes can her not detaine,
I will of heauen in policy complaine, 10
That it so long her trauell should adiourne,
Hoping thereby to hasten her returne.
To my most dearely-loued friend HENERY REYNOLDS Esquire, of Poets & Poesie
My dearely loued friend how oft haue we,
In winter evenings (meaning to be free,)
To some well-chosen place vs’d to retire;
And there with moderate meate, and wine, and fire,
Haue past the howres contentedly with chat,
Now talk of this, and then discours’d of that,
Spoke our owne verses ’twixt our selves, if not
Other mens lines, which we by chance had got,
Or some Stage pieces famous long before,
Of which your happy memory had store; 10
And I remember you much pleased were,
Of those who liued long agoe to heare,
As well as of those, of these latter times,
Page 76
Who have inricht our language with their rimes,
And in succession, how still vp they grew,
Which is the subiect, that I now pursue;
For from my cradle, (you must know that) I,
Was still inclin’d to noble Poesie,
And when that once Pueriles I had read,
And newly had my Cato construed, 20
In my small selfe I greatly marueil’d then,
Amonst all other, what strange kinde of men
These Poets were; And pleased with the name,
To my milde Tutor merrily I came,
(For I was then a proper goodly page,
Much like a Pigmy, scarse ten yeares of age)
Clasping my slender armes about his thigh.
O my deare master! cannot you (quoth I)
Make me a Poet, doe it if you can,
And you shall see, Ile quickly bee a man, 30
Who me thus answered smiling, boy quoth he,
If you’le not play the wag, but I may see
You ply your learning, I will shortly read
Some Poets to you; Phoebus be my speed,
Too’t hard went I, when shortly he began,
And first read to me honest Mantuan,
Then Virgils Eglogues, being entred thus,
Me thought I straight had mounted Pegasus,
And in his full Careere could make him stop,
And bound vpon Parnassus’ by-clift top. 40
I scornd your ballet then though it were done
And had for Finis, William Elderton.
But soft, in sporting with this childish iest,
I from my subiect haue too long digrest,
Then to the matter that we tooke in hand,
Ioue and Apollo for the Muses stand.
Then noble Chaucer, in those former times,
The first inrich’d our English with his rimes,
And was the first of ours, that euer brake,
Into the Muses treasure, and first spake 50
In weighty numbers, deluing in the Mine
Of perfect knowledge, which he could refine,
And coyne for currant, and as much as then
The English language could expresse to men,
He made it doe; and by his wondrous skill,
Gaue vs much light from his abundant quill.
And honest Gower, who in respect of him,
Had only sipt at Aganippas brimme,
And though in yeares this last was him before,
Yet fell he far short of the others store. 60
When after those, foure ages very neare,
They with the Muses which conuersed, were
That Princely Surrey, early in the time
Of the Eight Henry, who was then the prime
Of Englands noble youth; with him there came
Wyat; with reuerence whom we still doe name
Amongst our Poets, Brian had a share
With the two former, which accompted are
That times best makers, and the authors were
Of those small poems, which the title beare, 70
Of songs and sonnets, wherein oft they hit
Page 77
On many dainty passages of wit.
Gascoine and Churchyard after them againe
In the beginning of Eliza’s raine,
Accoumpted were great Meterers many a day,
But not inspired with braue fier, had they
Liu’d but a little longer, they had seene,
Their works before them to have buried beene.
Graue morrall Spencer after these came on
Then whom I am perswaded there was none 80
Since the blind Bard his Iliads vp did make,
Fitter a taske like that to vndertake,
To set downe boldly, brauely to inuent,
In all high knowledge, surely excellent.
The noble Sidney with this last arose,
That Heroe for numbers, and for Prose.
That throughly pac’d our language as to show,
The plenteous English hand in hand might goe
With Greek or Latine, and did first reduce
Our tongue from Lillies writing then in vse; 90
Talking of Stones, Stars, Plants, of fishes, Flyes,
Playing with words, and idle Similies,
As th’ English, Apes and very Zanies be,
Of euery thing, that they doe heare and see,
So imitating his ridiculous tricks,
They spake and writ, all like meere lunatiques.
Then Warner though his lines were not so trim’d,
Nor yet his Poem so exactly lim’d
And neatly ioynted, but the Criticke may
Easily reprooue him, yet thus let me say; 100
For my old friend, some passages there be
In him, which I protest haue taken me,
With almost wonder, so fine, cleere, and new
As yet they haue bin equalled by few.
Neat Marlow bathed in the Thespian springs
Had in him those braue translunary things,
That the first Poets had, his raptures were,
All ayre, and fire, which made his verses cleere,
For that fine madnes still he did retaine,
Which rightly should possesse a Poets braine. 110
And surely Nashe, though he a Proser were
A branch of Lawrell yet deserues to beare,
Sharply Satirick was he, and that way
He went, since that his being, to this day
Few haue attempted, and I surely thinke
Those wordes shall hardly be set downe with inke;
Shall scorch and blast, so as his could, where he,
Would inflict vengeance, and be it said of thee,
Shakespeare, thou hadst as smooth a Comicke vaine,
Fitting the socke, and in thy naturall braine, 120
As strong conception, and as Cleere a rage,
As any one that trafiqu’d with the stage.
Amongst these Samuel Daniel, whom if I
May spake of, but to sensure doe denie,
Onely haue heard some wisemen him rehearse,
To be too much Historian in verse;
His rimes were smooth, his meeters well did close
But yet his maner better fitted prose:
Page 78
Next these, learn’d Johnson, in this List I bring,
Who had drunke deepe of the Pierian spring, 130
Whose knowledge did him worthily prefer,
And long was Lord here of the Theater,
Who in opinion made our learn’st to sticke,
Whether in Poems rightly dramatique,
Strong Seneca or Plautus, he or they,
Should beare the Buskin, or the Socke away.
Others againe here liued in my dayes,
That haue of vs deserued no lesse praise
For their translations, then the daintiest wit
That on Parnassus thinks, he highst doth sit, 140
And for a chaire may mongst the Muses call,
As the most curious maker of them all;
As reuerent Chapman, who hath brought to vs,
Musaeus, Homer and Hesiodus
Out of the Greeke; and by his skill hath reard
Them to that height, and to our tongue endear’d,
That were those Poets at this day aliue,
To see their bookes thus with vs to suruiue,
They would think, hauing neglected them so long,
They had bin written in the English tongue. 150
And Siluester who from the French more weake,
Made Bartas of his sixe dayes labour speake
In naturall English, who, had he there stayd,
He had done well, and neuer had bewraid
His owne inuention, to haue bin so poore
Who still wrote lesse, in striuing to write more.
Then dainty Sands that hath to English done,
Smooth sliding Ouid, and hath made him run
With so much sweetnesse and vnusuall grace,
As though the neatnesse of the English pace, 160
Should tell the Ietting Lattine that it came
But slowly after, as though stiff and lame.
So Scotland sent vs hither, for our owne
That man, whose name I euer would haue knowne,
To stand by mine, that most ingenious knight,
My Alexander, to whom in his right,
I want extreamely, yet in speaking thus
I doe but shew the loue, that was twixt vs,
And not his numbers which were braue and hie,
So like his mind, was his clear Poesie, 170
And my deare Drummond to whom much I owe
For his much loue, and proud I was to know,
His poesie, for which two worthy men,
I Menstry still shall loue, and Hauthorne-den.
Then the two Beamounts and my Browne arose,
My deare companions whom I freely chose
My bosome friends; and in their seuerall wayes,
Rightly borne Poets, and in these last dayes,
Men of much note, and no lesse nobler parts,
Such as haue freely tould to me their hearts, 180
As I have mine to them; but if you shall
Say in your knowledge, that these be not all
Haue writ in numbers, be inform’d that I
Only my selfe, to these few men doe tye,
Page 79
Whose works oft printed, set on euery post,
To publique censure subiect haue bin most;
For such whose poems, be they nere so rare,
In priuate chambers, that incloistered are,
And by transcription daintyly must goe;
As though the world vnworthy were to know, 190
Their rich composures, let those men that keepe
These wonderous reliques in their iudgement deepe;
And cry them vp so, let such Peeces bee
Spoke of by those that shall come after me,
I passe not for them: nor doe meane to run,
In quest of these, that them applause haue wonne,
Vpon our Stages in these latter dayes,
That are so many, let them haue their bayes
That doe deserue it; let those wits that haunt
Those publique circuits, let them freely chaunt 200
Their fine Composures, and their praise pursue
And so my deare friend, for this time adue.
Vpon the death of his incomparable friend Sir HENRY RAYNSFORD of CLIFFORD
Could there be
words found to expresse my losse,
There were some hope, that
this my heauy crosse
Might be sustained, and that
wretched I
Might once finde comfort:
but to haue him die
Past all degrees that was
so deare to me;
As but comparing him with
others, hee
Was such a thing, as if some
Power should say
I’le take Man on me,
to shew men the way
What a friend should be.
But words come so short
Of him, that when I thus would
him report, 10
I am vndone, and hauing nought
to say,
Mad at my selfe, I throwe
my penne away,
And beate my breast, that
there should be a woe
So high, that words cannot
attaine thereto.
T’is strange that I
from my abundant breast,
Who others sorrowes haue so
well exprest:
Yet I by this in little time
am growne
So poore, that I want to expresse
mine owne.
I thinke the Fates perceiuing
me to beare
My worldly crosses without
wit or feare: 20
Nay, with what scorne I euer
haue derided,
Those plagues that for me
they haue oft prouided,
Drew them to counsaile; nay,
conspired rather,
And in this businesse laid
their heads together
To finde some one plague,
that might me subuert,
And at an instant breake my
stubborne heart;
They did indeede, and onely
to this end
They tooke from me this more
then man, or friend.
Hard-hearted Fates,
your worst thus haue you done,
Then let vs see what lastly
you haue wonne 30
By this your rigour, in a
course so strict,
Why see, I beare all that
you can inflict:
And hee from heauen your poore
reuenge to view;
Laments my losse of him, but
laughes at you,
Whilst I against you execrations
Vpon the death of the Lady OLIVE STANHOPE
Canst thou depart and be forgotten
so,
STANHOPE thou canst not, no
deare STANHOPE, no:
But in despight of death the
world shall see,
That Muse which so much graced
was by thee
Can black Obliuion vtterly
out-braue,
And set thee vp aboue thy
silent Graue.
I meruail’d much the
Derbian Nimphes were dumbe,
Or of those Muses, what should
be become,
That of all those, the mountaines
there among,
Not one this while thy Epicediumsung;
10
But so it is, when they of
thee were reft,
They all those hills, and
all those Riuers left,
And sullen growne, their former
seates remoue,
Both from cleare Darwin,
and from siluer Doue,
And for thy losse, they greeued
are so sore,
That they haue vow’d
they will come there no more;
To Master WILLIAM IEFFREYS, Chaplaine to the Lord Ambassa_dour in Spaine_
My noble friend,
you challenge me to write
To you in verse, and often
you recite,
My promise to you, and to
send you newes;
As ’tis a thing I very
seldome vse,
And I must write of State,
if to Madrid,
A thing our Proclamations
here forbid,
And that word State such Latitude
doth beare,
As it may make me very well
to feare
To write, nay speake at all,
these let you know
Your power on me, yet not
that I will showe 10
The loue I beare you, in that
lofty height,
So cleere expression, or such
words of weight,
As into Spanish if
they were translated,
Might make the Poets of that
Realme amated;
Yet these my least were, but
that you extort
These numbers from me, when
I should report
In home-spunne prose, in good
plaine honest words
The newes our wofull England
vs affords.
The Muses here
sit sad, and mute the while
A sort of swine vnseasonably
defile 20
Those sacred springs, which
from the by-clift hill
Dropt their pure Nectar
into euery quill;
In this with State, I hope
I doe not deale,
This onely tends the Muses
common-weale.
What canst thou
hope, or looke for from his pen,
Who liues with beasts, though
in the shapes of men,
And what a poore few are we
honest still,
And dare to be so, when all
the world is ill.
I finde this age
of our markt with this Fate,
That honest men are still
precipitate 30
Vnder base villaines, which
till th’ earth can vent
This her last brood, and wholly
hath them spent,
Shall be so, then in reuolution
shall
Vertue againe arise by vices
fall;
But that shall I not see,
neither will I
Maintaine this, as one doth
a Prophesie,
That our King Iames
to Rome shall surely goe,
And from his chaire the Pope
shall ouerthrow.
But O this world is so giuen
vp to hell,
That as the old Giants, which
did once rebell, 40
Against the Gods, so this
now-liuing race
Dare sin, yet stand, and Ieere
heauen in the face.
But soft my Muse,
and make a little stay,
Surely thou art not rightly
in thy way,
To my good Ieffrayes
was not I about
To write, and see, I suddainely
am out,
This is pure Satire,
that thou speak’st, and I
Was first in hand to write
an Elegie.
To tell my countreys shame
I not delight.
But doe bemoane ’t I
am no Democrite:
50
O God, though Vertue mightily
doe grieue
For all this world, yet will
I not beleeue
But that shees faire and louely,
Accursed Death,
what neede was there at all
Of thee, or who to councell
thee did call;
The subiect whereupon these
lines I spend
For thee was most vnfit, her
timelesse end
Too soone thou wroughtst,
too neere her thou didst stand;
Thou shouldst haue lent thy
leane and meager hand
To those who oft the help
thereof beseech,
And can be cured by no other
Leech.
In this wide world
how many thousands be,
That hauing past fourescore,
doe call for thee. 10
The wretched debtor in the
Iayle that lies,
Yet cannot this his Creditor
suffice
Doth woe thee oft with many
a sigh and teare,
Yet thou art coy, and him
thou wilt not heare.
The Captiue slaue that tuggeth
at the Oares,
And vnderneath the Bulls tough
sinewes rores,
Begs at thy hand, in lieu
of all his paines,
That thou wouldst but release
him of his chaines;
Yet thou a niggard listenest
not thereto,
With one short gaspe which
thou mightst easily do, 20
But thou couldst come to her
ere there was neede,
And euen at once destroy both
flower and seede.
But cruell Death
if thou so barbarous be,
To those so goodly, and so
young as shee;
That in their teeming thou
wilt shew thy spight;
Either from marriage thou
wilt Maides affright,
Or in their wedlock, Widowes
liues to chuse
Their Husbands bed, and vtterly
refuse,
Fearing conception; so shalt
thou thereby
Extirpate mankinde by thy
cruelty. 30
If after direfull
Tragedy thou thirst,
Extinguish Himens Torches
at the first;
Build Funerall pyles, and
the sad pauement strewe,
With mournfull Cypresse, and
the pale-leau’d Yewe.
Away with Roses, Myrtle, and
with Bayes;
Ensignes of mirth, and iollity,
as these;
Neuer at Nuptials vsed be
againe,
But from the Church the new
Bride entertaine
With weeping Nenias,
euer and among,
As at departings be sad Requiems
song. 40
Lucina
by th’ olde Poets that wert sayd,
Women in Childe-birth euermore
to ayde,
Because thine Altars, long
haue layne neglected:
Nor as they should, thy holy
fiers reflected
NIMPHIDIA
Olde CHAVCER doth of Topas
tell,
Mad RABLAIS of Pantagruell,
A latter third of Dowsabell,
With such poore
trifles playing:
Others the like haue laboured
at
Some of this thing, and some
of that,
And many of they know not
what,
But that they
must be saying.
Another sort there bee, that
will
Be talking of the Fayries
still, 10
Nor neuer can they have their
fill,
As they were wedded
to them;
No Tales of them their thirst
can slake,
So much delight therein they
take,
And some strange thing they
fame would make,
Knew they the
way to doe them.
Then since no Muse hath bin
so bold,
Or of the Later, or the ould,
Those Eluish secrets to vnfold,
Which lye from
others reading, 20
My actiue Muse to light shall
bring,
The court of that proud Fayry
King,
And tell there, of the Reuelling,
Ioue prosper
my proceeding.
And thou NIMPHIDIA gentle
F_ay_,
Which meeting me vpon the
way,
These secrets didst to me
bewray,
Which now I am
in telling:
My pretty light fantastick
mayde,
I here inuoke thee to my ayde,
30
That I may speake what thou
hast sayd,
In numbers smoothly
swelling.
This Pallace standeth in the
Ayre,
By Nigromancie placed there,
That it no Tempests needs
to feare,
Which way so ere
it blow it.
And somewhat Southward tow’rd
the Noone,
Whence lyes a way vp to the
Moone,
And thence the Fayrie
can as soone
Passe to the earth
below it. 40
The Walls of Spiders legs
are made,
Well mortized and finely layd,
He was the master of his Trade
It curiously that
builded:
The Windowes of the eyes of
Cats,
And for the Roofe, instead
of Slats,
Is couer’d with the
skinns of Batts,
With Mooneshine
that are guilded.
Hence Oberon him sport
to make,
(Their rest when weary mortalls
take) 50
And none but onely Fayries
wake,
Desendeth for
his pleasure.
And Mab his meerry
Queene by night
Bestrids young Folks that
lye vpright,
(In elder Times the Mare
that hight)
Which plagues
them out of measure.
Hence Shaddowes, seeming Idle
shapes,
Of little frisking Elues and
Apes,
To Earth doe make their wanton
skapes,
As hope of pastime
hasts them: 60
Which maydes think on the
Hearth they see,
When Fyers well nere consumed
be,
Their daunsing Hayes by two
and three,
Iust as their
Fancy casts them.
These make our Girles their
sluttery rue,
By pinching them both blacke
and blew,
And put a penny in their shue,
The house for
cleanely sweeping:
And in their courses make
that Round,
In Meadowes, and in Marshes
found, 70
Of them so call’d the
Fayrie ground,
Of which they
haue the keeping.
Thus when a Childe haps to
be gott,
Which after prooues an Ideott,
When Folke perceiue it thriueth
not,
The fault therein
to smother:
Some silly doting brainlesse
Calfe,
That vnderstands things by
the halfe,
Say that the Fayrie
left this Aulfe,
And tooke away
the other. 80
But listen and I shall you
tell,
A chance in Fayrie
that befell,
Which certainly may please
some well;
In Loue and Armes
delighting:
Of Oberon that Iealous
grewe,
Of one of his owne Fayrie
crue,
Too well (he fear’d)
his Queene that knew,
His loue but ill
requiting.
Pigwiggen was this
Fayrie knight,
One wondrous gratious in the
sight 90
Of faire Queene Mab,
which day and night,
He amorously obserued;
Which made king Oberon
suspect,
His Seruice tooke too good
effect,
His saucinesse, and often
checkt,
And could have
wisht him starued.
Pigwiggen gladly would
commend,
Some token to queene Mab
to send,
If Sea, or Land, him ought
could lend,
Were worthy of
her wearing:
100
At length this Louer doth
deuise,
A Bracelett made of Emmotts
eyes,
A thing he thought that shee
would prize,
No whitt her state
impayring.
And to the Queene a Letter
writes,
Which he most curiously endites,
Coniuring her by all the rites
Of loue, she would
be pleased,
To meete him her true Seruant,
where
They might without suspect
or feare, 110
Themselues to one another
cleare,
And haue their
poore hearts eased.
At mid-night the appointed
hower,
And for the Queene a fitting
bower,
(Quoth he) is that faire Cowslip
flower,
On Hipcut
hill that groweth,
In all your Trayne there’s
not a Fay,
That euer went to gather May,
But she hath made it in her
way,
The tallest there
that groweth. 120
When by Tom Thum a
Fayrie Page,
He sent it, and doth him engage,
By promise of a mighty wage,
It secretly to
carrie:
Which done, the Queene her
maydes doth call,
And bids them to be ready
all,
She would goe see her Summer
Hall,
She could no longer
tarrie.
Her Chariot ready straight
is made,
Each thing therein is fitting
layde, 130
That she by nothing might
be stayde,
For naught must
be her letting,
Foure nimble Gnats the Horses
were,
Their Harnasses of Gossamere,
Flye Cranion her Chariottere,
Vpon the Coach-box
getting.
Her Chariot of a Snayles fine
shell,
Which for the colours did
excell:
The faire Queene Mab,
becomming well,
So liuely was
the limming:
140
The seate the soft wooll of
the Bee;
The couer, (gallantly to see)
The wing of a pyde Butterflee,
I trowe t’was
simple trimming.
The wheeles compos’d
of Crickets bones,
And daintily made for the
nonce,
For feare of ratling on the
stones,
With Thistle-downe
they shod it;
For all her Maydens much did
feare,
If Oberon had chanc’d
to heare, 150
That Mab his Queene
should haue bin there,
He would not haue
aboad it.
She mounts her Chariot with
a trice,
Nor would she stay for no
advice,
Vntill her Maydes that were
so nice,
To wayte on her
were fitted,
But ranne her selfe away alone;
Which when they heard there
was not one,
But hasted after to be gone,
As she had beene
diswitted. 160
Hop, and Mop,
and Drop so cleare,
Pip, and Trip,
and Skip that were,
To Mab their Soueraigne
euer deare:
Her speciall Maydes
of Honour;
Fib, and Tib,
and Pinck, and Pin,
Tick, and Quick,
and Iill, and Iin,
Tit, and Nit,
and Wap, and Win,
The Trayne that
wayte vpon her.
Vpon a Grashopper they got,
And what with Amble, and with
Trot, 170
For hedge nor ditch they spared
not,
But after her
they hie them.
A Cobweb ouer them they throw,
To shield the winde if it
should blowe,
Themselues they wisely could
bestowe,
Lest any should
espie them.
But let vs leaue Queene Mab
a while,
Through many a gate, o’r
many a stile,
That now had gotten by this
wile,
Her deare Pigwiggin
kissing, 180
And tell how Oberon
doth fare,
Who grew as mad as any Hare,
When he had sought each place
with care,
And found his
Queene was missing.
