.' 
 
 edited by 
 ATQU1LLER-COUCH
 
 ENGLISH SONNETS
 
 VOLUMES IN THIS SERIES 
 
 THE MOUNT OF VISION : a Book of Eng- 
 lish Mystic Verse. Selected and arranged 
 by ADELINE CASHMORE, with an Introduction 
 by ALICE MEYXELL. 
 
 THE SMALL PEOPLE: a Little Book of 
 Verse about Children for their Elders. 
 Chosen, Edited and Arranged by THOMAS 
 BURKE. 
 
 A COLLECTION OF BALLADS. Edited 
 with Introduction and Notes by ANDREW 
 LANG. 
 
 ENGLISH SONNETS. Edited with Intro- 
 duction and Notes by A. T. QUILLER- 
 COUCH. 
 
 LYRICAL VERSE. Selected and Edited by 
 OSWALD CRAWKURD. First Volume, 1558- 
 1685. 
 
 LVRICAL VERSE. Selected and Edited by 
 OSWALD CRAWFURD. Second Volume, 
 1685-1846.
 
 ENGLISH SONNETS 
 
 EDITED, WITH INTRODUCTION 
 
 AND NOTES 
 
 BY 
 
 A. T. QUILLER-COUCH 
 
 LONDON 
 
 CHAPMAN AND HALL, LIMITED
 
 First Published in 
 Reprinted igio
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 " The Sonnet both thing and name comes 
 to us from the Italian." * Etymologically, 
 sonnetto (from sonare, ' ' to play upon an 
 instrument"} is a little poem with instru- 
 mental accompaniment : just as canzone is a 
 poem intended to be sung merely, and ballala a 
 poem accompanied with dancing. 
 
 But as a matter of fact the earliest sonnctti 
 discoverable have a proper precision of form to 
 which the ballad and song have never yet at- 
 tained^ and, most likely, never will attain. We 
 cannot trace them back beyond the thirteenth 
 century : bttt the sonnets of Lodovico della 
 Vernaccia, Pier delle Vigne, Guido Guinicelli, 
 
 1 Mark Pattison. Introduction to the Sonnets of 
 John Milton.
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 Jaeofo da Lentino, Guittone d Arezzo and 
 others,* mostly dating between 1200 and 1250, 
 scarcely differ in structure from the sonnet 
 which Petrarch practised and handed down as 
 a model to the present day. We will discuss 
 the structure by and by. 
 
 Among these early Italians, Fra Guittone 
 a" Arezzo he was not a monk, but wore the 
 prefix as a member of the half -religious, half- 
 military order of Cavalieri di Santa Maria 
 seems somehow to have walked off with the credit 
 of having perfected the sonnet as an instru- 
 ment: insomuch that Mr. Capel Lofft, who edited 
 an anthology of sonnets early in the present 
 century? salutes him as the Columbus of poetic 
 literature. With what justice we are asked to 
 prefer him above his brethren does not quite 
 appear. But it seems certain that he enjoyed a 
 great reputation in his own day, and by it gave 
 a certain cachet to the sonnet-form which he 
 approved and employed. Dante himself (126$ 
 1321), who considered Fra Guittone an over- 
 estimated person, uses the word "sonnet" of 
 
 1 The English reader will find some account of these 
 early Italian singers, with illustrative translations of 
 their work, in D. G. Rossetti's Dante and kit Circle. 
 Part II. Poets chiefly before Dante 
 
 * Capel Lofft, Laura 1813-14.
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 two forms of composition only ; and one of these, 
 and by far the more usual, is Guittone's 
 
 form ; the other being an arrangement of two 
 sestets followed by two quatrains with which 
 we need not trouble ourselves. Guittone's 
 
 form was finally lifted and sealed supreme 
 by Petrarch's adoption (1304 1374), find as 
 the Petrarcan we may henceforth speak of it. 
 
 The Petrarcan sonnet, then, has a matter 
 and form of its own. In substance it is a 
 reflective poem on love, or at least in some 
 mood of love. It has a unity of its own, and 
 must be the expression of a single thought or 
 
 feeling. In structure it obeys the following 
 rules : 
 
 1. It consists of fourteen lines ; each line 
 having five beats or musical stresses. 
 
 2. The lines must rhyme : and in the disposi- 
 tion of its rhymes the sonnet divides into two 
 systems, the first eight lines forming the major 
 system, and the remaining six the minor. 
 
 The major system of eight lines, or two 
 quatrains, is called the octave : the minor 
 system of six lines, or two tercets, is called the 
 sestet. 
 
 3. The octave must contain two rhyme-sounds 
 only : and although in some Petrarcan sonnets 
 
 vii
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 we find these arranged in simple alternation 
 (A B, A B, A B, A B), in an octave of the normal 
 type lines I, 4, 5, 8 will rhyme together ; and 
 lines 2, 3, 6, 7 will rhyme together upon a 
 different note (A B B A, A B B A). 
 
 4. The sestet may contain either two or three 
 rhyme- sounds : but none of these must repeat or 
 resemble the rhyme-sounds of the octave. And 
 some hold that, to be perfectly normal, the 
 sestet should have the division between its 
 tercets clearly marked: thus e.g. we may 
 have C D C, D C D, or C D E, C D E, besides 
 other variations. 
 
 5. In expressing what the poet has to say, the 
 sonnet must adapt itself to the intention of its 
 length or structiire. The octave should present 
 the poet's idea, the sestet apply it : or the octave 
 should introduce and develop an image, the 
 sestet give back the general reflection suggested 
 by it. In either case there will be a marked 
 pause between the two. 
 
 Besides this indispensable pause, there should 
 be we may take it as a counsel of perfection 
 and a rule subject to many conditions of expedi- 
 ency two lesser pauses ; the first between the two 
 quatrains of the octave, the second between the 
 two tercets of the sestet. Thus a Petrarcan 
 viii
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 sonnet ordered upon a Platonic idea of perfec- 
 tion upon a model " laid up somewhere in the 
 heavens " would run somewhat as follows : 
 The first quatrain introduces the poet's thought 
 or mood : after a slight paiise, " as of one who 
 is turning over what has been said in the mind 
 to enforce it further" the second quatrain 
 develops it : then after a deep pause, the minor 
 system opens, and the first tercet takes up the 
 thought and applies it or reveals a deeper 
 suggestiveness ; and the concluding tercet sums 
 up the whole matter in a general reflection. 
 
 Such then was the Petrarcan sonnet in 
 matter and form ; and such in matter and form 
 (subject to minor experiments and variations') 
 the sonnet remained in the hands of Michael 
 Angela, Tasso, and the great Italians ; of 
 Camoens ; and of Ronsard, Du Bellay and 
 the early French sonneteers. 
 
 The first English sonnets appeared in the 
 year 1557, in the book commonly known as 
 Tottel's Miscellany. It had for its formal 
 title ' Songes and sonnettes written by the 
 ryght honorable lorde Henry Howard, late 
 earle of Surrey and other ' : and was in fact 
 the first and posthumous edition of the poems of 
 the Earl of Surrey and Sir Thomas Wyat, with 
 ix
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 other pieces by contemporaries named and un- 
 named. The editor, Nicholas Grimald (wJiose 
 name suggests Grimaldi and an Italian 
 parentage *) avows the source of his poets' in- 
 spiration, and hopes by their experiments to 
 prove that ' ' the English tongue can earn like 
 praise -with the Italian and other." Tottel's 
 Miscellany marks the opening of an epoch in 
 the history of English song an epoch of 
 Italian influence -which lasted for more than 
 a century, and was not fairly superseded by 
 the influence of France until the Restoration. 
 Wyat and Surrey together brought the sonnet 
 into England : nor can we say positively of this 
 pair that one gave a lead to the other. But if 
 one must have the credit, the probabilities 
 favour IVyat. He was the elder : he had spent 
 some time in Italy, which Surrey never visited : 
 and he keeps more closely by the Petrarcan 
 model, from which the sonnets of Surrey diverge, 
 and on lines which subsequent Elizabethan 
 poets steadily widened. 
 
 For these English experimenters, while con- 
 stant to the Petrarcan tradition that in sub- 
 stance the sonnet should be a short reflective 
 
 1 Professor Henry Morley. English Writers, vol. 
 viii. pp. 51-52. 
 
 X
 
 poem on love, in structure allowed themselves a 
 licence of innovation which gradually evolved a 
 type so unlike the Petrarcan that some critics 
 have believed it a plant of independent growth, 
 indigenous to our island. J Others, suth as the 
 late Mr. Mark Pattison, will have nothing to 
 do with it, and go so far as to declare that the 
 immortal sonnets of Shakespeare (written on 
 this model) are " not sonnets at all" ! the aim 
 of such criticism being apparently the composite 
 one of vindicating pedantry on the one hand 
 and saving expense of labour on the other. ' ' If 
 it had been recognised" says Mr. Pattison, 
 " that the so-called sonnets of Shakespeare are 
 not sonnets at all, any more than those of Lord 
 Brooke, but a continuous poem, or poems, written 
 in fourteen-line stanzas, as Tennyson's In 
 Memoriam is, largely, in sixteen-line stanzas, 
 how much misplaced skill would have been 
 saved!" It is usually possible to save yourself 
 trouble by considering something as something 
 else, especially if you thereby remove it from 
 the category of things you happen to be studying 
 into the category of things on which you propose 
 to bestow no attention : but that you serve the 
 
 1 This theory was advanced by Mr. Hall Caine, 
 Sonnets of Three Centuries.
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 interests of sound criticism by this process seems 
 disputable; and yet more disputable -when you 
 ignore an author's plain intention. One solid 
 reason (among many) why the Sonnets of 
 Shakespeare are sonnets, while the stanzas of 
 In Memoriam are not, is that Shakespeare was 
 endeavouring to write sonnets, and Tennyson 
 was endeavouring to do nothing of the sort. 
 
 On the evolution of this Shakespearian 
 type we may say a few words. Wyat observed 
 generally the Petrarcan form in the two 
 opening quatrains (ABBA, ABB A), and the 
 Petrarcan use of three rhymes in the second 
 part of the sonnet : but he did not observe 
 Petrarch's avoidance of couplets in the second 
 part. He closed every sonnet with a couplet, 
 and this innovation had far-reaching results. 
 Surrey, in the ardour of experiment, attempted 
 many different arrangements of rhyme, but 
 always closed with a couplet; and to this 
 conclusion Spenser was equally loyal. Its 
 expressive value (and it has great expressive 
 value, deny it who will) effaced for a time, in 
 the appreciation of our poets, the more subtly 
 expressive value of the octave and sestet, with 
 their pauses. These vanished as it grew more 
 and more the main business of the sonnet to
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 lead up to a couplet which clinched, as it were, 
 the thought of the preceding lines with something 
 of an epigrammatic stroke : until we find the 
 structure of Surrey's loosest experiments adopted 
 by Daniel and Shakespeare as the final type of 
 English sonnet the easy form of four quatrains 
 and a couplet all independently rhymed. 
 Here are the two forms for comparison : 
 
 Petrarcan 
 
 A 
 B 
 
 B 
 A 
 
 A 
 B 
 B 
 A 
 
 C 
 D 
 E 
 
 C 
 
 D 
 E 
 
 Octave 
 
 - Sestet 
 
 Shakespearian 
 
 A \ \ 
 
 
 B 
 
 
 A 1 ' 
 
 
 B } 
 
 
 C ^ 
 
 
 '}' 
 
 Quatrains 
 
 D } 
 
 
 E \ 
 
 
 F I 3 
 
 
 E 1 
 
 
 F) 
 
 
 } } Couplet 
 
 But not even Shakespeare could make the 
 genius of our language content -with this form, 
 xiii
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 More learned poets Ben Jonson in his 
 Sonnet to the Lady Mary Worth, Donne 
 (whose fine Sonnet to Death will be found on 
 P- 7S)> an d Drummond of Haivthornden soon 
 reverted to the Petrarcan octave for its superior 
 neatness : and Drummond, especially, composed 
 sonnets in large numbers (mostly translations 
 or imitations'] which might fairly be called 
 Petrarcan, but for their final couplets. No 
 English writer could yet find it in his heart 
 to end the sonnet otherwise. 
 
 Petrarcan in substance it had always re- 
 mained an exercise upon the theme of love, 
 usually of hopeless or unsuccessful love : and the 
 theme had fairly exhausted itself in sugared 
 and artificial conceits, when a great poet arose 
 and reformed the English sonnet in substance 
 as well as structure. 
 
 Milton scholar that he was recognised the 
 beauty of the Petrarcan type and revived its 
 rhyme-arrangement, octave and sestet, with 
 this difference he obliterated the pauses. A 
 Miltonic sonnet sweeps from opening to close 
 without a break ; it glows " as if he had cut his 
 diamond in such a -way that only one luminous 
 light was visible to us": or again, "he con- 
 sideredso we may infer that the English 
 xiv
 
 sonnet shotild be like a revolving sphere, every 
 portion becoming continuously visible, with no 
 break in the continuity of thought or expres- 
 sion anywhere apparent '." 1 In one example 
 only that addressed to Cromwell did he 
 admit the final couplet. For a true specimen 
 of the noble impetuous Miltonic movement the 
 reader should study the famous " Avenge, O 
 Lord, thy slaughtered saints. ..." 
 
 But his great and enduring reform was one 
 of substance. To each one of the poets who be- 
 came colleagues in the Latin Secretaryship under 
 the Protectorate there seems to have come the 
 desire to discover some English vehicle for the 
 Horatian Ode that singular product so much 
 easier to recognise than describe. Marvel 
 attempted and scored one great success. I refer, 
 of course, to his Horatian Ode upon Cromwell's 
 return from Ireland, and may quote again the 
 often quoted lines on Charles's execution, to 
 exemplify its spirit and its stanzas : 
 
 ''He nothing common did, Of mean, 
 Upon that memorable scene, 
 But with his keener eye 
 The axe's edge did try ; 
 
 1 Mr. William Sharp. The Sonnet, prefixed to his 
 Sonnets of This Century.
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 Nor called the gods with vulgar spite 
 To vindicate his helpless night; 
 
 But bowed his comely head 
 
 Down as upon a bed." 
 
 Though a success, it had no progeny. Milton, 
 steering wider of Horace' s Alcaics, chose a verse- 
 form ready to his hand the Sonnet. "If" 
 says Mr. Robert Bridges? " we compare, for 
 example, his Cyriack, whose grandsire, with 
 Martiis ccelebs or ISM vetusto, there can be no 
 doubt that Milton was here deliberately using 
 the sonnet form to do the work of Horace's tight 
 stanzas ; and not the whole of Shakespeare* s or 
 Petrarch's sonnets set alongside will show 
 enough kinship with these sonnets of Milton 
 to draw them away from their affinity with 
 Horace." 
 
 But, like many another great artist, Milton 
 carried his experiment to issues far beyond his 
 original aim. His sonnets were no chamber 
 exercises : each owed its inspiration to a real 
 occasion, and that inspiration of reality lifted 
 it high above mere simulation of the Horatian 
 mode. " Each person, thing, or fact is a 
 moment in Milton's life on which he was stirred ; 
 sometimes in the soul's depths, sometimes on the 
 
 1 Essay OH Keats, printed as a Critical Introduction 
 to the Poems of Keats, edited by G. Thorn Drury
 
 surface of feeling, but always truly moved. . , 
 It is a man who is speaking to us, not an artist 
 attitudinising to please us." 1 
 
 "In his hand 
 
 The Thing became a Trumpet whence he blew 
 Soul-animating strains " 
 
 And when, after a slumber of a hundred 
 years, the sonnet awoke again in England, it 
 awoke with Milton's seal on its brow. Words- 
 worth narrates that " in the cottage, Town-end, 
 Grasmere, one afternoon in 1801, my sister 
 read to me the Sonnets of Milton. I had long 
 been well acquainted with them, but I was 
 particularly struck on that occasion with the 
 dignified simplicity and harmony that runs 
 through most of them, in character so differ- 
 ent from the Italian, and still more so from 
 Shakespeare's fine Sonnets. I took fire, if I 
 may be allowed to say so, and produced three 
 sonnets the same afternoon, the first I ever 
 wrote except an irregular one at school."* 
 
 Shakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth, Keats, 
 Rossetti, Mrs. Browning these are confessedly 
 the great sonneteers of our language ; and 
 though all will not agree in accounting' 
 
 1 Mark Pattison. 
 
 8 The irregular sonnet referred to is No. 125 in our 
 collection. " Calm is all nature as a resting wheel. . ." 
 Written, perhaps, as early as 1786. 
 
 xvii
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 Wordsworth the greatest, few -will deny that 
 his finest sonnets were harder to spare than 
 any others finest. They combine the reality, 
 the "alive-ness" of Milton's with a more 
 general and more permanent applicability : 
 their verity is universal, and appeals to the 
 conscience of all men. It is given to few to 
 take more than an historical interest in the 
 question of parochial endmvment and others 
 which agitated the Long Parliament. Only 
 the initiated will listen with entire patience 
 (because with understanding} to the arcana of 
 love as uttered by Shakespeare and Rossetti ; or 
 sympathise with the languors of Keats, or with 
 the passionate doubts of Mrs. Browning. But 
 dull indeed would he be of soul who could pass 
 by such a sonnet as Wordsworth's " The 
 world is too much with us . . ." or his vale- 
 dictory sonnet to Duddon, with its immortal 
 close. " To find," says Mr. John Morley, 1 
 ' ' beautiful and pathetic language, set to har- 
 monious numbers, for the common impressions of 
 meditative minds, is no small part of the poet's 
 task." It -was the part which Wordsworth 
 performed to perfection . His poetry, as Johnson 
 said of Gray's Elegy, ' ' abounds with images 
 
 1 Introduction to the Complete Poetical Works of 
 William Wordsworth, 1893.
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 which fend a mirror in every mind, and -with 
 sentiments to which every bosom returns an echo. " 
 " / never before" records George Eliot, "met 
 with so many of my own feelings expressed just 
 as I should like them." On the response of the 
 common conscience of men Wordsworth's sonnets 
 may rely for their perpetual justification. 
 
 For his form Wordsworth went back to the 
 true Petrarcan, reintroducing the pause which 
 Milton had slurred, and reassigning to the 
 octave and sestet their proper functions. By the 
 favour of such artists as Mrs. Browning, 
 Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Christina Rossetti, Mr. 
 Swinburne, Mr. William Watson, Mr. Watts- 
 Dunton, Mr. Gosse, and Mr. Andrew Lang, 
 and by all but unanimous consent of the critics, 
 the Petrarcan form has ever since retained its 
 pride of place. Keats to be sure {whose sonnets 
 some lovers of poetry rank next to Shakespeare's; 
 though on what ground it is hard to see) pro- 
 vides the dissentients with a sorely needed 
 support ; almost all his early sonnets being 
 Petrarcan in system and all his later ones 
 Shakespearian. But the deliberate reversion 
 of one poet, even of Keats' s quality, cannot 
 seriously shake the great mass of modern 
 aztthority.
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 // is customary for those who write on this 
 subject to give rules by which a good sonnet may 
 be constructed. But our aim here is not to 
 assist the reader in this or any form of com- 
 position. The sonnet has immense popularity 
 just at present, among versifiers. Critics, on 
 the other hand, begin to discover impatience 
 with a form capable of enshrining so much 
 verse of which one can only say, with. Charles 
 Lamb, " it discovers much tender feeling ; it is 
 most like Petrarch of any foreign Poet, or what 
 we might have supposed Petrarch wottld have 
 written if Petrarch had been born a fool! " It 
 is hoped that a small volume containing 
 specimens of the best English sonnet-writing of 
 the past will provide the reader with a correc- 
 tive and a touch-stone of taste. Certainly the 
 study of these specimens ought to assure him 
 that the Sonnet is no arbitrary or haphazard 
 invention ; that its length, and its peculiar 
 structure were not fixed on by chance ; but tJiat 
 every rule has its reason ; and that (in a phrase 
 which I may be allowed to repeat) it is the men 
 big enough to break the rules who accept and 
 observe them most cheerfully. 
 
 A. T. QUILLER-COUCH.
 
 ENGLISH SONNETS 
 
 Sir Gbomas TKflgat 
 
 (1503-1542) 
 
 THE LOVER FORSHAMEFASTNESSHIDETH HIS DESIRE 
 WITHIN HIS FAITHFUL HEART 
 
 THE long Love that in my thought I harbour 
 And in my heart doth keep his residence, 
 Into my face preaseth with bold pretence, 
 
 And there campeth, displaying his banner. 
 
 She that me learns to love and to suffer, 
 
 And wills that my trust and lust's negligence 
 Be ruled by reason, shame and reverence, 
 
 With his hardiness takes displeasure. 
 
 Wherewith Love to the heart's forest he fleeth, 
 Leaving his enterprise with pain and cry ; 
 
 And there him hideth and not appeareth. 
 
 What may I do, when my master feareth, 
 But in the field with him to live and die ? 
 For good is the life, ending faithfully.
 
 HOWARD, EARL OF SURREY 
 
 Tbencg fxwarfc, JEarl of Surrey 
 
 (1518-1546-7) 
 
 DESCRIPTION OF SPRING: WHEREIN EACH THING 
 RENEWS, SAVE ONLY THE LOVER 
 
 THE soote season, that bud and bloom fuith 
 
 brings, 
 With green hath clad the hill and eke the 
 
 vale, 
 The nightingale with feathers new she sings ; 
 
 The turtle to her mate hath told her tale. 
 Summer is come, for every spray now springs, 
 The hart hath hung his old head on the 
 
 pale; 
 The buck in brake his winter coat he flings ; 
 
 The fishes flete with new repaired scale ; 
 The adder all her slough away she slings ; 
 
 The swift swallow pursueth the flies smale ; 
 The busy bee her honey now she mings ; 
 Winter is worn that was the flowers' bale. 
 And thus I see among these pleasant 
 
 things 
 
 Each care decays, and yet my sorrow 
 springs. 
 
 2
 
 HOWARD, EARL OF SURREY 
 
 A Vow TO LOVE FAITHFULLY, HOWSOEVER HE BB 
 REWARDED 
 
 SET me whereas the sun doth parch the green, 
 Or where his beams do not dissolve the ice : 
 In temperate heat, where he is felt and seen ; 
 
 In presence prest of people mad or wise ; 
 Set me in high, or yet in low degree ; 
 
 In longest night, or in the shortest day ; 
 In clearest sky, or where clouds thickest be ; 
 In lusty youth, or when my hairs are gray : 
 Set me in heaven, in earth, or else in hell, 
 In hill, or dale, or in the foaming flood ; 
 Thrall, or at large, alive whereso I dwell, 
 Sick, or in health, in evil fame, or good, 
 Hers will I be ; and only with this 
 
 thought 
 
 Content myself, although my chance be 
 nought. 
 
 Earl of Surrey,
 
 SIR EDWARD DYER 
 
 Sir BDwarfc 
 
 (circ. 1540-1607) 
 THE SHEPHERD'S CoNCEtr OF PROMETHEUS 
 
 PROMETHEUS, when first from heaven high 
 He brought down fire, ere then on earth 
 
 unseen, 
 Fond of the light, a satyr, standing by, 
 
 Gave it a kiss, as it like sweet had been. 
 Feeling forthwith the other's burning power, 
 Wood 1 with the smart, with shouts and 
 
 shriekings shrill, 
 He sought his ease in river, field and bower, 
 
 But for the time his grief went with him still. 
 So silly I, with that unwonted sight, 
 
 In human shape an angel from above, 
 Feeding mine eyes, th' impression there did 
 
 light, 
 
 That since I run and rest as pleaseth Love. 
 The difference is, the satyr's lips, my 
 
 heart, 
 He for a while, I evermore have smart. 
 
 i Wild.
 
 SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 Sir Walter "Raletflb 
 (1552-1618) 
 
 A VISION UPON THE FAERY QUEEN 
 METHOUGHT I saw the grave where Laura 
 
 lay, 
 
 Within that temple where the vestal flame 
 Was wont to burn ; and passing by that way 
 
 To see that buried dust of living fame, 
 Whose tomb fair Love and fairer Virtue kept, 
 
 All suddenly I saw the Faery Queen : 
 At whose approach the soul of Petrarch wept ; 
 And from thenceforth those Graces were not 
 
 seen, 
 
 For they this Queen attended ; in whose stead 
 Oblivion laid him down on Laura's hearse. 
 Hereat the hardest stones were seen to bleed, 
 And groans of buried ghosts the heavens 
 
 did pierce, 
 Where Homer's spright did tremble all 
 
 for grief, 
 
 And cursed the access of that celestial 
 thief.
 
 EDMUND SPENSER 
 
 B&munfc Spenser 
 (1553-1598) 
 
 To HIS BOOK 
 
 HAPPY ye leaves whenas those lily hands, 
 Which hold my life in their dead-doing 
 
 might, 
 
 Shall handle you, and hold in love's soft bands, 
 
 Like captives trembling at the victor's sight : 
 
 And happy lines, on which with starry light 
 
 Those lamping eyes will deign sometime to 
 
 look 
 
 And read the sorrows of my dying sprite, 
 Written with tears in heart's close bleeding 
 
 book : 
 And happy rhymes, bathed in the sacred 
 
 brook 
 
 Of Helicon, whence she derived is, 
 When ye behold that angel's blessed look, 
 My soul's long lacked food, my heaven's 
 
 bliss: 
 Leaves, lines, and rhymes, seek her to 
 
 please alone, 
 
 Whom if ye please, I care for other none. 
 6
 
 EDMUND SPENSER 
 
 RUDELY thou wrongest my dear heart's desire, 
 
 In finding fault with her too portly pride : 
 The thing which I do most in her admire, 
 Is of the world unworthy most envfed ; 
 For in those lofty looks is close implied 
 Scorn of base things, and 'sdeign of foul dis- 
 honour, 
 Threatening rash eyes which gaze on her so 
 
 wide, 
 
 That loosely they ne dare to look upon her. 
 Such pride is praise, such portliness is honour, 
 That boldetied innocence bears in her eyes ; 
 And her fair countenance, like a goodly 
 
 banner, 
 
 Spreads in defiance of all enemies. 
 Was never in this world ought worthy 
 
 tried, 1 
 
 Without some spark of such self-pleasing 
 pride. 
 
