r REESE LIBRARY OF Tin; UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 'fycem'J APR . 180 Accessions No<. Class No. I THE ALDINE EDITION OF THE BRITISH POETS THE POEMS OF SIR WALTEIl RALEIGH SIR HENRY -NVOTTON ETC. ETC. THE POEMS OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH COLLECTED AND AUTHENTICATED WITH THOSE OF SIR HENRY WOTTON AND OTHER COUKTLY POETS PEOM 1540 TO 1650. EDITED WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES BY J. HANNAH D. C. L. FREBEA'DARY OF CHICIIESTER AND VICAR OF BRIGHTON. , ((UNI TV LONDON : GEORGE BELL & SONS, YORK STREET, CO VENT GARDEN, AND NEW YORK. 1892. CIIISWICK PRESS: c. WHITTINGHAM AND co., TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE. V . TY / CONTENTS. Page INTRODUCTION xi Appendix to Introduction, A. Early Extracts on Raleigh's Poetry and Life. I. The Critics . . . . . xxi II. Edmund Spenser .... xxii III. Lampoons 'bn Raleigh . . . xxiv IV. Answers to " The Lie" . . . xxvi V. The Reaction after his Death . . xxviii Appendix to Introduction, B. List of Poems wrongly ascribed to Raleigh . . . xxx PART I. THE POEMS OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH NOW FIRST COL- LECTED AND AUTHENTICATED. I. Walter Rawely of the Middle Temple in com- mendation of the Steel Glass; 1576 . . 3 II. The Excuse, written by Sir Walter Raleigh in his younger years ...... 4 ill. An Epitaph upon the Right Honourable Sir Philip Sidney, Knight, Lord Governor of Flushing ; 1586 5 IV. A Vision upon this Conceit of the Fairy Queen ; 1590 8 v. Another of the same ; 1590 .... 9 VI. Reply to Marlowe : 1. Marlowe's Song; The Passionate Shepherd to his Love; before 1593 . . . .10 2. Raleigh's Reply; before 1599 . . .11 vii. Like Hermit poor; before 1593 . . .12 Vin. Farewell to the Court; before 1593 . . . 13 vi CONTENTS. Page IX. The Advice 14 X. In the Grace of Wit, of Tongue, and Face ; before 1593 15 XI. Fain would J, but I dare not . . .16 xn. Sir Walter Raleigh to his Son . . .18 xni. On the Cards and Dice 19 xiv. The Silent Lover 20 XV. A Poesy to prove Affection is not Love ; before 1602 22 xvi. The Lie ; certainly before 1608 ; possibly before 1596 23 xvii. Sir Walter Raleigh's Pilgrimage; circ. 1603? 27 xvin. What is our Life? The play of passion . . 29 xix. To the Translator of Lucan ; 1614 . .30 xx. Continuation of the lost poem, Cynthia; now first published from the Hatfield MSS. ; 1604-1618? 31 xxi. Sir Walter Raleigh's Petition to Queen Anne of Denmark; 1618 52 xxii. Sir Walter Raleigh's Verses found in his Bible in the Gate-house at Westminster; 1618 . 54 xxiil. Fragments and Epigrams : 1. From Fuller's Worthies . . .55 2. Riddle on Noel 55 3. 4. Two Quotations from Puttenham ; 1589 56 5. Epitaph on the Earl of Leicester; 1588 . 56 6. Epitaph on the Earl of Salisbury; 1612 56 7. A Poem put into my Lady Laiton's pocket 57 8. Sir W. Raleigh on the Snuff of a Candle the Night before he died; 1618 . . 57 xxiv. Metrical Translations occurring in Sir W. Raleigh's History of the World, 1614 . 58 xxv-xxx. Six Poems ascribed to Raleigh on less conclusive evidence : xxv. No Pleasure without Pain; before 1576 . 76 xxvi. The Shepherd's Praise of his Sacred Diana; before 1593 77 xxvii. The Shepherd's Description of Love; before 1600 [read 1593] 78 xxvin. As you came from the Holy Land . . 80 xxix. Shall I, like an hermit, dwell . . 82 xxx. To his singular friend, William Lithgow ; 1618 83 CONTENTS. Vll PART II. POEMS FHOM RELIQULE WOTTONIAN.E, 1651-1685, WITH SOME ADDITIONS. Page I. A Poem written by Sir Henry Wotton in his youth; before 1602 . ." . .87 ii. Sir Henry Wotton and Serjeant Hoskins riding on the way . . . . . .88 in. The Character of a Happy Life. By Sir H. Wotton; circ. 1614 89 IV. This Hymn was made by Sir H. Wotton when he was an Ambassador at Venice, in the time of a great sickness there . . . .91 V. Upon the Sudden Restraint of the Earl of So- merset then falling from favour. By Sir IT. Wotton; 1615 93 vi. To a Noble Friend in his Sickness. By Sir H. Wotton .94 vii. On his Mistress the Queen of Bohemia. By Sir H. Wotton; circ. 1620 .... 95 vni. Tears at the Grave of Sir Albertus Morton, wept by Sir H. Wotton ; 1625 .... 96 IX. Upon the Death of Sir A. Morton's Wife. By Sir H. Wotton; 1627 .... 98 X. A short Hymn upon the Birth of Prince Charles. By Sir H. Wotton; 1630 . ... 98 XI. An Ode to the King, at his returning from Scotland to the Queen, after his coronation there. By Sir H. Wotton; 1633. . . 