By grisly Pluto he
doth sweare,
He rent his cloths, and tore
his haire,
And as he runneth, here and
there,
An Acorne cup
he greeteth;
Which soone he taketh by the
stalke
About his head he lets it
walke, 190
Nor doth he any creature balke,
But lays on all
he meeteth.
The Thuskan Poet doth
aduance,
The franticke Paladine
of France,
And those more ancient doe
inhaunce,
Alcides
in his fury.
And others Aiax Telamon,
But to this time there hath
bin non,
So Bedlam as our Oberon,
Of which I dare
assure you. 200
And first encountring with
a waspe,
He in his armes the Fly doth
claspe
As though his breath he forth
would graspe,
Him for Pigwiggen
taking:
Where is my wife thou Rogue,
quoth he,
Pigwiggen, she is come
to thee,
Restore her, or thou dy’st
by me,
Whereat the poore
waspe quaking,
Cryes, Oberon, great
Fayrie King,
Content thee I am no such
thing, 210
I am a Waspe behold my sting,
At which the Fayrie
started:
When soone away the Waspe
doth goe,
Poore wretch was neuer frighted
so,
He thought his wings were
much to slow,
O’rioyd,
they so were parted.
He next vpon a Glow-worme
light,
(You must suppose it now was
night),
Which for her hinder part
was bright,
He tooke to be
a Deuill. 220
And furiously doth her assaile
For carrying fier in her taile
He thrasht her rough coat
with his flayle,
The mad King fear’d
no euill.
O quoth the Gloworme
hold thy hand,
Thou puisant King of Fayrie
land,
Thy mighty stroaks who may
withstand,
Hould, or of life
despaire I:
Together then her selfe doth
roule,
And tumbling downe into a
hole, 230
She seem’d as black
as any Cole,
Which vext away
the Fayrie.
From thence he ran into a
Hiue,
Amongst the Bees he letteth
driue
And downe their Coombes begins
to riue,
All likely to
haue spoyled:
Which with their Waxe his
face besmeard,
And with their Honey daub’d
his Beard
It would haue made a man afeard,
To see how he
was moyled. 240
A new Aduenture him betides,
He mett an Ant, which he bestrides,
And post thereon away he rides,
Which with his
haste doth stumble;
And came full ouer on her
snowte,
Her heels so threw the dirt
about,
For she by no meanes could
get out,
But ouer him doth
tumble.
And being in this piteous
case,
And all be-slurried head and
face, 250
On runs he in this Wild-goose
chase
As here, and there,
he rambles
Halfe blinde, against a molehill
hit,
And for a Mountaine taking
it,
For all he was out of his
wit,
Yet to the top
he scrambles.
And being gotten to the top,
Yet there himselfe he could
not stop,
But downe on th’ other
side doth chop,
And to the foot
came rumbling:
260
So that the Grubs therein
that bred,
Hearing such turmoyle ouer
head,
Thought surely they had all
bin dead,
So fearefull was
the Iumbling.
And falling downe into a Lake,
Which him vp to the neck doth
take,
His fury somewhat it doth
slake,
He calleth for
a Ferry;
Where you may some recouery
note,
What was his Club he made
his Boate, 270
And in his Oaken Cup doth
float,
As safe as in
a Wherry.
Men talke of the Aduentures
strange,
Of Don Quishott, and
of their change
Through which he Armed oft
did range,
Of Sancha Panchas
trauell:
But should a man tell euery
thing,
Done by this franticke Fayrie
king.
And them in lofty numbers
sing
It well his wits
might grauell. 280
Scarse set on shore, but therewithall,
He meeteth Pucke, which
most men call
Hobgoblin, and on him
doth fall,
With words from
frenzy spoken;
Hoh, hoh, quoth Hob,
God saue thy grace,
Who drest thee in this pitteous
case,
He thus that spoild my soueraignes
face,
I would his necke
were broken.
This Puck seemes but
a dreaming dolt,
Still walking like a ragged
Colt, 290
And oft out of a Bush doth
bolt,
Of purpose to
deceiue vs.
And leading vs makes vs to
stray,
Long Winters nights out of
the way,
And when we stick in mire
and clay,
Hob doth
with laughter leaue vs.
Deare Puck (quoth he)
my wife is gone
As ere thou lou’st King
Oberon,
Let euery thing but this alone
With vengeance,
and pursue her; 300
Bring her to me aliue or dead,
Or that vilde thief, Pigwiggins
head,
That villaine hath defil’d
my bed
He to this folly
drew her.
Quoth Puck, My Liege
Ile neuer lin,
But I will thorough thicke
and thinne,
Vntill at length I bring her
in,
My dearest Lord
nere doubt it:
Thorough Brake, thorough Brier,
Thorough Muck, thorough Mier,
310
Thorough Water, thorough Fier,
And thus goes
Puck about it.
This thing Nimphidia ouer
hard
That on this mad King had
a guard
Not doubting of a great reward,
For first this
businesse broching;
And through the ayre away
doth goe
Swift as an Arrow from the
Bowe,
To let her Soueraigne Mab
to know,
What perill was
approaching. 320
The Queene bound with Loues
powerfulst charme
Sate with Pigwiggen
arme in arme,
Her Merry Maydes that thought
no harme,
About the roome
were skipping:
A Humble-Bee their Minstrell,
playde
Vpon his Hoboy; eu’ry
Mayde
Fit for this Reuells was arayde,
The Hornepype
neatly tripping.
In comes Nimphidia,
and doth crie,
My Soueraigne for your safety
flie, 330
For there is danger but too
nie,
I posted to forewarne
you:
The King hath sent Hobgoblin
out,
To seeke you all the Fields
about,
And of your safety you may
doubt,
If he but once
discerne you.
When like an vprore in a Towne,
Before them euery thing went
downe,
Some tore a Ruffe, and some
a Gowne,
Gainst one another
iustling: 340
They flewe about like Chaffe
i’ th winde,
For hast some left their Maskes
behinde;
Some could not stay their
Gloues to finde,
There neuer was
such bustling.
Forth ranne they by a secret
way,
Into a brake that neere them
lay;
Yet much they doubted there
to stay,
Lest Hob
should hap to find them:
He had a sharpe and piercing
sight,
All one to him the day and
night, 350
And therefore were resolu’d
by flight,
To leave this
place behind them.
At length one chanc’d
to find a Nut,
In th’ end of which
a hole was cut,
Which lay vpon a Hazell roote,
There scatt’red
by a Squirill:
Which out the kernell gotten
had;
When quoth this Fay
deare Queene be glad,
Let Oberon be ne’r
so mad,
Ile set you safe
from perill. 360
Come all into this Nut (quoth
she)
Come closely in be rul’d
by me,
Each one may here a chuser
be,
For roome yee
need not wrastle:
Nor neede yee be together
heapt;
So one by one therein they
crept,
And lying downe they soundly
slept,
And safe as in
a Castle.
Nimphidia that this
while doth watch,
Perceiu’d if Puck
the Queene should catch 370
That he should be her ouer-match,
Of which she well
bethought her;
Found it must be some powerfull
Charme,
The Queene against him that
must arme,
Or surely he would doe her
harme,
For throughly
he had sought her.
And listning if she ought
could heare,
That her might hinder, or
might feare:
But finding still the coast
was cleare,
Nor creature had
discride her; 380
Each circumstance and hauing
scand,
She came thereby to vnderstand,
Puck would be with
them out of hand
When to her Charmes
she hide her:
And first her Ferne seede
doth bestowe,
The kernell of the Missletowe:
And here and there as Puck
should goe,
With terrour to
affright him:
She Night-shade strawes to
work him ill,
Therewith her Veruayne and
her Dill, 390
That hindreth Witches of their
will,
Of purpose to
dispight him.
Then sprinkles she the iuice
of Rue,
That groweth vnderneath the
Yeu:
With nine drops of the midnight
dewe,
From Lunarie distilling:
The Molewarps braine mixt
therewithall;
And with the same the Pismyres
gall,
For she in nothing short would
fall;
The Fayrie
was so willing. 400
Then thrice vnder a Bryer
doth creepe,
Which at both ends was rooted
deepe,
And ouer it three times shee
leepe;
Her Magicke much
auayling:
Then on Proserpyna
doth call,
And so vpon her spell doth
fall,
Which here to you repeate
I shall,
Not in one tittle
fayling.
By the croking of the Frogge;
By the howling of the Dogge;
410
By the crying of the Hogge,
Against the storme
arising;
By the Euening Curphewe bell;
By the dolefull dying knell,
O let this my direfull Spell,
Hob, hinder
thy surprising.
By the Mandrakes dreadfull
groanes;
By the Lubricans sad moans;
By the noyse of dead mens
bones,
In Charnell houses
ratling: 420
By the hissing of the Snake,
The rustling of the fire-Drake,
I charge thee thou this place
forsake,
Nor of Queene
Mab be pratling.
By the Whirlwindes hollow
sound,
By the Thunders dreadfull
stound,
Yells of Spirits vnder ground,
I chardge thee
not to feare vs:
By the Shreech-owles dismall
note,
By the Blacke Night-Rauens
throate, 430
I charge thee Hob to
teare thy Coate
With thornes if
thou come neere vs,
Her Spell thus spoke she stept
aside,
And in a Chincke her selfe
doth hide,
To see there of what would
betyde,
For shee doth
onely minde him:
When presently shee Puck
espies,
And well she markt his gloating
eyes,
How vnder euery leafe he spies,
In seeking still
to finde them. 440
But once the Circle got within,
The Charmes to worke doe straight
begin,
And he was caught as in a
Gin;
For as he thus
was busie,
A paine he in his Head-peece
feeles,
Against a stubbed Tree he
reeles,
And vp went poore Hobgoblins
heeles,
Alas his braine
was dizzie.
At length vpon his feete he
gets,
Hobgoblin fumes, Hobgoblin
frets, 450
And as againe he forward sets,
And through the
Bushes scrambles;
A Stump doth trip him in his
pace,
Down comes poore Hob
vpon his face,
And lamentably tore his case,
Amongst the Bryers
and Brambles.
A plague vpon Queene Mab,
quoth hee,
And all her Maydes where ere
they be,
I thinke the Deuill guided
me,
To seeke her so
prouoked. 460
Where stumbling at a piece
of Wood,
He fell into a dich of mudd,
Where to the very Chin he
stood,
In danger to be
choked.
Now worse than e’re
he was before:
Poore Puck doth yell,
poore Puck doth rore;
That wak’d Queene Mab
who doubted sore
Some Treason had
been wrought her:
Vntill Nimphidia told
the Queene
What she had done, what she
had seene, 470
Who then had well-neere crack’d
her spleene
With very extreame
laughter.
But leaue we Hob to
clamber out:
Queene Mab and all
her Fayrie rout,
And come againe to haue about
With Oberon
yet madding:
And with Pigwiggen
now distrought,
Who much was troubled in his
thought,
That he so long the Queene
had sought,
And through the
Fields was gadding. 480
And as he runnes he still
doth crie,
King Oberon I thee
defie,
And dare thee here in Armes
to trie,
For my deare Ladies
honour:
For that she is a Queene right
good,
In whose defence Ile shed
my blood,
And that thou in this iealous
mood
Hast lay’d
this slander on her.
And quickly Armes him for
the Field,
A little Cockle-shell his
Shield, 490
Which he could very brauely
wield:
Yet could it not
be pierced:
His Speare a Bent both stiffe
and strong,
And well-neere of two Inches
long;
The Pyle was of a Horse-flyes
tongue,
Whose sharpnesse
nought reuersed.
And puts him on a coate of
Male,
Which was of a Fishes scale,
That when his Foe should him
assaile,
No poynt should
be preuayling:
500
His Rapier was a Hornets sting,
It was a very dangerous thing:
For if he chanc’d to
hurt the King,
It would be long
in healing.
His Helmet was a Bettles head,
Most horrible and full of
dread,
That able was to strike one
dead,
Yet did it well
become him:
And for a plume, a horses
hayre,
Which being tossed with the
ayre, 510
Had force to strike his Foe
with feare,
And turne his
weapon from him.
Himselfe he on an Earewig
set,
Yet scarce he on his back
could get,
So oft and high he did coruet,
Ere he himselfe
could settle:
He made him turne, and stop,
and bound,
To gallop, and to trot the
Round,
He scarce could stand on any
ground,
He was so full
of mettle. 520
When soone he met with Tomalin,
One that a valiant Knight
had bin,
And to King Oberon
of kin;
Quoth he thou
manly Fayrie:
Tell Oberon I come
prepar’d,
Then bid him stand vpon his
Guard;
This hand his basenesse shall
reward,
Let him be ne’r
so wary.
Say to him thus, that I defie,
His slanders, and his infamie,
530
And as a mortall enemie,
Doe publickly
proclaime him:
Withall, that if I had mine
owne,
He should not weare the Fayrie
Crowne,
But with a vengeance should
come downe:
Nor we a King
should name him.
This Tomalin could
not abide,
To heare his Soueraigne vilefide:
But to the Fayrie Court
him hide;
Full furiously
he posted, 540
With eu’ry thing Pigwiggen
sayd:
How title to the Crowne he
layd,
And in what Armes he was aray’d,
As how himselfe
he boasted.
Twixt head and foot, from
point to point,
He told th’arming of
each ioint,
In every piece, how neate,
and quaint,
For Tomalin
could doe it:
How fayre he sat, how sure
he rid,
As of the courser he bestrid,
550
How Mannag’d, and how
well he did;
The King which
listened to it,
Quoth he, goe Tomalin
with speede,
Prouide me Armes, prouide
my Steed,
And euery thing that I shall
neede,
By thee I will
be guided;
To strait account, call thou
thy witt,
See there be wanting not a
whitt,
In euery thing see thou me
fitt,
Just as my foes
prouided. 560
Soone flewe this newes through
Fayrie land
Which gaue Queene Mab
to vnderstand,
The combate that was then
in hand,
Betwixt those
men so mighty:
Which greatly she began to
rew,
Perceuing that all Fayrie
knew,
The first occasion from her
grew,
Of these affaires
so weighty.
Wherefore attended with her
maides,
Through fogs, and mists, and
dampes she wades, 570
To Proserpine the Queene
of shades
To treat, that
it would please her,
The cause into her hands to
take,
For ancient loue and friendships
sake,
And soone therof an end to
make,
Which of much
care would ease her.
A While, there let we Mab
alone,
And come we to King Oberon,
Who arm’d to meete his
foe is gone,
For Proud Pigwiggen
crying: 580
Who sought the Fayrie
King as fast,
And had so well his iourneyes
cast,
That he arriued at the last,
His puisant foe
espying:
Stout Tomalin came
with the King,
Tom Thum doth on Pigwiggen
bring,
That perfect were in euery
thing,
To single fights
belonging:
And therefore they themselues
ingage,
To see them exercise their
rage, 590
With faire and comely equipage,
Not one the other
wronging.
So like in armes, these champions
were,
As they had bin, a very paire,
So that a man would almost
sweare,
That either, had
bin either;
Their furious steedes began
to naye
That they were heard a mighty
way,
Their staues vpon their rests
they lay;
Yet e’r
they flew together,
600
Their Seconds minister an
oath,
Which was indifferent to them
both,
That on their Knightly faith,
and troth,
No magicke them
supplyed;
And sought them that they
had no charmes,
Wherewith to worke each others
harmes,
But came with simple open
armes,
To haue their
causes tryed.
Together furiously they ran,
That to the ground came horse
and man, 610
The blood out of their Helmets
span,
So sharpe were
their incounters;
And though they to the earth
were throwne,
Yet quickly they regain’d
their owne,
Such nimblenesse was neuer
showne,
They were two
Gallant Mounters.
When in a second Course againe,
They forward came with might
and mayne,
Yet which had better of the
twaine,
The Seconds could
not iudge yet; 620
Their shields were into pieces
cleft,
Their helmets from their heads
were reft,
And to defend them nothing
left,
These Champions
would not budge yet.
Away from them their Staues
they threw,
Their cruell Swords they quickly
drew,
And freshly they the fight
renew;
They euery stroke
redoubled:
Which made Proserpina
take heed,
And make to them the greater
speed, 630
For fear lest they too much
should bleed,
Which wondrously
her troubled.
When to th’ infernall
Stix she goes,
She takes the Fogs from thence
that rose,
And in a Bagge doth them enclose;
When well she
had them blended:
She hyes her then to Lethe
spring,
A Bottell and thereof doth
bring,
Wherewith she meant to worke
the thing,
Which onely she
intended. 640
Now Proserpine with
Mab is gone
Vnto the place where Oberon
And proud Pigwiggen,
one to one,
Both to be slaine
were likely:
And there themselues they
closely hide,
Because they would not be
espide;
For Proserpine meant
to decide
The matter very
quickly.
And suddainly vntyes the Poke,
Which out of it sent such
a smoke, 650
As ready was them all to choke,
So greeuous was
the pother;
So that the Knights each other
lost,
And stood as still as any
post,
Tom Thum, nor Tomalin
could boast
Themselues of
any other.
But when the mist gan somewhat
cease,
Proserpina commanded
peace:
And that a while they should
release,
Each other of
their perill:
660
Which here (quoth she) I doe
proclaime
To all in dreadfull Plutos
name,
That as yee will eschewe his
blame,
You let me heare
the quarrell,
But here your selues you must
engage,
Somewhat to coole your spleenish
rage:
Your greeuous thirst and to
asswage,
That first you
drinke this liquor:
Which shall your vnderstanding
cleare,
As plainely shall to you appeare;
670
Those things from me that
you shall heare,
Conceiuing much
the quicker.
This Lethe water you
must knowe,
The memory destroyeth so,
That of our weale, or of our
woe,
It all remembrance
blotted;
Of it nor can you euer thinke:
For they no sooner tooke this
drinke,
But nought into their braines
could sinke,
Of what had them
besotted. 680
King Oberon forgotten
had,
That he for iealousie ranne
mad:
But of his Queene was wondrous
glad,
And ask’d
how they came thither:
Pigwiggen likewise
doth forget,
That he Queene Mab
had euer met;
Or that they were so hard
beset,
When they were
found together.
Nor neither of them both had
thought,
That e’r they had each
other sought; 690
Much lesse that they a Combat
fought,
But such a dreame
were lothing:
Tom Thum had got a
little sup,
And Tomalin scarce
kist the Cup,
Yet had their braines so sure
lockt vp,
That they remembred
nothing.
Queene Mab and her
light Maydes the while,
Amongst themselues doe closely
smile,
To see the King caught with
this wile,
With one another
testing:
700
And to the Fayrie Court
they went,
With mickle ioy and merriment,
Which thing was done with
good intent,
And thus I left
them feasting.
FINIS.
What time the groues were
clad in greene,
The Fields drest
all in flowers,
And that the sleeke-hayred
Nimphs were seene,
To seeke them
Summer Bowers.
Forth rou’d I by the
sliding Rills,
To finde where
CYNTHIA sat,
Whose name so often from the
hills,
The Ecchos wondred
at.
When me vpon my Quest to bring,
That pleasure
might excell, 10
The Birds stroue which should
sweetliest sing,
The Flowers which
sweet’st should smell.
Long wand’ring in the
Woods (said I)
Oh whether’s
CYNTHIA gone?
When soone the Eccho doth
reply,
To my last word,
goe on.
At length vpon a lofty Firre,
It was my chance
to finde,
Where that deare name most
due to her,
Was caru’d
vpon the rynde.
20
Which whilst with wonder I
beheld,
The Bees their
hony brought,
And vp the carued letters
fild,
As they with gould
were wrought.
And neere that trees more
spacious roote,
Then looking on
the ground,
The shape of her most dainty
foot,
Imprinted there
I found.
Which stuck there like a curious
seale,
As though it should
forbid 30
Vs, wretched mortalls, to
reueale,
What vnder it
was hid.
Besides the flowers which
it had pres’d,
Apeared to my
vew,
More fresh and louely than
the rest,
That in the meadowes
grew:
The cleere drops in the steps
that stood,
Of that dilicious
Girle,
The Nimphes amongst their
dainty food,
Drunke for dissolued
pearle. 40
The yeilding sand, where she
had troad,
Vntutcht yet with
the winde,
By the faire posture plainely
show’d,
Where I might
Cynthia finde.
When on vpon my waylesse walke,
As my desires
me draw,
I like a madman fell to talke,
With euery thing
I saw:
I ask’d some Lillyes
why so white,
They from their
fellowes were; 50
Who answered me, that Cynthia’s
sight,
Had made them
looke so cleare:
I ask’d a nodding Violet
why,
It sadly hung
the head,
It told me Cynthia
late past by,
Too soone from
it that fled:
A bed of Roses saw I there,
Bewitching with
their grace:
Besides so wondrous sweete
they were,
That they perfum’d
the place, 60
I of a Shrube of those enquir’d,
From others of
that kind,
Who with such virtue them
enspir’d,
It answer’d
(to my minde).
As the base Hemblocke were
we such,
The poysned’st
weed that growes,
Till Cynthia by her
god-like tuch,
Transform’d
vs to the Rose:
Since when those Frosts that
winter brings
Which candy euery
greene, 70
Renew vs like the Teeming
Springs,
And we thus Fresh
are scene.
At length I on a Fountaine
light,
Whose brim with
Pincks was platted;
The Banck with Daffadillies
dight,
With grasse like
Sleaue was matted,
When I demanded of that Well,
What power frequented
there;
Desiring, it would please
to tell
What name it vsde
to beare. 80
It tolde me it was Cynthias
owne,
Within whose cheerefull
brimmes,
That curious Nimph had oft
beene knowne
To bath her snowy
Limmes.
Since when that Water had
the power,
Lost Mayden-heads
to restore,
And make one Twenty in an
howre,
Of Esons
age before.
And told me that the bottome
cleere,
Now layd with
many a fett 90
Of seed-pearle, ere shee bath’d
her there:
Was knowne as
blacke as Jet,
As when she from the water
came,
Where first she
touch’d the molde,
In balls the people made the
same
For Pomander,
and solde.