 1 Proved to be worthy.
 
 EDMUND SPENSER 
 
 THE merry Cuckoo, messenger of Spring, 
 His trumpet shrill hath thrice already 
 
 sounded ; 
 
 That warns all lovers wait upon their king, 
 Who now is coming forth with garland 
 
 crowned. 
 
 With noise whereof the choir of birds re- 
 sounded 
 
 Their anthems sweet devised of Love's praise; 
 That all the woods their echoes back re- 
 bounded, 
 
 As if they knew the meaning of their lays. 
 But 'mongst them all which did Love's honour 
 
 raise, 
 No word was heard of her that most it 
 
 ought : 
 
 But she his precept idly disobeys, 
 And doth his idle message set at nought. 
 Therefore O Love, unless she turn to thee, 
 Ere Cuckoo end, let her a rebel be !
 
 EDMUND SPENSER 
 
 THIS holy season, fit to fast and pray, 
 
 Men to devotion ought to be inclined : 
 Therefore I likewise on so holy day 
 
 For my sweet saint some service fit will find. 
 Her temple fair is built within my mind, 
 In which her glorious image placed is, 
 On which my thoughts do day and night 
 
 attend, 
 
 Like sacred priests that never think amiss ! 
 There I to her, as the author of my bliss, 
 
 Will build an altar to appease her ire, 
 And on the same my heart will sacrifice, 
 Burning in flames of pure and chaste desire: 
 The which vouchsafe O goddess ! to 
 
 accept, 
 Amongst thy dearest relics to be kept.
 
 EDMUND SPENSER 
 
 FAIR Proud ! now tell me, why should fair be 
 
 proud ? 
 
 Sith all world's glory is but dross unclean, 
 And in the shade of death itself shall shroud, 
 However now thereof ye little ween ! 
 That goodly idol, now so gay beseen, 
 Shall doff her flesh's borrowed fair attire, 
 
 And be forgot as it had never been, 
 That many now much worship and admire ! 
 Ne any then shall after it inquire, 
 
 Ne any mention shall thereof remain, 
 But what this verse, that never shall expire, 
 Shall to you purchase, with her thankless 
 
 pain. 
 Fair ! be no longer proud of that 'shall 
 
 perish ; 
 
 But that which shall you make immortal 
 cherish. 
 
 10
 
 EDMUND SPENSER 
 
 LIKE as a ship that through the ocean wide, 
 By conduct of some star, doth make her way, 
 
 Whenas a storm hath dimmed her trusty guide, 
 Out of her course doth wander far astray, 
 So I, whose star, that wont with her bright 
 ray 
 
 Me to direct, with clouds is overcast, 
 
 Do wander now, in darkness and dismay, 
 
 Through hidden perils round about me placed ; 
 
 Yet hope I well that, when this storm is past, 
 My Helice, the lodestar of my life, 
 
 Will shine again, and look on me at last, 
 With lovely light to clear my cloudy grief. 
 Till then I wander careful, comfortless, 
 In secret sorrow and sad pensiveness. 
 
 II
 
 EDMUND SPENSER 
 
 MARK when she smiles with amiable cheer, 
 
 And tell me whereto can ye liken it 
 When on each eyelid sweetly do appear 
 An hundred Graces as in shade to sit ? 
 Likest it seemeth to my simple wit 
 Unto the fair sunshine in summer's day, 
 
 That, when a dreadful storm away is flit, 
 Through the broad world doth spread his 
 
 goodly ray : 
 At sight whereof each bird that sits on spray, 
 
 And every beast that to his den was fled, 
 Comes forth afresh out of their late dismay, 
 And to the light lift up their drooping head. 
 So my storm-beaten heart likewise is 
 
 cheer'd 
 
 With that sunshine when cloudy looks are 
 clear'd.
 
 EDMUND SPENSER 
 
 LIKE as a huntsman after weary chase, 
 
 Seeing the game from him escaped away, 
 Sits down to rest him in some shady place, 
 With panting hounds beguiled of their 
 
 prey: 
 
 So, after long pursuit and vain assay, 
 When I all weary had the chase forsook, 
 
 The gentle deer returned the self-same way, 
 Thinking to quench her thirst at the next 
 
 brook. 
 There she beholding me with milder look, 
 
 Sought not to fly, but fearless still did bide, 
 Till I in hand her yet half-trembling took, 
 And with her own good will her firmly tied. 
 Strange things meseemed, to see a beast 
 
 so wild 
 
 So goodly won, with her own will be- 
 guiled !
 
 EDMUND SPENSER 
 
 MOST glorious Lord of life ! that on this day 
 Didst make thy triumph over death and sin, 
 And having harrowed hell didst bring away 
 Captivity thence captive, us to win : 
 This joyous day, dear Lord, with joy begin; 
 And grant that we, for whom Thou diddest 
 
 die, 
 Being with thy dear blood clean washed from 
 
 sin, 
 
 May live for ever in felicity, 
 And that thy love we weighing worthily, 
 
 May likewise love Thee for the same again ; 
 And for thy sake, that all like dear didst buy, 
 With love may one another entertain. 
 So let us love, dear Love, like as we 
 
 ought : 
 
 Love is the lesson which the Lord us 
 taught.
 
 EDMUND SPENSER 
 
 FRESH Spring, the herald of Love's mighty 
 
 King, 
 
 In whose cote-armour richly are display'd 
 All sorts of flowers the which on earth do 
 
 spring 
 
 In goodly colours gloriously array'd, 
 Go to my Love, where she is careless laid 
 Yet in her Winter's bower not well awake : 
 Tell her the joyous time will not be stay'd 
 Unless she do him by the fore-lock take : 
 Bid her therefore herself soon ready make 
 
 To wait on Love amongst his lovely crew : 
 Where every one that misseth then her make, 1 
 Shall be by him amerced with penance due. 
 Make haste therefore, sweet Love, whilst 
 
 it is prime, 
 For none can call again the passed time. 
 
 1 Mate.
 
 EDMUND SPENSER 
 
 ONE day I wrote her name upon the strand, 
 But came the waves and washed it away : 
 Again I wrote it with a second hand, 
 
 But came the tide and made my pains his 
 
 prey. 
 
 Vain man (said she), that dost in vain assay 
 A mortal thing so to immortalise ; 
 
 For I myself shall like to this decay, 
 And eke my name be wiped out likewise. 
 Not so (quod I) ; let baser things devise 
 
 To die in dust, but you shall live by fame ; 
 My verse your virtues rare shall eternise, 
 And in the heavens write your glorious 
 
 name : 
 Where, whenas Death shall all the world 
 
 subdue, 
 Our love shall live, and later life renew. 
 
 16
 
 EDMUND SPENSER 
 
 LIKE as the Culver 1 on the bared bough 
 
 Sits mourning for the absence of her mate ; 
 And in her song sends many a wishful vow 
 P'or his return that seems to linger late. 
 So I alone now left disconsolate 
 Mourn to myself the absence of my love : 
 
 And wand'ring here and there all desolate 
 Seek with my plaints to match that mournful 
 
 dove. 
 
 Ne joy of aught that under heaven doth hove 
 
 Can comfort me, but her own joyous sight 
 
 Whose sweet aspect both God and man can 
 
 move 
 
 In her unspotted pleasance to delight. 
 Dark is my day whiles her fair light I 
 
 miss, 
 
 And dead my life that wants such lively 
 bliss. 
 
 Edmund Spenser. 
 
 1 Dove.
 
 JOHN FLORIO 
 
 jflorfo 
 
 (1553-1625) 
 
 CONCERNING THE HONOUR OF BOOKS 
 SINCE honour from the honourer proceeds, 
 How well do they deserve that memorize 
 And leave in Books for all posterities 
 The names of worthies and their virtuous 
 
 deeds : 
 
 When all their glory else, like water-weeds 
 Without their element, presently dies, 
 And all their greatness quite forgotten lies, 
 And when and how they flourished no man 
 
 heeds ! 
 How poor remembrances are statues, tombs, 
 
 And other monuments that men erect 
 To princes, which remain in closed rooms 
 Where but a few behold them, in respect 
 Of Books, that to the universal eye 
 Show how they lived ; the other where 
 they lie ! 
 
 18
 
 SIR PHILIP SIDNEY 
 
 Sir pbtlip Stones 
 
 (1554-1586) 
 
 WITH how sad steps, O Moon ! thou climb'st 
 
 the skies ! 
 
 How silently, and with how wan a face ! 
 What ! may it be that even in heavenly 
 
 place 
 
 That busy archer his sharp arrows tries? 
 Sure, if that long-with-love-acquainted eyes 
 Can judge of love, thou feel'st a lover's case ; 
 I read it in thy looks : thy languished grace, 
 To me, that feel the like, thy state descries. 
 Then, even of fellowship, O Moon ! tell me, 
 Is constant love deemed there but want of 
 
 wit? 
 
 Are beauties there as proud as here they be? 
 Do they above love to be loved, and yet 
 Those lovers scorn whom that love doth 
 
 possess ? 
 Do they call virtue there ungratefulness ?
 
 SIR PHILIP SIDNEY 
 
 COME, Sleep, O Sleep ! the certain knot of 
 
 peace, 
 
 The baiting-place of wit, the balm of woe, 
 The poor man's wealth, the prisoner's release, 
 The indifferent judge between the high and 
 
 low; 
 With shield of proof shield me from out the 
 
 prease 
 Of those fierce darts Despair at me doth 
 
 throw : 
 Ob, make in me those civil wars to cease ! 
 
 I will good tribute pay if thou do so. 
 Take thou of me smooth pillows, sweetest bed, 
 A chamber deaf to noise and blind of light, 
 A rosy garland and a weary head : 
 
 And if these things, as being thine by right, 
 Move not thy heavy grace, thou shall in 
 
 me 
 Livelier than elsewhere Stella's image see.
 
 SIR PHILIP SIDNEY 
 
 HIGHWAY ! since you my chief Parnassus be, 
 And that my Muse, to some ears not un- 
 
 sweet, 
 
 Tempers her words to trampling horses' feet 
 More oft than to a chamber melody, 
 Now blessed you, bear onward blessed me 
 To her, where I my heart, safe-left, shall 
 
 meet ; 
 
 My Muse and I must you of duty greet, 
 With thanks and wishes, wishing thankfully. 
 Be you still fair, honoured by public heed, 
 By no encroachment wronged, nor time 
 
 forgot, 
 Nor blamed for blood, nor shamed for sinful 
 
 deed ; 
 
 And that you know I envy you no lot 
 Of highest wish, I wish you so much bliss, 
 Hundreds of years you Stella's feet may 
 kiss! 
 
 21
 
 SIR PHILIP SIDNEY 
 
 MY true love hath my heart, and I have his, 
 By just exchange one for the other given ; 
 I hold his dear, and mine he cannot miss ; 
 There never was a better bargain driven. 
 His heart in me keeps me and him in one ; 
 My heart in him his thoughts and senses 
 
 guides ; 
 He loves my heart, for once it was his own ; 
 
 I cherish his because in me it bides. 
 His heart his wound received from my sight ; 
 My heart was wounded with his wounded 
 
 heart : 
 
 For as from me on him his hurt did light, 
 So still methought in me his hurt did smart. 
 Both equal hurt, in this change sought one 
 
 bliss: 
 
 My true love hath my heart, and I have 
 his.
 
 SIR PHILIP SIDNEY 
 
 LEAVE me, O Love, which reachest but to 
 
 dust, 
 
 And thou, my mind, aspire to higher things ! 
 Grow rich in that which never taketh rust : 
 
 Whatever fades but fading pleasure brings. 
 Draw in thy beams, and humble all thy might 
 To that sweet yoke where lasting freedoms 
 
 be, 
 Which breaks the clouds and opens forth the 
 
 light 
 That doth both shine and give us sight to 
 
 see. 
 
 Oh, take fast hold ! let that light be thy guide 
 In this small course which birth draws out 
 
 to death, 
 
 And think how evil becometh him to slide 
 Who seeketh heaven, and comes of heavenly 
 
 breath. 
 
 Then farewell, world ! thy uttermost I see : 
 Eternal Love, maintain thy life in me ! 
 
 'SplenM&fs lotujum valeMco nugis 
 
 Sir Philip Sidney. 
 
 23
 
 THOMAS LODGE 
 
 ftbomas lo&ge 
 
 (i556?-i625) 
 
 O SHADY vales, O fair enriched meads, 
 
 O sacred woods, sweet fields, and rising 
 
 mountains ; 
 O painted flowers, green herbs where Flora 
 
 treads, 
 Refresh'd by wanton winds and wat'ry 
 
 fountains ! 
 O all you winged choristers of wood, 
 
 That perch'd aloft your former pains report, 
 And straight again recount with pleasant 
 
 mood 
 
 Your present joys in sweet and seemly sort ! 
 O all you creatures whosoever thrive 
 
 On mother earth, in seas, by air, by fire ! 
 More blest are you than I here under sun : 
 Love dies in me, whenas he doth revive 
 
 In you : I perish under beauty's ire, 
 Where after storms, winds, frosts, your life is 
 won.
 
 ROBERT GREENE 
 
 Robert <5reene 
 
 (1560-1592) 
 
 AH ! were she pitiful as she is fair, 
 
 Or but as mild as she is seeming so, 
 Then were my hopes greater than my despair, 
 Then all the world were heaven, nothing woe. 
 Ah ! were her heart relenting as her hand, 
 That seems to melt even with the mildest 
 
 touch, 
 
 Then knew I where to seat me in a land 
 Under wide heavens, but yet there is none 
 
 such. 
 
 So as she shows she seems the budding rose, 
 Yet sweeter far than is an earthly flower ; 
 Sov'ran of beauty, like the spray she grows ; 
 Compass'd she is with thorns and canker'd 
 
 bower. 
 Yet were she willing to be pluck'd and 
 
 worn, 
 
 She would be gather'd, though she grew 
 on thorn.
 
 HENRY CONSTABLE 
 
 fbenrg Constable 
 
 (1562-1613) 
 
 To SIR PHILIP SIDNEY'S SOUL 
 
 GIVE pardon, blessed soul, to my bold cries, 
 If they (importune) interrupt thy song 
 Which now, with joyful notes, thou sing'st 
 
 among 
 
 The angel-quiristers of heavenly skies ; 
 Give pardon eke, sweet soul, to my slow cries, 
 That since I saw thee now it is so long, 
 And yet the tears that unto thee belong 
 To thee as yet they did not sacrifice. 
 I did not know that thou wert dead before, 
 
 I did not feel the grief I did sustain : 
 The greater stroke astonisheth the more, 
 Astonishment takes from us sense of pain. 
 I stood amazed when others' tears begun, 
 And now begin to weep when they have 
 done. 
 
 26
 
 HENRY CONSTABLE 
 
 To SAINT KATHARINE 
 
 BECAUSE thou wast the daughter of a king, 
 Whose beauty did all Nature's works exceed, 
 And wisdom wonder to the world did breed, 
 A muse might rouse itself on Cupid's wing ; 
 But, sith the graces which from nature spring 
 Were graced by those which from grace did 
 
 proceed, 
 And glory have deserved, my Muse doth 
 
 need 
 
 An angel's feathers when thy praise I sing. 
 For all in thee became angelical : 
 
 An angel's face had angels' purity, 
 And thou an angel's tongue didst speak withal ; 
 Lo ! why thy soul, set free by martyrdom, 
 Was crowned by God in angels' company, 
 And angels' hands thy body did entomb. 
 Henry Constable.
 
 SAMUEL DANIEL 
 
 Samuel Daniel 
 (1562-1619) 
 
 FAIR is my Love, and cruel as she's fair ; 
 Her brow shades frowns, although her eyes 
 
 are sonny, 
 Her smiles are lightning, though her pride 
 
 despair, 
 
 And her disdains are gall, her favours honey: 
 A modest maid, deck'd with a blush of 
 
 honour, 
 Whose feet do tread green paths of youth 
 
 and love ; 
 
 The wonder of all eyes that look upon her, 
 Sacred on earth, design'd a Saint above. 
 Chastity and beauty, which were deadly foes, 
 
 Live reconciled friends within her brow ; 
 And had she pity to conjoin with those, 
 Then who had heard the plaints I utter now ? 
 For had she not been fair, and thus un- 
 kind, 
 
 My Muse had slept, and none had known 
 my mind. 
 
 28
 
 SAMUEL DANIEL 
 
 MY spotless love hovers with purest wings, 
 About the temple of the proudest frame, 
 Where blaze those lights, fairest of earthly 
 
 things, 
 Which clear our clouded world with brightest 
 
 flame. 
 My ambitious thoughts, confined in her face ; 
 
 Affect no honour but what She can give ; 
 My hopes do rest in limits of her grace ; 
 I weigh no comfort unless she relieve. 
 For She, that can my heart unparadise, 
 
 Holds in her fairest hand what dearest is, 
 My Fortune's wheel's the circle of her eyes, 
 Whose rolling grace deign once a turn of 
 
 bliss. 
 
 All my life's sweet consists in her alone ; 
 So much I love the most Unloving one. 
 
 29
 
 SAMUEL DANIEL 
 
 AND yet I cannot reprehend the flight 
 
 Or blame th' attempt presuming so to soar ; 
 The mounting venture for a high delight 
 
 Did make the honour of the fall the more : 
 For who gets wealth, that puts not from the 
 
 shore ? 
 Danger hath honour, great designs their 
 
 fame; 
 
 Glory doth follow, courage goes before ; 
 And though th' event oft answers not the 
 
 same, 
 
 Suffice that high attempts have never shame. 
 The mean observer, whom base safety keeps 
 Lives without honour, dies without a name, 
 And in eternal darkness ever sleeps : 
 And therefore, Delia, 'tis to me no blot 
 To have attempted, tho' attain'd thee not.
 
 SAMUEL DANIEL 
 
 BEAUTY, sweet Love, is like the morning dew, 
 
 Whose short refresh upon the tender green 
 
 Cheers for a time, but till the sun doth show ; 
 
 And straight 'tis gone as it had never been. 
 
 Soon doth it fade that makes the fairest 
 
 flourish, 
 
 Short is the glory of the blushing rose ; 
 The hue which thou so carefully dost nourish, 
 Yet which at length thou must be forced to 
 
 lose, 
 When thou, surcharged with burthen of thy 
 
 years, 
 Shalt bend thy wrinkles homeward to the 
 
 earth ; 
 
 And that, in Beauty's Lease expired, appears 
 The Date of Age, the Calends of our Death 
 But ah, no more ! this must not be fore- 
 told, 
 
 For women grieve to think they must be 
 old.
 
 SAMUEL DANIEL 
 
 I MUST not grieve my Love, whose eyes would 
 
 read 
 Lines of delight, whereon her youth might 
 
 smile ; 
 
 Flowers have time before they come to seed, 
 And she is young, and now must sport the 
 
 while. 
 And sport, Sweet Maid, in season of these 
 
 years, 
 And learn to gather flowers before they 
 
 wither; 
 
 And where the sweetest blossom first appears, 
 Let Love and Youth conduct thy pleasures 
 
 thither. 
 
 Lighten forth smiles to clear the clouded air, 
 And calm the tempest which my sighs do 
 
 raise ; 
 
 Pity and smiles do best become the fair ; 
 Pity and smiles must only yield the praise. 
 Make me to say when all my griefs are 
 
 gone, 
 
 Happy the heart that sighed for such a 
 one. 
 
 32
 
 SAMUEL DANIEL 
 
 CARE- CHARMER Sleep, son of the sable Night, 
 
 Brother to Death, in silent darkness born, 
 Relieve my languish and restore the light ; 
 
 With dark forgetting of my care, return : 
 And let the day be time enough to mourn 
 
 The shipwreck of my ill-adventured youth : 
 Let waking eyes suffice to wail their scorn, 
 
 Without the torment of the night's untruth. 
 Cease dreams, the images of day's desires, 
 
 To model forth the passions of the morrow ; 
 Never let rising Sun approve you liars, 
 
 To add more grief to aggravate my sorrow. 
 Still let me sleep, embracing clouds in 
 
 vain, 
 And never wake to feel the day's disdain. 
 
 33
 
 SAMUEL DANIEL 
 
 LET others sing of Knights and Paladines, 
 
 In aged accents and untimely words, 
 Paint shadows in imaginary lines, 
 
 Which well the reach of their high wit 
 
 records. 
 
 But I must sing of thee, and those fair eyes 
 Authentic shall my verse in time to come, 
 When yet th' unborn shall say, Lo, where she 
 
 lies! 
 Whose beauty made him speak, that else 
 
 was dumb ! 
 These are the arcs, the trophies I erect, 
 
 That fortify thy name against old age ; 
 And these thy sacred virtues must protect 
 Against the Dark, and Time's consuming 
 
 rage. 
 Though th' error of my youth in them 
 
 appear, 
 Suffice, they show I lived, and loved thee 
 
 dear. 
 
 Samuel Daniel. 
 
 34
 
 MICHAEL DRAYTON 
 
 /IMcbael Dragton 
 
 (1563-1613) 
 
 CLEAR Anker, on whose silver-sanded shore 
 My soul-shrined saint, my fair Idea, lies ; 
 O blessed brook, whose milk-like swans adore 
 
 Thy crystal stream, refined by her eyes ! 
 Where sweet myrrh-breathing Zephyr in the 
 
 spring 
 
 Gently distils his nectar-dropping showers, 
 Where nightingales in Arden sit and sing 
 
 Amongst the dainty dew-impearled flowers ; 
 Say thus, fair brook, when thou shalt see thy 
 
 queen, 
 " Lo, here thy shepherd spent his wandering 
 
 years, 
 And in these shades, dear nymph, he oft hath 
 
 been, 
 
 And here to thee he sacrificed his tears." 
 Fair Arden, thou my Tempe art alone, 
 And thou, sweet Anker, art my Helicon. 
 
 35
 
 MICHAEL DRAYTON 
 
 WHY should your fair eyes with such sovran 
 
 grace 
 
 Disperse their rays on every vulgar spirit, 
 Whilst I in darkness in the self-same place 
 
 Get not one glance to recompense my merit? 
 So doth the plowman gaze the wand'ring star, 
 
 And only rest contented with the light, 
 That never learn'd what constellations are 
 Beyond the bent of his unknowing sight. 
 O why should beauty custom to obey 
 
 To their gross sense apply herself so ill ? 
 Would 'God I were as ignorant as they, 
 When I am made unhappy by my skill ; 
 Only compell'd on this poor good to 
 
 boast 
 
 Heavens are not kind to them that know 
 them most
 
 MICHAEL DRAYTON 
 
 LOVE, banished heaven, in earth was held in 
 
 scorn, 
 
 Wandering abroad in need and beggary, 
 And wanting friends, though of a goddess 
 
 born, 
 
 Yet craved the alms of such as passed by ; 
 I, like a man devout and charitable, 
 Clothed the naked, lodged this wandering 
 
 guest, 
 
 With sighs and tears still furnishing his table, 
 With what might make the miserable blest. 
 But this ungrateful, for my good desert, 
 
 Indeed my thoughts against me to conspire, 
 Who gave consent to steal away my heart, 
 And set my breast, his lodging, on a fire. 
 Well, well, my friends, when beggars grow 
 
 thus bold, 
 
 No marvel then though charity grow 
 cold! 
 
 37
 
 MICHAEL DRAYTON 
 
 SINCE there's no help, come let us kiss and 
 
 part, 
 
 Nay I have done, you get no more of me ; 
 And I am glad, yea, glad with all my heart, 
 
 That thus so cleanly I myself can free ; 
 Shake hands for ever, cancel all our vows, 
 
 And when we meet at any time again, 
 Be it not seen in either of our brows 
 
 That we one jot of former love retain. 
 Now at the last gasp of Love's latest breath, 
 When, his pulse failing, Passion speechless 
 
 lies, 
 
 When Faith is kneeling by his bed of dea'th, 
 And Innocence is closing up his eyes, 
 Now if thou wouldst, when all have given 
 
 him over, 
 From death to life thou mightst him yet 
 
 recover ! 
 
 Michael Drayton.
 
 CHARLES BEST 
 
 Cbarles 
 
 THE MOON 
 
 LOOK how the pale queen of the silent night 
 
 Doth cause the Ocean to attend upon her, 
 And he, as long as she is in his sight, 
 
 With his full tide is ready her to honour ; 
 But when the silver waggon of the Moon 
 
 Is mounted up so high he cannot follow, 
 The sea calls home his crystal waves to moan, 
 
 And with low ebb doth manifest his sorrow. 
 So you, that are the sovereign of my heart, 
 
 Have all my joys attending on your will, 
 My joys low-ebbing when you do depart 
 
 When you return, their tide my heart doth 
 
 fill: 
 
 So as you come, and as you do depart, 
 Joys ebb and flow within my tender heart. 
 
 39
 
 THOMAS CAMPION 
 
 Gbomas Campion 
 
 (pb. 1620) 
 
 THRICE toss these oaken ashes in the air, 
 And thrice three times tie up this tnie- 
 
 love's-knot ; 
 
 Thrice sit thee down in this enchanted chair, 
 And murmur soft, "She will, or she will 
 
 not." 
 Go burn these poisoned weeds in that blue 
 
 fire, 
 
 This cypress gathered at a dead man's grave, 
 These screech-owl's feathers, and this pricking 
 
 briar, 
 
 That all thy thorny cares an end may have. 
 Then come, you fairies, dance with me a 
 
 round, 
 
 Dance in this circle, let my Love be centre, 
 Melodiously breathe out a charming sound, 
 Melt her hard heart, that some remorse may 
 
 enter. 
 
 In vain are all the charms I can devise ! 
 She hath an art to break them with her 
 eyes. 
 
 40
 
 JOSHUA SYLVESTER 
 
 Silvester 
 
 (1563-1618) 
 
 WERE I as base as is the lowly plain, 
 And you, my Love, as high as heaven 
 
 above, 
 Yet should the thoughts of me, your humble 
 
 swain, 
 
 Ascend to heaven in honour of my Love. 
 Were I as high as heaven above the plain, 
 
 And you, my Love, as humble and as low 
 As are the deepest bottoms of the main, 
 
 Wheresoe'er you were, with you my love 
 
 should go. 
 Were you the earth, dear Love, and I the 
 
 skies, 
 My love should shine on you like to the 
 
 Sun, 
 
 And look upon you with ten thousand eyes 
 Till heaven waxed blind, and till the world 
 
 were done. 
 Wheresoe'er I am below or else above 
 
 you 
 
 Wheresoe'er you are, my heart shall truly 
 love you.
 