99 xii. On a Bank as I sat a- Fishing. By Sir H. Wot- ton; circ. 1638 101 Xin. A Translation of the civ~ Psalm to the original sense. By Sir H. Wotton ... 102 XIV. A Hymn to my God in a night of my late sick- ness. By Sir H. Wotton; 1638 or 1639 . 105 xv. To the rarely Accomplished, and worthy of best employment, Master Howell, upon his Vocal Forest. By Sir H. Wotton ; 1639 . 106 xvi. A Description of the Country's Recreations. Author uncertain . . . . .106 xvii. A Farewell to the Vanities of the World. Author uncertain . . * . . . .109 viii CONTENTS. Page xvill. Imitatio Horatianae Odes ix. " Donee gratus eram tibi." Lib. iii. A Dialogue betwixt God and the Soul. Author unknown. . Ill XIX. Doctor Brooke of Tears . . . .112 XX. 1. By Chidick Tychborn, being young and then in the Tower, the night before his execution ; 1586 114 2. An Answer to Mr. Tichborne, who was exe- cuted with Babington . . . .115 XXI. Rise, O my Soul. Author unknown . .116 xxn. The World. By Lord Bacon . . . -117 xxni. Verses made by Mr. Fra. Bacon . . .119 XXIV. 1. De Morte. Author unknown. . . . 120 2. Epigram. Author unknown . . .120 XXV. Specimens of Epigrams by John Hoskins: 1. John Hoskins to his little Child Benjamin, from the Tower 121 2. Verses presented to the King by Mrs. Hos- kins, in the behalf of her husband, prisoner 121 3. Of the Loss of Time 122 4. An Epitaph on a Man for doing Nothing . 122 PART III. SPECIMENS OF OTHER COURTLY POETS FROM 1540 TO 1650. I. The Lover complaineth the Unkindness of his Love. By Sir Thomas Wyatt, or Viscount Rochford"; before 1542 ". . . .125 II. A Description of a most noble Lady. Uncer- tain, but claimed for John Heywood; before 1557 127 m. Being disdained he complaineth. By Thomas Lord Vaux; died in 1557 . . . .129 IV. Of the mean Estate. By Thomas Lord Vaux, or W. Hunnis . ." . . . .130 v. Of a Contented Mind. By Thomas Lord Vaux 132 VI. Of the Instability of Youth. By Thomas Lord Vaux, or J. Haryngton . . . .133 VII. On Isabella Markham. By J. Haryngton ; be- fore 1564? 135 vm. Verses made by Queen Elizabeth. Giro. 1569 136 CONTENTS. ix Page IX. Three Sonnets from the Works of Sir Philip Sidney; born 1554, died 1586 . . . 137 X. Psalm LXIX. From the Translation of the Psalms by Sir Philip Sidney, and his Sister Mary, Countess of Pembroke . . . 139 XI. Fancy and Desire. Bv Edward, Earl of Oxford ; born 1540? died 1604 .... 142 xii. If Women could be fair, &c. By Edward, Earl of Oxford 143 Xin. Fain would 1 sing, &c. By Edward, Earl of Oxford 144 xiv. The Earl of Oxford to the Eeader of Beding- field's Cardanus ; 1576 . . . .145 XV. 1. Epigram. By Edward, Earl of Oxford . 147 2. Answered thus by Sir P. S. . . 147 3. Another, of another mind . . .148 4. Another, of another mind . . . 148 XVI. My Mind to me a Kingdom is. By Sir Edward Dyer; born circ. 1540, died 1607 . . 149 xvn. 1. The Shepherd's Conceit of Prometheus. By Sir Edward Dyer 151 2. A Reply. By Sir Philip Sidney . . 152 xvin. The man whose thoughts, &c. By Sir Edward Dyer 153 xix. A Fancy. By Sir Edward Dyer . . .154 XX. Master Dyer's Fancy turned to a Sinner's Com- plaint. By RobeVt Southwell; born 1560, died 1595 160 xxr. Who grace for zenith had. Another adaptation of Sir E. Dyer's Fancy. By Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke; born 1554, died 1628 . . 166 xxn. Montanus' Fancy graven upon the bark of a tall beech tree. By Thomas Lodge ; born 1555? died 1625 . . . . .173 xxni. The Shepherd to the Flowers; before 1593 . 174 xxiv. There is none, 0, none but you. Bv Robert, Earl of Essex; born 1567, died 1601 . .176 xxv. A Passion of my Lord of Essex ; . .177 xxvi. Verses made by the Earl of Essex in his Trouble 177 xxvil. To Time. By A. W. ; before 1602 . .178 xxvm. Upon an Heroical Poem which he had begun (in imitation of Virgil) of the first inhabit- ing this famous Isle by Brute and the Tro- jans. By A. W. ; before 1G02 . . .179 * CONTENTS. Page xxix. A Sonnet prefixed to his Majesty's Instruc- tions to his dearest Son, Henry the Prince. By King James 1 182 xxx. Verses addressed to King James I. by Sir Arthur Gorges; Jan. 1, 1609-10 . . 183 xxxi. Three Epitaphs on Prince Henry; died Nov. 6,1612. . . . ". . .183 xxxii. The Mind of the Frontispiece to Raleigh's History of the World. Bv Ben Jouson ; 1614 . . . . " . . .186 xxxiii. To the King, Charles I. By George Sandys ; born 1577, died 1644 . . . .187 xxxiv. Deo Opt. Max. By George Sandys . .186 xxxv. A Hymn to my Redeemer. By George Sandys 191 xxxvi. Lord Stafford's Meditations in the Tower. Author unknown ; 1641 . . . 