When chance me to an Arbour
led,
Whereas I might
behold:
Two blest Elizeums
in one sted,
The lesse the
great enfold. 100
The place which she had chosen
out,
Her selfe in to
repose;
Had they com’n downe,
the gods no doubt
The very same
had chose.
The wealthy Spring yet neuer
bore
That sweet, nor
dainty flower
That damask’d not, the
chequer’d flore
Of CYNTHIAS Summer
Bower.
The Birch, the Mirtle, and
the Bay,
Like Friends did
all embrace; 110
And their large branches did
display,
To Canapy the
place.
Where she like VENVS doth
appeare,
Vpon a Rosie bed;
As Lillyes the soft pillowes
weare,
Whereon she layd
her head.
Heau’n on her shape
such cost bestow’d,
And with such
bounties blest:
No lim of hers but might haue
made
A Goddesse at
the least. 120
The Flyes by chance mesht
in her hayre,
By the bright
Radience throwne
From her cleare eyes, rich
Iewels weare,
They so like Diamonds
shone.
The meanest weede the soyle
there bare,
Her breath did
so refine,
That it with Woodbynd durst
compare,
And beard the
Eglantine.
The dewe which on the tender
grasse,
The Euening had
distill’d,
130
To pure Rose-water turned
was,
The shades with
sweets that fill’d.
The windes were husht, no
leafe so small
At all was scene
to stirre:
Whilst tuning to the waters
fall,
The small Birds
sang to her.
Where she too quickly me espies,
When I might plainely
see,
A thousand Cupids from
her eyes
Shoote all at
once at me. 140
Into these secret shades (quoth
she)
How dar’st
thou be so bold
To enter, consecrate to me,
Or touch this
hallowed mold.
Those words (quoth she) I
can pronounce,
Which to that
shape can bring
Thee, which the Hunter had
who once
Sawe Dian
in the Spring.
Bright Nimph againe I thus
replie,
This cannot me
affright:
150
I had rather in thy presence
die,
Then liue out
of thy sight.
I first vpon the Mountaines
hie,
Built Altars to
thy name;
And grau’d it on the
Rocks thereby,
To propogate thy
fame.
I taught the Shepheards on
the Downes,
Of thee to frame
their Layes:
T’was I that fill’d
the neighbouring Townes,
With Ditties of
thy praise. 160
Thy colours I deuis’d
with care,
Which were vnknowne
before:
Which since that, in their
braded hayre
The Nimphes and
Siluans wore.
Transforme me to what shape
you can,
I passe not what
it be:
Yea what most hatefull is
to man,
So I may follow
thee.
Which when she heard full
pearly floods,
I in her eyes
might view:
170
(Quoth she) most welcome to
these Woods,
Too meane for
one so true.
Here from the hatefull world
we’ll liue,
A den of mere
dispight:
To Ideots only that doth giue,
Which be her sole
delight.
To people the infernall pit,
That more and
more doth striue;
Where only villany is wit,
And Diuels only
thriue. 180
Whose vilenesse vs shall neuer
awe:
But here our sports
shall be:
Such as the golden world first
sawe,
Most innocent
and free.
Of Simples in these Groues
that growe,
Wee’ll learne
the perfect skill;
The nature of each Herbe to
knowe
Which cures, and
which can kill.
The waxen Pallace of the Bee,
We seeking will
surprise 190
The curious workmanship to
see,
Of her full laden
thighes.
Wee’ll suck the sweets
out of the Combe,
And make the gods
repine:
As they doe feast in Ioues
great roome,
To see with what
we dine.
Yet when there haps a honey
fall,
Wee’ll lick
the sirupt leaues:
And tell the Bees that their’s
is gall,
To this vpon the
Greaues. 200
The nimble Squirrell noting
here,
Her mossy Dray
that makes,
And laugh to see the lusty
Deere
Come bounding
ore the brakes.
The Spiders Webb to watch
weele stand,
And when it takes
the Bee,
Weele helpe out of the Tyrants
hand,
The Innocent to
free.
Sometime weele angle at the
Brooke,
The freckled Trout
to take, 210
With silken Wormes, and bayte
the hooke,
Which him our
prey shall make.
Of medling with such subtile
tooles,
Such dangers that
enclose,
The Morrall is that painted
Fooles,
Are caught with
silken showes.
And when the Moone doth once
appeare,
Weele trace the
lower grounds,
When Fayries in their
Ringlets there
Do daunce their
nightly rounds. 220
And haue a Flocke of Turtle
Doues,
A guard on vs
to keepe,
A witnesse of our honest loues,
To watch vs till
we sleepe.
Which spoke I felt such holy
fires
To ouerspred my
breast,
As lent life to my Chast desires
And gaue me endlesse
rest.
By Cynthia thus doe
I subsist,
On earth Heauens
onely pride, 230
Let her be mine, and let who
list,
Take all the world
beside.
FINIS.
DORILVS
in sorrowes deepe,
Autumne
waxing olde and chill,
As
he sate his Flocks to keepe
Vnderneath
an easie hill:
Chanc’d
to cast his eye aside
On
those fields, where he had scene,
Bright
SIRENA Natures pride,
Sporting
on the pleasant greene:
To
whose walkes the Shepheards oft,
Came
her god-like foote to finde,
10
And
in places that were soft,
Kist
the print there left behinde;
Where
the path which she had troad,
Hath
thereby more glory gayn’d,
Then
in heau’n that milky rode,
Which
with Nectar Hebe stayn’d:
But
bleake Winters boystrous blasts,
Now
their fading pleasures chid,
And
so fill’d them with his wastes,
That
from sight her steps were hid.
20
Silly
Shepheard sad the while,
For
his sweet SIRENA gone,
All
his pleasures in exile:
Layd
on the colde earth alone.
Whilst
his gamesome cut-tayld Curre,
With
his mirthlesse Master playes,
Striuing
him with sport to stirre,
As
in his more youthfull dayes,
DORILVS
his Dogge doth chide,
Layes
his well-tun’d Bagpype by,
30
And
his Sheep-hooke casts aside,
There
(quoth he) together lye.
When
a Letter forth he tooke,
Which
to him SIRENA writ,
With
a deadly down-cast looke,
And
thus fell to reading it.
DORILVS
my deare (quoth she)
Kinde
Companion of my woe,
Though
we thus diuided be,
Death
cannot diuorce vs so:
40
Thou
whose bosome hath beene still,
Th’
onely Closet of my care,
And
in all my good and ill,
Euer
had thy equall share:
Might
I winne thee from thy Fold,
Thou
shouldst come to visite me,
But
the Winter is so cold,
That
I feare to hazard thee:
The
wilde waters are waxt hie,
So
they are both deafe and dumbe,
50
Lou’d
they thee so well as I,
They
would ebbe when thou shouldst come;
Then
my coate with light should shine,
Purer
then the Vestall fire:
Nothing
here but should be thine,
That
thy heart can well desire:
Where
at large we will relate,
From
what cause our friendship grewe,
And
in that the varying Fate,
Since
we first each other knewe:
60
Of
my heauie passed plight,
As
Neare to the Siluer Trent,
Sirena dwelleth:
Shee to whom Nature lent
All that excelleth:
By which the Muses late,
And the neate Graces,
170
Haue for their greater state
Taken their places:
Twisting an Anadem,
Wherewith to Crowne her,
As it belong’d to them
Most to renowne her.
Cho. On thy Bancke,
In a Rancke,
Let the Swanes sing her,
And with their Musick,
180
Along let them bring her.
Tagus and Pactolus
Are to thee Debter,
Nor for their gould to vs
Are they the better:
Henceforth of all the rest,
Be thou the Riuer,
Which as the daintiest,
Puts them downe euer,
For as my precious one,
190
O’r thee doth trauell,
She to Pearl Parragon
Turneth thy grauell.
Cho. On thy Bancke,
In a Rancke,
Let thy Swanns sing her,
And with their Musicke,
Along let them bring her.
Our mournefull Philomell,
That rarest Tuner,
200
Henceforth in Aperill
Shall wake the sooner,
And to her shall complaine
From the thicke Couer,
Redoubling euery straine
Ouer and ouer:
For when my Loue too long
Her Chamber keepeth;
As though it suffered wrong,
The Morning weepeth.
210
Cho. On thy Bancke,
In a Rancke,
Let thy Swanes sing her,
And with their Musick,
Along let them bring her.
Oft have I seene the Sunne
To doe her honour.
Fix himselfe at his noone,
To look vpon her,
And hath guilt euery Groue,
220
Euery Hill neare her,
With his flames from aboue,
Striuing to cheere her,
And when shee from his sight
Hath her selfe turned,
He as it had beene night,
In Cloudes hath mourned.
Cho. On thy Bancke,
In a Rancke,
Let thy Swanns sing her,
230
And with their Musicke,
Along let them bring her.
The Verdant Meades are seene,
When she doth view them,
In fresh and gallant Greene,
Straight to renewe them,
And euery little Grasse
Broad it selfe spreadeth,
Proud that this bonny Lasse
Vpon it treadeth:
240
Nor flower is so sweete
In this large Cincture
But it upon her feete
Leaueth some Tincture.
Cho. On thy Bancke,
In a Rancke,
Let thy Swanes sing her,
And with thy Musick,
Along let them bring her.
The Fishes in the Flood,
250
When she doth Angle,
For the Hooke striue a good
Them to intangle;
And leaping on the Land
From the cleare water,
Their Scales vpon the sand,
Lauishly scatter;
Therewith to paue the mould
Whereon she passes,
So her selfe to behold,
260
As in her glasses.
Cho. On thy Bancke,
In a Ranke,
Let thy Swanns sing her,
And with their Musicke,
Along let them bring her.
When shee lookes out by night,
The Starres stand gazing,
Like Commets to our sight
Fearefully blazing,
270
As wondring at her eyes
With their much brightnesse,
Which to amaze the skies,
Dimming their lightnesse,
The raging Tempests are Calme,
When shee speaketh,
Such most delightsome balme
From her lips breaketh.
Cho. On thy Banke,
In a Rancke, &c.
280
In all our Brittany,
Ther’s not a fayrer,
Nor can you fitt any:
Should you compare her.
Angels her eye-lids keepe
All harts surprizing,
Which looke whilst she doth sleepe
Like the Sunnes rising:
She alone of her kinde
Knoweth true measure
290
And her vnmatched mind
Is Heauens treasure:
Cho. On thy Bancke,
In a Rancke
Let thy Swanes sing her,
And with their Musick,
Along let them bring her.
Fayre Doue and Darwine
cleere
Boast yee your beauties,
To Trent your Mistres here
300
Yet pay your duties,
My Loue was higher borne
Tow’rds the full Fountaines,
Yet she doth Moorland scorne,
And the Peake Mountaines;
Nor would she none should dreame,
Where she abideth,
Humble as is the streame,
Which by her slydeth,
Cho. On thy Bancke,
310
In a Rancke,
Let thy Swannes sing her,
And with their Musicke,
Along let them bring her.
Yet my poore Rusticke Muse,
Nothing can moue her,
Nor the means I can vse,
Though her true Louer:
Many a long Winters night,
Haue I wak’d for her,
320
Yet this my piteous plight,
Nothing can stirre her.
All thy Sands siluer Trent
Downe to the Humber,
The sighes I haue spent
Neuer can number.
Cho. On thy Banke
In a Ranke,
Let thy Swans sing her
And with their Musicke
330
Along let them bring her.
Taken with this suddaine Song,
Least for mirth when he doth look
His sad heart more deeply stong,
Then the former care he tooke.
At their laughter and amaz’d,
For a while he sat aghast
But a little hauing gaz’d,
Thus he them bespake at last.
Is this time for mirth (quoth he) 340
To a man with griefe opprest,
Sinfull wretches as you be,
May the sorrowes in my breast,
Light vpon you one by one,
And as now you mocke my woe,
When your mirth is turn’d to moane;
May your like then serue you so.
When one Swaine among the rest
Thus him merrily bespake,
Get thee vp thou arrant beast 350
Fits this season loue to make?
Take thy Sheephooke in thy hand,
Clap thy Curre and set him on,
For our fields ’tis time to stand,
Or they quickly will be gon.
Rougish Swinheards that repine
At our Flocks, like beastly Clownes,
Sweare that they will bring their Swine,
And will wroote vp all our Downes:
They their Holly whips haue brac’d, 360
And tough Hazell goades haue gott;
Soundly they your sides will baste,
If their courage faile them not.
Of their purpose if they speed,
Then your Bagpypes you may burne,
It is neither Droane nor Reed
Shepheard, that will serue your turne:
Angry OLCON sets them on,
And against vs part doth take
Euer since he was out-gone, 370
Offring Rymes with us to make.
Yet if so our Sheepe-hookes hold,
Dearely shall our Downes be bought,
For it neuer shall be told,
We our Sheep-walkes sold for naught.
And we here haue got vs Dogges,
Best of all the Westerne breed,
Which though Whelps shall lug their Hogges,
Till they make their eares to bleed:
Therefore Shepheard come away. 380
When as DORILVS arose,
Whistles Cut-tayle from his play,
And along with them he goes.
FINIS.
The Description of Elizium
A Paradice on earth is found,
Though farre from
vulgar sight,
Which with those pleasures
doth abound
That it Elizium
hight.
Where, in Delights that neuer
fade,
The Muses lulled
be,
And sit at pleasure in the
shade
Of many a stately
tree,
Which no rough Tempest makes
to reele
Nor their straight
bodies bowes, 10
Their lofty tops doe neuer
feele
The weight of
winters snowes;
In Groues that euermore are
greene,
No falling leafe
is there,
But Philomel (of birds
the Queene)
In Musicke spends
the yeare.
The Merle vpon her
mertle Perch,
There to the Mavis
sings,
Who from the top of some curld
Berch
Those notes redoubled
rings; 20
There Daysyes damaske euery
place
Nor once their
beauties lose,
That when proud Phoebus
hides his face
Themselues they
scorne to close.
The Pansy and the Violet here,
As seeming to
descend,
Both from one Root, a very
payre,
For sweetnesse
yet contend,
And pointing to a Pinke to
tell
Which beares it,
it is loath, 30
To iudge it; but replyes for
smell
That it excels
them both.
Wherewith displeasde they
hang their heads
So angry soone
they grow
And from their odoriferous
beds
Their sweets at
it they throw.
The winter here a Summer is,
No waste is made
by time,
Nor doth the Autumne euer
misse
The blossomes
of the Prime. 40
The flower that Iuly forth
doth bring
In Aprill here
is seene,
The Primrose that puts on
the Spring
In Iuly decks
each Greene.
The sweets for soueraignty
contend
And so abundant
be,
That to the very Earth they
lend
And Barke of euery
Tree:
Rills rising out of euery
Banck,
In wild Meanders
strayne, 50
And playing many a wanton
pranck
Vpon the speckled
plaine,
In Gambols and lascivious
Gyres
Their time they
still bestow
Nor to their Fountaines none
retyres,
Nor on their course
will goe.
Those Brooks with Lillies
brauely deckt,
So proud and wanton
made,
That they their courses quite
neglect:
And seeme as though
they stayde, 60
Faire Flora in her
state to viewe
Which through
those Lillies looks,
Or as those Lillies leand
to shew
Their beauties
to the brooks.
That Phoebusin his
lofty race,
Oft layes aside
his beames
And comes to coole his glowing
face
In these delicious
streames;
Oft spreading Vines clime
vp the Cleeues,
Whose ripned clusters
there, 70
Their liquid purple drop,
which driues
A Vintage through
the yeere.
Those Cleeues whose craggy
sides are clad
With Trees of
sundry sutes,
Which make continuall summer
glad,
Euen bending with
their fruits,
Some ripening, ready some
to fall,
Some blossom’d,
some to bloome,
Like gorgeous hangings on
the wall
Of some rich princely
Roome: 80
Pomegranates, Lymons,
Cytrons, so
Their laded branches
bow,
Their leaues in number that
outgoe
Nor roomth will
them alow.
There in perpetuall Summers
shade,
Apolloes
Prophets sit,
Among the flowres that neuer
fade,
But flowrish like
their wit;
To whom the Nimphes vpon their
Lyres,
Tune many a curious
lay, 90
And with their most melodious
Quires
Make short the
longest day.
The thrice three Virgins
heavenly Cleere,
Their trembling
Timbrels sound,
Whilst the three comely Graces
there
Dance many a dainty
Round,
Decay nor Age there nothing
knowes,
There is continuall
Youth,
As Time on plant or creatures
growes,
So still their
strength renewth. 100
The Poets Paradice this is,
To which but few
can come;
The Muses onely bower of blisse
Their Deare Elizium.
Here happy soules, (their
blessed bowers,
Free from the
rude resort
Of beastly people) spend the
houres,
In harmelesse
mirth and sport,
Then on to the Elizian
plaines
Apollo
doth invite you
110
Where he prouides with pastorall
straines,
In Nimphals to
delight you.
RODOPE and DORIDA.
This Nimphall of delights doth treat, Choice beauties, and proportions neat, Of curious shapes, and dainty features Describd in two most perfect creatures.
When Phoebus with a
face of mirth,
Had flong abroad his beames,
To blanch the bosome of the
earth,
And glaze the gliding streames.
Within a goodly Mertle groue,
Vpon that hallowed day
The Nimphes to the bright
Queene of loue
Their vowes were vsde to pay.
Faire Rodope and Dorida
Dorida.
My sweet, my soueraigne Rodope,
My deare delight, my loue,
That Locke of hayre thou sentst
to me,
I to this Bracelet woue;
Which brighter euery day doth
grow
The longer it is worne,
As its delicious fellowes
doe,
Thy Temples that adorne.
40
Rodope.
Nay had I thine my Dorida,
I would them so bestow,
As that the winde vpon my
way,
Might backward make them flow,
So should it in its greatst
excesse
Turne to becalmed ayre,
And quite forget all boistrousnesse
To play with euery hayre.
Dorida.
To me like thine had nature giuen,
A Brow, so Archt, so cleere,
50
A Front, wherein so much of
heauen
Doth to each eye appeare,
The world should see, I would
strike dead
The Milky Way that’s
now,
And say that Nectar Hebe
shed
Fell all vpon my Brow.
Rodope.
O had I eyes like Doridaes,
I would inchant the day
And make the Sunne to stand
at gaze,
Till he forget his way:
60
And cause his Sister Queene
of Streames,
When so I list by night;
By her much blushing at my
Beames
T’ eclipse her borrowed
light.
Dorida.
Had I a Cheeke like Rodopes,
In midst of which doth stand,
A Groue of Roses, such as
these,
In such a snowy land:
I would then make the Lilly
which we now
So much for whitenesse name,
70
As drooping downe the head
to bow,
And die for very shame.
Rodope.
Had I a bosome like to thine,
When I it pleas’d to
show,
T’ what part o’
th’ Skie I would incline
I would make th’ Etheriall
bowe,
My swannish breast brancht
all with blew,
In brauery like the spring:
In Winter to the generall
view
Full Summer forth should bring.
80
Dorida.
Had I a body like my deare,
Were I so straight so tall,
O, if so broad my shoulders
were,
Had I a waste so small;
I would challenge the proud
Queene of loue
To yeeld to me for shape,
And I should feare that Mars
or Iove
Would venter for my rape.
Rodope.
Had I a hand like thee my Gerle,
(This hand O let me kisse)
90
These Ivory Arrowes pyl’d
with pearle,
Had I a hand like this;
I would not doubt at all to
make,
Each finger of my hand
To taske swift Mercury
to take
With his inchanting wand.
Dorida.
Had I a Theigh like Rodopes;
Which twas my chance to viewe,
When lying on yon banck at
ease,
The wind thy skirt vp blew,
100
I would say it were a columne
wrought
To some intent Diuine,
And for our chaste Diana
sought,
A pillar for her shryne.
Rodope.
Had I a Leg but like to thine
That were so neat, so cleane,
A swelling Calfe, a Small
so fine,
An Ankle, round and leane,
I would tell nature she doth
misse
Her old skill; and maintaine,
110
She shewd her master peece
in this,
Not to be done againe.
Dorida.
Had I that Foot hid in those shoos,
(Proportion’d to my
height)
Short Heele, thin Instep,
euen Toes,
A Sole so wondrous straight,
The Forresters and Nimphes
at this
Amazed all should stand,
And kneeling downe, should
meekely kisse
The Print left in the sand.
120
By this the Nimphes came from
their sport,
All pleased wondrous well,
And to these Maydens make
report
What lately them befell:
One said the dainty Lelipa
Did all the rest out-goe,
Another would a wager lay
She would outstrip a Roe;
Sayes one, how like you Florimel
There is your dainty face:
130
A fourth replide, she lik’t
that well,
Yet better lik’t her
grace,
She’s counted, I confesse,
quoth she,
To be our onely Pearle,
Yet haue I heard her oft to
be
A melancholy Gerle.
Another said she quite mistoke,
That onely was her art,
When melancholly had her looke
LALVS, CLEON, and LIROPE.
The Muse new Courtship doth deuise, By Natures strange Varieties, Whose Rarieties she here relates, And giues you Pastorall Delicates.