 IGNOTUS 
 
 Sgnotus 
 
 (From Mustca Transalpina. 1597) 
 
 ZEPHYRUS brings the time that sweetly 
 
 scenteth 
 With flowers and herbs which winter's frost 
 
 exileth ; 
 Progne now chirpeth, Philomel lamenteth, 
 
 Flora the garlands white and red compileth ; 
 Fields do rejoice, the frowning sky relenteth, 
 
 Jove to behold his dearest daughter smileth ; 
 The air, the water, the earth to joyconsenteth, 
 Each creature now to love him reconcileth. 
 But with me, wretch, the storms of woe 
 
 persever, 
 And heavy sighs which from my heart she 
 
 straineth, 
 
 That took the key thereof to heaven for ever ; 
 So that singing of birds and springtime's 
 
 flow' ring, 
 
 And ladies' love that men's affection gaineth, 
 Are like a desert and cruel beasts devouring. 
 
 42
 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 
 
 TKHfllfam Sbaftespeare 
 
 (1564-1616) 
 
 Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly? 
 Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in 
 
 joy- 
 Why lov'st thou that which thou receiv'st not 
 
 gladly, 
 
 Or else receivest with pleasure thine annoy ? 
 If the true concord of well-tuned sounds, 
 
 By unions married, do offend thine ear, 
 They do but sweetly chide thee, who con- 
 founds 
 In singleness the parts that thou shouldst 
 
 bear. 
 
 Mark how one string, sweet husband to an- 
 other, 
 
 Strikes each in each by mutual ordering, 
 Resembling sire and child and happy mother 
 Who all in one, one pleasing note do sing : 
 Whose speechless song, being many, seem- 
 ing one, 
 
 Sings this to thee : " thou single wilt prove 
 none." 
 
 43
 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 
 
 WHEN I do count the clock that tells the time, 
 
 And see the brave day sunk in hideous 
 
 night ; 
 When I behold the violet past prime, 
 
 And sable curls all silver'd o'er with white ; 
 When lofty trees I see barren of leaves 
 
 Which erst from heat did canopy the herd, 
 And summer's green all girded up in sheaves 
 
 Borne on the bier with white and bristly 
 
 beard, 
 Then of thy beauty do I question make, 
 
 That thou among the wastes of time must 
 
 go, 
 
 Since sweets and beauties do themselves for- 
 sake, 
 
 And die as fast as they see others grow ; 
 And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can 
 
 make defence 
 
 Save breed, to brave him when he takes 
 thee hence. 
 
 44
 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 
 
 SHALL I compare thee to a summer's day? 
 
 Thou art more lovely and more temperate : 
 Rough winds do shake the darling buds of 
 
 May, 
 And summer's lease hath all too short a 
 
 date ; 
 Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, 
 
 And often is his gold complexion dimm'd ; 
 And every fair from fair sometime declines, 
 By chance or nature's changing course un- 
 
 trimm'd ; 
 But thy eternal summer shall not fade 
 
 Nor lose possession of that fair thou owesl : 
 Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his 
 
 shade, 
 
 When in eternal lines to time thou growest ; 
 So long as men can breathe or eyes can 
 
 see, 
 
 So long lives this and this gives life to 
 thee. 
 
 45
 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 
 
 WHEN, in disgrace with fortune and men's 
 
 eyes, 
 
 I all alone beweep my outcast state, 
 And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless 
 
 cries, 
 
 And look upon myself and curse my fate, 
 Wishing me like to one more rich in hope, 
 Featured like him, like him with friends 
 
 possess'd, 
 Desiring this man's art and that man's scope, 
 
 With what I most enjoy contented least ; 
 Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising, 
 
 Haply I think on thee, and then my state, 
 Like to the lark at break of day arising 
 
 From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's 
 
 gate; 
 For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth 
 
 brings 
 
 That then I scorn to change my state with 
 kings.
 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 
 
 WHEN to the sessions of sweet silent thought 
 I summon up remembrance of things past, 
 I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought, 
 And with old woes new wail my dear time's 
 
 waste ; 
 
 Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow, 
 For precious friends hid in death's dateless 
 
 night, 
 And weep afresh love's long since cancel I'd 
 
 woe, 
 And moan the expense of many a vanish'd 
 
 sight : 
 
 Then can I grieve at grievances foregone, 
 And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er 
 The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan, 
 Which I now pay as if not paid before. 
 But if the while I think on thee, dear 
 
 friend, 
 All losses are restored and sorrows end. 
 
 47
 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 
 
 THY bosom is endeared with all hearts, 
 
 Which I by lacking have supposed dead, 
 And there reigns love and all love's loving 
 
 parts, 
 
 And all those friends which I thought buried. 
 How many a holy and obsequious tear 
 
 Hath dear religious love stol'n from mine 
 
 eye 
 As interest of the dead, which now appear 
 
 But things removed that hidden in thee lie ! 
 Thou art the grave where buried love doth 
 
 live, 
 
 Hung with the trophies of my lovers gone, 
 Who all their parts of me to thee did give ; 
 That due of many now is thine alone : 
 Their images I loved I view in thee, 
 And thou, all they, hast all the all of me. 
 
 48
 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 
 
 IF thou survive my well-contented day, 
 When that churl Death my bones with dust 
 
 shall cover, 
 And shall by fortune once more re-survey 
 
 These poor rude lines of thy deceased lover, 
 
 Compare them with the bettering of the time, 
 
 And though they be outstripp'd by every 
 
 pen, 
 Reserve them for my love, not for their rhyme, 
 
 Exceeded by the height of happier men. 
 O, then vouchsafe me but this loving thought : 
 " Had my friend's Muse grown with this 
 
 growing age, 
 
 A dearer birth than this his love had brought, 
 To march in ranks of better equipage ; 
 But since he died and poets better prove, 
 Theirs for their style I'll read, his for his 
 love." 
 
 49
 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 
 
 FULL many a glorious morning have I seen 
 Flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign 
 
 eye, 
 Kissing with golden face the meadows green, 
 
 Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy ; 
 Anon permit the basest clouds to ride 
 With ugly rack on his celestial face, 
 And from the forlorn world his visage hide, 
 
 Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace : 
 Even so my sun one early morn did shine 
 
 With all-triumphant splendour on my brow ; 
 But out, alack 1 he was but one hour mine ; 
 The region cloud had mask'd him from me 
 
 now. 
 Yet him for this my love no whit dis- 
 
 daineth ; 
 
 Suns of the world may stain \\hcn heaven's 
 sun staineth.
 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 
 
 So am I as the rich, whose blessed key 
 
 Can bring him to his sweet up-locked treasure, 
 The which he will not every hour survey, 
 
 For blunting the fine point of seldom pleasure. 
 Therefore are feasts so solemn and so rare, 
 
 Since, seldom coming, in the long year set, 
 Like stones of worth they thinly placed are, 
 
 Or captain jewels in the carcanet. 
 So is the time that keeps you as my chest, 
 
 Or as the wardrobe which the robe doth hide, 
 To make some special instant special blest, 
 By new unfolding his imprison'd pride. 
 Blessed are you, whose worthiness gives 
 
 scope, 
 
 Being had, to triumph, being lack'd, to 
 hope.
 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 
 
 SWEET love, renew thy force ; be it not said 
 Thy edge should blunter be than appetite, 
 Which but to-day by feeding is allay'd, 
 
 To-morrow sharpen'd in his former might : 
 So, love, be thou ; although to-day thou fill 
 Thy hungry eyes even till they wink with 
 
 fulness, 
 To-morrow see again, and do not kill 
 
 The spirit of love with a perpetual dulness. 
 Let this sad interim like the ocean be 
 Which parts the shore, where two contracted 
 
 new 
 
 Come daily to the banks, that, when they see 
 Return of love, more blest maybe the view ; 
 Else call it winter, which being full of care 
 Makes summer's welcome thrice more 
 wish'd, more rare.
 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 
 
 BEING your slave, what should I do but tend 
 
 Upon the hours and times of your desire? 
 I have no precious time at all to spend, 
 
 Nor services to do, till you require. 
 Nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour 
 Whilst I, my sovereign, watch the clock for 
 
 you, 
 Nor think the bitterness of absence sour 
 
 When you have bid your servant once adieu ; 
 Nor dare I question with my jealous thought 
 
 Where you may be, or your affairs suppose, 
 
 But, like a sad slave, stay and think of nought 
 
 Save, where you are how happy you make 
 
 those. 
 
 So true a fool is love that in your Will, 
 Though you do any thing, he thinks no ill. 
 
 S3
 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 
 
 LIKE as the waves make towards the pebbled 
 
 shore, 
 
 So do our minutes hasten to their end ; 
 Each changing place with that which goes 
 
 before, 
 
 In sequent toil all forwards do contend. 
 Nativity, once in the main of light, 
 
 Crawlsto maturity, wherewith being crown 'd, 
 Crooked eclipses 'gainst his glory fight, 
 
 And Time that gave doth now his gift con- 
 found. 
 
 Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth 
 And delves the parallels in beauty's brow, 
 Feeds on' the rarities of Nature's truth, 
 
 And nothing stands but for his scythe to 
 
 mow ; 
 And yet to times in hope my verse shall 
 
 stand, 
 Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand. 
 
 54
 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 
 
 WHEN I have seen by Time's fell hand de- 
 faced 
 
 The rich proud cost of outworn buried age ; 
 When sometime lofty towers I see down-razed, 
 
 And brass eternal slave to mortal rage : 
 When I have seen the hungry ocean gain 
 
 Advantage on the kingdom of the shore, 
 And the firm soil win of the watery main, 
 
 Increasing store with loss and loss with store : 
 When I have seen such interchange of state, 
 
 Or state itself confounded to decay ; 
 Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate, 
 That time will come and take my love away. 
 This thought is as a death, which cannot 
 
 choose 
 
 But weep to have that which it fears to 
 lose. 
 
 55
 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 
 
 SINCE brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor bound- 
 less sea, 
 
 But sad mortality o'er-sways their power, 
 How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea, 
 Whose action is no stronger than a flower ? 
 O, how shall summer's honey breath hold out 
 Against the wreckful siege of battering days, 
 When rocks impregnable are not so stout, 
 Nor gates of steel so strong, but time de- 
 cays? 
 O fearful meditation ! where, alack, 
 
 Shall Time's best jewel from Time's quest 
 
 lie hid ? 
 Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot 
 
 back? 
 
 Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid ? 
 O, none, unless this miracle have might, 
 That in black ink my love may still shine 
 bright.
 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 
 
 No longer mourn for me when I am dead 
 Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell 
 Give warning to the world that I am fled 
 From this vile world, with vilest worms to 
 
 dwell : 
 Nay, if you read this line, remember not 
 
 The hand that writ it ; for I love you so 
 That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot 
 If thinking on me then should make you 
 
 woe. 
 O, if, I say, you look upon this verse 
 
 When I perhaps compounded am with clay, 
 Do not so much as my poor name rehearse, 
 But let your love even with my life decay, 
 Lest the wise world should look into your 
 
 moan 
 And mock you with me after I am gone. 
 
 57
 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 
 
 THAT time of year thou mayst in me behold 
 When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do 
 
 hang 
 Upon those boughs which shake against the 
 
 cold, 
 Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet 
 
 birds sang. 
 In me thou see'st the twilight of such day 
 
 As after sunset fadeth in the west, 
 Which by and by black night doth take away, 
 Death's second self, that seals up all in rest. 
 In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire 
 That on the ashes of his youth doth lie, 
 As the death-bed whereon it must expire 
 Consumed with that which it was nourish'd 
 
 by. 
 This thou perceivest, which makes thy 
 
 love more strong, 
 
 To love that well which thou must leave 
 ere long.
 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 
 
 FAREWELL ! thou art too dear for my possess- 
 ing. 
 
 And like enough thou know'st thy estimate : 
 The charter of thy worth gives thee releasing ; 
 
 My bonds in thee are all determinate. 
 For how do I hold thee but by thy granting? 
 And for that riches where is my deserving ? 
 The cause of this fair gift in me is wanting, 
 And so my patent back again is swerving. 
 Thyself thou gavest, thy own worth then not 
 
 knowing, 
 
 Or me, to whom thou gavest it, else mis- 
 taking; 
 
 So thy great gift, upon misprision growing, 
 Comes home again, on better judgment 
 
 making. 
 Thus have I had thee as a dream doth 
 
 flatter, 
 
 In sleep a king, but waking no such 
 matter. 
 
 59
 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 
 
 THEN hate me when them wilt ; if ever, now ; 
 Now, while the world is bent my deeds to 
 
 cross, 
 Join with the spite of fortune, make me bow, 
 
 And do not drop in for an after-loss : 
 Ah, do not, when my heart hath 'scaped this 
 
 sorrow, 
 
 Come in the rearward of a conquer'd woe : 
 Give not a windy night a rainy morrow, 
 
 To linger out a purposed overthrow. 
 If thou wilt leave me, do not leave me last, 
 When other petty griefs have done their 
 
 spite, 
 
 But in the onset come ; so shall I taste 
 At first the very worst of fortune's might, 
 And other strains of woe, which now seem 
 
 woe, 
 
 Compared with loss of thee will not seem 
 so. 
 
 60
 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 
 
 THEY that have power to hurt and will do 
 
 none, 
 
 That do not do the thing they most do show, 
 Who, moving others, are themselves as stone, 
 
 Unmoved, cold, and to temptation slow, 
 They rightly do inherit heaven's graces 
 
 And husband Nature's riches from expense : 
 They are the lords and owners of their faces, 
 
 Others but stewards of their excellence. 
 The summer's flower is to the summer sweet, 
 
 Though to itself it only live and die, 
 But if that flower with base infection meet, 
 The basest weed outbraves his dignity : 
 For sweetest things turn sourest by their 
 
 deeds ; 
 
 Lilies that fester smell far worse than 
 weeds. 
 
 61
 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 
 
 How like a winter hath my absence been 
 
 From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year ! 
 What freezings have I felt, what dark days 
 
 seen ! 
 
 What old December's bareness every where ! 
 And yet this time removed was summer's time, 
 The teeming autumn, big with rich increase, 
 Bearing the wanton burden of the prime, 
 Like widow'd wombs after their lords' de- 
 cease : 
 Yet this abundant issue seem'd to me 
 
 But hope of orphans and unfather'd fruit ; 
 For summer and his pleasures wait on thee, 
 And, thou away, the very birds are mute ; 
 Or, if they sing, 'tis with so dull a cheer 
 That leaves look pale, dreading the 
 winter's near. 
 
 62
 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 
 
 FROM you have I been absent in the spring, 
 When proud-pied April dress'd in all his 
 
 trim 
 
 Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing, 
 That heavy Saturn laugh'd and leap'd with 
 
 him. 
 Yet nor the lays of birds nor the sweet smell 
 
 Of different flowers in odour and in hue 
 Could make me any summer's story tell, 
 Or from their proud lap pluck them where 
 
 they grew ; 
 Nor did I wonder at the lily's white, 
 
 Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose ; 
 They were but sweet, but figures of delight, 
 Drawn after you, you pattern of all those. 
 Yet seem'd it winter still, and, you away, 
 As with your shadow I with these did 
 play,
 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 
 
 THE froward violet thus did I chide : 
 
 Sweet thief, whence didst thou steal thy sweet 
 
 that smells, 
 If not from my love's breath? The purple 
 
 pride 
 Which on thy soft cheek for complexion 
 
 dwells 
 
 In my love's veins thou hast too grossly dyed. 
 The lily I condemned for thy hand, 
 
 And buds of marjoram had stol'n thy hair : 
 The roses fearfully on thorns did stand, 
 
 One blushing shame, another white despair ; 
 A third, nor red nor white, had stol'n of both, 
 And to his robbery had annex'd thy breath ; 
 But, for his theft, in pride of all his growth 
 A vengeful canker eat him up to death. 
 More flowers I noted, yet I none could 
 
 see 
 
 But sweet or colour it had stol'n from 
 thee. 
 
 64
 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 
 
 MY love is strengthen'd, though more weak in 
 
 seeming ; 
 
 I love not less, though less the show appear : 
 That love is merchandised whose rich esteem- 
 ing 
 The owner's tongue doth publish every 
 
 where. 
 
 Our love was new and then but in the spring, 
 When I was wont to greet it with my lays, 
 As Philomel in summer's front doth sing 
 
 And stops her pipe in growth of riper days : 
 Not that the summer is less pleasant now 
 Than when her mournful hymns did hush 
 
 the night, 
 
 But that wild music burthens every bough 
 And sweets grown common lose their dear 
 
 delight. 
 Therefore like her I sometime hold my 
 
 tongue, 
 
 Because I would not dull you with my 
 song.
 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 
 
 To me, fair friend, you never can be old, 
 
 For as you were when first your eye I eyed, 
 Such seems your beauty still. Three winters 
 
 cold 
 Have from the forests shook three summers' 
 
 pride, 
 Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn 
 
 turn'd 
 
 In process of the seasons have I seen, 
 Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burn'd, 
 Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are 
 
 green. 
 Ah ! yet doth beauty, like a dial-hand, 
 
 Steal from his figure and no pace perceived ; 
 So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth 
 
 stand, 
 
 Hath motion and mine eye may be deceived : 
 For fear of which, hear this, thou age 
 
 unbred : 
 
 Ere you were born was beauty's summei 
 dead. 
 
 66
 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 
 
 WHEN in the chronicle of wasted time 
 
 I see descriptions of the fairest wights, 
 And beauty making beautiful old rhyme 
 
 In praise of ladies dead and lovely knights, 
 Then, in the blazon of sweet beauty's best, 
 Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow, 
 I see their antique pen would have express'd 
 
 Even such a beauty as your master now. 
 So all their praises are but prophecies 
 
 Of this our time, all you prefiguring ; 
 And, for they look'd but with divining eyes, 
 They had not skill enough your worth to 
 
 sing: 
 For we, which now behold these present 
 
 days, 
 
 Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to 
 praise. 
 
 67
 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 
 
 NOT mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul 
 Of the wide world dreaming on things to 
 
 come, 
 
 Can yet the lease of my true love control, 
 ~ Supposed as forfeit to a confined doom. 
 The mortal moon hath her eclipse endured 
 
 And the sad augurs mock their own presage ; 
 Incertainties now crown themselves assured, 
 And peace proclaims olives of endless age. 
 Now with the drops of this most balmy time 
 My love looks fresh, and death to me sub- 
 scribes, 
 
 Since, spite of him, I'll live in this poor rhyme, 
 While he insults o'er dull and speechless 
 
 tribes : 
 
 And thou in this shall find thy monument, 
 When tyrants' crests and tombs of brass 
 are spent. 
 
 68
 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 
 
 O, NEVER say that I was false of heart, 
 
 Though absence seem'd my flame to qualify, 
 As easy might I from myself depart 
 
 As from my soul, which in thy breast doth 
 
 lie: 
 That is my home of love : if I have ranged, 
 
 Like him that travels I return again, 
 Just to the time, not with the time exchanged, 
 
 So that myself bring water for my stain. 
 Never believe, though in my nature reign'd 
 
 All frailties that besiege all kinds of blood, 
 That it could so preposterously be stain'd, 
 
 To leave for nothing all thy sum of good ; 
 For nothing this wide universe I call, 
 Save thou, my rose ; in it thou art my all. 
 
 69
 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 
 
 LET me not to the marriage of true minds 
 Admit impediments. Love is not love 
 Which alters when it alteration finds, 
 
 Or bends with the remover to remove : 
 O, no ! it is an ever-fixed mark 
 
 That looks on tempests and is never shaken : 
 It is the star to every wandering bark, 
 Whose worth's unknown, although his height 
 
 be taken. 
 Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and 
 
 cheeks 
 
 Within his bending sickle's compass come ; 
 
 Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, 
 
 But bears it out even to the edge of doom. 
 
 If this be error and upon me proved, 
 
 I never writ, nor no man ever loved. 
 
 70
 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 
 
 THE expense of spirit in a waste of shame 
 
 Is lust in action ; and till action, lust 
 Is perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame, 
 
 Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust, 
 Enjoy'd no sooner but despised straight, 
 Past reason hunted, and no sooner had 
 Past reason hated, as a swallow'd bait 
 
 On purpose laid to make the taker mad ; 
 Mad in pursuit and in possession so ; 
 
 Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme ; 
 A bliss in proof, and proved, a very woe ; 
 Before, a joy proposed ; behind, a dream. 
 All this the world well knows ; yet none 
 
 knows well 
 
 To shun the heaven that leads men to this 
 hell.
 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 
 
 POOR soul, the centre of my sinful earth, 
 
 [Sport of] these rebel powers that thee array, 
 Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth, 
 
 Painting thy outward walls so costly gay ? 
 Why so large cost, having so short a lease, 
 
 Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend ? 
 Shall worms, inheritors of this excess, 
 
 Eat up thy charge ? is this thy body's end ? 
 Then, soul, live thou upon thy servant's loss, 
 
 And let that pine to aggravate thy store : 
 Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross ; 
 
 Within be fed, without be rich no more : 
 So shalt thou feed on Death, that feeds 
 
 on men, 
 And Death once deadjk there's no more 
 
 dying then. 
 
 William Shakespeare. 
 
 72
 
 BARNABY BARNES 
 
 JBatnabg Barnes 
 
 (1568-9-1609) 
 
 AH, sweet Content, where is thy mild abode ? 
 Is it with shepherds and light-hearted swains 
 Which sing upon the downs and pipe abroad, 
 Tending their flocks and cattle on the 
 
 plains ? 
 Ah, sweet Content, where dost thou safely 
 
 rest? 
 In heaven, with angels which the praises 
 
 sing 
 Of Him that made, and rules at His behest, 
 
 The minds and hearts of every living thing ? 
 Ah, sweet Content, where doth thine harbour 
 
 hold? 
 
 Is it in churches with religious men 
 Which please the gods with prayers manifold, 
 And in their studies meditate it then ? 
 Whether thou dost in heaven or earth 
 
 appear, 
 
 Be where thou wilt, thou will not harbour 
 here. 
 
 73
 
 JOHN DAVIES 
 
 3fobn Davfcs 
 
 (1570-1626) 
 
 WHILES in my Soul I feel the soft warm hand 
 
 Of Grace, to thaw the frozen dregs of sin, 
 She, angel, armed, on Eden's walls doth stand, 
 To keep out outward joys that would come 
 
 in; 
 But when that holy hand is ta'en away, 
 
 And that my Soul congealeth as before, 
 She outward comforts seeks with care each 
 
 way, 
 
 And runs to meet them at each sense's door. 
 Yet they but at the first sight only please, 
 Then shrink, or breed abhorred satiety ; 
 But divine comforts, far unlike to these, 
 
 Do please the more, the more they stay 
 
 and be. 
 
 Then outward joys I inwardly detest, 
 Sith they stay not, or stay but in unrest. 
 
 74
 
 JOHN DONNE 
 
 5obn Donne 
 
 (1573-1631) 
 
 DEATH, be not proud, though some have 
 
 called thee 
 
 Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so ; 
 For those whom thou think'st thou dost 
 
 overthrow 
 Die not, poor Death ; nor yet canst thou kill 
 
 me. 
 From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures 
 
 be, 
 Much pleasure : then from thee much more 
 
 must flow ; 
 
 And soonest our best men with thee do go 
 Rest of their bones and souls' delivery ! 
 Thou'rt slave to fate, chance, kings, and 
 
 desperate men, 
 And dost with poison, war, and sickness 
 
 dwell ; 
 And poppy or charms can make us sleep as 
 
 well, 
 And better than thy stroke. Why swell'st 
 
 thou then ? 
 
 One short sleep past, we wake eternally, 
 And death shall be no more : Death, thou 
 shall die. 
 
 75
 
 RICHARD BARNFIELD 
 
 TRfcbarfc JSatnffeU) 
 
 (1574-1627) 
 
 To HIS FRIEND MAISTER R. L. 
 
 IN PRAISE OF MUSIC AND POETRY 
 
 IF music and sweet poetry agree, 
 
 As they must needs, the sister and the 
 
 brother, 
 Then must the love be great 'twixt thee and 
 
 me, 
 Because thou lov'st the one, and I the 
 
 other. 
 Dowland to thee is dear, whose heavenly 
 
 touch 
 
 Upon the lute doth ravish human sense ; 
 Spenser to me, whose deep conceit is such 
 As passing all conceit needs no defence. 
 Thou lov'st to hear the sweet melodious sound 
 That Phoebus' lute, the queen of music, 
 
 makes ; 
 
 And I in deep delight am chiefly drowned 
 Whenas himself to singing he betakes. 
 One god is god of both, as poets feign ; 
 One knight loves both, and both in thee 
 remain. 
 
 76
 
 WILLIAM ALEXANDER 
 
 Slejan&er, Earl of Stirling 
 
 (1580-1640) 
 
 OH, if thou knew'st how thou thyself dost 
 
 harm, 
 And dost prejudge thy bliss, and spoil my 
 
 rest; 
 Then thou wouldst melt the ice out of thy 
 
 breast, 
 
 And thy relenting heart would kindly warm. 
 Oh, if thy pride did not our joys controul, 
 What world of loving wonders shouldst thou 
 
 see ! 
 
 For if I saw thee once transformed in me, 
 Then in thy bosom I would pour my soul, 
 Then all thy thoughts should in my visage 
 
 shine ; 
 And if that ought mischanced, thou shouldst 
 
 not moan 
 
 Nor bear the burthen of thy griefs alone ; 
 No, I would have my share in what were 
 
 thine : 
 And whilst we thus should make our 
 
 sorrows one, 
 
 This happy harmony would make them 
 none. 
 
 77
 
 WILLIAM ALEXANDER 
 
 SMALL comfort might my banish'd hopes 
 
 recall 
 
 When 'whiles my dainty fair I sighing see ; 
 If I could think that one were shed for me, 
 It were a guerdon great enough for all : 
 Or would she let one tear of pity fall 
 That seem'd dismiss'd from a remorseful 
 
 eye, 
 
 I could content myself ungrieved to die, 
 And nothing might my constancy appall. 
 The only sound of that sweet word of 
 
 "love," 
 Press'd 'twixt those lips that do my doom 
 
 contain, 
 Were I embarked might bring me back 
 
 again 
 From death to life, and make me breathe 
 
 and move. 
 