192 xxxvii. Majesty in Misery; or an Imploration to the King of Kings. Written by his late Majesty King Charles I., during his cap- tivity at Carisbrook Castle, 1648 . .195 xxxvin. The Liberty of the Imprisoned Royalist. By Sir Roger L'Estrange .... 199 xxxix. An excellent New Ballad, to the tune of " I'll never love thee more." By James, Marquis of Montrose; born 1612, died 1650 203 - XL. Unhappy is the Man. By James, Marquis of Montrose 205 XLI. Mottoes and Ejaculations. By James, Marquis of Montrose. 1. On Caesar's Commentaries . . . 206 2. On Quintus Curtius .... 206 3. Upon the Death of King Charles I. . 207 4. " Let them bestow," c. . . . 207 NOTES AND INDICES. Notes on Part 1 211 Notes on Part II 230 Notes on Part III 236 Index of first lines . 255 Index of Authors 260 INTRODUCTION. |Y chief design in publishing this small volume is to do an act of justice to the memory of Sir Walter Raleigh, whose poetry has been unaccountably neg- lected by his biographers, though it is singularly well-fitted to illustrate his character, while it left a distinct mark on the literature of a most brilliant age. No attempt was made during his lifetime, or for long afterwards, to identify or gather up his scattered pieces. The most important of his poems, " Cynthia," has long been lost. The old editions of his " Remains " contain only three short poems. The first responsible editor of his minor writings could only extend the number to nine ; and the collection admitted to the standard edition of his works is at once defective and re- dundant. It is many years since I called attention to this subject in a volume which was meant, in the first instance, to illustrate the poetry of Sir Henry Wotton and his friends. But as Raleigh's poems xii INTRODUCTION. formed then a secondary object, my treatment of the question was, in many respects, imperfect ; and Raleigh's later biographers and critics, however meritorious on many higher grounds, have con- tinued to repeat the old mistakes, of treating as doubtful some of his best authenticated and most characteristic poems, while quoting as genuine, without a word of warning, the mere waife and strays of Elizabethan literature, which a zealous collector had swept together under his name. One is unwilling to let a youthful work remain unfinished, or to feel that any labour has been wasted by being left incomplete. I thought it worth while, therefore, to devote a summer's vacation to the renewal of long-suspended re- searches among those printed and manuscript miscellanies of the Elizabethan period which are preserved in our great public libraries ; and I have thus enabled myself to go over the subject afresh, and more completely, in the present volume, in which Raleigh takes the lead. The authentication of his poetry has been carefully revised and ex- tended; and while I have excluded all the un- authenticated poems from that division of the volume which bears his name, I have been able to include many genuine pieces which had found no previous place among his writings. I hope it will be thought that the careful sifting to which his poems have been now subjected has caused them to bear a far more distinct witness to the features of his marked yet varied character. At all events it ought to have the effect of giving more point and decisiveness to arguments rested INTRODUCTION. Xlll on internal evidence. In this respect, Raleigh's critics have scarcely been fortunate. Mr. Tytler, for instance, thought the lines on Gascoigne's Steel Glass " below his other pieces," and unlikely to have "flowed from the same sweet vein which produced the answer to Marlowe's Passionate Shepherd." But surely Raleigh's " vein " was far more frequently sententious than " sweet." Other writers have judged more correctly in accepting the lines as an excellent specimen of his balanced, grave, judicial "censure." "The style is his," says Mr. Kingsley; "solid, stately, epigrammatic." Again, Mr. Hallam said that "The Lie" (called also " The Soul's Errand") had been ascribed to Raleigh " without evidence, and, we may add, without pro- bability." Perhaps the " probability " is more ap- parent now that conclusive " evidence " has been found. The poem seems to me to be a typical ex- pression of Raleigh's character; his vigour, his scorn, his haughty directness. Assume it to have been