Lalus a Iolly youthfull Lad, With Cleon, no lesse crown’d With vertues; both their beings had On the Elizian ground. Both hauing parts so excellent, That it a question was, Which should be the most eminent, Or did in ought surpasse: This Cleon was a Mountaineer, And of the wilder kinde, 10 And from his birth had many a yeere Bin nurst vp by a Hinde. And as the sequell well did show, It very well might be; For neuer Hart, nor Hare, nor Roe, Were halfe so swift as he. But Lalus in the Vale was bred, Amongst the Sheepe and Neate, And by these Nimphes there choicly fed, With Hony, Milke, and Wheate; 20 Of Stature goodly, faire of speech, And of behauiour mylde, Like those there in the Valley rich, That bred him of a chyld. Of Falconry they had the skill, Their Halkes to feed and flye, No better Hunters ere clome Hill, Nor hollowed to a Cry: In Dingles deepe, and Mountains hore, Oft with the bearded Speare 30 They combated the tusky Boare, And slew the angry Beare. In Musicke they were wondrous quaint, Fine Aers they could deuise; They very curiously could Paint, And neatly Poetize; That wagers many time were laid On Questions that arose, Which song the witty Lalus made, Which Cleon should compose. 40 The stately Steed they manag’d well, Of Fence the art they knew, For Dansing they did all excell The Gerles that to them drew; To throw the Sledge, to pitch the Barre, To wrestle and to Run, They all the Youth exceld so farre, That still the Prize they wonne. These sprightly Gallants lou’d a Lasse, Cald Lirope the bright, 50 In the whole world there scarcely was So delicate a Wight, There was no Beauty so diuine That euer Nimph did grace, But it beyond it selfe did shine In her more heuenly face: What forme she pleasd each thing would take That ere she did behold, OfPage 111
Pebbles she could Diamonds make, Grosse Iron turne to Gold: 60 Such power there with her presence came Sterne Tempests she alayd, The cruell Tiger she could tame, She raging Torrents staid, She chid, she cherisht, she gaue life, Againe she made to dye, She raisd a warre, apeasd a Strife, With turning of her eye. Some said a God did her beget, But much deceiu’d were they, 70 Her Father was a Riuelet, Her Mother was a Fay. Her Lineaments so fine that were, She from the Fayrie tooke, Her Beauties and Complection cleere, By nature from the Brooke. These Ryualls wayting for the houre (The weather calme and faire) When as she vs’d to leaue her Bower To take the pleasant ayre 80 Acosting her; their complement To her their Goddesse done; By gifts they tempt her to consent, When Lalus thus begun.
Lalus. Sweet
Lirope I haue a Lambe
Newly wayned from the Damme,
_* Without Of the right kinde, it is notted,
hornes._ Naturally with purple spotted,
Into laughter it will put you,
To see how prettily ’twill But
you; 90
When on sporting it is set,
It will beate you a Corvet,
And at euery nimble bound
Turne it selfe aboue the ground;
When tis hungry it will bleate,
From your hand to haue its meate,
And when it hath fully fed,
It will fetch Iumpes aboue your head,
As innocently to expresse
Its silly sheepish thankfullnesse,
100
When you bid it, it will play,
Be it either night or day,
This _Lirope_ I haue for thee,
So thou alone wilt liue with me.
Cleon. From him O turne thine eare away,
And heare me my lou’d Lirope,
I haue a Kid as white as milke,
His skin as soft as Naples silke,
His hornes in length are wondrous euen,
And curiously by nature writhen; 110
It is of th’ Arcadian kinde,
Ther’s not the like twixt either Inde;
If you walke, ’twill walke you by,
If you sit downe, it downe will lye,
It with gesture will you wooe,
And counterfeit those things you doe;
Ore each Hillock it will vault,
And nimbly doe the Summer-sault,
Upon the hinder Legs ’twill goe,
And follow you a furlong so, 120
And if by chance a Tune you roate,
’Twill foote it finely to your note,
Seeke the worlde and you may misse
To finde out such a thing as this;
This my loue I haue for thee
So thou’lt leaue him and goe with me.
Lirope. Beleeue me Youths your gifts are rare,
And you offer wondrous faire;
Lalus for Lambe, Cleon for Kyd,
’Tis hard to iudge which most doth bid, 130
And haue you two such things in store,
And I n’er knew of them before?
Page 112
Well yet I dare a Wager lay
That Brag my little Dog shall play,
As dainty tricks when I shall bid,
As Lalus Lambe, or Cleons Kid.
But t’ may fall out that I may neede them
Till when yee may doe well to feed them;
Your Goate and Mutton pretty be
But Youths these are noe bayts for me, 140
Alasse good men, in vaine ye wooe,
’Tis not your Lambe nor Kid will doe.
Lalus. I haue
two Sparrowes white as Snow,
Whose pretty eyes like sparkes doe show;
In her Bosome Venus hatcht them
Where her little Cupid watcht
them,
Till they too fledge their Nests forsooke
Themselues and to the Fields betooke,
Where by chance a Fowler caught them
Of whom I full dearely bought them;
150
_* The redde They’ll fetch you Conserue from
the Hip, fruit of the And lay it softly on your
Lip, smooth Through their nibling bills they’ll
Chirup Bramble._ And fluttering feed you with
the Sirup,
And if thence you put them by
They to your white necke will flye,
And if you expulse them there
They’ll hang vpon your braded
Hayre;
You so long shall see them prattle
Till at length they’ll fall to
battle, 160
And when they haue fought their fill,
You will smile to see them bill
These birds my _Lirope’s_ shall
be
So thou’lt leaue him and goe with
me.
Cleon. His Sparrowes are not worth a rush
I’le finde as good in euery bush,
Of Doues I haue a dainty paire
Which when you please to take the Air,
About your head shall gently houer
You Cleere browe from the Sunne to couer, 170
And with their nimble wings shall fan you,
That neither Cold nor Heate shall tan you,
And like Vmbrellas with their feathers
Sheeld you in all sorts of weathers:
They be most dainty Coloured things,
They haue Damask backs and Chequerd wings,
Their neckes more Various Cullours showe
Then there be mixed in the Bowe;
Venus saw the lesser Doue
And therewith was farre in Loue, 180
Offering for’t her goulden Ball
For her Sonne to play withall;
These my Liropes shall be
So shee’ll leaue him and goe with me.
Lirope. Then for Sparrowes, and for Doues
I am fitted twixt my Loues,
But Lalus I take no delight
In Sparowes, for they’ll scratch and bite
And though ioynd, they are euer wooing
Alwayes billing, if not doeing, 190
Twixt Venus breasts if they haue lyen
I much feare they’ll infect myne;
Cleon your Doues are very dainty,
Tame Pidgeons else you know are plenty,
These may winne some of your Marrowes
I am not caught with Doues, nor Sparrowes,
I thanke ye kindly for your Coste,
Yet your labour is but loste.
Lalus. With full-leau’d Lillies I will stick
Thy braded hayre all o’r so thick, 200
That from it a Light shall throw
Like the Sunnes vpon the Snow.
Thy Mantle shall be Violet Leaues,
With the fin’st the Silkeworme weaues
As finely wouen; whose rich smell
The Ayre about thee so shall swell
That it shall haue no power to mooue.
A Ruffe of Pinkes thy Robe aboue
About thy necke so neatly set
That Art it cannot counterfet, 210
Which still shall looke so Fresh and new,
As if vpon their Roots they grew:
And for thy head Ile haue a Tyer
Of netting, made of Strawbery wyer,
And in each knot that doth compose
A Mesh, shall stick a halfe blowne Rose,
Red, damaske, white, in order set
About the sides, shall run a Fret
Of Primroses, the Tyer throughout
With Thrift and Dayses frindgd about; 220
All this faire Nimph Ile doe for thee,
So thou’lt leaue him and goe with me.
Cleon. These be but weeds and Trash he brings,
Ile giue thee solid, costly things,
His will wither and be gone
Before thou well canst put them on;
With Currall I will haue thee Crown’d,
Whose Branches intricatly wound
Shall girt thy Temples euery way;
And on the top of euery Spray 230
Shall stick a Pearle orient and great,
Which so the wandring Birds shall cheat,
That some shall stoope to looke for Cheries,
As other for tralucent Berries.
And wondering, caught e’r they be ware
In the curld Tramels of thy hayre:
And for thy necke a Christall Chaine
Whose lincks shapt like to drops of Raine,
Vpon thy panting Breast depending,
Shall seeme as they were still descending, 240
And as thy breath doth come and goe,
So seeming still to ebbe and flow:
With Amber Bracelets cut like Bees,
Whose strange transparency who sees,
With Silke small as the Spiders Twist
Doubled so oft about thy Wrist,
Would surely thinke aliue they were,
From Lillies gathering hony there.
Thy Buskins Ivory, caru’d like Shels
Of Scallope, which as little Bels 250
Made hollow, with the Ayre shall Chime,
And to thy steps shall keepe the time:
Leaue Lalus, Lirope for me
And these shall thy rich dowry be.
Lirope. Lalus for Flowers. Cleon for Iemmes,
For Garlands and for Diadems,
I shall be sped, why this is braue,
What Nimph can choicer Presents haue,
With dressing, brading, frowncing, flowring,
All your Iewels on me powring, 260
In this brauery being drest,
To the ground I shall be prest,
That I doubt the Nimphes will feare me,
Nor will venture to come neare me;
Neuer Lady of the May,
To this houre was halfe so gay;
Page 114
All in flowers, all so sweet,
From the Crowne, beneath the Feet,
Amber, Currall, Ivory, Pearle,
If this cannot win a Gerle, 270
Ther’s nothing can, and this ye wooe me,
Giue me your hands and trust ye to me,
(Yet to tell ye I am loth)
That I’le haue neither of you both;
Lalus. When thou shalt please to stem the flood,
(As thou art of the watry brood)
I’le haue twelve Swannes more white than Snow,
Yokd for the purpose two and two,
To drawe thy Barge wrought of fine Reed
So well that it nought else shall need, 280
The Traces by which they shall hayle
Thy Barge; shall be the winding trayle
Of woodbynd; whose braue Tasseld Flowers
(The Sweetnesse of the Woodnimphs Bowres)
Shall be the Trappings to adorne,
The Swannes, by which thy Barge is borne,
Of flowred Flags I’le rob the banke
Of water-Cans and King-cups ranck
To be the Couering of thy Boate,
And on the Streame as thou do’st Floate, 290
The Naiades that haunt the deepe,
Themselues about thy Barge shall keepe,
Recording most delightfull Layes,
By Sea Gods written in thy prayse.
And in what place thou hapst to land,
There the gentle Siluery sand,
Shall soften, curled with the Aier
As sensible of thy repayre:
This my deare loue I’le doe for thee,
So Thou’lt leaue him and goe with me: 300
Cleon. Tush Nimphe his Swannes will prove but Geese,
His Barge drinke water like a Fleece;
A Boat is base, I’le thee prouide,
A Chariot, wherein Ioue may ride;
In which when brauely thou art borne,
Thou shalt looke like the gloryous morne
Vshering the Sunne, and such a one
As to this day was neuer none,
Of the Rarest Indian Gummes,
More pretious then your Balsamummes 310
Which I by Art haue made so hard,
That they with Tooles may well be Caru’d
To make a Coach of: which shall be
Materyalls of this one for thee,
And of thy Chariot each small peece
Shall inlayd be with Amber Greece,
And guilded with the Yellow ore
Produc’d from Tagus wealthy shore;
In which along the pleasant Lawne,
With twelue white Stags thou shalt be drawne, 320
Whose brancht palmes of a stately height,
With seuerall nosegayes shall be dight;
And as thou ryd’st, thy Coach about,
For thy strong guard shall runne a Rout,
Of Estriges; whose Curled plumes,
Sen’sd with thy Chariots rich perfumes,
The scent into the Aier shall throw;
Whose naked Thyes shall grace the show;
Whilst the Woodnimphs and those bred
Vpon the mountayns, o’r thy head 330
Shall beare a Canopy of flowers,
Tinseld with drops of Aprill showers,
Which shall make more glorious showes
Then spangles, or your siluer Oas;
This bright nimph I’le doe for thee
So thou’lt leaue him and goe with me.
Lirope. Vie and reuie, like Chapmen profer’d,
Would’t be receaued what you haue offer’d;
Ye greater honour cannot doe me,
If not building Altars to me: 340
Both by Water and by Land,
Bardge and Chariot at command;
Swans vpon the Streame to rawe me,
Stags vpon the Land to drawe me,
In all this Pompe should I be seene,
What a pore thing were a Queene:
All delights in such excesse,
As but yee, who can expresse:
Thus mounted should the Nimphes me see,
All the troope would follow me, 350
Thinking by this state that I
Would asume a Deitie.
There be some in loue haue bin,
And I may commit that sinne,
And if e’r I be in loue,
With one of you I feare twill proue,
But with which I cannot tell,
So my gallant Youths farewell.
DORON. NAIJS. CLORIS.
CLAIA.
DORILVS. CLOE. MERTILLA.
FLORIMEL.
With Nimphes and Forresters.
Poetick Raptures, sacred fires, With which Apollo_ his inspires, This Nimphall gives you; and withall Obserues the Muses Festivall._
Amongst th’ Elizians
many mirthfull Feasts,
At which the Muses are the
certaine guests,
Th’ obserue one Day
with most Emperiall state,
To wise Apollo which
they dedicate,
The Poets God; and to his
Alters bring
Th’ enamel’d Brauery
of the beauteous spring,
And strew their Bowers with
euery precious sweet,
Which still wax fresh, most
trod on with their feet;
With most choice flowers each
Nimph doth brade her hayre,
And not the mean’st
but bauldrick wise doth weare 10
Some goodly Garland, and the
most renown’d
With curious Roseat Anadems
are crown’d.
These being come into the
place where they
Yearely obserue the Orgies
to that day,
The Muses from their Heliconian
spring
Their brimfull Mazers to the
feasting bring:
When with deepe Draughts out
of those plenteous Bowles,
The iocond Youth haue swild
their thirsty soules,
They fall enraged with a sacred
heat,
And when their braines doe
once begin to sweat 20
They into braue and Stately
numbers breake,
And not a word that any one
doth speake
But tis Prophetick, and so
strangely farre
In their high fury they transported
are,
As there’s not one,
on any thing can straine,
But by another answred is
againe
In the same Rapture, which
all sit to heare;
When as two Youths that soundly
liquord were,
Dorilus and Doron,
two as noble swayns
As euer kept on the Elizian
playns, 30
First by their signes attention
hauing woonne,
Thus they the Reuels frolikly
begunne.
Doron.
Come Dorilus_, let vs be brave,
In lofty numbers
let vs raue,
With Rymes I will
inrich thee._
Dorilus.
Content say I, then bid the base,
Our wits shall
runne the Wildgoosechase,
Spurre vp, or
I will swich thee.
Doron.
The Sunne out of the East doth peepe,
And now the day
begins to creepe, 40
Vpon the world
at leasure.
Dorilus.
The Ayre enamor’d of the Greaues,
The West winde
stroaks the velvit leaues
And kisses them
at pleasure.
Doron.
The spinners webs twixt spray and spray,
The top of euery
bush make gay,
By filmy coards
there dangling.
Dorilus.
For now the last dayes euening dew
Euen to the full
it selfe doth shew,
Each bough with
Pearle bespangling.
50
Doron.
O Boy how thy abundant vaine
Euen like a Flood
breaks from thy braine,
Nor can thy Muse
be gaged.
Dorilus.
Why nature forth did neuer bring
A man that like
to me can sing,
If once I be enraged.
Doron.
Why Dorilus_ I in my skill
Can make the swiftest
Streame stand still,
Nay beare back
to his springing._
Dorilus.
And I into a Trance most deepe
60
Can cast the Birds
that they shall sleepe
When fain’st
they would be singing.
Doron.
Why Dorilus_ thou mak’st me mad,
And now my wits
begin to gad,
But sure I know
not whither._
Dorilus.
O Doron_ let me hug thee then,
There neuer was
two madder men,
Then let vs on
together._
Doron.
Hermes the winged Horse bestrid,
And thorow thick
and thin he rid, 70
And floundred
throw the Fountaine.
Dorilus.
He spurd the Tit vntill he bled,
So that at last
he ran his head
Against the forked
Mountaine,
Doron.
How sayst thou, but pyde Iris_ got
Into great Iunos
Chariot,
I spake with one
that saw her._
Dorilus.
And there the pert and sawcy Elfe,
Behau’d
her as twere Iuno’s_ selfe,
And made the Peacocks
draw her._ 80
Doron.
Ile borrow Phoebus_ fiery Iades,
With which about
the world he trades,
And put them in
my Plow._
Dorilus.
O thou most perfect frantique man,
Yet let thy rage
be what it can,
Ile be as mad
as thou.
Doron.
Ile to great Iove_, hap good, hap ill,
Though he with
Thunder threat to kill,
And beg of him
a boone._
Dorilus.
To swerue vp one of Cynthias_ beames,
90
And there to bath
thee in the streames.
Discouerd in the
Moone._
Doron.
Come frolick Youth and follow me,
My frantique boy,
and Ile show thee
The Countrey of
the Fayries.
Dorilus.
The fleshy Mandrake where’t doth grow
In noonshade of
the Mistletow,
And where the
Phoenix Aryes.
Doron.
Nay more, the Swallowes winter bed,
The Caverns where
the Winds are bred, 100
Since thus thou
talkst of showing.
Dorilus.
And to those Indraughts Ile thee bring,
That wondrous
and eternall spring
Whence th’
Ocean hath its flowing.
Doron.
We’ll downe to the darke house of sleepe,
Where snoring
Morpheus_ doth keepe,
And wake the drowsy
Groome._
Dorilus.
Downe shall the Dores and Windowes goe,
The Stooles vpon
the Floare we’ll throw,
And roare about
the Roome. 110
The Muses here commanded them
to stay,
Commending much the caridge
of their Lay
As greatly pleasd at this
their madding Bout,
To heare how brauely they
had borne it out
From first to the last, of
which they were right glad,
By this they found that Helicon
still had
That vertue it did anciently
retaine
When Orpheus Lynus
and th’ Ascrean Swaine
Tooke lusty Rowses, which
hath made their Rimes,
To last so long to all succeeding
times. 120
And now amongst this beauteous
Beauie here,
Two wanton Nimphes, though
dainty ones they were,
Naijs and Cloe
in their female fits
Longing to show the sharpnesse
of their wits,
Of the nine Sisters
speciall leaue doe craue
That the next Bout they two
might freely haue,
Who hauing got the suffrages
of all,
Thus to their Rimeing instantly
they fall.
Naijs.
Amongst you all let us see
Who ist opposes
mee, 130
Come on the proudest
she
To answere my
dittye.
Cloe.
Why Naijs_, that am I,
Who dares thy
pride defie.
And that we soone
shall try
Though thou be
witty._
Naijs.
Cloe I scorne my Rime
Should obserue
feet or time,
Now I fall, then
I clime,
Where i’st
I dare not.
140
Cloe.
Giue thy Invention wing,
And let her flert
and fling,
Till downe the
Rocks she ding,
For that I care
not.
Naijs.
This presence delights me,
My freedome inuites
me,
The Season excytes
me,
In Rime to be
merry.
Cloe.
And I beyond measure,
Am rauisht with
pleasure, 150
To answer each
Ceasure,
Untill thou beist
weary.
Naijs.
Behold the Rosye Dawne,
Rises in Tinsild
Lawne,
And smiling seemes
to fawne,
Vpon the mountaines.
Cloe.
Awaked from her Dreames,
Shooting foorth
goulden Beames
Dansing vpon the
Streames
Courting the Fountaines.
160
Naijs.
These more then sweet Showrets,
Intice vp these
Flowrets,
To trim vp our
Bowrets,
Perfuming our
Coats.
Cloe.
Whilst the Birds billing
Each one with
his Dilling
The thickets still
filling
With Amorous Noets.
Naijs.
The Bees vp in hony rould,
More then their
thighes can hould, 170
Lapt in their
liquid gould,
Their Treasure
vs Bringing.
Cloe.
To these Rillets purling
Vpon the stones
Curling,
And oft about
wherling,
Dance tow’ard
their springing.
Naijs.
The Wood-Nimphes sit singing,
Each Groue with
notes ringing
Whilst fresh Ver
is flinging
Her Bounties abroad.
180
Cloe.
So much as the Turtle,
Upon the low Mertle,
To the meads fertle,
Her cares doth
unload.
Naijs.
Nay ’tis a world to see,
In euery bush
and Tree,
The Birds with
mirth and glee,
Woo’d as
they woe.
Cloe.
The Robin and the Wren,
Every Cocke with
his Hen, 190
Why should not
we and men,
Doe as they doe.
Naijs.
The Faires are hopping,
The small Flowers
cropping,
And with dew dropping,
Skip thorow the
Greaues.
Cloe.
At Barly-breake they play
Merrily all the
day,
At night themselues
they lay
Vpon the soft
leaues.
200
Naijs.
The gentle winds sally,
Vpon every Valley,
And many times
dally
And wantonly sport.
Cloe.
About the fields tracing,
Each other in
chasing,
And often imbracing,
In amorous sort.
Naijs.
And Eccho oft doth tell
Wondrous things
from her Cell, 210
As her what chance
befell,
Learning to prattle.
Cloe.
And now she sits and mocks
The Shepherds
and their flocks,
And the Heards
from the Rocks
Keeping their
Cattle.
When to these Maids the Muses
silence cry,
For ’twas the opinion
of the Company,
That were not these two taken
of, that they
Would in their Conflict wholly
spend the day. 220
When as the Turne to Florimel
next came,
A Nimph for Beauty of especiall
name,
Yet was she not so Iolly as
the rest:
And though she were by her
companions prest,
Yet she by no intreaty would
be wrought
To sing, as by th’ Elizian
Lawes she ought:
When two bright Nimphes that
her companions were,
And of all other onely held
her deare,
Mild Claris and Mertilla,
with faire speech
Their most beloued Florimel
beseech, 230
T’obserue the Muses,
and the more to wooe her,
They take their turnes, and
thus they sing vnto her.
Cloris.
Sing, Florimel_, O sing, and wee
Our whole wealth
will giue to thee,
We’ll rob
the brim of euery Fountaine,
Strip the sweets
from euery Mountaine,
We will sweepe
the curled valleys,
Brush the bancks
that mound our allyes,
We will muster
natures dainties
When she wallowes
in her plentyes, 240
The lushyous smell
of euery flower
New washt by an
Aprill shower,
The Mistresse
of her store we’ll make thee
That she for her
selfe shall take thee;
Can there be a
dainty thing,
That’s not
thine if thou wilt sing._
Mertilla.