 Strange cruelty ! that never can afford 
 So much as once one sigh, one tear, one 
 
 word ! 
 William Alexander, Earl of Stirling.
 
 WILLIAM DRUMMOND 
 
 TtCUlltam DrummonZ) 
 
 (1585-1649) 
 
 SLEEP, Silence' child, sweet father of soft rest, 
 Prince whose approach peace to all mortal 
 
 brings, 
 
 Indifferent host to shepherds and to kings, 
 Sole comforter of minds with grief opprest ; 
 Lo ! by thy charming-rod all breathing 
 
 things 
 Lie slumbering, with forgetfulness possest, 
 
 And yet o'er me to spread thy drowsy wings 
 Thou spares, alas ! who cannot be thy guest. 
 Since I am thine, oh come, but with that face 
 To inward light which thou art wont to 
 
 show ; 
 
 With feigned solace ease a true-felt woe ; 
 Or if, deaf god, thou do deny that grace, 
 
 Come as thou wilt, and that thou wilt 
 
 bequeath, 
 I long to kiss the image of my death. 
 
 79
 
 WILLIAM DRUMMOND 
 
 ALEXIS, here she stayed ; among these pines, 
 Sweet hermitress, she did alone repair ; 
 Here did she spread the treasure of her hair, 
 More rich than that brought from the Colchian 
 
 mines ; 
 
 She set her by these musked eglantines 
 The happy place the print seems yet to 
 
 bear ; 
 
 Her voice did sweeten here thy sugared lines, 
 To which winds, trees, beasts, birds, did 
 
 lend their ear ; 
 Me here she first perceived, and here a morn 
 
 Of bright carnations did o'erspread her face ; 
 Here did she sigh, here first my hopes were 
 
 born, 
 
 And I first got a pledge of promised grace; 
 But ah ! what served it to be happy so, 
 Sith passed pleasures double but new 
 woe? 
 
 So
 
 WILLIAM DRUMMOND 
 
 MY lute, be as them wast when thou didst 
 
 grow 
 
 With thy green mother in some shady grove, 
 When immelodious winds but made thee 
 
 move, 
 
 And birds on thee their ramage 1 did bestow. 
 Sith that dear voice which did thy sounds 
 
 approve, 
 Which used in such harmonious strains to 
 
 flow, 
 Is reft from earth to tune those spheres 
 
 above, 
 
 What art thou but a harbinger of woe ? 
 Thy pleasing notes be pleasing notes no more, 
 But orphan wail ings to the fainting ear ; 
 Each stop a sigh, each sound draws forth a 
 
 tear; 
 Be therefore silent as in woods before : 
 
 Or if that any hand to touch thee deign, 
 Like widowed turtle still her loss com- 
 plain. 
 
 1 Music of the bough, woodland song. 
 8l G
 
 WILLIAM DRUMMOND 
 
 SWEET Spring, thou turn'st with all thy goodly 
 
 train, 
 Thy head with flames, thy mantle bright 
 
 with flowers ; 
 
 The zephyrs curl the green locks of the plain, 
 The clouds for joy in pearls weep down their 
 
 showers : 
 Thou turn'st, sweet youth ; but ah ! my 
 
 pleasant hours 
 
 And happy days with thee come not again : 
 The sad memorials only of my pain 
 
 Do with thee turn, which turn my sweets 
 
 in sours. 
 
 Thou art the same which still thou wast be- 
 fore, 
 
 Delicious, wanton, amiable, fair ; 
 But she, whose breath embalmed thy whole- 
 some air, 
 
 Is gone ; nor gold nor gems her can restore. 
 Neglected Virtue ! seasons go and come, 
 While thine, forgot, lie closed in a tomb. 
 
 82
 
 WILLIAM DRUMMOND 
 
 WHAT doth it serve to see Sun's burning face, 
 And skies enamelled with both Indies' gold ? 
 Or moon at night in jetty chariot rolled, 
 And all the glory of that starry place ? 
 
 What doth it serve earth's beauty to be- 
 hold, 
 The mountains' pride, the meadows' flowery 
 
 grace, 
 
 The stately comeliness of forests old, 
 The sport of floods which would themselves 
 
 embrace ? 
 
 What doth it serve to hear the sylvans' songs, 
 The wanton merle, the nightingale's sad 
 
 strains, 
 Which in dark shades seem to deplore my 
 
 wrongs? 
 For what doth serve all that this world 
 
 contains ? 
 Sith she for whom those once to me were 
 
 dear 
 
 ,No part of them can have now with me 
 here!
 
 WILLIAM DRUMMOND 
 
 No TRUST IN TIME 
 LOOK how the flower which lingeringly doth 
 
 fade, 
 The morning's darling late, the summer's 
 
 queen, 
 Spoiled of that juice which kept it fresh and 
 
 green, 
 
 As high as it did raise, bows low the head : 
 Right so my life, contentments being dead, 
 
 Or in their contraries but only seen, 
 With swifter speed declines than erst it spread, 
 And blasted, scarce now shows what it hath 
 
 been. 
 As doth the pilgrim therefore, . whom the 
 
 night 
 
 By darkness would imprison on his way, 
 Think on thy home, my soul, and think aright 
 Of what yet rests thee of life's wasting day ! 
 Thy sun posts westward, passed is thy 
 
 morn, 
 And twice it is not given thee to be born. 
 
 84
 
 WILLIAM URUMMOND 
 
 THE Boon OF THE WORLD 
 OF this fair volume which we World do name, 
 If we the sheets and leaves could turn with 
 
 care, 
 
 Of Him who it corrects and did it frame, 
 We clear might read the art and wisdom 
 
 rare : 
 Find out His power which wildest powers doth 
 
 tame, 
 
 His providence extending everywhere, 
 His justice which proud rebels doth not 
 
 spare, 
 
 In every page, no period of the same. 
 But silly we, like foolish children, rest 
 Well pleased with coloured vellum, leaves 
 
 of gold, 
 
 Fair dangling ribbons, leaving what is best, 
 On the great writer's sense ne'er taking 
 
 hold; 
 Or if by chance we stay our minds on 
 
 aught, 
 It is some picture on the margin wrought.
 
 WILLIAM DRUMMOND 
 
 THE BAPTIST 
 
 THE last and greatest herald of heaven's King, 
 Girt with rough skins, hies to the deserts 
 
 wild, 
 Among that savage brood the woods forth 
 
 bring, 
 Which he than man more harmless found 
 
 and mild. 
 His food was locusts, and what there doth 
 
 spring, 
 
 With honey that from virgin hives distilled ; 
 Parcht body, hollow eyes, some uncouth 
 
 thing 
 Made him appear, long since from earth 
 
 exiled. 
 There burst he forth : All ye whose hopes 
 
 rely 
 On God, with me amidst these deserts 
 
 mourn, 
 
 Repent, repent, and from old errors turn ! 
 Who listened to his voice, obeyed his cry ? 
 Only the echoes, which he made relent, 
 Rung from their flinty caves, Repent ! 
 Repent ! 
 
 86
 
 WILLIAM DRUMMOND 
 
 THE MAGDALEN 
 
 THESE eyes, dear Lord ! once brandons of 
 
 desire, 
 Frail scouts betraying what they had to 
 
 keep, 
 
 Which their own heart, then others set on fire, 
 Their traitrous black before Thee here out- 
 weep : 
 
 These locks, of blushing deeds the fair attire, 
 Smooth-frizzled waves, sad shelves which 
 
 shadow deep, 
 Soul-stinging serpents in gilt curls which 
 
 creep, 
 
 To touch Thy sacred feet do now aspire. 
 In seas of care behold a sinking bark, 
 
 By winds of sharp remorse unto Thee 
 
 driven ; 
 Oh, let me not exposed be ruin's mark ! 
 
 My faults confest Lord, say they are for- 
 given! 
 
 Thus sighed to Jesus the Bethanian fair, 
 His tear-wet feet still drying with her 
 hair. 
 
 87
 
 WILLIAM DRUMMOND 
 
 To A NIGHTINGALE 
 
 SWEET bird, that sing'st away the early hours, 
 Of winters past or coming void of care, 
 Well pleased with delights which present 
 
 are, 
 Fair seasons, budding sprays, sweet-smelling 
 
 flowers ; 
 To rocks, to springs, to rills, from leafy 
 
 bowers 
 
 Thou thy Creator's goodness dost declare, 
 And what dear gifts on thee He did not 
 
 spare, 
 
 A stain to human sense in sin that lowers. 
 What soul can be so sick which by thy songs, 
 Attired in sweetness, sweetly is not driven 
 Quite to forget earth's turmoils, spites, and 
 
 wrongs, 
 And lift a reverend eye and thought to 
 
 heaven ! 
 Sweet artless songster, thou my mind dost 
 
 raise 
 
 To airs of spheres, yes, and to angels' 
 lays. 
 
 88
 
 WILLIAM DRUMMOND 
 
 CONTENT AND RESOLUTE 
 As when it happeneth that some lovely town 
 Unto a barbarous besieger falls, 
 Who there by sword and flame himself in- 
 stalls, 
 
 And, cruel, it in tears and blood doth drown ; 
 Her beauty spoiled, her citizens made thralls, 
 His spite yet so can not her all throw down 
 But that some statue, arch, fane of renown 
 Yet lurks unmaimed within her weeping 
 
 walls : 
 
 So, after all the spoil, disgrace, and wrack, 
 That time, the world, and death, could 
 
 bring combined, 
 
 Amidst that mass of ruins they did make, 
 Safe and all scarless yet remains my mind. 
 From this so high transcending rapture 
 
 springs, 
 
 That I, all else defaced, not envy kings. 
 William Drummond.
 
 WILLIAM BROWNE 
 
 TKHtUiam JBrowne of Gavistocfc 
 
 (1590-1645) 
 
 A ROSE, as fair as ever saw the north, 
 
 Grew in a little garden all alone : 
 A sweeter flower did Nature ne'er put forth, 
 
 Nor fairer garden yet was never known. 
 The maidens danced about it morn and noon, 
 And learned bards of it their ditties made ; 
 The nimble fairies, by the pale-faced moon, 
 Watered the root, and kissed her pretty 
 
 shade. 
 But, welladay ! the gardener careless grew, 
 
 The maids and fairies both were kept away, 
 And in a drought the caterpillars threw 
 Themselves upon the bud and every spray. 
 God shield the stock ! If heaven send no 
 
 supplies, 
 The fairest blossom of the garden dies. 
 
 90
 
 GEORGE HERBERT 
 
 (Beorge Herbert 
 (1593-1632) 
 
 SIN 
 LORD, with what care hast Thou begirt us 
 
 round ! 
 
 Parents first season us ; then schoolmasters 
 Deliver us to laws ; they send us bound 
 To rules of reason, holy messengers, 
 Pulpits and Sundays, sorrow dogging sin, 
 
 Afflictions sorted, anguish of all sizes, 
 Fine nets and stratagems to catch us in, 
 
 Bibles laid open, millions of surprises ; 
 Blessings beforehand, ties of gratefulness, 
 The sound of glory ringing in our ears ; 
 Without, our shame ; within, our consciences ; 
 Angels and grace, eternal hopes and fears. 
 Yet all these fences and their whole array 
 One cunning bosom-sin blows quite away.
 
 WILLIAM HABINGTON 
 
 William Ibabington 
 
 (1605-1645) 
 
 LOVE'S ANNIVERSARY 
 TO THE SUN 
 
 THOU art returned, great light, to that blest 
 
 hour 
 
 In which I first by marriage, sacred power, 
 Joined with Castara hearts : and as the same 
 Thy lustre is, as then, so is our flame ; 
 Which had increased, but that by love's decree 
 'Twas such at first it ne'er could greater be. 
 But tell me, glorious lamp, in thy survey 
 Of things below thee, what did not decay 
 By age to weakness ? I since that have seen 
 The rose bud forth and fade, the tree grow 
 
 green 
 
 And wither, and the beauty of the field 
 With winter wrinkled. Even thyself dost 
 
 yield 
 Something to time, and to thy grave fall 
 
 nigher ; 
 
 But virtuous love is one sweet endless 
 fire. 
 
 92
 
 JOHN MILTON 
 
 Jobn /fiilton 
 
 (1608-1674) 
 
 y 
 To THE NIGHTINGALE 
 
 O NIGHTINGALE ! that on yon bloomy spray 
 Warblest at eve, when all the woods are 
 
 still, 
 Thou with fresh hope the lover's heart 
 
 dost fill, 
 
 While the jolly hours lead on propitious May. 
 
 Thy liquid notes that close the eye of day, 
 
 First heard before the shallow cuckoo's bill, 
 
 Portend success in love. O, if Jove's will 
 
 Have linked that amorous power to thy soft 
 
 lay, 
 
 Now timely sing, ere the rude bird of hate 
 Foretell my hopeless doom, in some grove 
 
 nigh; 
 As thou from year to year hast sung too late 
 
 For my relief, yet hadst no reason why. 
 Whether the Muse or Love call thee his mate, 
 Both them I serve, and of their train am I. 
 
 93
 
 JOHN MILTON 
 
 ON HIS HAVING ARRIVED AT THE AGE OF 
 TWENTY-THREE 
 
 How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth, 
 Stolen on his wing my three-and-twentieth 
 
 year ! 
 
 My hasting days fly on with full career, 
 But my late spring no bud or blossom 
 
 shew'th. 
 
 Perhaps my semblance might deceive the truth 
 That I to manhood am arrived so near ; 
 And inward ripeness doth much less appear, 
 That some more timely happy spirits indu'th. 
 Yet, be it less or more, or soon or slow, 
 It shall be still in strictest measure even 
 
 To that same lot, however mean or high, 
 Toward which Time leads me, and the will 
 
 of Heaven. 
 All is, if I have grace to use it so, 
 
 As ever in my great Taskmaster's eye. 
 
 94
 
 JOHN MILTON 
 
 WHEN THE ASSAULT WAS INTENDED TO THE CITY 
 CAPTAIN or Colonel, or Knight in Arms, 
 Whose chance on these defenceless doors 
 
 may seize, 
 
 If deed of honour did thee ever please, 
 Guard them, and him within protect from 
 
 harms. 
 
 He can requite thee ; for he knows the charms 
 That call fame on such gentle acts as 
 
 these, 
 And he can spread thy name o'er lands 
 
 and seas, 
 
 Whatever clime the sun's bright circle warms. 
 Lift not thy spear against the Muses' bower : 
 
 The great Emathian conqueror bid spare 
 The house of Pindarus, when temple and 
 
 tower 
 
 Went to the ground ; and the repeated air 
 Of sad Electra's poet had the power 
 To save the Athenian walls from ruin bare. 
 
 95
 
 JOHN MILTON 
 
 To A VIRTUOUS YOUNG LADY 
 LADY, that in the prime of earliest youth 
 Wisely hast shunned the broad way and 
 
 the green, 
 
 And with those few art eminently seen 
 That labour up the hill of heavenly Truth, 
 The better part with Mary and with Ruth 
 Chosen thou hast ; and they that over- 
 ween, 
 
 And at thy growing virtues fret their spleen, 
 No anger find in thee, but pity and ruth. 
 Thy care is fixed, and zealously attends 
 
 To fill thy odorous lamp with deeds of 
 
 light, 
 
 And hope that reaps not shame. There- 
 fore be sure 
 Thou, when the Bridegroom with his feastful 
 
 friends 
 
 Passes to bliss at the mid-hour of night, 
 Hast gained thy entrance, virgin wise 
 and pure. 
 
 96
 
 JOHN MILTON 
 
 To THE LADY MARGARET LEY 
 DAUGHTER to that good Earl, once President 
 Of England's Council and her Treasury, 
 Who lived in both unstained with gold or 
 
 fee, 
 
 And left them both, more in himself content, 
 Till the sad breaking of that Parliament 
 Broke him, as that dishonest victory 
 At Chaeronea, fatal to liberty, 
 Killed with report that old man eloquent, 
 Though later born than to have known the 
 
 days 
 Wherein your father nourished, yet by 
 
 you, 
 
 Madam, methinks I see him living yet : 
 So well your words his noble virtues praise 
 That all both judge you to relate them 
 
 true 
 And to possess them, honoured Margaret.
 
 JOHN MILTON 
 
 To MR. H. LAWES ON HIS AIRS 
 HARRY, whose tuneful and well-measured song 
 First taught our English music how to 
 
 span 
 Words with just note and accent, not to 
 
 scan 
 
 With Midas' ears, committing short and long, 
 Thy worth and skill exempts thee from the 
 
 throng, 
 
 With praise enough for Envy to look wan ; 
 To after age thou shall be writ the man 
 That with smooth air couldst humour best our 
 
 tongue. 
 Thou honour'st Verse, and Verse must send 
 
 her wing 
 To honour thee, the priest of Phoebus' 
 
 quire, 
 That tunest their happiest lines in hymn 
 
 or story. 
 Dante shall give Fame leave to set thee 
 
 higher 
 
 Than his Casella, whom he wooed to sing, 
 Met in the milder shades of Purgatory.
 
 JOHN MILTON 
 
 On THE RELIGIOUS MEMORY OF MRS. CATHERINE 
 THOMSON, MY CHRISTIAN FRIEND, DECEASED 
 DEC. 16, 1646 
 
 WHEN Faith and Love, which parted from 
 
 thee never, 
 Had ripened thy just soul to dwell with 
 
 God, 
 
 Meekly thou didst resign this earthy load 
 Of death, called life, which us from life doth 
 
 sever. 
 
 Thy works, and alms, and all thy good en- 
 deavour, 
 Stayed not behind, nor in the grave were 
 
 trod; 
 
 But, as Faith pointed with her golden rod, 
 Followed thee up to joy and bliss for ever 
 Love led them on ; and Faith, who knew them 
 
 best 
 Thy handmaids, clad them o'er with purple 
 
 beams 
 
 \nd azure wings, that up they flew so drest, 
 And speak the truth of thee on glorious 
 
 themes 
 Before the Judge ; who thenceforth bid thee 
 
 rest, 
 And drink thy fill of pure immortal streams. 
 
 99
 
 JOHN MILTON 
 
 To THE LORD GENERAL CROMWELL, MAY 1652 
 
 ON THE PROPOSALS OF CERTAIN MINISTERS AT THH 
 COMMITTEE FOR PROPAGATION OF THE GOSPEL 
 
 CROMWELL, our chief of men, who through a 
 
 cloud 
 
 Not of war only, but detractions rude, 
 Guided by faith and matchless fortitude, 
 To peace and truth thy glorious way hast 
 
 ploughed, 
 
 And on the neck of crowned Fortune proud 
 Hast reared God's trophies, and His work 
 
 pursued, 
 While Darwen stream, with blood of Scots 
 
 imbrued, 
 
 And Dunbar field, resounds thy praises loud, 
 And Worcester's laureate wreath : yet much 
 
 remains 
 
 To conquer still ; Peace hath her victories 
 No less renowned than War : new foes arise, 
 Threatening to bind our souls with secular 
 
 chains. 
 Help us to save free conscience from the 
 
 paw 
 . Of hireling wolves, whose Gospel is their 
 
 100
 
 JOHN MILTON 
 
 To SIR HENRY VANE THE YOUNGER 
 VANE, young in years, but in sage counsel 
 
 old, 
 
 Than whom a better senator ne'er held 
 The helm of Rome, when gowns, not arms, 
 
 repelled 
 
 The fierce Epirot and the African bold, 
 Whether to settle peace, or to unfold 
 The drift of hollow states hard to be spelled ; 
 Then to advise how war may, best upheld, 
 Move by her two main nerves, iron and gold, 
 In all her equipage ; besides, to know 
 Both spiritual power and civil, what each 
 
 means, 
 What severs each, thou hast learned, which 
 
 few have done. 
 
 The bounds of either sword to thee we owe : 
 Therefore on thy firm hand Religion leans 
 In peace, and reckons thee her eldest son.
 
 JOHN MILTON 
 
 ON THE LATE MASSACRE IN PlEDMONT 
 
 AVENGE, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints, 
 
 whose bones 
 
 Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold ; 
 Even them who kept Thy truth so pure of 
 
 old, 
 When all our fathers worshipped stocks and 
 
 stones, 
 
 Forget not : in Thy book record their groans 
 Who were Thy sheep, and in their ancient 
 
 fold 
 
 Slain by the bloody Piemontese, that rolled 
 Mother with infant down the rocks. Their 
 
 moans 
 
 The vales redoubled to the hills, and they 
 To heaven. Their martyred blood and 
 
 ashes sow 
 O'er all the Italian fields, where still doth 
 
 sway 
 The triple Tyrant ; that from these may 
 
 grow 
 
 A hundredfold, who, having leamt Thy way, 
 Early may fly the Babylonian woe. 
 102
 
 JOHN MILTON 
 
 ON HIS BLINDNESS 
 WHEN I consider how my light is spent 
 
 Ere half my days in this dark world and 
 
 wide, 
 
 And that one talent which is death to hide 
 Lodged with me useless, though my soul more 
 
 bent 
 
 To serve therewith my Maker, and present 
 My true account, lest He, returning, chide, 
 " Doth God exact day-labour, light denied ?" 
 I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent 
 That murmur, soon replies, " God doth not 
 
 need 
 Either man's work or his own gifts. Who 
 
 best 
 Bear His mild yoke, they serve Him best. 
 
 His state 
 
 Is kingly : thousands at His bidding speed, 
 And post o'er land and ocean without rest; 
 They also serve who only stand and wait." 
 
 103
 
 JOHN MILTON 
 
 To MR. LAWRENCE 
 
 LAWRENCE, of virtuous father virtuous son, 
 Now that the fields are dank, and ways 
 
 are mire, 
 Where shall we sometimes meet, and by 
 
 the fire 
 
 Help waste a sullen day, what may be won 
 From the hard season gaining ? Time will 
 
 run 
 
 On smoother, till Favonius reinspire 
 The frozen earth, and clothe in fresh attire 
 The lily and rose, that neither sowed nor spun. 
 What neat repast shall feast us, light and 
 
 choice, 
 Of Attic taste, with wine, whence we may 
 
 rise 
 
 To hear the lute well touched, or artful voice 
 Warble immortal notes and Tuscan air? 
 He who of those delights can judge, and 
 
 spare 
 To interpose them oft, is not unwise. 
 
 104
 
 JOHN MILTON 
 
 To CYRIACK SKINNER 
 
 CYRIACK, whose grandsire on the royal bench 
 Of British Themis, with no mean applause, 
 Pronounced, and in his volumes taught, 
 
 our laws, 
 
 Which others at their bar so often wrench, 
 To-day deep thoughts resolve with me to 
 
 drench 
 
 In mirth that after no repenting draws ; 
 Let Euclid rest, and Archimedes pause, 
 And what the Swede intend, and what the 
 
 French. 
 
 To measure life learn thou betimes, and know 
 Toward solid good what leads the nearest 
 
 way; 
 For other things mild Heaven a time 
 
 ordains, 
 And disapproves that care, though wise in 
 
 show, 
 
 That with superfluous burden loads the day, 
 And, when God sends a cheerful hour, 
 refrains. 
 
 105
 
 JOHN MILTON 
 
 To THE SAME 
 CYRIACK, this three years' day these eyes, 
 
 though clear, 
 
 To outward view, of blemish or of spot, 
 Bereft of light, their seeing have forgot ; 
 Nor to their idle orbs doth sight appear 
 Of sun, or moon, or star, throughout the year, 
 Or man, or woman. Yet I argue not 
 Against Heaven's hand or will, nor bate a 
 
 jot 
 
 Of heart or hope, but still bear up and steer 
 Right onward. What supports me, dost thou 
 
 ask? 
 The conscience, friend, to have lost them 
 
 overplied 
 In Liberty's defence, my noble task, 
 
 Of which all Europe rings from side to side. 
 This thought might lead me through the 
 
 world's vain mask 
 
 Content, though blind, had I no better 
 guide. 
 
 106
 
 JOHN MILTON 
 
 ON HIS DECEASED WIPE 
 METHOUGHT I saw my late espoused saint 
 Brought to me like Alcestis from the grave, 
 Whom Jove's great son to her glad husband 
 
 gave, 
 Rescued from Death by force, though pale and 
 
 faint. 
 Mine, as whom washed from spot of child-bed 
 
 taint 
 
 Purification in the Old Law did save, 
 And such as yet once more I trust to have 
 Full sight of her in Heaven without restraint, 
 Came vested all in white, pure as her mind. 
 Her face was veiled ; yet to my fancied 
 
 sight 
 Love, sweetness, goodness, in her person 
 
 shined 
 
 So clear as in no face with more delight. 
 But, oh ! as to embrace me she inclined, 
 I waked, she fled, and day brought back my 
 night. 
 
 John Milton. 
 
 107
 
 THOMAS EDWARDS 
 
 Gbomas 
 
 (1699-1757) 
 
 To RICHARD OWEN CAMBRIDGE 
 
 CAMBRIDGE, with whom, my pilot and my 
 
 guide, 
 
 Pleased I have traversed thy Sabrina's flood, 
 Both where she foams impetuous, soiled 
 
 with mud, 
 
 And where she peaceful rolls her golden tide ; 
 Never, oh, never let ambition's pride 
 
 (Too oft pretexed with our country's good), 
 And tinselled pomp, despised when under- 
 stood, 
 Or thirst of wealth, thee from her banks 
 
 divide ! 
 
 Reflect how calmly, like her infant wave, 
 Flows the clear current of a private life ; 
 See the wide public stream, by tempests 
 
 tost, 
 
 Of every changing wind the sport or slave, 
 Soiled with corruption, vexed with party 
 
 strife, 
 
 Covered with wrecks of peace and honour 
 lost. 
 
 108
 
 THOMAS GRAY 
 
 Ubomas <5tag 
 
 (1706-1771) 
 
 ON THE DEATH OF RICHARD WEST 
 IN vain to me the smiling mornings shine, 
 
 And reddening Phoebus lifts his golden fire ; 
 The birds in vain their amorous descant join, 
 
 Or cheerful fields resume their green attire : 
 These ears, alas ! for other notes repine, 
 
 A different object do these eyes require ; 
 My lonely anguish melts no heart but mine, 
 
 And in my breast the imperfect joys expire. 
 Yet morning smiles the busy race to cheer, 
 
 And new-born pleasure brings to happier 
 
 men ; 
 The fields to all their wonted tribute bear, 
 
 To warm their little loves the birds com- 
 plain : 
 I fruitless mourn to him that cannot hear, 
 
 And weep the more because I weep in vain. 
 