written at some moment of disgust and disap- pointment, and it will be seen to breathe in every line the pride with which he was always ready to confront his adversaries; yet the despondency with which he cried out, even during his first short imprisonment, that now at last his heart was broken ; spes et fortuna valete ! "Do with me now, therefore, what you list. I am more weary of life than they are desirous I should perish." (Edwards, ii. 52; July, 1592.) As is often the case with men of high courage and really sanguine temperament, Raleigh's thoughts were perpetually saddened by the anticipation of XIV INTRODUCTION. the end. No small portion of his verses might have been written, as is actually said of several pieces, " the night before his death." Dismissing this tradition, except in the one case where it seems to be at once strong and probable, we shall nd grounds for supposing that he marked each crisis of his history by writing some short poem, in which the vanity of life is proclaimed, under an aspect suited to his circumstances and age. His first slight check occurred in 1589, when he went to visit Spenser in Ireland ; and more seriously a little later, w r hen his secret marriage, or its dis- creditable preliminaries, sent him to the Tower. " The Lie," with its proud, indignant brevity, would then exactly express his angry temper. ."The Pilgrimage" belongs more naturally to a time when he was smarting under the rudeness of the king's attorney at his trial in 1603. Viewed by the light of that unrighteous prosecution, the grotesque imagery which disturbs its solemn aspirations may remind us of the more galling of the annoyances from which he knew that death ^vould set him free. The few lines, " Even such is time," mark the calm reality of the now certain doom ; they express the thoughts appropriate for the night now known to be indeed the last, when no room remained for bitterness or anger, in the contemplation of immediate and inevitable death. The "Continuation of Cynthia" must have been written very early in his long imprison- ment, which lasted from December 1603 to March 1616 ; and again in 1618 from August to October. The handwriting resembles that of some papers INTRODUCTION XV dated 1603 ; and the fragment could scarcely have found its way to Hatfield after the death of Robert, Earl of Salisbury, in 1612. The internal evidence points in the same direction. The whole poem is coloured by that ruling fiction of the Elizabethan court, which compelled loyalt}' to express itself in the language of a lover-like devotion. No doubt Baleigh preserved to his last hour an unshaken reverence for the memory of his royal mistress. That stately homage is a leading feature in all his writings; from the time when he made her the standard of virtue and beauty (p. 9), in whom was "virtue's perfect image cast" (p. 78), for whose "defence we labour all" (p. 6), to the time when he offered his touching petition to Queen Anne of Denmark just before his death (p. 53) : " That I and mine may never mourn the miss Of Her we had, but praise our living Queen." The author of a well-known epigram caught the position exactly when he exclaimed, "0 hadst thou served thy Heroine all thy days ! " But it is not so easy to believe that he could have main- tained, to any late period of his imprisonment under James, that conventional form of flattery, which had continued welcome to the queen to the last. The poem contains not the slightest recognition of those claims on the husband and the father which must have strengthened their hold on the heart of the captive, while his loyalty resumed its more natural and appropriate tenor. The despondency of his language will not suffice to prove a later date, because it was his usual tone XVI INTRODUCTION. under every disappointment. Even as early as 1595-6, at the height of his proud and vigorous manhood, he could write, in words which remind us of the very expressions of this fragment : " It is true that, as my errors were great, so they have yielded very grievous effects ; and if aught might have been deserved in former times to have coun- terpoised any part of [my] offences, the fruit thereof (as it seemeth) was long before fallen from the tree, and the dead stock only remained. I did, there- fore, even in the winter of my life, undertake these .travels," &c. (Epistle dedicatory to the Discovery of Guiana, 1596.) Through a great part of the piece it might be