When the dew in May distilleth,
And the Earths
rich bosome filleth,
And with Pearle
embrouds each Meadow,
We will make them
like a widow, 250
And in all their
Beauties dresse thee,
And of all their
spoiles possesse thee,
With all the bounties
Zephyre brings,
Breathing on the
yearely springs,
The gaudy bloomes
of euery Tree
In their most
beauty when they be,
What is here that
may delight thee,
Or to pleasure
may excite thee,
Can there be a
dainty thing
That’s not
thine if thou wilt sing.
260
But Florimel still
sullenly replyes
I will not sing at all, let
that suffice:
When as a Nimph one of the
merry ging
Seeing she no way could be
wonne to sing;
Come, come, quoth she, ye
vtterly vndoe her
With your intreaties, and
your reuerence to her;
For praise nor prayers, she
careth not a pin;
They that our froward Florimel
would winne,
Must worke another way, let
me come to her,
Either Ile make her sing,
or Ile vndoe her. 270
Claia.
Florimel I thus coniure thee,
Since their gifts
cannot alure thee;
By stampt Garlick,
that doth stink
Worse then common
Sewer, or Sink,
By Henbane, Dogsbane,
Woolfsbane, sweet
As any Clownes
or Carriers feet,
By stinging Nettles,
pricking Teasels
Raysing blisters
like the measels,
By the rough Burbreeding
docks,
Rancker then the
oldest Fox, 280
By filthy Hemblock,
poysning more
Then any vlcer
or old sore,
By the Cockle
in the corne,
That smels farre
worse then doth burnt horne,
By Hempe in water
that hath layne,
By whose stench
the Fish are slayne,
By Toadflax which
your Nose may tast,
If you haue a
minde to cast,
May all filthy
stinking Weeds
That e’r
bore leafe, or e’r had seeds,
290
Florimel be
giuen to thee,
If thou’lt
not sing as well as wee.
At which the Nimphs to open
laughter fell,
Amongst the rest the beauteous
Florimel,
(Pleasd with the spell from
Claia that came,
A mirthfull Gerle and giuen
to sport and game)
As gamesome growes as any
of them all,
And to this ditty instantly
doth fall.
Florimel.
How in my thoughts should I contriue
The Image I am
framing, 300
Which is so farre
superlatiue,
As tis beyond
all naming;
I would Ioue_
of my counsell make,
And haue his judgement
in it,
But that I doubt
he would mistake
How rightly to
begin it,
It must be builded
in the Ayre,
And tis my thoughts
must doo it,
And onely they
must be the stayre
From earth to
mount me to it, 310
For of my Sex
I frame my Lay,
Each houre, our
selues forsaking,
How should I then
finde out the way
To this my vndertaking,
When our weake
Fancies working still,
Yet changing every
minnit,
Will shew that
it requires some skill,
Such difficulty’s
in it.
We would things,
yet we know not what,
And let our will
be granted, 320
Yet instantly
we finde in that
Something vnthought
of wanted:
Our ioyes and
hopes such shadowes are,
As with our motions
varry,
Which when we
oft haue fetcht from farre,
With us they neuer
tarry:
Some worldly crosse
doth still attend,
What long we haue
in spinning,
And e’r
we fully get the end
We lose of our
beginning. 330
Our pollicies
so peevish are,
That with themselues
they wrangle,
And many times
When they which so desirous
were before
To hear her sing; desirous
are far more
To haue her cease; and call
to haue her stayd
For she to much alredy had
bewray’d.
And as the thrice three
Sisters thus had grac’d
Their Celebration, and themselues
had plac’d 360
Vpon a Violet banck, in order
all
Where they at will might view
the Festifall
The Nimphs and all the lusty
youth that were
At this braue Nimphall, by
them honored there,
To Gratifie the heauenly Gerles
againe
Lastly prepare in state to
entertaine
Those sacred Sisters, fairely
and confer,
On each of them, their prayse
particular
And thus the Nimphes to the
nine Muses sung.
When as the Youth and Forresters
among 370
That well prepared for this
businesse were,
Become the Chorus,
and thus sung they there.
Nimphes.
Clio then first of those Celestiall nine
That daily offer
to the sacred shryne,
Of wise Apollo_;
Queene of Stories,
Thou that vindicat’st
the glories
Of passed ages,
and renewst
Their acts which
euery day thou viewst,
And from a lethargy
dost keepe
Old nodding time,
else prone to sleepe._ 380
Chorus.
Clio O craue of Phoebus_ to inspire
Vs, for his Altars
with his holiest fire,
And let his glorious
euer-shining Rayes
Giue life and
growth to our Elizian Bayes._
Nimphes.
Melpomine thou melancholly Maid
Next, to wise
Phoebus_ we inuoke thy ayd,
In Buskins that
dost stride the Stage,
And in thy deepe
distracted rage,
In blood-shed
that dost take delight,
Thy obiect the
most fearfull sight, 390
That louest the
sighes, the shreekes, and sounds
Of horrors, that
arise from wounds._
Chorus.
Sad Muse, O craue of Phoebus_ to inspire
Vs for his Altars,
with his holiest fire,
And let his glorious
euer-shining Rayes
Giue life and
growth to our Elizian Bayes._
Nimphes.
Comick Thalia_ then we come to thee,
Thou mirthfull
Mayden, onely that in glee
And loues deceits,
thy pleasure tak’st,
Of which thy varying
Scene that mak’st 400
And in thy nimble
Sock do’st stirre
Loude laughter
through the Theater,
That with the
Peasant mak’st the sport,
As well as with
the better sort._
Chorus.
Thalia craue of Phoebus_ to inspire
Vs for his Alters
with his holyest fier;
And let his glorious
euer-shining Rayes
Giue life, and
growth to our Elizian Bayes._
Nimphes.
Euterpe next to thee we will proceed,
That first sound’st
out the Musick on the Reed, 410
With breath and
fingers giu’ng life,
To the shrill
Cornet and the Fyfe.
Teaching euery
stop and kaye,
To those vpon
the Pipe that playe,
Those which Wind-Instruments
we call
Or soft, or lowd,
or greate, or small,
Chorus.
Euterpe aske of Phebus_ to inspire,
Vs for his Alters
with his holyest fire
And let his glorious
euer-shining Rayes
Giue life and
growth to our Elizian Bayes._ 420
Nimphes.
Terpsichore that of the Lute and Lyre,
And Instruments
that sound with Cords and wyere,
That art the Mistres,
to commaund
The touch of the
most Curious hand,
When euery Quauer
doth Imbrace
His like in a
true Diapase,
And euery string
his sound doth fill
Toucht with the
Finger or the Quill.
Chorus.
Terpsichore, craue Phebus_ to inspire
Vs for his Alters
with his holyest fier 430
And let his glorious
euer-shining Rayes
Giue life and
growth to our Elizian Bayes._
Nimphes.
Then Erato_ wise muse on thee we call,
In Lynes to vs
that do’st demonstrate all,
Which neatly,
with thy staffe and Bowe,
Do’st measure,
and proportion showe;
Motion and Gesture
that dost teach
That euery height
and depth canst reach,
And do’st
demonstrate by thy Art
What nature else
would not Impart._ 440
Chorus.
Deare Erato_ craue Phebus to inspire
Vs for his Alters
with his holyest fire,
And let his glorious
euer-shining Rayes,
Giue life and
growth to our Elizian Bayes._
Nimphes.
To thee then braue Caliope_ we come
Thou that maintain’st,
the Trumpet, and the Drum;
The neighing Steed
that louest to heare,
Clashing of Armes
doth please thine eare,
In lofty Lines
that do’st rehearse
Things worthy
of a thundring verse, 450
And at no tyme
are heard to straine,
On ought that
suits a Common vayne._
Chorus.
Caliope_, craue Phebus to inspire,
Vs for his Alters
with his holyest fier,
And let his glorious
euer-shining Rayes,
Giue life and
growth to our Elizian Bayes._
Nimphes.
Then Polyhymnia_ most delicious Mayd,
In Rhetoricks
Flowers that art arayd,
In Tropes and
Figures, richly drest,
The Fyled Phrase
that louest best, 460
That art all Elocution,
and
The first that
gau’st to vnderstand
The force of wordes
in order plac’d
And with a sweet
deliuery grac’d._
Chorus.
Sweet Muse perswade our Phoebus_ to inspire
Vs for his Altars,
with his holiest fire,
And let his glorious
euer shining Rayes
Giue life and
growth to our Elizian Bayes._
Nimphes.
Lofty Vrania_ then we call to thee,
To whom the Heauens
for euer opened be, 470
Thou th’
Asterismes by name dost call,
And shewst when
they doe rise and fall
Each Planets force,
and dost diuine
His working, seated
in his Signe,
And how the starry
Frame still roules
Betwixt the fixed
stedfast Poles._
Chorus.
Vrania aske of Phoebus_ to inspire
Vs for his Altars
with his holiest fire,
And let his glorious
euer-shining Rayes
Giue life and
growth to our Elizian Bayes._ 480
The fourth Nimphall
CLORIS and MERTILLA.
Chaste Cloris_ doth disclose the shames Of the Felician frantique Dames,_ Mertilla striues t’ apease her woe, To golden wishes then they goe.
Mertilla. Why how now Cloris, what, thy head
Bound with forsaken Willow?
Is the cold ground become thy bed?
The grasse become thy Pillow?
O let not those life-lightning eyes
In this sad vayle be shrowded,
Which into mourning puts the Skyes,
To see them ouer-clowded.
Cloris. O my Mertilla doe not praise
These Lampes so dimly burning, 10
Such sad and sullen lights as these
Were onely made for mourning:
Their obiects are the barren Rocks
With aged Mosse o’r shaded;
Now whilst the Spring layes forth her Locks
With blossomes brauely braded.
Mertilla. O Cloris, Can there be a Spring,
O my deare Nimph, there may not,
Wanting thine eyes it forth to bring,
Without which Nature cannot: 20
Say what it is that troubleth thee
Encreast by thy concealing,
Speake; sorrowes many times we see
Are lesned by reuealing.
Cloris. Being of late too vainely bent
And but at too much leisure;
Not with our Groves and Downes content,
But surfetting in pleasure;
Felicia’s Fields I would goe see,
Where fame to me reported, 30
The choyce Nimphes of the world to be
From meaner beauties sorted;
Hoping that I from them might draw
Some graces to delight me,
But there such monstrous shapes I saw,
That to this houre affright me.
Throw the thick Hayre, that thatch’d their Browes,
Their eyes vpon me stared,
Like to those raging frantique Froes
For Bacchus Feasts prepared: 40
Their Bodies, although straight by kinde,
Yet they so monstrous make them,
That for huge Bags blowne vp with wind,
You very well may take them.
Their Bowels in their Elbowes are,
Whereon depend their Panches,
And their deformed Armes by farre
Made larger than their Hanches:
For their behauiour and their grace,
Which likewise should haue priz’d them, 50
Their manners were as beastly base
As th’ rags that so disguisd them;
All Anticks, all so impudent,
So fashon’d out of fashion,
As blacke Cocytus vp had sent
Her Fry into this nation,
Whose monstrousnesse doth so perplex,
Of Reason and depriues me,
That for their sakes I loath my sex,
Which to this sadnesse driues me. 60
Mertilla. O my deare Cloris be not sad,
Nor with these Furies danted,
But let these female fooles be mad,
With Hellish pride inchanted;
Let not thy noble thoughts descend
So low as their affections;
Whom neither counsell can amend,
Nor yet the Gods corrections:
Such mad folks ne’r let vs bemoane,
But rather scorne their folly, 70
And since we two are here alone,
To banish melancholly,
Leaue we this lowly creeping vayne
Not worthy admiration,
And in a braue and lofty strayne,
Lets exercise our passion,
With wishes of each others good,
From our abundant treasures,
And in this iocund sprightly mood:
Thus alter we our measures. 80
Mertilla. O I could wish this place were strewd with Roses,
And that this Banck were thickly thrumd with Grasse
As soft as Sleaue, or Sarcenet euer was,
Whereon my Cloris her sweet selfe reposes.
Cloris. O that these Dewes Rosewater were for thee,
These Mists Perfumes that hang vpon these thicks,
And that the Winds were all Aromaticks,
Which, if my wish could make them, they should bee.
Mertilla.
O that my Bottle one whole Diamond were,
So fild with Nectar that a
Flye might sup, 90
And at one draught that thou
mightst drinke it vp,
Yet a Carouse not good enough
I feare.
Cloris.
That all the Pearle, the Seas, or Indias haue
Were well dissolu’d,
and thereof made a Lake,
Thou there in bathing, and
I by to take
Pleasure to see thee cleerer
than the Waue.
Mertilla.
O that the Hornes of all the Heards we see,
Were of fine gold, or else
that euery horne
Were like to that one of the
Vnicorne,
And of all these, not one
but were thy Fee. 100
Cloris.
O that their Hooues were Iuory, or some thing,
Then the pur’st Iuory
farre more Christalline,
Fild with the food wherewith
the Gods doe dine,
To keepe thy Youth in a continuall
Spring.
Mertilla.
O that the sweets of all the Flowers that grow,
The labouring ayre would gather
into one,
In Gardens, Fields, nor Meadowes
leauing none,
And all their Sweetnesse vpon
thee would throw.
Cloris.
Nay that those sweet harmonious straines we heare,
Amongst the liuely Birds melodious
Layes, 110
As they recording sit vpon
the Sprayes,
Were houering still for Musick
at thine eare.
Mertilla.
O that thy name were caru’d on euery Tree,
That as these plants still
great, and greater grow,
Thy name deare Nimph might
be enlarged so,
That euery Groue and Coppis
might speake thee.
Cloris.
Nay would thy name vpon their Rynds were set,
And by the Nimphes so oft
and lowdly spoken,
As that the Ecchoes to that
language broken
Thy happy name might hourely
counterfet. 120
Mertilla.
O let the Spring still put sterne winter by,
And in rich Damaske let her
Reuell still,
As it should doe if I might
haue my will,
That thou mightst still walke
on her Tapistry;
And thus since Fate no longer
time alowes
Vnder this broad and shady
Sicamore,
Where now we sit, as we haue
oft before;
Those yet vnborne shall offer
vp their Vowes.
CLAIA, LELIPA, CLARINAX a Hermit.
Of Garlands, Anadems, and Wreathes, This Nimphall nought but sweetnesse breathes, Presents you with delicious Posies, And with powerfull Simples closes.
Claia.
See where old Clarinax is set,
His sundry Simples sorting,
From whose experience we may
get
What worthy is reporting.
Then Lelipa let vs
draw neere,
Whilst he his weedes is weathering,
I see some powerfull Simples
there
That he hath late bin gathering.
Hail gentle Hermit, Iove
thee speed,
And haue thee in his keeping,
10
And euer helpe thee at thy
need,
Be thou awake or sleeping.
Clarinax.
Ye payre of most Celestiall lights,
O Beauties three times burnisht,
Who could expect such heauenly
wights
With Angels features furnisht;
What God doth guide you to
this place,
To blesse my homely Bower?
It cannot be but this high
grace
Proceeds from some high power;
20
The houres like hand-maids
still attend,
Disposed at your pleasure,
Ordayned to noe other end
But to awaite your leasure;
The Deawes drawne vp into
the Aer,
And by your breathes perfumed,
In little Clouds doe houer
there
As loath to be consumed:
The Aer moues not but as you
please,
So much sweet Nimphes it owes
you, 30
The winds doe cast them to
their ease,
And amorously inclose you.
Lelipa.
Be not too lauish of thy praise,
Thou good Elizian Hermit,
Lest some to heare such words
as these,
Perhaps may flattery tearme
it;
But of your Simples something
say,
Which may discourse affoord
vs,
We know your knowledge lyes
that way,
With subiects you haue stor’d
vs. 40
Claia.
We know for Physick yours you get,
Which thus you heere are sorting,
And vpon garlands we are set,
With Wreathes and Posyes sporting:
Lelipa.
The Chaplet and the Anadem,
The curled Tresses crowning,
We looser Nimphes delight
in them,
Not in your Wreathes renowning.
Clarinax.
The Garland long agoe was worne,
As Time pleased to bestow
it, 50
The Lawrell onely to adorne
The Conquerer and the Poet.
The Palme his due, who vncontrould,
On danger looking grauely,
When Fate had done the worst
it could,
Who bore his Fortunes brauely.
Most worthy of the Oken Wreath
The Ancients him esteemed,
Who in a Battle had from death
Some man of worth redeemed.
60
About his temples Grasse they
Claia.
The Boughes and Sprayes, of which you tell,
By you are rightly named,
But we with those of pretious
smell
And colours are enflamed;
The noble Ancients to excite
Men to doe things worth crowning,
Not vnperformed left a Rite,
To heighten their renowning:
But they that those rewards
deuis’d,
And those braue wights that
wore them 90
By these base times, though
poorely priz’d,
Yet Hermit we adore them.
The store of euery fruitfull
Field
We Nimphes at will possessing,
From that variety they yeeld
Get flowers for euery dressing:
Of which a Garland Ile compose,
Then busily attend me.
These flowers I for that purpose
chose,
But where I misse amend me.
100
Clarinax.
Well Claia on with your intent,
Lets see how you will weaue
it,
Which done, here for a monument
I hope with me, you’ll
leaue it.
Claia.
Here Damaske Roses, white and red,
Out of my lap first take I,
Which still shall runne along
the thred,
My chiefest Flower this make
I:
Amongst these Roses in a row,
Next place I Pinks in plenty,
110
These double Daysyes then
for show,
And will not this be dainty.
The pretty Pansy then Ile
tye
Like Stones some Chaine inchasing,
And next to them their neere
Alye,
The purple Violet placing.
The curious choyce, Clove
Iuly-flower,
Whose kinds hight the Carnation
For sweetnesse of most soueraine
power
Shall helpe my Wreath to fashion.
120
Whose sundry cullers of one
kinde
First from one Root derived,
Them in their seuerall sutes
Ile binde,
My Garland so contriued;
A course of Cowslips then
I’ll stick,
And here and there though
sparely
The pleasant Primrose downe
Lelipa.
Your Garland thus you finisht haue,
Then as we haue attended
150
Your leasure, likewise let
me craue
I may the like be friended.
Those gaudy garish Flowers
you chuse,
In which our Nimphes are flaunting,
Which they at Feasts and Brydals
vse,
The sight and smell inchanting:
A Chaplet me of Hearbs Ile
make
Then which though yours be
brauer,
Yet this of myne I’le
vndertake
Shall not be short in fauour.
160
With Basill then I will begin,
Whose scent is wondrous pleasing,
This Eglantine I’le
next put in,
The sense with sweetnes seasing.
Then in my Lauender I’le
lay,
Muscado put among it,
And here and there a leafe
of Bay,
Which still shall runne along
it.
Germander, Marieram, and Tyme
Which vsed are for strewing,
170
With Hisop as an hearbe most
pryme
Here in my wreath bestowing.
Then Balme and Mynt helps
to make vp
My Chaplet, and for Tryall,
Costmary that so likes the
Cup,
And next it Penieryall
Then Burnet shall beare vp
with this
Whose leafe I greatly fansy,
Some Camomile doth not amisse,
With Sauory and some Tansy,
180
Then heere and there I’le
put a sprig
Of Rosemary into it
Thus not too little or too
big
Tis done if I can doe it.
Clarinax.
Claia your Garland is most gaye,
Compos’d of curious
Flowers,
And so most louely Lelipa,
This Chaplet is of yours,
In goodly Gardens yours you
get
Where you your laps haue laded;
190
My symples are by Nature set,
In Groues and Fields vntraded.
Your Flowers most curiously
you twyne,
Each one his place supplying.
Claia.
Nay then thou hast inough to doe,
We pity thy enduring,
250
For they are there infected
soe,
That they are past thy curing.
SILVIVS, HALCIVS, MELANTHVS.
A Woodman, Fisher, and
a Swaine
This Nimphall
through with mirth maintaine,
Whose pleadings so the Nimphes
doe please,
That presently
they giue them Bayes.
Cleere had the day bin from
the dawne,
All chequerd was the Skye,
Thin Clouds like Scarfs of
Cobweb Lawne
Vayld Heauen’s most
glorious eye.
The Winde had no more strength
then this,
That leasurely it blew,
To make one leafe the next
to kisse,
That closly by it grew.
The Rils that on the Pebbles
playd,
Might now be heard at will;
10
This world they onely Musick
made,
Else euerything was still.
The Flowers like braue embraudred
Gerles,
Lookt as they much desired,
To see whose head with orient
Pearles,
Most curiously was tyred;
And to it selfe the subtle
Ayre,
Such souerainty assumes,
That it receiu’d too
large a share
From natures rich perfumes.
20
When the Elizian Youth were
met,
That were of most account,
And to disport themselues
were set
Vpon an easy Mount:
Neare which, of stately Firre
and Pine
There grew abundant store,
The Tree that weepeth Turpentine,
And shady Sicamore.
Amongst this merry youthfull
trayne
A Forrester they had,
30
A Fisher, and a Shepheards
swayne
A liuely Countrey Lad:
Betwixt which three a question
grew,
Who should the worthiest be,
Which violently they pursue,
Nor stickled would they be.
That it the Company doth please
This ciuill strife to stay,
Freely to heare what each
of these
For his braue selfe could
say: 40
When first this Forrester
(of all)
That Silvius had to
name,
To whom the Lot being cast
doth fall,
Doth thus begin the Game.
Silvius.
For my profession then, and for the life I lead,
All others to excell, thus
for my selfe I plead;
I am the Prince of sports,
the Forrest is my Fee,
He’s not vpon the Earth
for pleasure liues like me;
The Morne no sooner puts her
rosye Mantle on,
But from my quyet Lodge I
instantly am gone, 50
When the melodious Birds from
euery Bush and Bryer,
Of the wilde spacious Wasts,
make a continuall quire;
The motlied Meadowes then,
new vernisht with the Sunne
Shute vp their spicy sweets
vpon the winds that runne,
In easly ambling Gales, and
softly seeme to pace,
That it the longer might their
lushiousnesse imbrace:
I am clad in youthfull Greene,
I other colour, scorne,
My silken Bauldrick beares
my Beugle, or my Horne,
Which setting to my Lips,
I winde so lowd and shrill,
As makes the Ecchoes showte
from euery neighbouring Hill: 60
My Doghooke at my Belt, to
which my Lyam’s tyde,
My Sheafe of Arrowes by, my
He of his speech scarce made
an end,
But him they load with prayse,
100
The Nimphes most highly him
commend,
And vow to giue him Bayes:
He’s now cryde vp of
euery one,
And who but onely he,
The Forrester’s the
man alone,
The worthyest of the three.