 109
 
 WILLIAM MASON 
 
 William flfcascn 
 (1725-1797) 
 
 ANNIVERSARY. FEB. 23, 1795 
 
 A PLAINTIVE sonnet flowed from Milton's pen 
 When Time had stolen his three-and-twen- 
 
 tieth year : 
 
 Say, shall not I then shed one tuneful tear, 
 Robbed by the thief of three-score years and 
 
 ten? 
 
 No ! for the foes of all life-lengthened men, 
 Trouble and toil, approach not yet too near ; 
 Reason, meanwhile, and health, and memory 
 
 dear 
 Hold unimpaired their weak yet wonted 
 
 reign : 
 Still round my sheltered lawn I pleased can 
 
 stray ; 
 Still trace my sylvan blessings to their 
 
 spring : 
 BEING of BEINGS ! yes, that silent lay 
 
 Which musing Gratitude delights to sing, 
 
 Still to thy sapphire throne shall Faith convey, 
 
 And Hope, the cherub of unwearied wing. 
 
 1 10
 
 THOMAS WARTON 
 
 Gbomas Warton 
 
 (1728-1790) 
 
 WHEN late the trees were stript by Winter 
 
 pale, 
 Young Health, a dryad-maid in vesture 
 
 green, 
 
 Or like the forest's silver-quiver'd queen, 
 On airy uplands met the piercing gale ; 
 And, ere its earliest echo shook the vale, 
 Watching the hunter's joyous horn was seen. 
 But since, gay-thron'd in fiery chariot sheen, 
 Summer has smote each daisy-dappled dale, 
 She to the cave retires, high-arched beneath 
 The fount that laves proud Isis' towery 
 
 brim; 
 And now all glad the- temperate air to 
 
 breathe, 
 While cooling drops distil from arches 
 
 dim, 
 
 Binding her dewy locks with sedgy wreath 
 She sits amid the quire of Naiads trim. 
 
 Ill
 
 THOMAS WARTON 
 
 WRITTEN IN A BLANK LEAF OF DUGDALE'S 
 ' MONASTICON ' 
 
 DEEM not devoid of elegance the sage, 
 By Fancy's genuine feelings unbeguiled, 
 Of painful pedantry the poring child, 
 Who turns of these proud domes the historic 
 
 page, 
 
 Now sunk by Time and Henry's fiercer rage. 
 Think'st thou the warbling Muses never 
 
 smiled 
 
 On his lone hours ? Ingenuous views engage 
 His thoughts, on themes, unclassic falsely 
 
 styled, 
 
 Intent. While cloistered Piety displays 
 Her mouldering roll, the piercing eye ex- 
 plores 
 
 New manners, and the pomp of elder days, 
 Whence culls the pensive bard his pictured 
 
 stores. 
 
 Nor rough nor barren are the winding ways 
 Of hoar Antiquity, but strewn with flowers. 
 
 112
 
 THOMAS WARTON 
 
 To THE RIVER LODON 
 
 AH ! what a weary race my feet have run, 
 Since first I trod thy banks with alders 
 
 crowned, 
 And thought my way was all through fairy 
 
 ground, 
 
 Beneath thy azure sky and golden sun : 
 Where first my Muse to lisp her notes begun ! 
 While pensive Memory traces lack the 
 
 round 
 
 Which fills the varied interval between ; 
 Much pleasure, more of sorrow, marks the 
 
 scene. 
 Sweet native stream ! those skies and suns so 
 
 pure 
 
 No more return, to cheer my evening road ! 
 Yet still one joy remains, that not obscure, 
 
 Nor useless, all my vacant days have flowed, 
 From youth's gay dawn to manhood's prime 
 
 mature ; 
 
 Nor with the Muse's laurel unbestowed. 
 Thomas Warton, 
 
 H3 I
 
 WILLIAM COWPER 
 
 William Cowpec 
 
 (1731-1800) 
 
 To HENRY COWPER, ON HIS DEFENCE OF WARRKN 
 HASTINGS IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS 
 
 COWPER, whose silver voice, task'd sometimes 
 
 hard 
 
 Legends prolix delivers in the ears 
 (Attentive when thou read'st) of England's 
 
 peers, 
 
 Let verse at length yield thee thy just reward. 
 Thou wast not heard with drowsy disregard, 
 Expending late on all that length of plea 
 Thy generous pow'rs ; but silence honoured 
 
 thee, 
 
 Mute as e'er gazed on orator or bard. 
 Thou art not voice alone ; but hast beside 
 Both heart and head ; and couldst with 
 
 music sweet 
 
 Of Attic phrase and senatorial tone, 
 Like thy renown'd forefathers, far and wide 
 Thy fame diffuse, praised not for utterance 
 
 meet 
 
 Of other's speech, but magic of thy own. 
 114
 
 WILLIAM COWPER 
 
 To MRS. UNWIM 
 
 MARY ! I want a lyre with other strings, 
 Such aid from heaven as some have feigned 
 
 they drew, 
 
 An eloquence scarce given to mortals, new 
 And undebased by praise of meaner things ; 
 That, ere through age or woe I shed my wings, 
 I may record thy worth with honour due, 
 In verse as musical as thou art true, 
 And that immortalizes whom it sings. 
 But thou hast little need. There is a Book 
 By seraphs writ with beams of heavenly 
 
 light, 
 
 On which the eyes' of God not rarely look, 
 A chronicle of actions just and bright ; 
 There all thy deeds, my faithful Mary, 
 
 shine ; 
 
 And since thou own'st that praise, I spare 
 thee mine. 
 
 William Cowper,
 
 ANNA SEWARD 
 
 Bnna Sewarfc 
 
 (1747-1809) 
 
 DECEMBER MORNING 
 
 I LOVE to rise ere gleams the tardy light, 
 Winter's pale dawn ; and as warm fires 
 
 illume, 
 
 And cheerful tapers shine around the room, 
 Through misty windows bend my musing sight, 
 Where, round the dusky lawn, the mansions 
 
 white, 
 With shutters closed, peer faintly through 
 
 the gloom 
 That slow recedes ; while yon grey spires 
 
 assume, 
 
 Rising from their dark pile, an added height 
 By indistinctness given. Then to decree 
 The grateful thoughts to God, ere they un- 
 fold 
 
 To friendship or the Muse, or seek with glee 
 Wisdom's rich page. O hours more worth 
 
 than gold, 
 
 By whose blest use we lengthen life, and, free 
 From drear decays of age, outlive the old ! 
 
 116
 
 CHARLOTTE SMITH 
 
 Cbarlotte Smitb 
 
 (1749-1806) 
 
 SWEET poet of the woods, a long adieu ! 
 
 Farewell, soft minstrel of the early year ! 
 Ah ! 'twill be long ere thou shalt sing anew, 
 
 And pour thy music on the night's dull ear. 
 Whether on spring thy wandering flights 
 
 await, 
 
 Or whether silent in our groves you dwell, 
 The pensive Muse shall own you for her mate, 
 And still protect the song she loves so well. 
 With cautious step the lovelorn youth shall 
 
 glide 
 Thro' the lone glade that shades thy mossy 
 
 nest, 
 And shepherd-girls from eyes profane shall 
 
 hide 
 
 The gentle bird who sings of pity best ; 
 For still thy voice shall soft affections 
 
 move, 
 And still be dear to sorrow and to love. 
 
 117
 
 JOHN CODRINGTON BAMFYLDE 
 
 3FObn Co&rmgton 
 
 (1754-1796) 
 
 ON A WET SUMMER 
 ALL ye who far from town in rural hall, 
 
 Like me, were wont to dwell near pleasant 
 
 field, 
 
 Enjoying all the sunny day did yield, 
 With me the change lament, in irksome thrall, 
 By rains incessant held ; for now no call 
 From early swain invites my hand to wield 
 The scythe. In parlour dim I sit concealed, 
 And mark the lessening sand from hour-glass 
 
 fall; 
 
 Or 'neath my window view the wistful train 
 Of dripping poultry, whom the vine's broad 
 
 leaves 
 
 Shelter no more. Mute is the mournful plain ; 
 Silent the swallow sits beneath the thatch, 
 And vacant hind hangs pensive o'er his 
 
 hatch, 
 
 Counting the frequent drips from reeded 
 eaves. 
 
 118
 
 THOMAS RUSSELL 
 
 Gbomas TRusseU 
 
 (1762-1788) 
 
 SUPPOSED TO BE WRITTEN AT LEMNOS 
 ON this lone isle, whose rugged rocks affright 
 The cautious pilot, ten revolving years 
 Great Paean's son, unwonted erst to tears, 
 Wept o'er his wound : alike each rolling light 
 Of heaven he watched, and blamed its linger- 
 ing flight ; 
 By day the sea-mew screaming round his 
 
 cave 
 Drove slumber from his eyes ; the chiding 
 
 wave 
 And savage howlings chased his dreams by 
 
 night. 
 Hope still was his : in each low breeze that 
 
 sighed 
 Through his rude grot he heard a coming 
 
 oar, 
 In each white cloud a coming sail he spied ; 
 
 Nor seldom listened to the fancied roar 
 Of OEta's torrents, or the hoarser tide 
 That parts famed Trachis from the Euboic 
 shore. 
 
 119
 
 HELEN MARIA WILLIAMS 
 
 fcelen /fcaria "CCliUfams 
 (1762-1828) 
 
 To HOPB 
 O EVER skilled to wear the form we love ! 
 
 To bid the shapes of fear and grief depart ; 
 Come, gentle Hope ! with one gay smile remove 
 
 The lasting sadness of an aching heart. 
 Thy voice, benign enchantress ! let me hear ; 
 Say that for me some pleasures yet shall 
 
 bloom, 
 That fancy's radiance, friendship's precious 
 
 tear, 
 Shall soften, or shall chase, misfortune's 
 
 gloom. 
 
 But come not glowing in the dazzling ray 
 Which once with dear illusions charmed my 
 
 eye; 
 Oh, strew no more, sweet flatterer! on my 
 
 way 
 The flowers I fondly thought too bright to 
 
 die: 
 Visions less fair will soothe my pensive 
 
 breast, 
 
 That asks not happiness, but longs for 
 rest 
 
 120
 
 SIR SAMUEL EGERTON BRYDGES 
 
 Sir Samuel Bgetton 
 
 (1762-1837) 
 
 ON ECHO AND SILENCE 
 
 IN eddying course when leaves began to fly, 
 And Autumn in her lap the store to strew, 
 As 'mid wild scenes I chanced the Muse to 
 
 woo, 
 Through glens an trod and woods that frowned 
 
 on high, 
 Two sleeping nymphs with wonder mute I 
 
 spy! 
 And lo, she's gone ! in robe of dark green 
 
 hue, 
 
 'Twas Echo from her sister Silence flew : 
 For quick the hunter's horn resounded to the 
 
 sky! 
 In shade affrighted Silence melts away. 
 
 Not so her sister ! hark, for onward still 
 With far-heard step she takes her listening 
 
 way, 
 Bounding from rock to rock, and hill to 
 
 hill! 
 
 Ah, mark the merry maid in mockful play 
 With thousand mimic tones the laughing 
 forest fill.
 
 WILLIAM LISLE BOWLES 
 
 TOUUiam Xisle JBowles 
 (1762-1850) 
 
 OSTKND 
 ON HEARING THE BELLS AT SEA 
 
 How sweet the tuneful bells' responsive peal ! 
 As when at opening dawn the fragrant 
 
 breeze 
 
 Touches the trembling sense of pale disease, 
 So piercing to my heart their force I feel. 
 And hark ! with lessening cadence now 
 
 they fall, 
 
 And now along the white and level tide 
 They fling their melancholy music wide ; 
 
 Bidding me many a tender thought recall 
 Of summer days, and those delightful years 
 When by my native streams, in life's fair 
 
 prime, 
 The mournful magic of their mingling 
 
 chime 
 First waked my wondering childhood into 
 
 tears ! 
 But seeming now, when all those days 
 
 are o'er, 
 
 The sounds of joy once heard and heard 
 no more.
 
 WILLIAM LISLE BOWLES 
 
 O TIME ! who know'st a lenient hand to lay 
 Softest on sorrow's wound, and slowly 
 
 thence, 
 
 Lulling to sad repose the weary sense, 
 The faint pang stealest unperceived away ; 
 
 On thee I rest my only hope at last, 
 And think, when thou hast dried the bitter 
 
 tear 
 That flows in vain o'er all my soul held dear, 
 
 I may look back on every sorrow past, 
 And meet life's peaceful evening with a smile; 
 As some lone bird, at day's departing hour, 
 Sings in the sunbeam, of the transient 
 
 shower 
 Forgetful, though its wings are wet the 
 
 while : 
 Yet, ah ! how much must that poor heart 
 
 endure, 
 
 Which hopes from thee, and thee alone, a 
 cure ! 
 
 W. L. Bowles. 
 
 123
 
 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 
 
 IKfliUtam 
 
 (1770-1850) 
 
 NUNS fret not at their convent's narrow room ; 
 
 And hermits are contented with their cells ; 
 
 And students with their pensive citadels : 
 Maids at the wheel, the weaver at his loom, 
 Sit blithe and happy ; bees that soar for bloom, 
 
 High as the highest peak of Furness Fells, 
 
 Will murmur by the hour in foxglove bells : 
 In truth the prison unto which we doom 
 Ourselves, no prison is : and hence for me, 
 
 In sundry moods, 'twas pastime to be bound 
 
 Within the sonnet's scanty plot of ground : 
 Pleased if some souls (for such there needs 
 
 must be) 
 Who have felt the weight of too much liberty, 
 
 Should find brief solace there, as I have 
 found. 
 
 124
 
 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 
 
 CALM is all nature as a resting wheel. 
 
 The kine are couched upon the dewy grass ; 
 
 The horse alone, seen dimly as I pass, 
 Is cropping audibly his later meal : 
 Dark is the ground ; a slumber seems to steal 
 
 O'er vale, and mountain, and the starless 
 sky. 
 
 Now, in this blank of things, a harmony, 
 Home-felt, and home-created, seems to heal 
 
 That grief for which the senses still supply 
 
 Fresh food ; for only then, when memory 
 Is hushed, am I at rest. My friends ! restrain 
 Those busy cares that would allay my pain : 
 
 Oh ! leave me to myself ; nor let me feel 
 The officious touch that makes me droop again. 
 
 125
 
 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 
 
 COMPOSED UPON WESTMINSTER BRIDGE, 
 SEPTEMBER 3, 1802 
 
 EARTH has not anything to show more fair : 
 
 Dull would he be of soul who could pass by 
 
 A sight so touching in its majesty : 
 This City now doth, like a garment, wear 
 The beauty of the morning ; silent, bare, 
 
 Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples 
 lie 
 
 Open unto the fields, and to the sky ; 
 All bright and glittering in the smokeless air. 
 Never did sun more beautifully steep 
 
 In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill ; 
 Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep ! 
 
 The river glideth at his own sweet will : 
 Dear God ! the very houses seem asleep ; 
 
 And all that mighty heart is lying still ! 
 
 126
 
 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 
 
 IT is a beauteous Evening, calm and free, 
 The holy time is quiet as a Nun 
 Breathless with adoration ; the broad sun 
 Is sinking down in its tranquillity ; 
 The gentleness of heaven broods o'er the Sea ; 
 Listen ! the mighty Being is awake, 
 And doth with his eternal motion make 
 A sound like thunder everlastingly. 
 Dear Child ! dear Girl ! that walkest with me 
 
 here, 
 If thou appear untouched by solemn thought, 
 
 Thy nature is not therefore less divine ; 
 Thou liest in Abraham's bosom all the year ; 
 And worship'st at the Temple's inner 
 
 shrine, 
 God being with thee when we know it not. 
 
 127
 
 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 
 
 ON THE EXTINCTION OF THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 
 ONCE did She hold the gorgeous East in fee ; 
 
 And was the safeguard of the West : the 
 worth 
 
 Of Venice did not fall below her birth, 
 Venice, the eldest Child of Liberty. 
 She was a maiden City, bright and free : 
 
 No guile seduced, no force could violate ; 
 
 And when she took unto herself a Mate, 
 She must espouse the everlasting Sea. 
 And what if she had seen those glories fade, 
 
 Those titles vanish, and that strength decay ; 
 Yet shall some tribute of regret be paid 
 
 When her long life hath reached its final 
 
 day; 
 
 Men are we, and must grieve when even the 
 Shade 
 
 Of that which once was great is passed away. 
 
 128
 
 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 
 
 To TOUSSAINT L'OUVERTURB 
 
 TOUSSAINT, the most unhappy man of men ! 
 
 Whether the whistling Rustic tend his plough 
 
 Within thy hearing, or thy head be now 
 Pillowed in some deep dungeon's earless den ; 
 O miserable Chieftain ! where and when 
 
 Wilt thou find patience ? Yet die not ; do 
 thou 
 
 Wear rather in thy bonds a cheerful brow : 
 Though fallen thyself, never to rise again, 
 Live, and take comfort. Thou hast left behind 
 
 Powers that will work for thee ; air, earth, 
 
 and skies ; 
 There's not a breathing of the common wind 
 
 That will forget thee ; thou hast great allies; 
 
 Thy friends are exultations, agonies, 
 And love, and man's unconquerable mind. 
 
 129
 
 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 
 
 NEAR DOVER. SEPTEMBER 1802 
 INLAND, within a hollow vale, I stood 
 
 And saw, while sea was calm and air was 
 
 clear, 
 The coast of France the coast of France 
 
 how near ! 
 
 Drawn almost into frightful neighbourhood. 
 I shrunk ; for verily the barrier flood 
 Was like a lake, or river bright and fair 
 A span of waters ;- yet what power is there ! 
 What mightiness for evil and for good ! 
 Even so doth God protect us if we be 
 Virtuous and wise. Winds blow, and waters 
 
 roll, 
 
 Strength to the brave, and Power, and Deity ; 
 Yet in themselves are nothing ! One decree 
 Spake laws to them, and said that by the 
 
 soul 
 Only, the Nations shall be great and free. 
 
 130
 
 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 
 
 WRITTEN IN LONDON. SEPTEMBER 1802 
 O FRIEND ! I know not which way I must look 
 For comfort, being, as I am, opprest, 
 To think that now our life is only drest 
 For show ; mean handiwork of craftsman, 
 
 cook, 
 Or groom ! We must run glittering like a 
 
 brook 
 
 In the open sunshine, 'or we are unblest : 
 The wealthiest man among us is the best : 
 No grandeur now in nature or in book 
 Delights us. Rapine, avarice, expense, 
 This is idolatry ; and these we adore : 
 Plain living and high thinking are no more ; 
 The homely beauty of the good old cause 
 Is gone ; our peace, our fearful innocence, 
 
 And pure religion breathing household 
 laws.
 
 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 
 
 LONDON, 1802 
 
 MILTON ! thou shouldst be living at this hour ; 
 England hath need of thee ; she is a fen 
 Of stagnant waters; altar, sword, and pen, 
 Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bovver, 
 Have forfeited their ancient English dower 
 Of inward happiness. We are selfish men ; 
 Oh ! raise us up, return to us again ; 
 And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power. 
 Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart : 
 Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like 
 
 the sea ; 
 Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free, 
 
 So didst thou travel on life's common way, 
 In cheerful godliness ; and yet thy heart 
 The lowliest duties on herself did lay. 
 
 132
 
 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 
 
 GREAT men have been among us ; hands that 
 
 penned 
 And tongues that uttered wisdom better 
 
 none: 
 
 The later Sidney, Marvel, Harrington, 
 Young Vane, and others who called Milton 
 
 friend. 
 
 These moralists could act and comprehend : 
 They knew how genuine glory was put on ; 
 Taught us how rightfully a nation shone 
 In splendour : what strength was that would 
 
 not bend 
 But in magnanimous meekness. France, 'tis 
 
 strange, 
 Hath brought forth no such souls as we had 
 
 then. 
 
 Perpetual emptiness ! unceasing change ! 
 No single volume paramount, no code, 
 No master spirit, no determined road ; 
 But equally a want of books and men ! 
 
 133
 
 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 
 
 IT is not to be thought of that the Flood 
 Of British freedom, which, to the open sea 
 Of the world's praise, from dark antiquity 
 Hath flowed, "with pomp of waters, unwith- 
 
 stood," 
 
 Roused though it be full often to a mood 
 Which spurns the check of salutary bands, 
 That this most famous Stream in bogs and 
 
 sands 
 
 Should perish ; and to evil and to good 
 Be lost for ever. In our halls is hung 
 
 Armoury of the invincible Knights of old : 
 We must be free or die, who speak the tongue 
 That Shakespeare spake j the faith and 
 
 morals hold 
 Which Milton held. In every thing we are 
 
 sprung 
 Of Earth's first blood, have titles manifold. 
 
 134
 
 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 
 
 WHEN I have borne in memory what has 
 
 tamed 
 
 Great nations, how ennobling thoughts de- 
 part 
 When men change swords for ledgers, and 
 
 desert 
 
 The student's bower for gold, some fears un- 
 named 
 
 I had, my country ! am I to be blamed ? 
 But when I think of thee, and what thou art, 
 Verily, in the bottom of my heart, 
 Of those unfilial fears I am ashamed. 
 But dearly must we prize thee ; we who find 
 In thee a bulwark for the cause of men ; 
 
 And I by my affection was beguiled. 
 What wonder if a poet now and then, 
 Among the many movements of his mind, 
 Felt for thee as a lover or a child ? 
 
 135
 
 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 
 
 WINGS have we, and as far as we can go 
 We may find pleasure : wilderness and 
 
 wood, 
 Blank ocean and mere sky, support that 
 
 mood 
 
 Which with the lofty sanctifies the low. 
 Dreams, books, are each a world ; and books, 
 
 we know, 
 Are a substantial world, both pure and 
 
 good : 
 Round these, with tendrils strong as flesh 
 
 and blood, 
 
 Our pastime and our happiness will grow. 
 There find I personal themes, a plenteous 
 
 store ; 
 
 Matter wherein right voluble I am, 
 To which I listen with a ready ear ; 
 Two shall be named, pre-eminently 
 
 dear, 
 The gentle Lady married to the Moor ; 
 
 And heavenly Una with her milk-white 
 Lamb. 
 
 136
 
 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 
 
 ADMONITION. 
 
 WELL mayst thou halt, and gaze with bright- 
 ening eye ! 
 
 The lovely cottage in the guardian nook 
 Hath stirred thee deeply ; with its own dear 
 
 brook, 
 
 Its own small pasture, almost its own sky ! 
 But covet not the abode ; forbear to sigh, 
 As many do, repining while they look ; 
 Intruders who would tear from nature's 
 
 book 
 
 This precious leaf, with harsh impiety. 
 Think what the home must be if it were thine, 
 Even thine, though few thy wants ! Roof, 
 
 window, door, 
 
 The very flowers are sacred to the poor, 
 The roses to the porch which they entwine : 
 Yea, all, that now enchants thee, from the 
 
 day 
 
 On which it should be touched, would melt 
 away. 
 
 137
 
 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 
 
 THE world is too much with us ; late and 
 
 soon, 
 Getting and spending, we lay waste our 
 
 powers : 
 
 Little we see in Nature that is ours ; 
 We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon ! 
 This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon ; 
 The winds that will be howling at all hours, 
 And are up-gathered now like sleeping 
 
 flowers ; 
 
 For this, for every thing, we are out of tune ; 
 It moves us not Great God ! I'd rather be 
 
 A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn ; 
 So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, 
 Have glimpses that would make me less for- 
 lorn; 
 
 Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea ; 
 Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn. 
 
 138
 
 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 
 
 WITH ships the sea was sprinkled far and nigh, 
 Like stars in heaven, and joyously it 
 
 showed ; 
 
 Some lying fast at anchor in the road, 
 Some veering up and down, one knew not 
 
 why. 
 A goodly vessel did I then espy 
 
 Come like a giant from a haven broad ; 
 And lustily along the bay she strode, 
 Her tackling rich, and of apparel high. 
 This ship was nought to me, nor I to her, 
 Yet I pursued her with a lover's look ; 
 This ship to all the rest did I prefer : 
 
 When will she turn, and whither? She will 
 
 brook 
 No tarrying ; where she comes the winds must 
 
 stir : 
 
 On went She, and due north her journey 
 took. 
 
 139
 
 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 
 
 WHERE lies the land to M hich yon ship must 
 
 Fresh as a lark mounting at break of day 
 Festively she puts forth in trim array ; 
 
 Is she for tropic suns, or polar snow ? 
 
 What boots the inquiry? Neither friend nor 
 
 foe 
 
 She cares for ; let her travel where she may, 
 She finds familiar names, a beaten way 
 
 Ever before her, and a wind to blow. 
 
 Yet still I ask, what haven is her mark ? 
 And, almost as it was when ships were rare, 
 (From time to time, like pilgrims, here and 
 there 
 
 Crossing the waters) doubt, and something 
 
 dark, 
 Of the old sea some reverential fear, 
 
 Is with me at thy farewell, joyous bark ! 
 
 140
 
 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 
 
 To SLEEP 
 
 A FLOCK of sheep that leisurely pass by, 
 One after one ; the sound of rain, and bees 
 Murmuring ; the fall of rivers, winds, and 
 
 seas, 
 Smooth fields, white sheets of water, and pure 
 
 sky ; 
 
 I have thought of all by turns, and yet do lie 
 Sleepless ; and soon the small birds' melo- 
 dies 
 Must hear, first uttered from my orchard 
 
 trees ; 
 
 And the first cuckoo's melancholy cry. 
 Even thus last night, and two nights more, I 
 
 lay, 
 And could not win thee, Sleep ! by any 
 
 stealth : 
 
 So do not let me wear to-night away : 
 Without Thee what is all the morning's 
 
 wealth ? 
 
 Come, blessed barrier between day and day, 
 Dear mother of fresh thoughts and joyous 
 health ! 
 
 141
 
 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 
 
 THOUGHT OF A BRITON ON THE SUBJUGATION OF 
 SWITZERLAND 
 
 Two Voices are there ; one is of the Sea, 
 One of the Mountains ; each a mighty 
 
 Voice : 
 
 In both from age to age thou didst rejoice, 
 They were thy chosen music, Liberty ! 
 There came a Tyrant, and with holy glee 
 Thou foughtst against him ; but hast vainly 
 
 striven : 
 Thou from thy Alpine holds at length art 
 
 driven, 
 
 Where not a torrent murmurs heard by thee. 
 Of one deep bliss thine ear hath been bereft : 
 Then cleave, O cleave to that which still is 
 
 left; 
 For, high-souled Maid, what sorrow would 
 
 it be 
 
 That Mountain floods should thunder as before, 
 And Ocean bellow from his rocky shore, 
 And neither awful Voice be heard by thee 1 
 
 142
 
 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 
 
 To B. R. HAYDON 
 
 HIGH is our calling, Friend ! Creative Art 
 (Whether the instrument of words she use, 
 Or pencil pregnant with ethereal hues,) 
 Demands the service of a mind and heart, 
 Though sensitive, yet, in their weakest part, 
 Heroically fashioned to infuse 
 Faith in the whispers of the lonely Muse, 
 While the whole world seems adverse to desert. 
 And, oh ! when Nature sinks, as oft she may, 
 Through long-lived pressure of obscure dis- 
 tress, . 
 Still to be strenuous for the bright reward, 
 And in the soul admit of no decay, 
 
 Brook no continuance of weak-mindedness 
 Great is the glory, for the strife is hard !
 
 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 
 
 SURPRISED by joy impatient as the Wind 
 I turned to share the transport Oh ! with 
 
 whom 
 
 But Thee, deep buried in the silent tomb, 
 That spot which no vicissitude can find ? 
 Love, faithful love, recalled thee to my mind 
 But how could I forget thee? Through 
 
 what power, 
 
 Even for the least division of an hour, 
 Have I been so beguiled as to be blind 
 To my most grievous loss ! That thought's 
 
 return 
 
 Was the worst pang that sorrow ever bore, 
 Save one, one only, when I stood forlorn, 
 Knowing my heart's best treasure was no 
 
 more ; 
 
 That neither present time, nor years unborn, 
 Could to my sight that heavenly face restore. 
 
 144
 
 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 
 
 THERE is a little unpretending Rill 
 
 Of limpid water, humbler far than aught 
 That ever among Men or Naiads sought 
 
 Notice or name ! It quivers down the hill 
 
 Furrowing its shallow way with dubious will ; 
 Yet to my mind this scanty Stream is 
 
 brought 
 Oftener than Ganges or the Nile; a thought 
 
 Of private recollection sweet and still ! 
 
 Months perish with their moons ; year treads 
 
 on year ; 
 But, faithful Emma, thou with me canst say 
 
 That, while ten thousand pleasures disappear, 
 And flies their memory fast almost as they, 
 The immortal Spirit of one happy day 
 
 Lingers beside that Rill, in vision clear. 
 
 145
 
 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 
 
 AFTER-THOUGHT 
 (RIVER DUDDON) 
 
 I THOUGHT of Thee, my partner and my guide, 
 As being past away. Vain sympathies ! 
 For, backward, Duddon ! as I cast my eyes, 
 I see what was, and is, and will abide; 
 Still glides the Stream, and shall for ever glide ; 
 The Form remains, the Function never dies ; 
 While we, the brave, the mighty, and the 
 
 wise, 
 
 We Men, who in our mom of youth defied 
 The elements, must vanish ; be it so ! 
 
 Enough, if something from our hands have 
 
 power 
 
 To live, and act, and serve the future hour : 
 And if, as toward the silent tomb we go, 
 Through love, through hope, and faith's 
 
 transcendent dower, 
 We feel that we are greater than we know. 
 
 146
 
 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 
 
 WALTON'S BOOK OF LIVES 
 THERE are no colours in the fairest sky 
 
 So fair as these. The feather whence the 
 
 pen 
 Was shaped that traced the lives of these 
 
 good men 
 
 Dropped from an angel's wing. With moist- 
 ened eye 
 We read of faith and purest charity 
 
 In statesman, priest, and humble citizen. 
 Oh, could we copy their mild virtues, then 
 What joy to live, what blessedness to die ! 
 Methinks their very names shine still and 
 
 bright ; 
 Apart, like glow-worms on a summer night ; 
 
 Or lonely tapers when from far they fling 
 A guiding ray ; or seen, like stars on high, 
 
 Satellites burning in a lucid ring 
 Around meek Walton's heavenly memory. 
 
 H7
 
 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 
 
 INSIDE OF KING'S COLLEGE CHAPEL, CAMBRIDGE 
 TAX not the royal Saint with vain expense, 
 With ill-matched aims the Architect who 
 
 planned 
 
 Albeit labouring for a scanty band 
 Of white-robed Scholars only this immense 
 And glorious work of fine intelligence ! 
 
 Give all thou canst ; high Heaven rejects the 
 
 lore 
 
 Of nicely-calculated less or more ; 
 So deemed the man who fashioned for the 
 
 sense 
 
 These lofty pillars, spread that branching roof 
 Self-poised, and scooped into ten thousand 
 
 cells, 
 Where light and shade repose, where music 
 
 dwells 
 Lingering and wandering on as loth to 
 
 die ; 
 Like thoughts whose very sweetness yieldeth 
 
 proof 
 That they were born for immortality. 
 
 148
 
 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 
 
 MUTABILITY 
 
 FROM low to high doth dissolution climb, 
 And sink from high to low, along a scale 
 Of awful notes, whose concord shall not fail ; 
 A musical but melancholy chime, 
 Which they can hear who meddle not with 
 
 crime, 
 
 Nor avarice, nor over-anxious care. 
 Truth fails not ; but her outward forms that 
 
 bear 
 
 The longest date do melt like frosty rime, 
 That in the morning whitened hill and plain 
 And is no more ; drop like the tower sub- 
 lime 
 
 Of yesterday, which royally did wear 
 Its crown of weeds, but could not even sustain 
 Some casual shout that broke the silent 
 
 air, 
 Or the unimaginable touch of Time. 
 
 149
 
 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 
 
 THE TROSSACHS 
 
 THERE'S not a nook within this solemn Pass, 
 But were an apt confessional for One 
 Taught by his summer spent, his autumn 
 
 gone, 
 
 That Life is but a tale of morning grass, 
 Withered at eve. From scenes of art which 
 
 chase 
 That thought away, turn, and with watchful 
 
 eyes 
 
 Feed it 'mid Nature's old felicities, 
 Rocks, rivers, and smooth lakes more clear 
 
 than glass 
 Untouched, unbreathed upon. Thrice happy 
 
 quest, 
 
 If from a golden perch of aspen spray 
 
 (October's workmanship to rival May) 
 
 The pensive warbler of the ruddy breast 
 
 That moral sweeten by a heaven-taught lay, 
 Lulling the year, with all its cares, to rest. 
 
 150
 
 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 
 
 To THE PLANET VENUS, AN EVENING STAR 
 
 COMPOSED AT LOCH LOMOND 
 
 THOUGH joy attend thee orient at the birth 
 Of dawn, it cheers the lofty spirit most 
 
 To watch thy course when Day-light, fled from 
 
 earth, 
 In the grey sky hath left his lingering ghost, 
 
 Perplexed as if between a splendour lost 
 And splendour slowly mustering. Since the 
 
 Sun, 
 The absolute, the world-absorbing One, 
 
 Relinquished half his empire to the host 
 
 Emboldened by thy guidance, holy Star, 
 Holy as princely who that looks on thee 
 Touching, as now, in thy humility 
 
 The mountain borders of this seat of care, 
 Can question that thy countenance is bright, 
 Celestial Power, as much with love as light ?
 
 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 
 
 IN SIGHT OF THE TOWN OF COCKERMOUTH, 
 
 WHERE THE AtTHOR WAS BORN, AMD HIS FATHER'S 
 
 REMAINS ARE LAID 
 
 A POINT of life between my Parents' dust, 
 
 And yours, my buried Little-ones ! am I ; 
 
 And to those graves looking habitually 
 In kindred quiet I repose my trust. 
 Death to the innocent is more than just, 
 
 And, to the sinner, mercifully bent ; 
 
 So may I hope, if truly I repent 
 And meekly bear the ills which bear I must : 
 And You, my Offspring ! that do still remain, 
 
 Yet may outstrip me in the appointed race, 
 If e'er, through fault of mine, in mutual pain 
 
 We breathed together for a moment's space, 
 The wrong, by love provoked, let love arraign, 
 
 And only love keep in your hearts a place. 
 
 152
 
 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 
 
 MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS 
 
 LANDING AT THE MOUTH OF THE DERWENT, 
 
 WORKINGTON 
 
 DEAR to the Loves, and to the Graces vowed, 
 The Queen drew back the wimple that she 
 
 wore; 
 
 And to the throng how touchingly she bowed 
 That hailed her landing on the Cumbrian 
 
 shore ; 
 
 Bright as a Star (that, from a sombre cloud 
 Of pine-tree foliage poised in air, forth darts, 
 When a soft summer gale at evening parts 
 The gloom that did its loveliness enshroud) 
 She smiled ; but Time, the old Saturnian Seer, 
 Sighed on the wing as her foot pressed the 
 
 strand, 
 
 With step prelusive to a long array 
 Of woes and degradations hand in hand, 
 Weeping captivity, and shuddering fear 
 
 Stilled by the ensanguined block of 
 Fotheringay 1 
 
 153
 
 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 
 
 MOST sweet it is with unuplifted eyes 
 
 To pace the ground if path there be or none, 
 While a fair region round the traveller lies, 
 
 Which he forbears again to look upon ; 
 Pleased rather with some soft ideal scene, 
 
 The work of Fancy or some happy tone 
 Of meditation, stepping in between 
 
 The beauty coming and the beauty gone. 
 If Thought and Love desert us, from that day 
 
 Let us break off all commerce with the 
 
 Muse; 
 
 With Thought and Love companions of our 
 way, 
 
 Whate'er the senses take or may refuse, 
 
 The Mind's internal heaven shall shed her 
 
 dews 
 Of inspiration on the humblest lay. 
 
 154
 
 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 
 
 WHY art thou silent ? Is thy love a plant 
 Of such weak fibre that the treacherous air 
 Of absence withers what was once so fair ? 
 Is there no debt to pay, no boon to grant ? 
 Yet have my thoughts for thee been vigilant 
 
 Bound to thy service with unceasing care, 
 The mind's least generous wish a mendicant 
 For naught but what thy happiness could 
 
 spare. 
 Speak, though this soft warm heart, once free 
 
 to hold 
 A thousand tender pleasures, thine and 
 
 mine, 
 Be left more desolate, more dreary cold 
 
 Than a forsaken bird's-nest filled with 
 
 snow 
 
 'Mid its own bush of leafless eglantine ; 
 Speak, that my torturing doubts their end 
 may know 1 
 
 155
 
 COMPOSED ON A MAY MORNING, 1838 
 LIFE with yon Lambs, like day, is just begun, 
 Yet nature seems to them a heavenly guide. 
 Does joy approach ? they meet the coming 
 
 tide; 
 
 And sullenness avoid, as now they shun 
 Pale twilight's lingering glooms, and in the 
 
 sun 
 
 Couch near their dams, with quiet satisfied ; 
 Or gambol each with his shadow at his 
 
 side, 
 
 Varying its shape wherever he may run. 
 As they from turf yet hoar with sleepy dew 
 All turn, and court the shining and the 
 
 green, 
 Where herbs look up, and opening flowers 
 
 are seen ; 
 
 Why to God's goodness cannot We be true, 
 And so, His gifts and promises between, 
 Feed to the last on pleasures ever new ? 
 
 156
 
 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 
 
 THOUGH the bold wings of Poesy affect 
 
 The clouds, and wheel around the mountain 
 
 tops 
 
 Rejoicing, from her loftiest height she drops 
 Well pleased to skim the plain with wild 
 
 flowers deckt, 
 
 Or muse in solemn grove whose shades protect 
 The lingering dew there steals along, or 
 
 stops, 
 Watching the least small bird that round 
 
 her hops, 
 
 Or creeping worm, with sensitive respect. 
 Her functions are they therefore less divine, 
 Her thoughts less deep, or void of grave 
 
 intent 
 Her simplest fancies? Should that fear be 
 
 thine, 
 
 Aspiring Votary, ere thy hand present 
 One offering, kneel before her modest shrine, 
 With brow in penitential sorrow bent ! 
 
 William Wordsworth. 
 
 157
 
 SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE 
 
 Samuel Sailor 
 
 (1772-1834) 
 
 To NATURE 
 
 IT may indeed be phantasy when I 
 Essay to draw from all created things 
 Deep, heartfelt, inward joy that closely 
 
 clings ; 
 And trace in leaves and flowers that round me 
 
 lie 
 
 Lessons of love and earnest piety. 
 So let it be ; and if the wide world rings 
 In mock of this belief, to me it brings 
 Nor fear, nor grief, nor vain perplexity. 
 So will I build my altar in the fields, 
 
 And the blue sky my fretted dome shall be, 
 And the sweet fragrance that the wild flower 
 
 yields, 
 
 Shall be the incense I will yield to Thee, 
 Thee only God ! and Thou shall not 
 
 despise 
 Even me, the priest of this poor sacrifice. 
 
 158
 
 SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE 
 
 FANCY IN NUBIBUS 
 OR THE POET IN THE CLOUDS 
 
 O IT is pleasant, with a heart at ease, 
 
 Just after sunset, or by moonlight skies, 
 To make the shifting clouds be what you 
 
 please, 
 
 Or let the easily-persuaded eyes 
 Own each quaint likeness issuing from the 
 
 mould 
 Of a friend's fancy ; or, with head bent 
 
 low 
 
 And cheek aslant, see rivers flow of gold 
 'Twixt crimson banks ; and then, a traveller, 
 
 g 
 From mount to mount through Cloudland, 
 
 gorgeous land ! 
 
 Or listening to the tide, with closed sight, 
 Be that blind bard who, on the Chian strand 
 By those deep sounds possessed with inward 
 
 light, 
 
 Beheld the Iliad and the Odyssee 
 Rise to the swelling of the voiceful sea. 
 Samuel Taylor Coleridge. 
 
 159
 
 MARY TIGHE 
 
 To TIME 
 
 YES, gentle Time, thy gradual, healing hand 
 Hath stolen from Sorrow's grasp the en- 
 venomed dart ; 
 
 Submitting to thy skill, my passive heart 
 Feels that no grief can thy soft power with- 
 stand ; 
 And though my aching breast still heaves 
 
 the sigh, 
 Though oft the tear swells silent in mine 
 
 eye ; 
 Yet the keen pang, the agony is gone ; 
 
 Sorrow and I shall part ; and these faint 
 
 throes 
 
 Are but the remnant of severer woes : 
 As when the furious tempest is o'erblown, 
 And when the sky has wept its violence, 
 The opening heavens will oft let fall a shower, 
 The poor o'erchaiged boughs still drops 
 
 dispense, 
 And still the loaded streams in torrents pour. 
 
 160
 
 CHARLES LAMB 
 
 Charles Xamb 
 (1775-1834) 
 
 O LIFT with reverent hand that tarnished 
 
 flower, 
 
 That shrines beneath her modest canopy, 
 Memorials dear to Romish piety, 
 Dim specks, rude shapes, of Saints ! in fervent 
 
 hour 
 
 The work perchance of some weak devotee 
 Who, poor in worldly treasures to set forth 
 The sanctities she worshipped to their worth, 
 
 In this imperfect tracery might see 
 Hints, that all Heaven did to her sense reveal. 
 Cheap gifts best fit poor givers. We are 
 
 told 
 
 Of the lone mite, the cup of water cold, 
 That in their way approved the offerer's zeal. 
 True Love shows costliest where the 
 
 means are scant ; 
 
 And, in her reckoning, they abound who 
 want. 
 
 161
 
 JOSEPH BLANCO WHITE 
 
 SFOsepb JBlanco Wbite 
 
 (1775-1841) 
 
 NIGHT AND DEATH 
 MYSTERIOUS Night ! when our first parent 
 
 knew 
 Thee from report divine, and heard thy 
 
 name, 
 
 Did he not tremble for this lovely frame, 
 This glorious canopy of light and blue. 
 Yet 'neath a curtain of translucent dew, 
 
 Bathed in the rays of the great setting 
 
 flame, 
 
 Hesperus with the host of heaven came, 
 And lo ! creation widened in man's view. 
 Who could have thought such darkness lay 
 
 concealed 
 Within thy beams, O Sun ! or who could 
 
 find, 
 
 Whilst fly and leaf and insect stood revealed, 
 That to such countless orbs thou mad'st us 
 
 blind ! 
 Why do we then shun Death with anxious 
 
 strife ? 
 
 If Light can thus deceive, wherefore not 
 Life? 
 
 162
 
 WILLIAM STANLEY ROSCOE 
 
 TKHilUam Stanley TRoscoe 
 
 (1782-1843) 
 
 To THE HARVEST MOON 
 AGAIN thou reignest in thy golden hall, 
 Rejoicing in thy sway, fair queen of night ! 
 The ruddy reapers hail thee with delight : 
 Theirs is the harvest, theirs the joyous call 
 For tasks well ended ere the season's fall. 
 Sweet orb, thou smilest from thy starry 
 
 height ; 
 But whilst on them thy beams are shedding 
 
 bright 
 
 To me thou com'st o'ershadowed with a pall ; 
 To me alone the year hath fruitless flown ; 
 Earth hath fulfilled her trust through all her 
 
 lands, 
 The good man gathereth where he had sown, 
 
 And the Great Master in his vineyard stands ; 
 But I, as if my task were all unknown, 
 Come to his gates, alas ! with empty hands. 
 
 163
 
 LEIGH HUNT 
 
 fnmt 
 
 (1784-1859) 
 
 To THE GRASSHOPPER AND THE CRICKET 
 GREEN little vaulter in the sunny grass, 
 Catching your heart up at the feel of June, 
 Sole voice that's heard amidst the lazy noon, 
 When even the bees lag at the summoning 
 
 brass ; 
 
 And you, warm little housekeeper, who class 
 With those who think the candles come too 
 
 soon, 
 Loving the fire, and with your tricksome 
 
 tune 
 
 Nick the glad silent moments as they pass ; 
 Oh sweet and tiny cousins, that belong, 
 
 One to the fields, the other to the hearth, 
 Both have your sunshine ; both though small 
 
 are strong 
 At your clear hearts ; and both were sent 
 
 on earth 
 
 To sing in thoughtful ears this natural song: 
 In doors and out, summer and winter, 
 
 Mirth. 
 
 164
 
 LEIGH HUNT 
 
 THE NILE 
 IT flows through all hushed ^Egypt and its 
 
 sands, 
 Like some grave n:ighty thought threading 
 
 a dream, 
 And times and things, as in that vision, 
 
 seem 
 
 Keeping along it their eternal stands, 
 Caves, pillars, pyramids, the shepherd bands 
 That roamed through the young world, the 
 
 glory extreme 
 
 Of high Sesostris, and that southern beam, 
 The laughing queen that caught the world's 
 
 great hands. 
 Then comes a mightier silence, stern and 
 
 strong, 
 As of a world left empty of its throng, 
 
 And the void weighs on us ; and then we 
 
 wake, 
 
 And hear the fruitful stream lapsing along 
 'Twixt villages, and think how we shall take 
 Our own calm journey on for human sake. 
 Leigh Hunt. 
 165
 
 GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON 
 
 George (Botbon, ILorfc JBgron 
 
 (1788-1859) 
 
 ON CHILLON 
 
 ETERNAL Spirit of the chainless Mind ! 
 Brightest in dungeons, Liberty, thou art 
 For there thy habitation is the heart 
 The heart which love of thee alone can 
 
 bind ; 
 
 And when thy sons to fetters are consigned, 
 To fetters, and the damp vault's dayless 
 
 gloom, 
 
 Their country conquers with their martyr- 
 dom, 
 And Freedom's fame finds wings on every 
 
 wind. 
 Chillon ! thy prison is a holy place, 
 
 And thy sad floor an altar, for 'twas trod, 
 Until his very steps have left a trace 
 
 Worn as if thy cold pavement were a sod, 
 By Bonnivard ! May none those marks efface ! 
 For they appeal from tyranny to God. 
 
 1 66
 
 SIR AUBREY DE VERE 
 
 Sir aubres De Dece 
 (1788-1846) 
 
 THE CHILDREN BAND 
 THE CRUSADERS. NO. V. 
 
 ALL holy influences dwell within 
 The breast of Childhood : instincts fresh 
 
 from God 
 
 Inspire it, ere the heart beneath the rod 
 Of grief hath bled, or caught the plague of sin. 
 How mighty was that fervour which could 
 
 win 
 
 Its way to infant souls ! and was the sod 
 Of Palestine by infant Croises trod ? 
 Like Joseph went they forth, or Benjamin, 
 In all their touching beauty, to redeem ? 
 
 And did their soft lips kiss the sepulchre ? 
 Alas ! the lovely pageant, as a dream, 
 
 Faded ! they sank not through ignoble fear; 
 They felt not Moslem steel. By mountain, 
 
 stream, 
 
 In sands, in fens, they died no mother 
 near! 
 
 16 7
 
 BRYAN WALLER PROCTER 
 
 3S8rgan Idaller Procter 
 
 (1790-1874) 
 
 A STILL PLACE 
 
 UNDER what beechen shade or silent oak 
 Lies the mute sylvan now mysterious Pan? 
 Once (when rich Peneus and Ilissus ran 
 Clear from their fountains) as the morning 
 
 broke, 
 'Tis said the Satyr with Apollo spoke, 
 
 And to harmonious strife with his wild reed, 
 Challenged the God, whose music was in- 
 deed 
 Divine, and fit for heaven. Each played, 
 
 and woke 
 
 Beautiful sounds to life deep melodies ; 
 One blew his pastoral pipe with such nice 
 
 care, 
 That flocks and birds all answered him ; and 
 
 one 
 
 Shook his immortal showers upon the air. 
 That music has ascended to the sun; 
 But where the other? Speak, ye dells and 
 trees. 
 
 168
 
 BRYAN WALLER PROCTER 
 
 THE SEA IN CALM 
 
 LOOK what immortal floods the sunset pours 
 Upon us ! Mark how still (as though in 
 
 dreams 
 Bound) the once wild and terrible Ocean 
 
 seems ! 
 
 How silent are the winds ! No billow roars, 
 But all is tranquil as Elysian shores; 
 
 The silver margin which aye runneth round 
 
 The moon-enchanted sea hath here no sound: 
 
 Even Echo speaks not on these radiant moors. 
 
 What ! is the giant of the ocean dead, 
 
 Whose strength was all unmatched beneath 
 
 the sun? 
 No : he reposes. Now his toils are done, 
 
 More quiet than the babbling brooks is he. 
 So mightiest powers by deepest calms are fed, 
 And sleep, how oft, in things that gent- 
 lest be. 
 
 Bryan Waller Procter. 
 
 169
 
 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 
 
 f>etcg J8g00be belles 
 
 (1790-1882) 
 
 OZYMANDIAS 
 
 I MET a traveller from an antique land 
 
 Who said : Two vast and trunkless legs of 
 
 stone 
 
 Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand, 
 Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose 
 
 frown 
 
 And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command 
 Tell that its sculptor well those passions read 
 Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless 
 
 things, 
 The hand that mocked them and the heart 
 
 that fed ; 
 
 And on the pedestal these words appear : 
 " My name is Ozymandias, king of kings : 
 Look on my works, ye Mighty, and 
 
 despair ! " 
 Nothing beside remains. Round the decay 
 
 Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare 
 The lone and level sands stretch far away. 
 
 170
 
 JOHN KEBLE 
 
 fteble 
 
 (1792-1866) 
 
 AT HOOKER'S TOMB 
 THE grey-eyed Morn was saddened with a 
 
 shower, 
 
 A silent shower, that trickled down so still 
 Scarce dropped beneath its weight the ten- 
 
 derest flower, 
 
 Scarce could you trace it on the twinkling rill, 
 Or moss-stone bathed in dew. It was an 
 
 hour 
 Most meet for prayer beside thy lowly 
 
 grave, 
 Most for thanksgiving meet, that Heaven 
 
 such power 
 
 To thy serene and humble spirit gave. 
 "Who sow good seed with tears shall reap 
 
 in joy." 
 So thought I as I watched the gracious 
 
 rain, 
 
 And deemed it like that silent sad employ 
 Whence sprung thy glory's harvest, to re- 
 main 
 For ever. God hath sworn to lift on 
 
 high 
 
 Who sinks hipiself by true humility. 
 171
 
 FELICIA DOROTHEA HEMANS 
 
 Felicia Dorothea fjemane 
 (1794-1835) 
 
 FLIGHT OF THE SPIRIT 
 
 WHITHER, oh ! whither wilt them wing thy 
 
 way? 
 
 What solemn region first upon thy sight 
 Shall break, unveiled for terror or delight ? 
 What hosts, magnificent in dread array, 
 My spirit ! when thy prison-house of clay 
 After long strife is rent? Fond, fruitless 
 
 quest ! 
 
 The unfledged bird, within his narrow nest, 
 Sees but a few green branches o'er him play, 
 And through their parting leaves, by fits 
 
 revealed, 
 A glimpse of summer sky ; nor knows the 
 
 field 
 Wherein his dormant powers must yet be 
 
 tried. 
 Thou art that bird ! of what beyond thee 
 
 lies 
 
 Far in the untracked, immeasurable skies 
 Knowing but this that thou shalt find thy 
 Guide! 
 
 172
 
 JOHN KEATS 
 
 3fobn Ikeata 
 
 (1793-1821) 
 
 ON FIRST LOOKING INTO CHAPMAN'S HOMER. 
 
 MUCH have I travelled in the realms of gold 
 
 And many goodly states and kingdoms seen ; 
 
 Round many western islands have I been 
 Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold. 
 Oft of one wide expanse had I been told 
 
 That deep-browed Homer ruled as his de- 
 mesne ; 
 
 Yet did I never breathe its pure serene 
 Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and 
 
 bold: 
 Then felt I like some watcher of the skies 
 
 When a new planet swims into his ken ; 
 Or like stout Cortez, when with eagle eyes 
 
 He stared at the Pacific and all his men 
 Looked at each other with a wild surmise 
 
 Silent, upon a peak in Darien. 
 