When some then th’ other
farre more stayd,
Wil’d them a while to
pause,
For there was more yet to
be sayd,
That might deserve applause,
110
When Halcius his turne
next plyes,
And silence hauing wonne,
Roome for the fisher man he
cryes,
And thus his Plea begunne.
Halcius.
No Forrester, it so must not be borne away,
But heare what for himselfe
the Fisher first can say,
The Chrystall current Streames
continually I keepe,
Where euery Pearle-pau’d
Foard, and euery Blew-eyd deepe
With me familiar are; when
in my Boate being set,
My Oare I take in hand, my
Augle and my Net 120
About me; like a Prince my
selfe in state I steer,
Now vp, now downe the Streame,
now am I here, now ther,
The Pilot and the Fraught
my selfe; and at my ease
Can land me where I list,
or in what place I please,
The Siluer-scaled Sholes,
about me in the Streames,
As thick as ye discerne the
Atoms in the Beames,
Neare to the shady Banck where
slender Sallowes grow,
And Willows their shag’d
tops downe t’wards the waters bow
I shove in with my Boat to
sheeld me from the heat,
Where chusing from my Bag,
some prou’d especiall bayt, 130
The goodly well growne Trout
I with my Angle strike,
And with my bearded Wyer I
take the rauenous Pike,
Of whom when I haue hould,
he seldome breakes away
Though at my Lynes full length,
soe long I let him play
Till by my hand I finde he
well-nere wearyed be,
When softly by degrees I drawe
him vp to me.
The lusty Samon to, I oft
with Angling take,
Which me aboue the rest most
Lordly sport doth make,
Who feeling he is caught,
such Frisks and bounds doth fetch,
And by his very strength my
Line soe farre doth stretch, 140
As draws my floating Corcke
downe to the very ground,
And wresting at my Rod, doth
make my Boat turne round.
I neuer idle am, some tyme
I bayt my Weeles,
With which by night I take
the dainty siluer Eeles,
And with my Draughtnet then,
I sweepe the streaming Flood,
And to my Tramell next, and
Cast-net from the Mud,
I beate the Scaly brood, noe
hower I idely spend,
But wearied with my worke
I bring the day to end:
The Naijdes and Nymphes that
in the Riuers keepe,
Which take into their care,
the store of euery deepe, 150
Amongst the Flowery flags,
the Bullrushes and Reed,
That of the Spawne haue charge
(abundantly to breed)
Well mounted vpon Swans, their
naked bodys lend
To my discerning eye, and
on my Boate attend,
And dance vpon the Waues,
before me (for my sake)
To th’ Musick the soft
wynd vpon the Reeds doth make
And for my pleasure more,
the rougher Gods of Seas
From Neptune’s
Court send in the blew Neriades,
Which from his bracky Realme
vpon the Billowes ride
And beare the Riuers backe
with euery streaming Tyde, 160
Those Billowes gainst my Boate,
borne with delightfull Gales,
Oft seeming as I rowe to tell
me pretty tales,
Whilst Ropes of liquid Pearle
This speech of Halcius
turn’d the Tyde,
And brought it so about,
170
That all vpon the Fisher cryde,
That he would beare it out;
Him for the speech he made,
to clap
Who lent him not a hand,
And said t’would be
the Waters hap,
Quite to put downe the Land.
This while Melanthus
silent sits,
(For so the Shepheard hight)
And hauing heard these dainty
wits,
Each pleading for his right;
180
To heare them honor’d
in this wise,
His patience doth prouoke,
When for a Shepheard roome
he cryes,
And for himselfe thus spoke.
Melanthus.
Well Fisher you haue done, and Forrester for you
Your Tale is neatly tould,
s’are both’s to giue you due,
And now my turne comes next,
then heare a Shepherd speak:
My watchfulnesse and care
giues day scarce leaue to break,
But to the Fields I haste,
my folded flock to see,
Where when I finde, nor Woolfe,
nor Fox, hath iniur’d me, 190
I to my Bottle straight, and
soundly baste my Throat,
Which done, some Country Song
or Roundelay I roate
So merrily; that to the musick
that I make,
I Force the Larke to sing
ere she be well awake;
Then Baull my cut-tayld
Curre and I begin to play,
He o’r my Shephooke
leapes, now th’one, now th’other way,
Then on his hinder feet he
doth himselfe aduance,
I tune, and to my note, my
liuely Dog doth dance,
Then whistle in my Fist, my
fellow Swaynes to call,
Downe goe our Hooks and Scrips,
and we to Nine-holes fall, 200
At Dust-point, or at Quoyts,
else are we at it hard,
All false and cheating Games,
we Shepheards are debard;
Suruaying of my sheepe if
Ewe or Wether looke
As though it were amisse,
or with my Curre, or Crooke
I take it, and when once I
finde what it doth ayle,
It hardly hath that hurt,
but that my skill can heale;
And when my carefull eye,
I cast vpon my sheepe
I sort them in my Pens, and
sorted soe I keepe:
Those that are bigst of Boane,
I still reserue for breed,
My Cullings I put off, or
for the Chapman feed. 210
When the Euening doth approach
I to my Bagpipe take,
And to my Grazing flocks such
Musick then I make,
That they forbeare to feed;
then me a King you see,
I playing goe before, my Subiects
followe me,
My Bell-weather most braue,
before the rest doth stalke,
They had not cryd the Forester,
And Fisher vp before,
So much: but now the
Nimphes preferre,
The Shephard ten tymes more,
240
And all the Ging goes on his
side,
Their Minion him they make,
To him themselues they all
apply’d,
And all his partie take;
Till some in their discretion
cast,
Since first the strife begunne,
In all that from them there
had past
None absolutly wonne;
That equall honour they should
share;
And their deserts to showe,
250
For each a Garland they prepare,
Which they on them bestowe,
Of all the choisest flowers
that weare,
Which purposly they gather,
With which they Crowne them,
parting there,
As they came first together.
FLORIMEL, LELIPA, NAIJS, CODRVS a
Feriman.
The Nimphes, the Queene of loue pursue, Which oft doth hide her from their view: But lastly from th’ Elizian Nation, She banisht is by Proclamation.
Florimel.
Deare Lelipa, where hast thou bin so long,
Was’t not enough for
thee to doe me wrong;
To rob me of thy selfe, but
with more spight
To take my Naijs from
me, my delight?
Yee lazie Girles, your heads
where haue ye layd,
Whil’st Venus
here her anticke prankes hath playd?
Lelipa.
Nay Florimel, we should of you enquire,
The onely Mayden, whom we
all admire
For Beauty, Wit, and Chastity,
that you
Amongst the rest of all our
Virgin crue, 10
In quest of her, that you
so slacke should be,
And leaue the charge to Naijs
and to me.
Florimel.
Y’are much mistaken Lelipa, ’twas
I,
Of all the Nimphes, that first
did her descry,
At our great Hunting, when
as in the Chase
Amongst the rest, me thought
I saw one face
So exceeding faire, and curious,
yet vnknowne
That I that face not possibly
could owne.
And in the course, so Goddesse
like a gate,
Each step so full of maiesty
and state; 20
That with my selfe, I thus
resolu’d that she
Lesse then a Goddesse (surely)
could not be:
Thus as Idalia, stedfastly
I ey’d,
A little Nimphe that kept
close by her side
I noted, as vnknowne as was
the other,
Which Cupid was disguis’d
so by his mother.
The little purblinde Rogue,
if you had seene,
You would haue thought he
verily had beene
One of Diana’s
Votaries so clad,
He euery thing so like a Huntresse
had: 30
And she had put false eyes
into his head,
That very well he might vs
all haue sped.
And still they kept together
in the Reare,
But as the Boy should haue
shot at the Deare,
He shot amongst the Nimphes,
which when I saw,
Closer vp to them I began
to draw;
And fell to hearken, when
they naught suspecting,
Because I seem’d them
vtterly neglecting,
I heard her say, my little
Cupid too’t,
Now Boy or neuer, at the Beuie
shoot, 40
Haue at them Venus
quoth the Boy anon,
I’le pierce the proud’st,
had she a heart of stone:
With that I cryde out, Treason,
Treason, when
The Nimphes that were before,
turning agen
To vnderstand the meaning
of this cry,
They out of sight were vanish’t
presently.
Thus but for me, the Mother
and the Sonne,
Here in Elizium, had vs all
vndone.
Naijs.
Beleeue me, gentle Maide, ’twas very well,
But now heare me my beauteous
Florimel, 50
Great Mars his Lemman
being cryde out here,
She to Felicia goes,
still to be neare
Th’ Elizian Nimphes,
for at vs is her ayme,
The fond Felicians
are her common game.
I vpon pleasure idly wandring
thither,
Something worth laughter from
those fooles to gather,
Found her, who thus had lately
beene surpriz’d,
Fearing the like, had her
faire selfe disguis’d
Like an old Witch, and gaue
out to haue skill
In telling Fortunes either
good or ill; 60
And that more nearly she with
them might close,
She cut the Cornes, of dainty
Ladies Toes:
She gaue them Phisicke, either
to coole or mooue them,
And powders too to make their
sweet Hearts loue them:
And her sonne Cupid,
as her Zany went,
Carrying her boxes, whom she
Lelipa.
Nay then my dainty Girles, I make no doubt
But I my selfe as strangely
found her out
As either of you both; in
Field and Towne,
When like a Pedlar she went
vp and downe:
For she had got a pretty handsome
Packe,
Which she had fardled neatly
at her backe:
And opening it, she had the
perfect cry,
Come my faire Girles, let’s
see, what will you buy. 100
Here be fine night Maskes,
plastred well within,
To supple wrinckles, and to
smooth the skin:
Heer’s Christall, Corall,
Bugle, Iet, in Beads,
Cornelian Bracelets for my
dainty Maids:
Then Periwigs and Searcloth-Gloues
doth show,
To make their hands as white
as Swan or Snow:
Then takes she forth a curious
gilded boxe,
Which was not opened but by
double locks;
Takes them aside, and doth
a Paper spred,
In which was painting both
for white and red: 110
And next a piece of Silke,
wherein there lyes
For the decay’d, false
Breasts, false Teeth, false Eyes
And all the while shee’s
opening of her Packe,
Cupid with’s
wings bound close downe to his backe:
Playing the Tumbler on a Table
gets,
And shewes the Ladies many
pretty feats.
I seeing behinde him that
he had such things,
For well I knew no boy but
he had wings,
I view’d his Mothers
beauty, which to me
Lesse then a Goddesse said,
she could not be: 120
Florimel.
But hearke you Nimphes, amongst our idle prate,
Tis current newes through
the Elizian State,
That Venus and her
Sonne were lately seene
Here in Elizium, whence
they oft haue beene
Banisht by our Edict, and
yet still merry,
Were here in publique row’d
o’r at the Ferry,
Where as ’tis said,
the Ferryman and she
Had much discourse, she was
so full of glee, 140
Codrus much wondring
at the blind Boyes Bow.
Naijs.
And what it was, that easly you may know,
Codrus himselfe comes
rowing here at hand.
Lelipa.
Codrus Come hither, let your Whirry stand,
I hope vpon you, ye will take
no state
Because two Gods haue grac’t
your Boat of late;
Good Ferry-man I pray thee
let vs heare
What talke ye had, aboard
thee whilst they were.
Codrus.
Why thus faire Nimphes.
As I a Fare had lately past,
150
And thought that side to ply,
I heard one as it were in
haste;
A Boate, a Boate, to cry,
Which as I was aboute to bring,
And came to view my Fraught,
Thought I; what more then
heauenly thing,
Hath fortune hither brought.
She seeing mine eyes still
on her were,
Soone, smilingly, quoth she;
Sirra, looke to your Roother
there, 160
Why lookst thou thus at me?
And nimbly stept into my Boat,
With her a little Lad
Naked and blind, yet did I
note,
That Bow and Shafts he had,
And two Wings to his Shoulders
fixt,
Which stood like little Sayles,
With farre more various colours
mixt,
Then be your Peacocks Tayles;
I seeing this little dapper
Elfe, 170
Such Armes as these to beare,
Quoth I thus softly to my
selfe,
What strange thing haue we
here,
I neuer saw the like thought
I:
Tis more then strange to me,
To haue a child haue wings
to fly,
And yet want eyes to see;
Sure this is some deuised
toy,
Or it transform’d hath
bin,
For such a thing, halfe Bird,
Florimel.
Well: against them then proceed
250
As before we haue decreed,
That the Goddesse and her
Child,
Be for euer hence exild,
Which Lelipa you shall
proclaime
In our wise Apollo’s
name.
Lelipa.
To all th’ Elizian Nimphish Nation,
Thus we make our Proclamation,
Against Venus and her
Sonne
For the mischeefe they haue
done,
After the next last of May,
260
The fixt and peremtory day,
If she or Cupid shall
be found
Vpon our Elizian ground,
Our Edict, meere Rogues shall
make them,
And as such, who ere shall
take them,
Them shall into prison put,
Cupids wings shall
then be cut,
His Bow broken, and his Arrowes
Giuen to Boyes to shoot at
Sparrowes,
And this Vagabund be sent,
270
Hauing had due punishment
To mount Cytheron,
which first fed him:
Where his wanton Mother bred
him,
And there out of her protection
Dayly to receiue correction;
Then her Pasport shall be
made,
And to Cyprus Isle
conuayd,
And at Paphos in her
Shryne,
Where she hath been held diuine,
For her offences found contrite,
280
There to liue an Anchorite.
MERTILLA, CLAIA, CLORIS.
A Nimph is marryed to a Fay, Great preparations for the Day, All Rites of Nuptials they recite you To the Brydall and inuite you.
Mertilla. But will our Tita wed this Fay?
Claia. Yea, and to morrow is the day.
Mertilla.
But why should she bestow her selfe
Vpon this dwarfish Fayry Elfe?
Claia.
Why by her smalnesse you may finde,
That she is of the Fayry kinde,
And therefore apt to chuse
her make
Whence she did her begining
take:
Besides he ’s deft and
wondrous Ayrye,
And of the noblest of the
Fayry, 10
Chiefe of the Crickets of
much fame,
In Fayry a most ancient name.
But to be briefe, ’tis
cleerely done,
The pretty wench is woo’d
and wonne.
Cloris.
If this be so, let vs prouide
The Ornaments to fit our Bryde.
For they knowing she doth
come
From vs in Elizium,
Queene Mab will looke
she should be drest
In those attyres we thinke
our best, 20
Therefore some curious things
lets giue her,
E’r to her Spouse we
her deliuer.
Mertilla.
Ile haue a Iewell for her eare,
(Which for my sake Ile haue
her weare)
’T shall be a Dewdrop,
and therein
Of Cupids I will haue a twinne,
Which strugling, with their
wings shall break
The Bubble, out of which shall
leak,
So sweet a liquor as shall
moue
Each thing that smels, to
be in loue. 30
Claia.
Beleeue me Gerle, this will be fine,
And to this Pendant, then
take mine;
A Cup in fashion of a Fly,
Of the Linxes piercing eye,
Wherein there sticks a Sunny
Ray
Shot in through the cleerest
day,
Whose brightnesse Venus
selfe did moue,
Therein to put her drinke
of Loue,
Which for more strength she
did distill,
The Limbeck was a Phoenix
quill, 40
At this Cups delicious brinke,
A Fly approching but to drinke,
Like Amber or some precious
Gumme
It transparant doth become.
Cloris.
For Iewels for her eares she’s sped,
But for a dressing for her
head
I thinke for her I haue a
Tyer,
That all Fayryes shall admyre,
The yellowes in the full-blowne
Rose,
Which in the top it doth inclose
50
Like drops of gold Oare shall
be hung;
Vpon her Tresses, and among
Those scattered seeds (the
eye to please)
The wings of the Cantharides:
With some o’ th’
Raine-bow that doth raile
Those Moons in, in the Peacocks
taile:
Whose dainty colours being
mixt
With th’ other beauties,
and so fixt,
Her louely Tresses shall appeare,
As though vpon a flame they
were. 60
And to be sure she shall be
gay,
We’ll take those feathers
from the Iay;
About her eyes in Circlets
set,
To be our Tita’s
Coronet.
Mertilla.
Then dainty Girles I make no doubt,
But we shall neatly send her
out:
But let’s amongst our
selues agree,
Of what her wedding Gowne
shall be.
Claia.
Of Pansie, Pincke, and Primrose leaues,
Most curiously laid on in
Threaues: 70
And all embroydery to supply,
Powthred with flowers of Rosemary:
A trayle about the skirt shall
runne,
The Silkewormes finest, newly
spunne;
And euery Seame the Nimphs
shall sew
With th’ smallest of
the Spinners Clue:
And hauing done their worke,
againe
These to the Church shall
beare her Traine:
Which for our Tita
we will make
Of the cast slough of a Snake,
80
Which quiuering as the winde
doth blow,
The Sunne shall it like Tinsell
shew.
Cloris.
And being led to meet her mate,
To make sure that she want
no state,
Moones from the Peacockes
tayle wee’ll shred,
With feathers from the Pheasants
head:
Mix’d with the plume
of (so high price,)
The precious bird of Paradice.
Which to make vp, our Nimphes
shall ply
Into a curious Canopy.
90
Borne o’re her head
(by our enquiry)
By Elfes, the fittest of the
Faery.
Mertilla.
But all this while we haue forgot
Her Buskins, neighbours, haue
we not?
Claia.
We had, for those I’le fit her now,
They shall be of the Lady-Cow:
The dainty shell vpon her
backe
Of Crimson strew’d with
spots of blacke;
Which as she holds a stately
pace,
Her Leg will wonderfully grace.
100
Cloris.
But then for musicke of the best,
This must be thought on for
the Feast.
Mertilla.
The Nightingale of birds most choyce,
To doe her best shall straine
her voyce;
And to this bird to make a
Set,
The Mauis, Merle, and Robinet;
The Larke, the Lennet, and
the Thrush,
That make a Quier of euery
Bush.
But for still musicke, we
will keepe
The Wren, and Titmouse, which
to sleepe 110
Shall sing the Bride, when
shee’s alone
The rest into their chambers
gone.
And like those vpon Ropes
that walke
On Gossimer, from staulke
to staulke,
The tripping Fayry tricks
shall play
The euening of the wedding
day.
Claia.
But for the Bride-bed, what were fit,
That hath not beene talk’d
of yet.
Cloris.
Of leaues of Roses white and red,
Shall be the Couering of her
bed: 120
The Curtaines, Valence, Tester,
all,
Shall be the flower Imperiall,
And for the Fringe, it all
along
With azure Harebels shall
be hung:
Of Lillies shall the Pillowes
be,
With downe stuft of the Butterflee.
Mertilla.
Thus farre we handsomely haue gone,
Now for our Prothalamion
Or Marriage song of all the
rest,
A thing that much must grace
our feast. 130
Let vs practise then to sing
it,
Ere we before th’ assembly
bring it:
We in Dialogues must doe it,
The my dainty Girles set to
it.
Claia. This
day must Tita_ marryed be,
Come Nimphs this nuptiall
let vs see._
Mertilla. But
is it certaine that ye say,
Will she wed the Noble Faye?
Cloris. Sprinckle
the dainty flowers with dewes,
Such as the Gods at Banquets
vse: 140
Let Hearbs and Weeds turne
all to Roses,
And make proud the posts with
posies:
Shute your sweets into the
ayre,
Charge the morning to be fayre.
Claia. } For
our Tita_ is this day,
Mertilla. } To
be married to a Faye._
Claia. By whom
then shall our Bride be led
To the Temple to be wed.
Mertilla. Onely
by your selfe and I,
Who that roomth should else
supply? 150
Cloris. Come
bright Girles, come altogether,
And bring all your offrings
hither,
Ye most braue and Buxome Beuye,
All your goodly graces Leuye,
Come in Maiestie and state
Our Brydall here to celebrate.
Mertilla. } For
our Tita_ is this day,
Claia. } Married
to a noble Faye._
Claia. Whose
lot wilt be the way to strow
On which to Church our Bride
must goe? 160
Mertilla. That
I think as fit’st of all,
To liuely Lelipa_ will
fall._
Cloris. Summon
all the sweets that are,
To this nuptiall to repayre;
Till with their throngs themselues
they smother,
Strongly styfling one another;
And at last they all consume,
And vanish in one rich perfume.
Mertilla. } For
our Tita_ is this day,
Claia. } Married
to a noble Faye._ 170
Mertilla. By
whom must Tita_ married be,
’Tis fit we all to that
should see?_
Claia. The
Priest he purposely doth come,
Th’ Arch Flamyne of
Elizium.
Cloris. With
Tapers let the Temples shine,
Sing to Himen, Hymnes diuine:
Load the Altars till there
rise
Clouds from the burnt sacrifice;
With your Sensors fling aloofe
Their smels, till they ascend
the Roofe. 180
Mertilla. } For
our Tita_ is this day,
Claia. } Married
to a noble Fay._
Mertilla. But
comming backe when she is wed,
Who breakes the Cake aboue
her head.
Claia. That
shall Mertilla_, for shee’s tallest,
And our Tita is the
smallest._
Cloris. Violins,
strike vp aloud,
Ply the Gitterne, scowre the
Crowd,
Let the nimble hand belabour
The whistling Pipe, and drumbling
Taber: 190
To the full the Bagpipe racke,
Till the swelling leather
cracke.