 173
 
 JOHN KEATS 
 
 ON THE GRASSHOPPER AND CRICKET 
 THE poetry of earth is never dead : 
 
 When all the birds are faint with the hot 
 
 sun, 
 
 And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run 
 From hedge to hedge about the new-mown 
 
 mead ; 
 
 That is the Grasshopper's he takes the lead 
 In summer luxury he has never done 
 With his delights ; for when tired out with 
 
 fun, 
 
 He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed. 
 The poetry of earth is ceasing never : 
 
 On a lone winter evening, when the frost 
 Has wrought a silence, from the stove 
 
 there shrills 
 
 The Cricket's song, in warmth increasing ever, 
 And seems to one in drowsiness half lost, 
 The Grasshopper's among some grassy 
 hills. 
 
 174
 
 JOHN KEATS 
 
 To one who has been long in city pent, 
 'Tis very sweet to look into the fair 
 And open face of heaven to breathe a 
 prayer 
 
 Full in the smile of the blue firmament. 
 
 Who is more happy, when, with heart's con- 
 tent, 
 
 Fatigued he sinks into some pleasant lair 
 Of wavy grass, and reads a debonair 
 
 And gentle tale of love and languishment ? 
 
 Returning home at evening, with an ear 
 Catching the notes of Philomel an eye 
 
 Watching the sailing cloudlet's bright career, 
 He mourns that day so soon has glided by ; 
 
 E'en like the passage of an angel's tear 
 That falls through the clear ether silently. 
 
 175
 
 JOHN KEATS 
 
 AFTER dark vapours have oppressed our plains 
 For a long dreary season, comes a day 
 Born of the gentle South, and clears away 
 From the sick heavens all unseemly stains. 
 The anxious month, relieved from its pains, 
 Takes as a long-lcst right the feel of May, 
 The eyelids with the passing coolness play, 
 Like rose-leaves with the drip of summer rains. 
 The calmest thoughts come round us as, of 
 
 leaves 
 Budding fruit ripening in stillness autumn 
 
 suns 
 
 Smiling at eve upon the quiet sheaves, 
 Sweet Sappho's cheek, a sleeping infant's 
 
 breath, 
 The gradual sand that through an hour-glass 
 
 runs, 
 A woodland rivulet, a Poet's death. 
 
 176
 
 JOHN KEATS 
 
 ON A PICTURE OF LEANDER 
 COME hither, all sweet maidens soberly, 
 
 Down-looking aye, and with a chasten'd 
 light, 
 
 Hid in the fringes of your eyelids white, 
 And meekly let your fair hands joined be, 
 As if so gentle that ye could not see, 
 
 Untouch'd, a victim of your beauty bright, 
 
 Sinking away to his young spirit's night. 
 Sinking bewilder'd 'mid the dreary sea : 
 'Tis young Leander toiling to his death ; 
 
 Nigh swooning, he doth purse his weary 
 
 lips 
 For Hero's cheek, and smiles against her smile. 
 
 O horrid dream ! see how his body dips 
 Dead-heavy ; arms and shoulders gleam awhile ; 
 He's gone ; up bubbles all his amorous breath ! 
 
 177
 
 JOHN KEATS 
 
 WHEN I have fears that I may cease to be 
 
 Before my pen has gleaned my teeming 
 
 brain, 
 Before high-piled books, in charact'ry, 
 
 Hold like full garners the full-ripened grain ; 
 When I behold, upon the night's starred face, 
 
 Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance, 
 And feel that I may never live to trace 
 
 Their shadows, with the magic hand of 
 
 chance ; 
 And when I feel, fair creature of an hour ! 
 
 That I shall never look upon thee more, 
 Never have relish in the faery power 
 
 Of unreflecting love ! then on the shore 
 Of the wide world I stand alone, and think, 
 Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink. 
 
 I 7 8
 
 JOHN KEATS 
 
 IF by dull rhymes our English must be chained, 
 
 And, like Andromeda, the Sonnet sweet 
 Fettered, in spite of pained loveliness ; 
 Let us find out if we must be constrained, 
 
 Sandals more interwoven and complete 
 To fit the naked foot of poesy ; 
 Let us inspect the lyre, and weigh the stress 
 Of every chord, and see what may be gained 
 
 By ear industrious, and attention meet ; 
 Misers of sound and syllable, no less 
 Than Midas of his coinage, let us be 
 
 Jealous of dead leaves in that bay wreath 
 
 crown ; 
 So, if we may not let the Muse be free, 
 
 She will be bound with garlands of her own. 
 
 179
 
 JOHN KEATS 
 
 To SLEEP 
 O SOFT embalmer of the still midnight ! 
 
 Shutting with careful fingers and benign, 
 Our gloom-pleased eyes, embowered from the 
 
 light, 
 
 Enshaded in forgetfulness divine ; 
 O soothest Sleep ! if so it please thee, close, 
 In midst of this thine hymn, my willing 
 
 eyes, 
 
 Or wait the amen, ere thy poppy throws 
 Around my bed its lulling charities ; 
 Then save me, or the passed day will shine 
 Upon my pillow, breeding many woes ; 
 
 Save me from curious conscience, that still 
 
 lords 
 Its strength, for darkness burrowing like a 
 
 mole ; 
 
 Turn the key deftly in the oiled wards, 
 And seal the hushed casket of my soul. 
 
 180
 
 JOHN KEATS 
 
 KEATS' LAST SONNET 
 
 BRIGHT STJR ! would I were steadfast as thou 
 art 
 
 Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night, 
 And watching with eternal lids apart, 
 
 Like Nature's patient, sleepless Eremite, 
 The moving waters at their priest-like task 
 
 Of pure ablution round earth's human shores, 
 Or gazing on the new soft fallen mask 
 
 Of snow upon the mountains and the moors 
 No yet still steadfast, still unchangeable, 
 
 Pillowed upon my fair love's ripening breast, 
 To feel for ever its soft fall and swell, 
 
 Awake for ever in a sweet unrest, 
 Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath, 
 And so live ever or else swoon to death. 
 John Keats. 
 
 181
 
 HARTLEY COLERIDGE 
 
 l)artleB Coleridge 
 (1796-1849) 
 
 To NIGHT 
 
 THE crackling embers on the hearth are dead ; 
 The indoor note of industry is still ; 
 The latch is fast ; upon the window-sill 
 The small birds wait not for their daily bread ; 
 The voiceless flowers how quietly they shed 
 Their nightly odours ; and the household 
 
 ill 
 
 Murmurs continuous dulcet sounds that fill 
 The vacant expectation, and the dread 
 Of listening night. And -haply now She 
 
 sleeps ; 
 
 For all the garrulous noises of the air 
 Are hushed in peace ; the soft dew silent 
 
 weeps, 
 
 Like hopeless lovers for a maid so fair : 
 
 Oh ! that I were the happy dream that creeps 
 
 To her soft heart, to find my image there. 
 
 182
 
 HARTLEY COLERIDGE 
 
 To SHAKSPEAHE 
 
 THE soul of man is larger than the sky, 
 Deeper than ocean, or the abysmal dark 
 Of the unfathomed centre. Like that Ark, 
 Which in its sacred hold uplifted high, 
 O'er the drowned hills, the human family, 
 And stock reserved of every living kind ; 
 So, in the compass of the single mind, 
 The seeds and pregnant forms in essence lie 
 That make all worlds. Great poet, 'twas thy 
 
 art 
 
 To know thyself, and in thyself to be 
 Whate'er love, hate, ambition, destiny, 
 Or the firm, fatal purpose of the heart, 
 
 Can make of Man. Yet thou wert still 
 
 the same, 
 
 Serene of thought, unhurt by thy own 
 flame. 
 
 183
 
 HARTLEY COLERIDGE 
 
 NOT IN VAIN 
 LET me not deem that I was made in vain, 
 
 Or that my being was an accident 
 
 Which Fate, in working its sublime intent, 
 Not wished to be, to hinder would not deign. 
 Each drop uncounted in a storm of rain 
 
 Hath its own mission, and is duly sent 
 
 To its own leaf or blade, not idly spent 
 'Mid myriad dimples on the shipless main. 
 The very shadow of an insect's wing, 
 
 For which the violet cared not while it 
 
 stayed 
 Yet felt the lighter for its vanishing, 
 
 Proved that the sun was shining by its shade 
 Then can a drop of the eternal spring, 
 
 Shadow of living lights, in vain be made ? 
 
 184
 
 HARTLEY COLERIDGE 
 
 PRAYER I 
 THERE is an awful quiet in the air, 
 
 And the sad earth, with moist imploring 
 
 eye, 
 Looks wide and wakeful at the pondering 
 
 sky, 
 
 Like Patience slow-subsiding to Despair. 
 But see, the blue smoke as a voiceless prayer, 
 Sole witness of a secret sacrifice, 
 Unfolds its tardy wreaths, and multiplies 
 Its soft chameleon breathings in the rare 
 Capacious ether, so it fades away, 
 
 And nought is seen beneath the pendent 
 
 blue, 
 The undistinguishable waste of day. 
 
 So have I dreamed ! oh, may the dream be 
 
 true ! 
 That praying souls are purged from mortal 
 
 hue, 
 And grow as pure as He to whom they pray. 
 
 185
 
 HARTLEY COLERIDGE 
 
 PRAYER II 
 BE not afraid to pray to pray is right. 
 
 Pray, if thou canst, with hope ; but ever 
 
 pray, 
 Though hope be weak, or sick with long 
 
 delay ; 
 
 Pray in the darkness, if there be no light. 
 Far is the time, remote from human sight, 
 When war and discord on the earth shall 
 
 cease ; 
 
 Yet every prayer for universal peace 
 Avails the blessed time to expedite. 
 Whate'er is good to wish, ask that of Heaven, 
 Though it be what thou canst not hope to 
 
 see : 
 Pray to be perfect, though material leaven 
 
 Forbid the spirit so on earth to be ; 
 But if for any wish thou darest not pray, 
 Then pray to God to cast that wish away. 
 
 Hartley Coleridge. 
 
 186
 
 THOMAS HOOD 
 
 Cbomas f>oo& 
 (1798-1845) 
 
 SILENCE 
 
 THERE is a silence where hath been no sound; 
 There is a silence where no sound may be 
 In the cold grave under the deep, deep sea, 
 
 Or in wide desert where no life is found, 
 
 Which hath been mute, and still must sleep 
 
 profound ; 
 
 No voice is hushed no life treads silently, 
 But clouds and cloudy shadows wander free 
 
 That never spoke, over the idle ground. 
 
 But in green ruins, in the desolate walls 
 Of antique palaces, where Man hath been, 
 
 Though the dun fox, or wild hyaena, calls, 
 And owls, that flit continually between, 
 
 Shriek to the echo, and the low winds moan. 
 
 There the true Silence is, self-conscious and 
 alone. 
 
 187
 
 THOMAS HOOD 
 
 DEATH 
 IT is not death, that sometime in a sigh 
 
 This eloquent breath shall take its speechless 
 
 flight; 
 That sometime these bright stars, that now 
 
 reply 
 
 In sunlight to the sun, shall set in night, 
 That this warm conscious flesh shall perish 
 
 quite, 
 
 And all life's ruddy springs forget to flow; 
 That thoughts shall cease, and the immortal 
 
 sprite 
 
 Be lapped in alien clay and laid below; 
 It is not death to know this, but to know 
 That pious thoughts, which visit at new 
 
 graves 
 In tender pilgrimage, will cease to go 
 
 So duly and so oft, and when grass waves 
 Over the past-away, there may be then 
 No resurrection in the minds of men. 
 
 Thomas Hood. 
 
 ]S8
 
 CHAUNCEY HARE TOWNSHEND 
 
 Gbaunceg 1bare 
 
 (1800-1868) 
 
 GIVE me thy joy in sorrow, gracious Lord, 
 And sorrow's self shall like to joy appear ! 
 Although the world should waver in its 
 
 sphere 
 
 I tremble not if Thou thy peace afford ; 
 But, Thou withdrawn, I am but as a chord 
 That vibrates to the pulse of hope and 
 
 fear : 
 Nor rest I more than harps which to the 
 
 air 
 Must answer when we place their tuneful 
 
 board 
 Against the blast, which thrill unmeaning 
 
 woe 
 Even in their sweetness. So no earthly 
 
 wing 
 E'er sweeps me but to sadden. Oh, place 
 
 Thou 
 
 My heart beyond the world's sad vibrating 
 And where but in Thyself? Oh, circle 
 
 me, 
 That I may feel no touches save of Thee. 
 
 189
 
 SAMUEL LAMAN BLANCHARD 
 
 Samuel Xaman 3BlancbatJ> 
 
 (1804-1845) 
 
 HIDDEN Jovs 
 
 PLEASURES lie thickest where no pleasures 
 
 seem : 
 
 There's not a leaf that falls upon the ground 
 But holds some joy, of silence or of sound, 
 Some sprite begotten of a summer dream. 
 The very meanest things are made supreme 
 With innate ecstasy. No grain of sand 
 But moves a bright and million-peopled 
 
 land, 
 
 And hath its Edens and its Eves, I deem. 
 For Love, though blind himself, a curious 
 
 eye 
 Hath lent me, to behold the hearts of 
 
 things, 
 And touched mine ear with power. Thus, far 
 
 or nigh, 
 
 Minute or mighty, fixed or free with wings, 
 Delight from many a nameless covert sly 
 Peeps sparkling, and in tones familiar sings. 
 
 190
 
 SAMUEL LAMAN BLANCHARD 
 
 WISHES OF YOUTH 
 
 GAILY and greenly let my seasons run : 
 And should the war-winds of the world up- 
 root 
 
 The sanctities of life, and its sweet fruit 
 Cast forth as fuel for the fiery sun; 
 The dews be turned to ice fair days begun 
 In peace wear out in pain, and sounds that 
 
 suit 
 Despair and discord keep Hope's harpstring 
 
 mute; 
 
 Still let me live as Love and Life were one : 
 Still let me turn on earth a child-like gaze, 
 
 And trust the whispered charities that bring 
 Tidings of human truth ; with inward praise 
 Watch the weak motion of each common 
 
 thing 
 
 And find it glorious still let me raise 
 On wintry wrecks an altar to the Spring. 
 Samuel Laman Blanchard, 
 
 191
 
 WILLIAM ROWAN HAMILTON 
 
 Sir 'GClUltam "Rowan fjamilton 
 (1805-1865) 
 
 SPIRIT OF WISDOM AND OF LOVE 
 O BROODING Spirit of Wisdom and of Love, 
 Whose mighty wings even now o'ershadow 
 
 me; 
 
 Absorb me in thine own immensity, 
 And raise me far my finite self above ! 
 Purge vanity away and the weak care 
 
 That name or fame of me should widely 
 
 spread ; 
 And the deep wish keep burning in their 
 
 stead 
 
 Thy blissful influence afar to bear, 
 Or see it borne ! Let no desire of ease, 
 No lack of courage, faith, or love, delay 
 My own steps in that high thought-paven 
 
 way, 
 
 In which my soul her clear commission sees: 
 Yet with an equal joy let me behold 
 Thy chariot o'er that way by others roll'd. 
 
 192
 
 E. BARRETT BROWNING 
 
 ^Barrett browning 
 
 (1809-1861) 
 
 CONSOLATION 
 
 ALL are not taken ; there are left behind 
 Living Beloveds, tender looks to bring 
 And make the daylight still a happy thing, 
 And tender voices, to make soft the wind : 
 But if it were not so if I could find 
 No love in all the world for comforting, 
 Nor any path but hollowly did ring, 
 Where "dust to dust" the love from life dis- 
 joined, 
 
 And if, before those sepulchres unmoving 
 I stood alone, (as some forsaken lamb 
 Goes bleating up the moors in weary 
 
 dearth) 
 Crying "Where are ye, O my loved and 
 
 loving?" 
 I know a Voice would sound, " Daughter, 
 
 I AM. 
 
 Can I suffice for HEAVEN and not for 
 earth?" 
 
 193 o
 
 E. BARRETT BROWNING 
 
 GRIEF 
 
 I TELL you, hopeless grief is passionless ; 
 That only men incredulous of despair, 
 Half-taught in anguish, through the mid- 
 night air 
 
 Beat upward to God's throne in loud access 
 Of shrieking and reproach. Full desertness 
 In souls as countries, lieth silent-bare 
 Under the blanching, vertical eye-glare 
 Of the absolute Heavens. Deep-hearted man, 
 
 express 
 
 Grief for thy Dead in silence like to death 
 Most like a monumental statue set 
 
 In everlasting watch and moveless woe, 
 Till itself crumble to the dust beneath. 
 Touch it ; the marble eyelids are not wet : 
 If it could weep, it would arise and go. 
 
 194
 
 E. BARRETT BROWNING 
 
 CHEERFULNESS TAUGHT BY REASON 
 I THINK we are too ready with complaint 
 In this fair world of God's. Had we no 
 
 hope 
 
 Indeed beyond the zenith and the slope 
 Of yon grey blank of sky, we might grow 
 
 faint 
 To muse upon eternity's constraint 
 
 Round our aspirant souls ; but since the 
 
 scope 
 
 Must widen early, is it well to droop, 
 For a few days consumed in loss and taint ? 
 O pusillanimous heart, be comforted 
 
 And, like a cheerful traveller, take the road, 
 Singing beside the hedge. What if the bread 
 
 Be bitter in thine inn, and thou unshod 
 To meet the flints ? At least it may be said, 
 Because the way is short, I thank thee, 
 God. 
 
 195
 
 E. BARRETT BROWNING 
 
 SONNETS FROM THE PORTUGUESE 
 BUT only three in all God's universe 
 
 Have heard this word thou hast said ; Him- 
 self, beside 
 
 Thee speaking and me listening ! and re- 
 plied 
 One of us . . . that was God ! . . . and laid 
 
 the curse 
 So darkly on my eyelids as to amerce 
 
 My sight from seeing thee that if I had 
 
 died, 
 The deadweights, placed there, would have 
 
 signified 
 
 Less absolute exclusion. " Nay " is worse 
 From God than from all others, O my 
 
 friend ! 
 Men could not part us with their worldly 
 
 jars, 
 Nor the seas change us, nor the tempests 
 
 bend ; 
 
 Our hands would touch, for all the mountain- 
 bars ; 
 And, heaven being rolled between us at the 
 
 end 
 We should but vow the faster for the stars. 
 
 196
 
 E. BARRETT BROWNING 
 
 UNLIKE are we, unlike, O princely Heart ! 
 Unlike our uses, and our destinies. 
 Our ministering two angels look surprise 
 On one another, as they strike athwart 
 Their wings in passing. Thou, bethink thee, 
 
 art 
 
 A guest for queens to social pageantries 
 With gages from a hundred brighter eyes 
 Than tears, even, can make mine, to ply thy 
 
 part 
 Of chief musician. What hast thou to do 
 
 With looking from the lattice-lights at me, 
 A poor, tired, wandering singer ? . . . singing 
 
 through 
 
 The dark, and leaning up a cypress tree ? 
 The chrism is on thine head, on mine, the 
 
 dew 
 
 And Death must dig the level where these 
 agree. 
 
 197
 
 E. BARRETT BROWNING 
 
 1 LIFT my heavy heart up solemnly, 
 As once Electra her sepulchral urn, 
 And, looking in thine eyes, I overturn 
 The ashes at thy feet. Behold and see 
 What a great heap of grief lay hid in me, 
 And how the red wild sparkles dimly burn 
 Through the ashen greyness. If thy foot in 
 
 scorn 
 
 Could tread them out to darkness utterly, 
 It might be well, perhaps. But if, instead, 
 Thou wait beside me for the wind to blow 
 The grey dust up, . . . those laurels on thine 
 
 head, 
 
 O my beloved, will not shield thee so, 
 That none of all the fires shall scorch and 
 
 shred 
 
 The hair beneath. Stand farther off, then ! 
 Go. 
 
 198
 
 E. BARRETT BROWNING 
 
 Go from me. Yet I feel that I shall stand 
 Henceforward in thy shadow. Nevermore 
 Alone upon the threshold of my door 
 Of individual life, shall I command 
 The uses of my soul, nor lift my hand 
 Serenely in the sunshine as before, 
 Without the sense of that which I fore- 
 bore . . . 
 
 Thy touch upon the palm. The widest land 
 Doom takes to part us, leaves thy heart in 
 
 mine 
 
 With pulses that beat double. What I do 
 And what I dream include thee, as the wine 
 Must taste of its own grapes. And when I 
 
 sue 
 God for myself, He hears that name of 
 
 thine, 
 And sees within my eyes, the tears of two. 
 
 199
 
 E. BARRETT BROWNING 
 
 WHAT can I give thee back, O liberal 
 
 And princely giver, . . . who hast brought 
 the gold 
 
 And purple of thine heart, unstained un- 
 told, 
 
 And laid them on the outside of the wall, 
 For such as I to take, or leave withal, 
 
 In unexpected largesse ? Am I cold, 
 
 Ungrateful, that for these most manifold 
 High gifts, I render nothing back at all ? 
 Not so. Not cold ! but very poor instead ! 
 
 Ask God who knows ! for frequent tears 
 
 have run 
 The colours from my life, and left so dead 
 
 And pale a stuff, it were not fitly done 
 To give the same as pillow to thy head. 
 
 Go farther ! Let it serve to trample on.
 
 E. BARRETT BROWNING 
 
 IF thou must love me, let it be for nought 
 Except for love's sake only. Do not say, 
 " I love her for her smile . . . her look . . . 
 
 her way 
 Of speaking gently, ... for a trick of 
 
 thought 
 That falls in well with mine, and certes 
 
 brought 
 
 A sense of pleasant ease on such a day " 
 For these things in themselves, Beloved, 
 
 may 
 Be changed, or change for thee, and love so 
 
 wrought, 
 
 May be unwrought so. Neither love me for 
 Thine own dear pity's wiping my cheeks 
 
 dry, 
 
 Since one might well forget to weep who bore 
 Thy comfort long, and lose thy love there- 
 
 ty, 
 
 But love me for love's sake, that evermore 
 Thou mayst love on through love's eternity.
 
 E. BARRETT BROWNING 
 
 WHEN our two souls stand up erect and 
 
 strong, 
 Face to face, silent, drawing nigh and 
 
 nigher, 
 
 Until the lengthening wings break into fire 
 At either curved point, what bitter wrong 
 Can the earth do us, that we should not long 
 Be here contented? Think. In mounting 
 
 higher 
 
 The angels would press on us, and aspire 
 To drop some golden orb of perfect song 
 Into our deep, dear silence. Let us stay 
 
 Rather on earth, Beloved, where the unfit 
 Contrarious moods of men recoil away 
 And isolate pure spirits, and permit 
 A place to stand and love in for a day, 
 
 With darkness and the death-hour rounding 
 it.
 
 E. BARRETT BROWNING 
 
 How do I love thee? Let me count the 
 
 ways. 
 I love thee to the depth and breadth and 
 
 height 
 My soul can reach, when feeling out of 
 
 sight 
 
 For the ends of Being and Ideal Grace. 
 I love thee to the level of every day's 
 Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight. 
 I love thee freely, as men strive for Right ; 
 I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise ; 
 I love thee with the passion put to use 
 
 In my old griefs, and with my childhood's 
 
 faith ; 
 
 I love thee with a love I seemed to lose 
 With my lost saints I love thee, with the 
 
 breath, 
 Smiles, tears, of all my life ! and, if God 
 
 choose, 
 I shall but love thee better after death. 
 
 Elizabeth Barrett Broivning. 
 
 203
 
 SCORN not the Sonnet; Critic, you have 
 
 frowned, 
 
 Mindless of its just honours : with this key 
 
 Shakspeare tinlocked his heart ; the melody 
 
 Of this small lute gave ease to PetrarcKs 
 
 wound ; 
 
 A thousand times this pipe did Tasso sotind ; 
 With it Cambens soothed an exile's grief; 
 The Sonnet glittered a gay myrtle leaf 
 Amid the cypress with which Dante crowned 
 His visionary brow ; a glow-worm lamp 
 It cheered mild Spenser, called from Faery- 
 land 
 To struggle through dark ways ; and when a 
 
 damp 
 
 Fell rotind the path of Milton, in his hand 
 The Thing became a trumpet, whence he 
 
 blew 
 
 Soul-animating strains alas, too few ! 
 WORDSWORTH.
 
 NOTES 
 
 P. 4. "Prometheus, when first from heaven high." 
 In line 3 the printed copies (including that in 
 England's Helicon, 1600) give " fond of delight." 
 "Fond of the light " is Dr. Hannah's correction, 
 from the Harleian MS. For the fancy of this 
 sonnet, cf. Herrick, Hesperides, 565 : 
 
 " I played with Love, as with the fire 
 
 The wanton Satyr did ; 
 Nor did I know, or could descry 
 
 What under these was hid. 
 That Satyr he but burnt his lips ; 
 
 But mine's the greater smart, 
 For kissing Love's dissembling chips 
 
 The fire scorched my heart." 
 
 P. 6. " Happy ye leaves whenas those lily hands." 
 The lady of the sonnet the Elizabeth whom 
 Spenser married in Ireland on St. Barnabas' Day, 
 1594, and for whom he wrote his magnificent 
 Epiihalamion was almost certainly Elizabeth 
 Boyle, of Kilcoran by the Bay of Youghal, a 
 kinswoman of the great Earl of Cork. Dr. Grosart 
 (Complete Works in Verse and Prose of Edmund 
 Spenser, vol. i.) has discovered a grant, made in 
 1606 by Sir Richard Boyle to Elizabeth Boyle, alias 
 Seckerstone, widow, of her house at. Kilcoran for
 
 NOTES 
 
 half-a-crown a year. Now it is known that Spenser's 
 widow married our Roger Seckerstone in 1603 ; and 
 it is, to say the least, unlikely that there were two 
 Elizabeth Seckerstones (unusual name !) in the 
 neighbourhood at one time. 
 