Mertilla. } For
our Tita_ is this day,
Claia. } Married
to a noble Fay._
Claia. But
when to dyne she takes her seate
What shall be our Tita’s_
meate?_
Mertilla. The
Gods this Feast, as to begin,
Haue sent of their Ambrosia
in.
Cloris. Then
serue we vp the strawes rich berry,
The Respas, and Elizian Cherry:
200
The virgin honey from the
flowers
In Hibla, wrought in Flora’s_
bowers:
Full Bowles of Nectar, and
no Girle
Carouse but in dissolued Pearle._
Mertilla. } For
our Tita_ is this day,
Claia. } Married
to a noble Fay._
Claia. But
when night comes, and she must goe
To Bed, deare Nimphes what
must we doe?
Mertilla. In
the Posset must be brought,
And Poynts be from the Bridegroome
caught. 210
Cloris. In
Maskes, in Dances, and delight,
And reare Banquets spend the
night:
Then about the Roome we ramble,
Scatter Nuts, and for them
scramble:
Ouer Stooles, and Tables tumble,
Neuer thinke of noyse nor
rumble.
Mertilla. } For
our Tita_ is this day,
Claia. } Married
to a noble Fay._
MVSES and NIMPHS.
The Muses spend their lofty layes, Vpon Apollo_ and his prayse; The Nimphs with Gems his Alter build, This Nimphall is with Phoebus fild._
A Temple of exceeding state,
The Nimphes and Muses rearing,
Which they to Phoebus dedicate,
Elizium euer cheering:
These Muses, and those Nimphes contend
This Phane to Phoebus offring,
Which side the other should transcend,
These praise, those prizes proffering,
And at this long appointed day,
Each one their largesse bringing, 10
Those nine faire Sisters led the way
Thus to Apollo singing.
The Muses. Thou youthfull God that guid’st the howres,
The Muses thus implore thee,
By all those Names, due to thy powers,
By which we still adore thee.
Sol_, Tytan, Delius, Cynthius, styles
Much reuerence that have wonne thee,
Deriu’d from Mountaines as from Iles
Where worship first was done thee. 20
Rich Delos brought thee forth diuine,
Thy Mother thither driven,
At Delphos thy most sacred shrine,
Thy Oracles were giuen.
In thy swift course from East to West,
They minutes misse to finde thee,
That bear’st the morning on thy breast,
And leau’st the night behinde thee.
Vp to Olimpus top so steepe,
Thy startling Coursers currying; 30
Thence downe to Neptunes vasty deepe,
Thy flaming Charriot hurrying._
Eos_, Ethon, Phlegon, Pirois, proud,
Thus hauing sung, the Nimphish Crue
Thrust in amongst them thronging,
Desiring they might haue the due
That was to them belonging.
Quoth they, ye Muses as diuine,
Are in his glories graced,
But it is we must build the Shryne
Wherein they must be placed;
Which of those precious Gemmes we’ll make
That Nature can affoord vs, 90
Which from that plenty we will take,
Wherewith we here have stor’d vs:
O glorious Phoebus most diuine,
Thine Altars then we hallow.
And with those stones we build a Shryne
To thee our wise Apollo.
The Nimphes. No Gem, from Rocke, Seas, running streames,
(Their numbers let vs muster)
But hath from thy most powerfull beames
The Vertue and the Lustre; 100
The Diamond, the King of Gemmes,
The first is to be placed,
That glory is of Diadems,
Them gracing, by them graced:
In whom thy power the most is seene,
The raging fire refelling:
The Emerauld then, most deepely greene,
For beauty most excelling,
Page 145
Resisting poyson often prou’d
By those about that beare it. 110
The cheerfull Ruby then, much lou’d,
That doth reuiue the spirit,
Whose kinde to large extensure growne
The colour so enflamed,
Is that admired mighty stone
The Carbunckle that’s named,
Which from it such a flaming light
And radiency eiecteth,
That in the very dark’st of night
The eye to it directeth. 120
The yellow Iacynth, strengthening Sense,
Of which who hath the keeping,
No Thunder hurts nor Pestilence,
And much prouoketh sleeping:
The Chrisolite, that doth resist
Thirst, proued, neuer failing,
The purple colored Amatist,
’Gainst strength of wine prevailing;
The verdant gay greene Smaragdus,
Most soueraine ouer passion: 130
The Sardonix approu’d by vs
To master Incantation.
Then that celestiall colored stone
The Saphyre, heauenly wholly,
Which worne, there wearinesse is none,
And cureth melancholly:
The Lazulus, whose pleasant blew
With golden vaines is graced;
The Iaspis, of so various hew,
Amongst our other placed; 140
The Onix from the Ancients brought,
Of wondrous Estimation,
Shall in amongst the rest be wrought
Our sacred Shryne to fashion;
The Topas, we’ll stick here and there,
And sea-greene colored Berill,
And Turkesse, which who haps to beare
Is often kept from perill,
To Selenite, of Cynthia’s_ light,
So nam’d, with her still ranging, 150
Which as she wanes or waxeth bright
Its colours so are changing.
With Opalls, more then any one,
We’ll deck thine Altar fuller,
For that of euery precious stone,
It doth retaine some colour;
With bunches of Pearle Paragon
Thine Altars vnderpropping,
Whose base is the Cornelian,
Strong bleeding often stopping: 160
With th’ Agot, very oft that is
Cut strangely in the Quarry,
As Nature ment to show in this,
How she her selfe can varry:
With worlds of Gems from Mines and Seas
Elizium well might store vs:
But we content our selues with these
That readiest lye before vs:
And thus O Phoebus most diuine
Thine Altars still we hallow, 170
And to thy Godhead reare this Shryne
Our onely wise Apollo._
NAIIS, CLAIA, CORBILVS, SATYRE.
A Satyre on Elizium lights, Whose vgly shape the Nimphes affrights, Yet when they heare his iust complaint, They make him an Elizian Saint.
Corbilus.
What; breathles Nimphs? bright Virgins let me know
What suddaine cause constraines ye to this haste?
What haue ye seene that should affright ye so?
What might it be from which ye flye so fast?
I see your faces full of pallid feare,
As though some perill followed on your flight;
Take breath a while, and quickly let me heare
Into what danger ye haue lately light.
Naijs.
Neuer were poore distressed Gerles so glad,
As when kinde, loued Corbilus
we saw, 10
When our much haste vs so
much weakned had,
That scarcely we our wearied
breathes could draw,
In this next Groue vnder an
aged Tree,
So fell a monster lying there
we found,
As till this day, our eyes
did neuer see,
Nor euer came on the Elizian
ground.
Halfe man, halfe Goate, he
seem’d to vs in show,
His vpper parts our humane
shape doth beare,
But he’s a very perfect
Goat below,
His crooked Cambrils arm’d
with hoofe and hayre. 20
Claia.
Through his leane Chops a chattering he doth make
Which stirres his staring
beastly driueld Beard,
And his sharpe hornes he seem’d
at vs to shake,
Canst thou then blame vs though
we are afeard.
Corbilus.
Surely it seemes some Satyre this should be,
Come and goe back and guide
me to the place,
Be not affraid, ye are safe
enough with me,
Silly and harmlesse be their
Siluan Race.
Claia.
How Corbilus; a Satyre doe you say?
How should he ouer high Parnassus
hit? 30
Since to these fields there’s
none can finde the way,
But onely those the Muses
will permit.
Corbilus.
’Tis true; but oft, the sacred Sisters grace
The silly Satyre, by whose
plainnesse, they
Are taught the worlds enormities
to trace,
By beastly mens abhominable
way;
Besyde he may be banisht his
owne home
By this base time, or be so
much distrest,
That he the craggy by-clift
Hill hath clome
To finde out these more pleasant
Fields of rest. 40
Naijs.
Yonder he sits, and seemes himselfe to bow
At our approach, what doth
our presence awe him?
Me thinks he seemes not halfe
so vgly now,
As at the first, when I and
Claia saw him.
Corbilus.
’Tis an old Satyre, Nimph, I now discerne,
Sadly he sits, as he were
sick or lame,
His lookes would say, that
we may easly learne
How, and from whence, he to
Elizium came.
Satyre, these Fields, how
cam’st thou first to finde?
What Fate first show’d
thee this most happy store? 50
When neuer any of thy Siluan
kinde
Set foot on the Elizian earth
before?
Satyre.
O neuer aske, how I came to this place,
What cannot strong necessity
finde out?
Rather bemoane my miserable
case,
Constrain’d to wander
this wide world about:
With wild Silvanus
and his woody crue,
In Forrests I, at liberty
and free,
Liu’d in such pleasure
as the world ne’r knew,
Nor any rightly can conceiue
Naijs.
Poore silly creature, come along with vs,
Thou shalt be free of the
Elizian fields:
Be not dismaid, nor inly grieued
thus,
This place content in all
abundance yeelds.
We to the cheerefull presence
will thee bring,
Of Ioues deare Daughters,
where in shades they sit, 130
Where thou shalt heare those
sacred Sisters sing,
Most heauenly Hymnes, the
strength and life of wit:
Claia.
Where to the Delphian God vpon their Lyres
His Priests seeme rauisht
in his height of praise:
Whilst he is crowning his
harmonious Quiers
With circling Garlands of
immortall Bayes.
Corbilus.
Here liue in blisse, till thou shalt see those slaues,
Who thus set vertue and desert
at nought:
Some sacrific’d vpon
their Grandsires graues,
And some like beasts in markets
sold and bought. 140
Of fooles and madmen leaue
thou then the care,
That haue no vnderstanding
of their state:
For whom high heauen doth
so iust plagues prepare,
That they to pitty shall conuert
thy hate.
And to Elizium be thou welcome
then,
Vntill those base Felicians
thou shalt heare,
By that vile nation captiued
againe,
That many a glorious age their
captiues were.
[From the Edition of 1593]
The Gods delight, the heauens
hie spectacle,
Earths greatest glory, worlds
rarest miracle.
Fortunes fay’rst mistresse,
vertues surest guide,
Loues Gouernesse, and natures
chiefest pride.
Delights owne darling, honours
cheefe defence,
Chastities choyce, and wisdomes
quintessence.
Conceipts sole Riches, thoughts
only treasure,
Desires true hope, Ioyes sweetest
pleasure.
Mercies due merite, valeurs
iust reward,
Times fayrest fruite, fames
strongest guarde. 10
Yea she alone, next that eternall
he,
The expresse Image of eternitie.
From Eclogue ij
Tell me fayre flocke, (if
so you can conceaue)
The sodaine cause of my night-sunnes
eclipse,
If this be wrought me my light
to bereaue,
By Magick spels, from some
inchanting lips
Or vgly Saturne from
his combust sent,
This fatall presage of deaths
dreryment.
Oh cleerest day-starre, honored
of mine eyes,
Yet sdaynst mine eyes should
gaze vpon thy light,
Bright morning sunne, who
with thy sweet arise,
Expell’st the clouds
of my harts lowring night, 10
Goddes reiecting sweetest
sacrifice,
Of mine eyes teares ay offered
to thine eyes.
May purest heauens scorne
my soules pure desires?
Or holy shrines hate Pilgrims
orizons?
May sacred temples gaynsay
sacred prayers?
Or Saints refuse the poores
deuotions?
Then Orphane thoughts with
sorrow be you waind,
When loues Religion shalbe
thus prophayn’d.
Yet needes the earth must
droope with visage sad,
When siluer dewes been turn’d
to bitter stormes, 20
The Cheerful Welkin,
once in sables clad,
Her frownes foretell poore
humaine creatures harmes.
And yet for all to make amends
for this,
The clouds sheed teares, and
weepen at my misse.
From Eclogue iij
O thou fayre siluer Thames:
O cleerest chrystall flood,
Beta alone the Phenix is, of all thy watery
brood,
The Queene of Virgins onely she:
And thou the Queene of floods shalt be:
Let all thy Nymphes be ioyfull then to see this
happy day,
Thy Beta now alone shalbe the subiect of
my laye.
With daintie and delightsome straines
of sweetest virelayes:
Come louely shepheards sit we down and chant our
Betas prayse:
And let vs sing so rare a verse,
Our Betas prayses to rehearse,
10
That little Birds shall silent be, to heare poore
shepheards sing,
And riuers backward bend their course, and flow
vnto the spring.
Range all thy swannes faire Thames
together on a rancke,
And place them duely one by one, vpon thy stately
banck,
Then set together all agood,
Recording to the siluer flood,
And craue the tunefull Nightingale to helpe you
with her lay,
The Osel and the Throstlecocke, chiefe musicke
of our maye.
O! see what troups of Nimphs been
sporting on the strands,
And they been blessed Nimphs of peace, with Oliues
in their hands. 20
How meryly the Muses sing,
That all the flowry Medowes ring,
And Beta sits vpon the banck, in purple
and in pall,
And she the Queene of Muses is, and weares the
Corinall.
Trim vp her Golden tresses with
Apollos sacred tree,
O happy sight vnto all those that loue and honor
thee,
The Blessed Angels haue prepar’d,
A glorious Crowne for thy reward,
Not such a golden Crowne as haughty Caesar
weares,
But such a glittering starry Crowne as Ariadne
beares. 30
Make her a goodly Chapilet of azur’d
Colombine,
And wreath about her Coronet with sweetest Eglentine:
Bedeck our Beta all with Lillies,
And the dayntie Daffadillies,
With Roses damask, white, and red, and fairest
flower delice,
With Cowslips of Jerusalem, and cloues of Paradice.
O thou fayre torch of heauen, the
days most dearest light,
And thou bright shyning Cinthya, the glory
of the night:
You starres the eyes of heauen,
And thou the glyding leuen,
40
And thou O gorgeous Iris with all strange
Colours dyd,
When she streams foorth her rayes, then dasht
is all your pride.
See how the day stands still, admiring
of her face,
And time loe stretcheth foorth her armes, thy
Beta to imbrace,
The Syrens sing sweete layes,
The Trytons sound her prayse,
Goe passe on Thames and hie thee fast vnto the
Ocean sea,
And let thy billowes there proclaime thy Betas
holy-day.
And water thou the blessed roote
of that greene Oliue tree,
With whose sweete shadow, al thy bancks with peace
preserued be, 50
Lawrell for Poets and Conquerours,
And mirtle for Loues Paramours:
That fame may be thy fruit, the boughes preseru’d
by peace,
And let the mournful Cipres die, now stormes and
tempest cease.
Wee’l straw the shore with
pearle where Beta walks alone,
And we wil paue her princely Bower with richest
Indian stone,
Perfume the ayre and make it sweete,
For such a Goddesse it is meete,
For if her eyes for purity contend with Titans
light,
No maruaile then although they so doe dazell humaine
sight. 60
Sound out your trumpets then, from
London’s stately towres,
To beate the stormie windes a back and calme the
raging showres,
Set too the Cornet and the flute,
The Orpharyon and the Lute,
And tune the Taber and the Pipe, to the sweet
violons,
And moue the thunder in the ayre, with lowdest
Clarions.
Beta long may thine Altars
smoke, with yeerely sacrifice,
And long thy sacred Temples may their Saboths
solemnize,
Thy shepheards watch by day and night,
Thy Mayds attend the holy light,
70
And thy large empyre stretch her armes from east
vnto the west,
And thou vnder thy feet mayst tread, that foule
seuen-headed beast.
From Eclogue iv
Melpomine put on thy mourning
Gaberdine,
And set thy song vnto the dolefull Base,
And with thy sable vayle shadow thy face,
with weeping verse,
attend his hearse,
Whose blessed soule the heauens doe now enshrine.
Come Nymphs and with your Rebecks
ring his knell,
Warble forth your wamenting harmony,
And at his drery fatall obsequie,
with Cypres bowes,
10
maske your fayre Browes,
And beat your breasts to chyme his burying peale.
Thy birth-day was to all our ioye,
the euen,
And on thy death this dolefull song we sing,
Sweet Child of Pan, and the Castalian
spring,
vnto our endless mone,
from vs why art thou gone,
To fill vp that sweete Angels quier in heauen.
O whylome thou thy lasses dearest
loue,
When with greene Lawrell she hath crowned thee,
20
Immortal mirror of all Poesie:
the Muses treasure,
the Graces pleasure,
Reigning with Angels now in heauen aboue.
Our mirth is now depriu’d
of all her glory,
Our Taburins in dolefull dumps are drownd.
Our viols want their sweet and pleasing sound,
our melodie is mar’d
and we of ioyes debard,
O wicked world so mutable and transitory.
30
O dismall day, bereauer of delight,
O stormy winter, sourse of all our sorrow,
O most vntimely and eclipsed morrow,
to rob us quite,
of all delight,
Darkening that starre which euer shone so bright.
Oh Elphin, Elphin,
Though thou hence be gone,
In spight of death yet shalt thou liue for aye,
Thy Poesie is garlanded with Baye:
and still shalt blaze
40
thy lasting prayse:
Whose losse poore shepherds euer shall bemone.
Come Girles, and with Carnations
decke his graue,
With damaske Roses and the hyacynt:
Come with sweete Williams, Marioram and Mynt,
with precious Balmes,
with hymnes and psalmes,
This funerall deserues no lesse at all to haue.
But see where Elphin sits
in fayre Elizia,
Feeding his flocke on yonder heauenly playne,
50
Come and behold, you louely shepheards swayne,
piping his fill
on yonder hill,
Tasting sweete Nectar, and Ambrosia.
From Eclogue vij
Borrill.
Oh spightfull wayward wretched loue,
Woe to Venus which did nurse thee,
Heauens and earth thy plagues doe proue,
Gods and men haue cause to curse thee.
Thoughts griefe, hearts woe,
Hopes paine, bodies languish,
Enuies rage, sleepes foe,
Fancies fraud, soules anguish,
Desires dread, mindes madnes,
Secrets bewrayer, natures error, 10
Sights deceit, sullens sadnes,
Speeches expence, Cupids terror,
Malcontents melancholly,
Liues slaughter, deaths nurse,
Cares slaue, dotard’s folly,
Fortunes bayte, world’s curse,
Lookes theft, eyes blindnes,
Selfes will, tongues treason,
Paynes pleasure, wrongs kindnes,
Furies frensie, follies reason: 20
With cursing thee as I began,
Neither God, neither man,
Neither Fayrie, neither Feend.
Batte.
Loue is the heauens fayre aspect,
loue is the glorie of the earth,
Loue only doth our liues direct,
loue is our guyder from our birth,
Loue taught my thoughts at first
to flie,
loue taught mine eyes the way to loue,
Loue raysed my conceit so hie,
30
loue framd my hand his arte to proue.
Loue taught my Muse her perfect
skill,
loue gaue me first
to Poesie:
Loue is the Soueraigne of
my will,
loue bound me
first to loyalty.
Loue was the first that fram’d
my speech,
loue was the first
that gaue me grace:
Loue is my life and fortunes
leech,
loue made the
vertuous giue me place.
Loue is the end of my desire,
40
loue is the loadstarre
of my loue,
Loue makes my selfe, my selfe
admire,
loue seated my
delights aboue.
Loue placed honor in my brest,
loue made me learnings
fauoret,
Loue made me liked of the
best,
loue first my
minde on virtue set.
Loue is my life, life is my
loue,
loue is my whole
felicity,
Loue is my sweete, sweete
is my loue, 50
I am in loue,
and loue in mee.
From Eclogue viij
Farre in the countrey of Arden
There wond a knight hight
Cassemen,
as bolde as Isenbras:
Fell was he and eger bent,
In battell and in Tournament,
as was the good
sir Topas.
He had as antique stories
tell,
A daughter cleaped Dowsabell,
a mayden fayre
and free:
And for she was her fathers
heire, 10
Full well she was ycond the
leyre,
of mickle curtesie.
The silke wel couth she twist
and twine,
And make the fine Marchpine,
and with the needle
werke,
And she couth helpe the priest
to say
His Mattens on a holyday,
and sing a Psalme
in Kirke.
She ware a frocke of frolicke
greene,
Might well beseeme a mayden
Queene, 20
which seemly was
to see.
A hood to that so neat and
fine,
In colour like the colombine,
ywrought full
featously.
Her feature all as fresh aboue,
As is the grasse that grows
by Doue,
as lyth as lasse
of Kent:
Her skin as soft as Lemster
wooll,
As white as snow on peakish
hull,
or Swanne that
swims in Trent. 30
This mayden in a morne betime,
Went forth when May was in
her prime,
to get sweet Cetywall,
The hony-suckle, the Harlocke,
The Lilly and the Lady-smocke,
to decke her summer
hall.
Thus as she wandred here and
there,
Ypicking of the bloomed Breere,
she chanced to
espie
A shepheard sitting on a bancke,
40
Like Chanteclere he
crowed crancke,
and pip’d
with merrie glee:
He leard his sheepe as he
him list,
When he would whistle in his
fist,
to feede about
him round:
Whilst he full many a caroll
sung,
Vntill the fields and medowes
rung,
and that the woods
did sound:
In fauour this same shepheards
swayne,
Was like the bedlam Tamburlayne,
50
which helde prowd
Kings in awe:
But meeke he was as Lamb mought
be,
Ylike that gentle Abel
he,
whom his lewd
[From the Edition of 1605]
From Eclogue ij
Then this great Vniuerse no
lesse,
Can serue her prayses to expresse:
Betwixt her eies the poles
of Loue,
The host of heauenly beautyes
moue,
Depainted in their proper
stories,
As well the fixd as wandring
glories,
Which from their proper orbes
not goe,
Whether they gyre swift or
slowe:
Where from their lips, when
she doth speake,
The musick of those sphears
do breake, 10
Which their harmonious motion
breedeth:
From whose cheerfull breath
proceedeth:
That balmy sweetnes that giues
birth
To euery ofspring of the earth.
Her shape and cariage of which
frame
In forme how well shee beares
the same,
Is that proportion heauens
best treasure,
Whereby it doth all poyze
and measure,
So that alone her happy sight
Conteynes perfection and delight.
20
From Eclogue ij
Vppon a bank with roses set
about,
Where pretty turtles ioyning
bil to bill,
And gentle springs steale
softly murmuring out
Washing the foote of pleasures
sacred hill:
There little loue sore wounded
lyes,
His bowe and arowes broken,
Bedewd with teares from Venus
eyes
Oh greeuous to be spoken.
Beare him my hart slaine with
her scornefull eye
Where sticks the arrowe that
poore hart did kill, 10
With whose sharp pile request
him ere he die,
About the same to write his
latest will,
And bid him send it backe
to mee,
At instant of his dying,
That cruell cruell shee may
see
My faith and her denying.
His chappell be a mournefull
Cypresse Shade,
And for a chauntry Philomels
sweet lay,
Where prayers shall continually
be made
By pilgrim louers passing
by that way. 20
With Nymphes and shepheards
yearly moane
His timeles death beweeping,
In telling that my hart alone
Hath his last will in keeping.
[From the Edition of 1606]
From Eclogue vij
Now fye vpon thee wayward
loue,
Woe to Venus which
did nurse thee,
Heauen and earth thy plagues
doe proue,
Gods and men haue cause to
curse thee.
What art thou but th’
extreamst madnesse,
Natures first and only error
That consum’st our daies
in sadnesse,
By the minds Continuall terror:
Walking in Cymerian blindnesse,
In thy courses voy’d
of reason. 10
Sharp reproofe thy only kindnesse,
In thy trust the highest treason?
Both the Nymph and ruder swaine,
Vexing with continuall anguish,
Which dost make the ould complaine
BATTE.
What is Loue but the desire
Of the thing that fancy pleaseth?
A holy and resistlesse fier,
Weake and strong alike that ceaseth,
Which not heauen hath power to let,
Nor wise nature cannot smother, 30
Whereby Phoebus doth begette
On the vniuersall mother.
That the euerlasting Chaine,
Which together al things tied,
And vnmooued them retayne
And by which they shall abide:
That concent we cleerely find,
All things doth together drawe,
And so strong in euery kinde,
Subiects them to natures law. 40
Whose hie virtue number teaches
In which euery thing dooth mooue,
From the lowest depth that reaches
To the height of heauen aboue:
Harmony that wisely found,
When the cunning hand doth strike
Whereas euery amorous sound,
Sweetly marryes with his like.
The tender cattell scarcely take
From their damm’s the feelds to proue, 50
But ech seeketh out a make,
Nothing liues that doth not loue:
Not soe much as but the plant
As nature euery thing doth payre,
By it if the male it want
Doth dislike and will not beare:
Nothing then is like to loue
In the which all creatures be.
From it nere let me remooue
Nor let it remooue from me. 60
From Eclogue ix
BATTE.
Gorbo, as thou cam’st this waye By yonder little hill, Or as thou through the fields didst straye Sawst thou my Daffadill?
Shee’s in a frock of Lincolne greene
The colour maides delight
And neuer hath her beauty seen
But through a vale of white.
Then Roses richer to behold
That trim vp louers bowers, 10
The Pansy and the Marigould
Tho Phoebus Paramours.
Gorbo. Thou well describ’st
the Daffadill
It is not full an hower
Since by the spring neare yonder hill
I saw that louely flower.
Batte. Yet my faire flower
thou didst not meet,
Nor news of her didst bring,
And yet my Daffadill more sweete,
Then that by yonder spring.
20
Gorbo. I saw a shepheard
that doth keepe
In yonder field of Lillies,
Was making (as he fed his sheepe)
A wreathe of Daffadillies.
Batte. Yet Gorbo
thou delud’st me stil
My flower thou didst not see,
For know my pretie Daffadill
Is worne of none but me.
To shew it selfe but neare her seate,
No Lilly is so bould, 30
Except to shade her from the heate,
Or keepe her from the colde:
Gorbo. Through yonder vale
as I did passe,
Descending from the hill,
I met a smerking bony lasse,
They call her Daffadill:
Whose presence as along she went,
The prety flowers did greet,
As though their heads they downward bent,
With homage to her feete. 40
And all the shepheards that were nie,
From toppe of euery hill,
Vnto the vallies lowe did crie,
There goes sweet Daffadill.
Gorbo. I gentle shepheard,
now with ioy
Thou all my flockes dost fill,
That’s she alone kind shepheards
boy,
Let vs to Daffadill.
From Eclogue ix
Motto. Tell me thou skilfull
shepheards swayne,
Who’s yonder in the vally set?
Perkin. O it is she whose sweets do stayne,
The Lilly, Rose, or violet.
Motto. Why doth the Sunne
against his kind,
Stay his bright Chariot in the skies,
Perkin. He pawseth almost stroken blind,
With gazing on her heauenly eies:
Motto. Why doe thy flocks
forbeare their foode,
Which somtyme was their chiefe delight,
10
Perkin. Because they neede no other good,
That liue in presence of her sight:
Motto. How com those flowers
to florish still,
Not withering with sharpe winters breath?
Perkin. She hath robd nature of her skill,
And comforts all things with her breath:
Motto. Why slide these
brookes so slow away,
As swift as the wild Roe that were,
Perkin. O muse not shepheard that they
stay,
When they her heauenly voice do heare.
20
Motto. From whence com
all these goodly swayns
And lonely nimphs attir’d in greene,
Perkin. From gathering garlands on the
playnes,
To crowne thy Siluia shepheards
queen.
Motto. The sun that lights
this world below,
Flocks, Brooks and flowers, can witnesse
bear,
Perkin. These shepheards, and these nymphs
do know,
Thy Syluia is as chast, as fayre.
From Eclogue ix
Rowland. Of her pure eyes
(that now is seen)
Chorus. Help vs to sing that be her faithful
swains
Row: O she alone the shepheards Queen,
Cho: Her Flocke that leades,
The goddesse of these medes,
These mountaines and these plaines.
Row: Those eyes
of hers that are more cleere,
Cho: Then silly
shepheards can in song expresse,
Row: Then be his
beams that rule the yeare,
Cho: Fy on that
prayse, 10
In
striuing things to rayse:
That
doth but make them lesse.
Row: That doe the
flowery spring prolong,
Cho: So much the
earth doth in her presence ioy,
Row: And keeps
the plenteous summer young:
Cho: And doth asswage
The
wrathfull winters rage
That
would our flocks destroy.
Row: Ioue
saw her brest that naked lay,
Cho: A sight alone
was fit for Ioue to see:
20
Row: And swore
it was the milkie way,
Cho: Of all most
pure,
The
path (we vs assure)
Vnto
Ioues court to be.
Row: He saw her
tresses hanging downe.
Cho: That too and
fro were mooued with the ayre,
Row: And sayd that
Ariadnes crowne,
Cho: With those
compar’d:
The
gods should not regard
Nor
Berenices hayre.
30
Row: When she hath
watch’d my flockes by night,
Cho: O happie were
the flockes that she did keepe:
Row: They neuer
needed Cynthia’s light,
Cho: That soone
gaue place,
Amazed
with her grace,
That
did attend thy sheepe.
Row: Aboue where
heauens hie glories are,
Cho: When as she
shall be placed in the skies,
Row: She shall
be calld the shepheards starre,
Cho: And euermore,
40
We
shepheards will adore,
Her
setting and her rise.
In this Appendix, I have collected certain fugitive pieces of Drayton’s; chiefly commendatory verses prefixed to various friends’ books. The first song is from England’s Helicon, and is, I think, too pretty to be lost. Three of the commendatory poems are in sonnet-form, and their inclusion brings us nearer the whole number published by Drayton; of which there are doubtless a few still lacking. But I have tried to make the collection of sonnets as complete as possible.
From England’s Helicon (1600) p. 97.
Rowlands Madrigall.
Faire Loue rest thee heere,
Neuer yet was morne so cleere,
Sweete be not vnkinde,
Let me thy fauour finde,
Or
else for loue I die.
Harke this pretty bubling
spring,
How it makes the Meadowes
ring,
Loue now stand my friend,
Heere let all sorrow end,
And
I will honour thee.
10
See where little Cupid
lyes,
Looking babies in her eyes.
Cupid helpe me now,
Lend to me thy bowe,
To
wound her that wounded me.
Heere is none to see or tell,
All our flocks are feeding
by,
This Banke with Roses spred,
Oh it is a dainty bed,
Fit
for my Loue and me.
20
Harke the birds in yonder
Groaue,
How they chaunt vnto my Loue,
Loue be kind to me,
As I haue beene to thee,
For
thou hast wonne my hart.
Calme windes blow you faire,
Rock her thou gentle ayre,
O the morne is noone,
The euening comes too soone,
To
part my Loue and me.
30
The Roses and thy lips doo
meete,
Oh that life were halfe so
sweete,
Who would respect his breath,
That might die such a death,
Oh
that life thus might die.
All the bushes that be neere,
With sweet Nightingales beset,
Hush sweete and be still,
Let them sing their fill,
There’s
none our ioyes to let.
40
Sunne why doo’st thou
goe so fast?
Oh why doo’st thou make
such hast?
It is too early yet,
So soone from ioyes to flit
Why
art thou so vnkind?
See my little Lambkins runne,
Looke on them till I haue
done,
Hast not on the night,
To rob me of her light,
That
liue but by her eyes.
50
Alas, sweete Loue, we must
depart,
Harke, my dogge begins to
barke,
Some bodie’s comming
neere,
They shall not find vs heere,
For
feare of being chid.
Take my Garland and my Gloue,
Weare it for my sake my Loue,
To morrow on the greene,
Thou shalt be our Sheepheards Queene,
Crowned with Roses gay. 60
Mich. Drayton.
FINIS.
From T. Morley’s First Book of Ballets (1595).
Mr. M.D. to the Author.
Such was old Orpheus cunning,
That sencelesse things drew neere him,
And heards of beasts to heare him,
The stock, the stone, the Oxe, the Asse came running,
Morley! but this enchaunting
To thee, to be the Musick-God is wanting.
And yet thou needst not feare him;
Draw thou the Shepherds still and Bonny lasses,
And enuie him not stocks, stones, Oxen, Asses.
Prefixed to Christopher Middleton’s Legend
of Humphrey Duke of
Gloucester (1600).
To his friend, Master Chr. M. his Booke.
Like as a man, on some aduenture
bound
His honest friendes, their
kindnes to expresse,
T’incourage him of whome
the maine is own’d;
Some venture more, and some
aduenture lesse,
That if the voyage (happily)
be good:
They his good fortune freely
Mich. Drayton.
Prefixed to John Davies of Hereford; Holy Roode (1609).
To M. IOHN DAVIES, my good friend.
Such men as hold intelligence with Letters, And in that nice and Narrow way of Verse, As oft they lend, so oft they must be Debters, If with the Muses_ they will haue commerce: Seldome at Stawles, me, this way men rehearse, To mine Inferiours, not unto my Betters: He stales his Lines that so doeth them disperse; I am so free, I loue not Golden-fetters. And many Lines fore Writers, be but Setters To them which cheate with_ Papers; which doth pierse, Our Credits: when we shew our selues Abetters: To those that wrong our knowledge: we rehearse
Often (my good Iohn_; and I loue) thy_ Letters_;
Which lend me Credit, as I lend my Verse._
Michael Drayton.
Prefixed to Sir David Murray’s Sophonisba &c. (1611).
To my kinde friend Da: Murray.
In new attire (and put most neatly on)
Thou Murray mak’st thy passionate Queene apeare,
As when she sat on the Numidian throne,
Deck’d with those Gems that most refulgent were.
So thy stronge muse her maker like repaires,
That from the ruins of her wasted vrne,
Into a body of delicious ayres:
Againe her spirit doth transmigrated turne,
That scortching soile which thy great subiect bore,
Bred those that coldly but exprest her merit,
But breathing now vpon our colder shore,
Here shee hath found a noble fiery spirit,
Both there, and here, so fortunate for Fame,
That what she was, she’s euery where the same.
M. DRAYTON.
Among the Panegyrical Verses before Coryat’s Crudities (1611).
Incipit Michael Drayton.
A briefe Prologue to the verses following.
Deare Tom, thy booke was like to come to light, Ere I could gaine but one halfe howre to write; They go before whose wits are at their noones, And I come after bringing Salt and Spoones.
Many there be that write before
thy Booke,
For whom (except here) who
could euer looke?
Thrice happy are all wee that
had the Grace
To haue our names set in this
liuing place.
Most worthy man, with thee
it is euen thus,
As men take Dottrels,
so hast thou ta’n vs.
Explicit Michael Drayton.
Prefixed to William Browne’s Britannia’s Pastorals (1613).
To his Friend the AVTHOR.
Driue forth thy Flocke, young
Pastor, to that Plaine,
Where our old Shepheards wont
their flocks to feed;
To those cleare walkes, where
many a skilfull Swaine
To’ards the calme eu’ning,
tun’d his pleasant Reede,
Those, to the Muses
once so sacred, Downes,
As no rude foote might there
presume to stand:
(Now made the way of the vnworthiest
Clownes,
Dig’d and plow’d
vp with each vnhallowed hand)
If possible thou canst, redeeme
those places,
Where, by the brim of many
a siluer Spring, 10
The learned Maydens, and delightfull
Graces
Often haue sate to heare our
Shepheards sing:
Where on those Pines
the neighb’ring Groues among,
(Now vtterly neglected in
these dayes)
Our Garlands, Pipes, and Cornamutes
were hong
The monuments of our deserued
praise.
So may thy Sheepe like, so
thy Lambes increase,
And from the Wolfe feede euer
safe and free!
So maist thou thriue, among
the learned prease,
As thou young Shepheard art
belou’d of mee! 20
Prefixed to Chapman’s Translation of Hesiod’s Georgics (1618).
To my worthy friend Mr. George Chapman, and his translated Hesiod.
Chapman;
We finde by thy past-prized fraught,
What wealth thou dost vpon
this Land conferre;
Th’olde Grecian
Prophets hither that hast brought,
Of their full words the true
interpreter:
And by thy trauell, strongly
hast exprest
The large dimensions of the
English tongue;
Deliuering them so well, the
first and best,
That to the world in Numbers
euer sung.
Thou hast vnlock’d the
treasury, wherein
All Art, and knowledge haue
so long been hidden: 10
Which, till the gracefull
Muses did begin
Here to inhabite, was to vs
forbidden.
In
blest Elizivm (in a place most fit)
Vnder that tree due to the
Delphian God,
Musaeus, and that Iliad
Singer sit,
And neare to them that noble
Hesiod,
Smoothing their rugged foreheads;
and do smile,
After so many hundred yeares
to see
Their Poems read in this farre
westerne Ile,
Translated from their ancient
Greeke, by thee; 20
Each his good Genius
whispering in his eare,
That with so lucky, and auspicious
fate
Did still attend them, whilst
they liuing were,
And gaue their Verses such
a lasting date.
Where slightly passing by
the Thespian spring,
Many long after did but onely
sup;
Nature, then fruitfull, forth
these men did bring,
To fetch deep Rowses from
Ioues plentious cup.
In
thy free labours (friend) then rest content,
Feare not Detraction,
neither fawne on Praise:
30
When idle Censure all
her force hath spent,
Knowledge can crowne
her self with her owne Baies.
Their Lines, that haue so
many liues outworne,
Cleerely expounded shall base
Enuy scorne.
Michael Drayton.
Prefixed to Book ij. of Primaleon, &c. Translated by Anthony Munday (1619).
OF THE WORKE and Translation.
If in opinion of iudiciall wit,
Primaleons_ sweet Invention well deserue:
Then he (no lesse) which hath translated it,
Which doth his sense, his forme, his phrase, obserue.
And in true method of his home-borne stile,
(Following the fashion of a French conceate)
Hath brought him heere into this famous Ile,
Where but a stranger, now hath made his seate.
He liues a Prince, and comming in this sort,
Shall to his Countrey of your fame report._
M.D.
From Annalia Dubrensia (1636).
TO MY NOBLE Friend Mr. ROBERT DOVER, on his braue annuall Assemblies vpon Cotswold.
Douer, to doe thee Right, who will not striue,
That dost in these dull yron Times reuiue
The golden Ages glories; which poore Wee
Had not so much as dream’t on but for Thee?
As those braue Grecians in their happy dayes,
On Mount Olympus to their Hercules
Ordain’d their games Olimpick, and so nam’d
Of that great Mountaine; for those pastimes fam’d:
Where then their able Youth, Leapt, Wrestled, Ran,
Threw the arm’d Dart; and honour’d was the Man 10
That was the Victor; In the Circute there
The nimble Rider, and skill’d Chariotere
Stroue for the Garland; In those noble Times
There to their Harpes the Poets sang their Rimes;
That whilst Greece flourisht, and was onely then
Nurse of all Arts, and of all famous men:
Numbring their yeers, still their accounts they made,
Either from this or that Olimpiade.
So Douer, from these Games, by thee begun,
Wee’l reckon Ours, as time away doth run. 20
Wee’l haue thy Statue in some Rocke cut out,
With braue Inscriptions garnished about;
And vnder written, Loe, this was the man,
DOVER, that first these noble Sports began.
Ladds of the Hills, and Lasses of the Vale,
In many a song, and many a merry Tale
Shall mention Thee; and hauing leaue to play,
Vnto thy name shall make a Holy day.
The Cosswold Shepheards as their flockes they keepe,
To put off lazie drowsinesse and sleepe, 30
Shall sit to tell, and heare thy Story tould,
That night shall come ere they their flocks can fould.
Michaell Drayton.
These notes are not intended to supply materials for the criticism of the text. So freely, indeed, did Drayton alter his poems for a fresh edition, that the ordinary machinery of an apparatus criticus would be overtasked if the attempt were made. All that has been undertaken here is to provide the requisite information in places where the text followed seemed open to suspicion.
It may be added that the punctuation of the originals has in general been preserved; in a few flagrant instances, where the text as it stood was misleading, it has been modified. Such changes are not noted here.
2, 1, l. 14 vertues] vertuous 1619
3, 3, l. 1 Ioue] loue 1599, 1602, 1605
l. 3 them forth,] them,
forth 1599. But the 1619 version
supports the reading in the text.
5, 8, l. 8 men] ones 1599: women 1619
l. 9 to 1599, 1619: of 1594
6, 9, l. 11 in] on 1602
10, l. 12 her] his 1602: their 1619
8, 14, l. 14 anatomize 1599.
But there is ground for believing
that anotamize represents
a current
pronunciation.
9, 15, l. 10 She’st] ? She’ll
10, 17, l. 9 Were] Where 1594
18, l. 5 Elizia] Elizium 1599
11, 20, l. 10 whir-poole] whirl-poole 1602
l. 12 Helycon] Helicon 1602
14, 26, l. 5 Thy 1599 etc.: The 1594
15, 27, l. 4 Thus] This 1594
l. 12 depriued] ? depraued
18, 33, l. 3 Wishing] Wisheth 1599
19, 36, l. 13 And others] And eithers 1599
20, 37, l. 4 euer-certaine] neuer-certaine 1602
28, 1, l. 4 song] sung 1613
31, 10, l. 2 bids] bad 1619
l. 12 my ... his] his ... my 1619
37, 30, l. 14 hollowed] halowed
1605: hallow’d 1619. But cf. 94,
l. 18.
38, 43, l. 3 Wherein 1602, 1605: Where, in 1619: Wherein 1599
39, 44, l. 4 Paynting] Panting 1608
l. 8 Wherein 1602, 1605, 1619: Where in 1599
40, 55, l. 7 forces heere,] forces, here 1619
56, heading A Consonet] A Cansonet 1602
41, 57, l. 13 yet] then 1595
42, 17, ll. 4, 13 Promethius] Prometheus 1605
43, 27, l. 2 Who can he loue? 1608: Who? can he loue: 1619
l. 12 They resolute,] They resolute? 1608, 1619
44, 31, l. 4 appose] oppose 1608, 1619
l. 9 They 1619: The 1602, 1605, 1608
48, 47, l. 8 a 1619: and 1605, 1608
49, 51, l. 1 to 1608: omitted in 1605
53, 21, l. 11 soe] ? loe
l. 13 Troth] Froth 1619
71, l. 16 scowles] scoulds 1606
l. 37 whome 1606: whose 1619
l. 41 rage 1606: age 1619
74, l. 25 he 1619: shee 1606
77, l. 34 some few 1606: some, few 1619
79, l. 10 their] ? there.
83, l. 72 Stuck] The emendation
Struck is tempting (the form
is somewhat uncommon but not
unparalleled);
especially in view of l.
80.
94, l. 18 hollow’d] cf. 37, 30, l. 14
96, l. 120 the] no doubt a printer’s error for they
97, l. 125 be lowe] belowe 1627
97, l. 126 whether] whethet 1627
98, l. 37 it] omitted in 1627
101, l. 62 be] ? been
104, l. 88 him] ? them
l. 94 ceaze 1620: lease 1627
106, l. 37 his] omitted in 1631
l. 56 warnd] warne 1627
110, l. 105 Neat] Next conj. Beeching
118, heading Chaplaine] Chapliane 1627
120, l. 81 extirpe 1631: extipe 1627
146, l. 90 fett] sett and frett have been conjectured.
153, l. 92 debate] delate 1627
154, l. 115 claue] ? cleaue
156, l. 220 euery] euer 1627
174, l. 225 wither] whither 1630
177, l. 343 rawe] taw 1748
192, l. 18 there] they 1630
232, l. 12 vnto] vp to 1619
233, l. 53 fame] faire 1606
234, l. 66 moue] mock 1606
238, l. 25 feature] features 1619
240, l. 99 long] loue 1606
242, Ecl. ij, l. 21 moane 1600: moans 1605
243, l. 55 But it if the Male doth want 1619
244, l. 37 along she went 1619: she went along 1606
245, l. 43 lowe] loud 1600, 1619
247, l. 37 glories 1619: glorious 1606
Page 94, l. 5 for of said read said
" 173, l. 170 for you read your
Oxford
Printed at the Clarendon Press
By Horace Hart, M.A.
Printer to the University