 "Of Helicon, whence she derived is" cf. 
 Sonnet n, line 10 : " My Helue, the lodestar of 
 my life." Helice, it is suggested, stands for 
 Elise, Elizabeth. 
 
 P. 16. " One day I wrote her name upon the strand." 
 See note preceding. The strand of Kilcoran 
 three miles long is famous. 
 
 P. 19. " With how sad steps, O moon, thou climb'st 
 the skies ! " " The last line of this poem," says 
 Charles Lamb, " is a little obscured by transposi- 
 tion. He means, ' Do they call ungratefulness 
 there a virtue ? ' " 
 
 P. 50. " Full many a glorious morning have I seen." 
 I suppose that in the last Line (" Suns of the 
 world may stain when heaven's sun staineth "} 
 " stain " = "' be stained" i.e. with clouds. But 
 the context seems to suggest that "stain" may 
 stand for " "stain," " abstain." 
 
 P. 95. "Captain, or Colonel, or Knight in Arms." 
 The date "when the assault was intended" 
 or at least expected "to the city" was Nov. 
 13, 1642. After Edgehill (Oct. 23) the Royal 
 army advanced up the Thames valley upon 
 London ; took Brentford on Nov. 12 ; and on the 
 following day advanced as far as Turnham Green, 
 and were met by the Parliamentarians, 24,000 
 strong. The two armies " stood many hours in 
 battalia facing one another." It seems to have 
 been a case of "one was afraid and t'other didn't 
 dare." In the end the Royal army, which was 
 short of ammunition, withdrew to Colnbrook. 
 
 " The great Emathian conqueror " Alexander 
 the Great, who was said (see Mr. Mark Pattison's 
 note for authorities) to have spared Pindar's 
 house at the sack of Thebes, B.C. 333. Emathian 
 ^Macedonian. 
 
 206
 
 " Sad Electra's poet" Euripides. Milton's 
 authority here is Plutarch, who tells that when 
 the Lacedaemonians took Athens in 404 B.C. they 
 were incited by the Thebans to raze the city to 
 the ground. The decision was in suspense when, 
 as the generals sat at wine together, a Phocian 
 sang part of the chorus from the Electra, which 
 so affected all present that they agreed at once it 
 would be an unworthy act to destroy a city that 
 had given birth to such poetry. 
 
 P. 97. " Daughter to that good Earl, once Presi- 
 dent." The Lady Margaret Ley was daughter 
 of James Ley (1552 1629), made Lord High 
 Treasurer in 1622, Lord President of the Council 
 in 1628, and in that same year advanced to the 
 earldom of Scarborough. His death coincided 
 with the sudden breaking up of the third Parlia- 
 ment of Charles I., and is compared by Milton with 
 the death of the Athenian orator, Isocrates (" that 
 old man eloquent "), after the battle of Chaeronea, 
 B.c. 338, when Philip of Macedon destroyed the 
 combined forces of Athens and Thebes. Isocrates 
 (he was in his goth year, by the way) died four 
 days after receiving the news of Chaeronea, just 
 as Ley died four days after the dissolution of 
 Parliament on March 10, 1629. 
 
 P. 98. " Harry, whose tuneful and well-measured 
 song." henry Lawes, of the Chapel Royal, 
 was Milton's friend from boyhood. He dedi- 
 cated his book, Choice Psalmes, in 1648, to 
 King Charles, then a captive. " It was this 
 Royalist and Cavalier volume to which Milton 
 supplied the recommendatory sonnet. Violent 
 partisan as Milton was he did not allow political 
 feeling to sever the tie of early friendship, or of a 
 common love of musical art." Pattison. Line 4 
 " committing short and long." Lat. committere, to 
 pair, to set together. 
 
 P. 100. " Cromwell, our chief of men, who through 
 a cloud." Not a general testimony to Crom- 
 well's character, but addressed to him on a 
 
 207
 
 NOTES 
 
 special emergency. "The moment was one when 
 the question of a ' maintenance for a godly ministry ' 
 was the uppermost question. The Presbyterian 
 party, especially in London and Lancashire, wanted 
 a state-supported church and tithes, or a provision 
 in lieu of tithes, while the Independent party re- 
 garded with aversion any interference of the secular 
 arm with spiritual things. The extreme view, 
 shared by Milton, went so far as to look upon 
 payment for spiritual ministration as contrary to 
 the gospel." Pattison. 
 
 The " Committee for the Propagation of the 
 Gospel " was a committee of the Rump Parlia- 
 ment, fourteen in number, having general super- 
 vision of church affairs, and, in particular, the 
 duty of providing spiritual food for destitute 
 parishes. To this committee " certain ministers," 
 headed by John Owen, had offered fifteen Pro- 
 posals, in which they asked that preachers should 
 receive a public maintenance. 
 
 Line 14. " Whose gospel is their maw " cf. 
 Lycidas (written in 1637) 
 
 " How well could I have spared for thee, young 
 
 swain, 
 
 Enow of such as for their bellies' sake, 
 Creep, and intrude, and climb into the fold ! 
 Of other care they little reckoning make, 
 Than how to scramble at the shearers' feast, 
 And shove away the worthy bidden guest. 
 Blind mouths !...." 
 
 P. 101. "Vane ; young in years, but in sage coun- 
 sel old." Sir Henry Vane, the younger, born in 
 1612, and therefore forty years old at the date of 
 this sonnet, was son of Sir Henry Vane, of Raby 
 Castle, county Durham. He was governor of 
 Massachusetts in 1636, but soon returned to 
 England, entered Parliament, and was appointed 
 Treasurer of the Navy. He took an active part 
 against Strafford, and was principal mover of the 
 
 208
 
 NOTES 
 
 Covenant in England and the Self-Denying 
 Ordinance. Although not a regicide, he suffered 
 death on that ground in 1662. 
 
 Line 4. "The fierce Epirot" is Pyrrhus, re- 
 pelled B.C. 279 ; and " The African bold," 
 Hannibal. Pattison quotes Duruy, Histoire des 
 Romaines, as saying of Hannibal in B.C. 203, 
 " il se sentait vaincu par quelque chose de plus 
 fort que son genie, les moeurs et les institutions 
 de Rome." 
 
 P. 102. " Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints, 
 whose bones." In Jan. 1655, the Duke of 
 Savoy determined to make the poor Vaudois in- 
 habitants of certain Piedmontese valleys renounce 
 the simple forms of faith and worship they had 
 inherited from days long before Luther, and 
 conform to the Catholic religion. They remon- 
 strated ; and in April 1655, a crowd of hired 
 soldiery poured into the valleys and revelled there 
 for many days in rape, pillage, and savage 
 massacre. The news took nearly a month to reach 
 England ; but when it came "a cry of horror went 
 through the country .... A day of humiliation 
 was appointed, large collections were made for 
 the sufferers, and a special envoy was despatched 
 to remonstrate with the Duke of Savoy. The 
 government despatches in this business were 
 written by Milton. 
 
 Lines 7, 8. "that rolled Mother with infant 
 down the rocks" "A mother was hurled down 
 a mighty rock with a little infant in her arms ; 
 and three days after was found dead with the 
 child alive, but fast claspt between the arms of 
 the mother, which were cold and stiff, insomuch 
 that those that found them had much ado to get 
 the child out." Account of the massacre by Sir 
 William Moreland, Cromwelfs Agent in 
 Piedmont: published in 1658. 
 
 P. 104. " Lawrence, of virtuous father virtuous 
 sou" cf. Horace, Carat., line 16, "O matre pul- 
 chra filia pulchrior." The Lawrence addressed 
 
 2O9 P
 
 NOTES 
 
 was one of the sons of Henry Lawrence, President 
 of the Council in 1654. 
 
 P. 105. "Cyriack, whose grandsire on the royal 
 bench." The mother of Cyriack Skinner was 
 Bridget, a daughter of the famous Sir Edward 
 Coke. 
 
 P. 106. "Cyriack, this three years' day these eyes, 
 though clear." The allusion in lines io--i2 is 
 to the Defensio pro populo Anglicano contra 
 Salmasium, which M ilton had persisted in writing, 
 though warned by the physician of the probable 
 consequences to his eyesigiit. 
 
 P. 107. Methought I saw my late espoused saint." 
 Milton on Nov. 12, 1656, married Catherine Wood- 
 cock, daughter of Captain Woodcock, of Hackney. 
 After fifteen months of married happiness, she died 
 in child-bed, February 1658, her baby surviving but 
 a month. 
 
 P. 108. " Cambridge, with whom, my pilot and my 
 guide" Richard Owen Cambridge (1717 1802), 
 now chiefly memorable as the author of The Scrib- 
 leriad '(1751). 
 
 Line 2. " Pleased I have traversed thy 
 Sabrina's flood." Cambridge resided at Whit- 
 minster in Gloucestershire, close to the Severn, 
 and on the banks of the Stroud which runs into 
 that river. Cf. Chalmers' Memoir: "While he 
 continued to cultivate polite literature, his more 
 active hours were employed in heightening the 
 beauties of the scenery around his seat ; for this 
 purpose he made the little river Stroud navigable 
 for some distance, and not only constructed boats 
 for pleasure or carriage, but introduced some 
 ingenious improvements in that branch of naval 
 architecture, which were approved by the most 
 competent judges." Chalmers' English Poets, 
 vol. 18, p. 227. 
 
 Pp. 122-3. " It was the candle of Bowles that lit 
 the fire of Coleridge," says Mr. Austin Dobson. 
 In a copy of the Sonnets (first published in 1789) 
 preserved at South Kensington, Coleridge writes
 
 NOTES 
 
 of them as " having done his heart more good than 
 all the other books he ever read excepting his 
 Bible. "_ They have now an historical rather than 
 an intrinsic interest. 
 
 P. 129. "Toussaint, the most unhappy man of 
 men ' " Frangois Dominique Toussaint L'Ouver- 
 ture, son of African slaves, was born in San 
 Domingo, 1743; appointed chief of the army 
 of San Domingo by the Directory in 1706, and 
 ruled the island with justice and vigour. In 1801, 
 when Bonaparte sought to restore slavery in San 
 Domingo, Toussaint resisted, but was compelled to 
 surrender, and was sent to France, where he died 
 in prison (1803). 
 
 P. 1(8. "Tax not the royal Saint with vain ex- 
 pense." The royal Saint is Henry VI. This 
 favourite (but to my mind much over-rated) sonnet 
 is taken, together with "Walton's Book of Lives" 
 and "Mutability," from the Ecclesiastical Sonnets, 
 part iii. (1822). 
 
 P. 161. "O lift with reverent hand that tarnished 
 flower." " In a leaf of a quarto edition of the 
 Lives of the Saints, written in Spanish by the 
 learned and reverend father, Alfonso Villegas, 
 Divine, of the Order of St. Dominick, set forth in 
 English by John Heigham, Anno 1630, bought at 
 a Catholic book-shop in Duke Street, Lincoln's Inn 
 Fields, I found, carefully inserted, a painted flower, 
 seemingly coeval with the book itself; and did not, 
 for some time, discover that it opened in the middle, 
 and was the cover to a very humble draught of a 
 St. Anne, with the Virgin and Child ; doubtless the 
 performance of some poor but pious Catholic, whose 
 meditations it assisted." Lamb's Note. 
 
 P. 162. " Mysterious Night ! when our first parent 
 knew." According to Coleridge "the finest and 
 most grandly conceived sonnet in our language "; 
 and according to Leigh Hunt, "Supreme, 
 perhaps, above all in any language ; nor can we 
 ponder it too deeply, or with too hopeful a 
 reverence."
 
 NOTES 
 
 Blanco White's " Night and Death" is now the 
 
 classical instance of a man's attaining to enduring 
 
 poetic fame by a single sonnet. It is not that 
 
 the rest of his writings fell far below, but that 
 
 practically he exhausted himself with this one 
 
 great stroke, and wrote no more. The largest 
 
 information on "Night and Death " (which has 
 
 quite a literature of its own) will be found in Mr. 
 
 David M. Main's Treasury of English Sonnets. 
 
 P. 164. "Green little vaulter in the sunny grass." 
 
 Written in friendly rivalry with Keats, whose 
 
 sonnet on the same subject will be found on 
 
 p. 174. 
 
 P. 165. " It flows through old hushed ./Egypt and 
 its sands." This, too, was written in friendly com- 
 petitionwith Keats and Shelley. To my mind, 
 Hunt fairly worsted Keats in the Grasshopper and 
 Cricket sonnet ; but there can be no doubt at 
 all that with his sonnet on the Nile he bore the 
 palm away from the two greater poets. Here are 
 the rival sonnets : 
 
 " Month after month the gathering rains descend, 
 Drenching yon secret Ethiopian dells, 
 And from the desert's ice-girt pinnacles 
 
 Where frost and heat in strange embraces blend 
 
 On Atlas, fields of moist snow half depend. 
 Girt these with blasts and meteors, Tempest dwells 
 By Nile's aerial urn ; with rapid spells 
 
 Urging those waters to their mighty end. 
 
 O'er Egypt's land of memory floods are level 
 And they are thine, O Nile and well thou knowest 
 
 That soul-sustaining airs and blasts of evil 
 And fruits and poisons spring where'er thou flowest. 
 
 Beware, O Man for knowledge must to thee 
 
 Like the great flood to Egypt ever be." Shelley. 
 
 "Son of the old moon-mountains African ! 
 Chief of the Pyramid and Crocodile ! 
 We call thee fruitful, and, that very while, 
 A desert fills one seeing 's inward span ; 
 Nurse of swart nations since the world began,
 
 NOTES 
 
 Art them so fruitful ? Or dost thou beguile 
 
 Such men to honour thee, who, worn with toil, 
 Rest for a space 'twixt Cairo and Decan ? 
 O may dark fancies err ! they surely do ; 
 
 "Tis ignorance that makes a barren waste 
 Of all beyond itself; thou dost bedew 
 
 Green rushes like our rivers, and dost taste 
 The pleasant sun-rise ; green isles hast thou too, 
 
 And to the sea as happily dost haste." Keats. 
 
 P. 173. " Much have I travelled in the realms 
 of gold." Cowden Clarke records that in his 
 lodgings at Clerkenwell, one night in the summer 
 of 1815, he and Keats sat together till daylight 
 over a borrowed folio copy of Chapman's Homer ; 
 and that, when he came down to breakfast, at ten 
 o'clock next morning, he received this now famous 
 sonnet which Keats had found time to compose 
 and send from the Borough. 
 
 Line ii. "Cortez" is of course a mistake. 
 The discoverer of the Pacific was Vasco Nunez 
 de Balboa, and the date of the discovery, 1513. 
 p, jy^ "The poetry of earth is never dead" see 
 note on Leigh Hunt's sonnet, supra. 
 
 213
 
 INDEX OF FIRST LINES 
 
 PAGE 
 
 A FLOCK of sheep that leisurely pass by . 141 
 
 A plaintive sonnet flowed from Milton's pen no 
 
 A point of life between my Parents' dust . 152 
 
 A rose, as fair as ever saw the north . . 90 
 After dark vapours have oppressed our 
 
 plains 176 
 
 Again thou reignest in thy golden hall . 163 
 
 Ah, sweet Content, where is thy mild abode ? 73 
 
 Ah ! were she pitiful as she is fair . . 25 
 
 Ah ! what a weary race my feet have run . 113 
 
 Alexis, here she stayed ; among these pines 80 
 
 All are not taken ; there are left behind . 193 
 
 All holy influences dwell within . . : 167 
 
 All ye who far from town in rural hall . 118 
 
 And yet I cannot reprehend the flight . 30 
 As when it happeneth that some lovely 
 
 town 89 
 
 Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints, 
 
 whose bones 102 
 
 Be not afraid to pray to pray is right . 186 
 Beauty, sweet Love, is like the morning 
 
 dew 31 
 
 215
 
 INDEX OF FIRST LINES 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Because thou wast the daughter of a king . 27 
 
 Being your slave, what should I do but tend 53 
 Bright Star ! would I were steadfast as thou 
 
 art 181 
 
 Calm is all nature as a resting wheel . . 125 
 Cambridge, with whom, my pilot and my 
 
 guide 108 
 
 Captain or Colonel, or Knight in Arms . 95 
 
 Care-charmer Sleep, son of the sable Night 33 
 
 Clear Anker, on whose silver-sanded shore 35 
 
 Come hither, all sweet maidens soberly . 177 
 Come, Sleep, O Sleep ! the certain knot of 
 
 peace 20 
 
 Cowper, whose silver voice, task'd some- 
 times hard 114 
 
 Cromwell, our chief of men, who through a 
 
 cloud 100 
 
 Cyriack, this three years' day these eyes, 
 
 though clear 106 
 
 Cyriack, whose grandsire on the royal bench 105 
 
 Daughter to that good Earl, once President 97 
 
 Dear to the Loves, and to the Graces vowed 153 
 Death, be not proud, though some have 
 
 called thee 75 
 
 Deem not devoid of elegance the sage . 112 
 
 Earth has not anything to show more fair . 126 
 
 Eternal Spirit of the chainless Mind ! . . 166 
 
 Fair is my Love, and cruel as she's fair . 28 
 Fair Proud ! now tell me, why should fair 
 
 be proud ? 10 
 
 216
 
 INDEX OF FIRST LINES 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Farewell ! thou art too dear for my possess- 
 ing 59 
 
 Fresh Spring, the herald of Love s mighty 
 
 King 15 
 
 From low to high doth dissolution climb . 149 
 
 From you have I been absent in the spring . 63 
 
 Full many a glorious morning have I seen . 50 
 
 Gaily and greenly let my seasons run . . 191 
 
 Give me thy joy in sorrow, gracious Lord . 189 
 
 Give pardon, blessed soul, to my bold cries 26 
 Great men have been among us ; hands that 
 
 penned 133 
 
 Green little vaulter in the sunny grass . 164 
 
 Happy ye leaves whenas those lily hands . 6 
 Harry, whose tuneful and well-measured 
 
 song 98 
 
 High is our calling, Friend ! Creative Art 143 
 
 Highway ! since you my chief Parnassus be 21 
 
 How like a winter hath my absence been . 62 
 How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of 
 
 youth 94 
 
 How sweet the tuneful bells' responsive peal ! 122 
 
 I love to rise ere gleams the tardy light . 116 
 
 I met a traveller from an antique land . 170 
 I must not grieve my Love, whose eyes 
 
 would read 32 
 
 I tell you, hopeless grief is passionless . 194 
 
 I think we are too ready with complaint . 195 
 
 I thought of Thee, my partner and my guide 146 
 If by dull rhymes our English must be 
 
 chained 179 
 
 217
 
 INDEX OF FIRST LINES 
 
 PAGE 
 
 If music and sweet poetry agree ... 76 
 
 If thou survive my well-contented day . 49 
 
 In eddying course when leaves began to fly 121 
 
 In vain to me the smiling mornings shine . 109 
 
 Inland, within a hollow vale, I stood. . 130 
 It flows through all hushed .(Egypt and its 
 
 sands 165 
 
 It is a beauteous Evening, calm and free . 127 
 
 It is not death, that sometimes in a sigh . 188 
 
 It is not to be thought of that the Flood . 134 
 
 It may indeed be phantasy when I . . . 158 
 
 Lady, that in the prime of earliest youth . 96 
 
 Lawrence, of virtuous father virtuous son . 104 
 Leave me, O Love, which readiest but to 
 
 dust 23 
 
 Let me not deem that I was made in vain . 184 
 
 Let me not to the marriage of true minds . 70 
 
 Let others sing of Knights and Paladines . 34 
 
 Life with yon Lambs, like day, is just begun 156 
 
 Like as a huntsman after weary chase . 13 
 
 Like as a ship that through the ocean wide n 
 
 Like as the Culver on the bared bough . 17 
 Like as the waves make towards the pebbled 
 
 shore 54 
 
 Look how the flower which lingeringly doth 
 
 fade 84 
 
 Look how the pale queen of the silent night 39 
 
 Look what immortal floods the sunset pours 169 
 Lord, with what care hast Thou begirt us 
 
 round ! 91 
 
 Love, banished heaven, in earth was held in 
 
 scorn 37 
 
 218
 
 INDEX OF FIRST LINES 
 
 Mark when she smiles with amiable cheer . 12 
 
 Mary! I want a lyre with other strings . 115 
 
 Methought I saw my late espoused saint . 107 
 Methought I saw the grave where Laura 
 
 lay 5 
 
 Milton ! thou shouldst be living at this hour 132 
 
 Most glorious Lord of life ! that on this day 14 
 
 Most sweet it is with unuplifted eyes . . 154 
 
 Much have I travelled in the realms of gold 173 
 
 Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly? 43 
 My love is strengfhen'd, though more weak 
 
 in seeming 65 
 
 My lute, be as thou wast when thou didst 
 
 grow .81 
 
 My spotless love hovers with purest wings . 29 
 
 My true love hath my heart, and I have his 22 
 Mysterious Night I when our first parent 
 
 knew 162 
 
 No longer mourn for me when I am dead . 57 
 
 Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul 68 
 
 Nuns fret not at their convent's narrow room 124 
 
 O brooding Spirit of Wisdom and of Love . 192 
 
 O ever skilled to wear the form we love ! . 120 
 
 O friend ! I know not which way I must look 131 
 
 O it is pleasant, with a heart at ease . . 159 
 O lift with reverent hand that tarnished 
 
 flower 161 
 
 O, never say that I was false of heart . . 69 
 
 O Nightingale ! that on yon bloomy spray . 93 
 
 O shady vales, O fair enriched meads . . 24 
 
 O soft embalmer of the still midnight ! . 180 
 
 O Time ! whoknow'st a lenient hand to lay 123 
 219
 
 INDEX OF FIRST LINES 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Of this fair volume which we World do name 85 
 Oh, if thou knew'st how thou thyself dost 
 
 harm ....... 77 
 
 On this lone isle, whose rugged rocks affright 119 
 
 Once did She hold the gorgeous East in fee 128 
 
 One day I wrote her name upon the strand . 16 
 
 Pleasures lie thickest where no pleasures 
 
 seem ....... 190 
 
 Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth . 72 
 
 Prometheus, when first from heaven high . 4 
 
 Rudely thou wrongest my dear heart's desire 7 
 
 Set me whereas the sun doth parch the green 3 
 Shall I compare thee to a summer's day ? . 45 
 Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor bound- 
 less sea 56 
 
 Since honour from the honourer proceeds . 18 
 Since there's no help, come let us kiss and 
 
 part 38 
 
 Sleep, Silence' child, sweet father of soft rest 79 
 
 Smallcomfortmightmybanish'd hopes recall 78 
 
 So am I as the rich, whose blessed key . 51 
 
 Surprised by joy impatient as the Wind . 144 
 
 Sweet bird, that sing'st away the early hours 88 
 
 Sweet love, renew thy force ; be it not said 52 
 
 Sweet poet of the woods, a long adieu ! . 117 
 Sweet Spring, thou turn'st with all thy 
 
 goodly train 82 
 
 Tax not the royal Saint with vain expense . 148 
 
 That time of year thou mayst in me behold 58 
 
 The crackling embers on the hearth are dead 182 
 
 The expense of spirit in a waste of shame . 71
 
 INDEX OF FIRST LINES 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The froward violet thus did I chide . . 64 
 The grey-eyed Morn was saddened with a 
 
 shower 171 
 
 The last and greatest herald of heaven's 
 
 King 86 
 
 The long Love that in my thought I harbour i 
 
 The merry Cuckoo, messenger of Spring . 8 
 
 The poetry of earth is never dead . . 174 
 The soote season, that bud and bloom furtli 
 
 brings 2 
 
 The soul of man is larger than the sky . 183 
 The world is too much with us ; late and 
 
 soon 138 
 
 Then hate me when thou wilt ; if ever, now 60 
 
 There are no colours in the fairest sky . 147 
 
 There is an awful quiet in the air . . 185 
 
 There is a little unpretending Rill . . 145 
 
 There is a silence where hath been no sound 187 
 
 There's not a nook within this solemn Pass 150 
 These eyes, dear Lord ! once brandons of 
 
 desire 87 
 
 They that have power to hurt and will do 
 
 none 61 
 
 This holy season, fit to fast and pray . . 9 
 Thou art returned, great light, to that blest 
 
 hour 92 
 
 Though joy attend thee orient at the birth . 151 
 
 Though the bold wings of Poesy affect . 157 
 
 Thrice toss these oaken ashes in the air . 40 
 
 Thy bosom is endeared with all hearts . 48 
 
 To me, fair friend, you never can be old . 66 
 
 To one who has been long in city pent . 175 
 
 Toussaint, the most unhappy man of men ! 129 
 
 Two Voices are there ; one is of the Sea . 142 
 
 221
 
 INDEX OF FIRST LINES 
 
 PACK 
 
 Under what beechen shade or silent oak . 168 
 
 Vane, young in years, but in sage counsel 
 old ioi 
 
 Well mayst thou halt, and gaze with bright- 
 ening eye ! 137 
 
 Were I as base as is the lowly plain . . 41 
 \Vhat doth it serve to see Sun's burning face 83 
 When Faith and Love, which parted from 
 
 thee never 99 
 
 When I consider how my light is spent . 103 
 When I do count the clock that tells the 
 
 time 44 
 
 When I have borne in memory what has 
 
 tamed 135 
 
 When I have fears that I may cease to be . 178 
 When I have seen by Time's fell hand de- 
 faced 55 
 
 When, in disgrace with fortune and men's 
 
 eyes 4$ 
 
 When in the chronicle of wasted time . 67 
 When late the trees were stript by Winter 
 
 pale i" 
 
 When to the sessions of sweet silent thought 47 
 Where lies the land to which yon ship must 
 
 go?. 140 
 
 Whiles in my Soul I feel the soft warm hand 74 
 Whither, oh ! whither wilt thou wing thy 
 
 way? 172 
 
 Why art thou silent? Is thy love a plant . 155 
 Why should your fair eyes with such sovran 
 
 grace 3 6 
 
 Wings have we, and as far as we can go . 136 
 
 222
 
 INDEX OF FIRST LINES 
 
 With how sad steps, O Moon ! thou climb'st 
 the skies ! jo 
 
 With ships the sea was sprinkled far and 
 nigh 139 
 
 Yes. gentle Time, thy gradual, healing hand 160 
 
 Zephyrus brings the time that sweetly 
 scenteth , 
 
 223
 
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