doubted whether the queen was really dead, or only dead to him ; i.e. whether the whole were not a mere exaggeration of some earlier disappointment. Such a notion seems to be incompatible with the express words of several passages; but we cannot suppose that the death of the queen was long past at the date of his writing, or the mere lapse of time and change of circumstance would have forced him to appear in a larger and nobler character than the conventional part of a disappointed suitor. Between fiction and figure, and the obscurity which hangs over an unfinished work, it is not easy to carry out any safe biographical interpre- tation. He begins by saying that his joys " died when first " his " fancy erred " (p. 32) ; appa- rently one of those phrases by which he described his boldness in seeking another mistress than the queen. If this is correct, the point of departure in the poem is not later than 1592. At all events INTRODUCTION. XVii it is clear that the definite period of " twelve years entire," which he "wasted in this war; twelve years of " his "most happy younger days" (p. 36), must be reckoned from the beginning of his court favour, about 1580, which brings us to the same year, 1592, for its close. From that great check he had now passed, he tells us, into a state of hopelessness, which he describes under a variety of images ; amongst which, the complaint that he has now "no feeding flocks, no shepherd's com- pany " (p. 33), reminds us of the days when he talked of Cynthia and her flock with Spenser, under "the green alders by the Mulla's shore." When he tells us that the " memory " of the queen, "more strong than were ten thousand ships of war," had nearly brought him back from his voyage towards "new worlds" in search of gold, and praise, and glory (p. 34), we are re- minded that, on his Panama expedition in 1592, she sent after him a more potent summons than her "memory," in the shape of a recall. The images of warmth lingering in the corpse, and heat in winter, and motion in the arrested wheel, are meant to illustrate the tenacity of hope which made him write on, even " in the dust," after his disgrace ; and the reality mingles with the figure when he speaks, in almost the very language of the preface to his History, of the cheerless work of beginning, by the fading light of life's evening, " to write the story of all ages past" (p. 36). The distraction which he describes on p. 37 could be paralleled from his correspondence. " The tokens hung on breast and kindly worn" (p. 41), may b XVm INTRODtJ CT1ON. refer to the interchange of toys between the queen and her courtiers ; as when she sent to Sir H. Gilbert " a token from her Majesty, an anchor guided by a lady," with a request for his picture in return. A "ring with a diamond which he weareth on his finger, given him by the late Queen," was among the jewels found on Raleigh's person after his execution. It would be possible, but precarious, to trace a reference in other passages to the loss of Sherborne, and to the disappointed expectations which had so often attracted him towards the western world. His closing words are simple and touching (p. 50) : " Thus home I draw, as death's long night draws on ; Yet every foot, old thoughts turn back mine eyes : Constraint me guides, as old age draws a stone Against the hill, which over- weighty lies For feeble arms or wasted strength to move : My steps are backward, gazing on my loss, My mind's affection and my soul's sole love, Not mixed with fancy's chaff or fortune's dross. To God I leave it, who first gave it me, And I her gave, and she returned again, As it was hers ; so let His mercies be Of my last comforts the essential mean. But be it so or not, the effects are past ; Pier love hath end; my woe must ever last." With the poems of Raleigh and Wotton I have now combined what may be accepted, T hope, as a fairly representative collection of the minor poetry of those " courtly makers," who kept up the suc- cession to Surrey and Wyatt through the eventful century, which intervened between the death of (Y&enry VIII. and the execution of Charles I. They VV^re strictly the Courtly Poets of England, though INTRODUCTION. XIX the line ends with a famous Scottish name, which forms the more appropriate conclusion to the series, because it is known that Baleigh's History of the World was one of the favourite studies which moulded the boyhood of Montrose. There are scarcely half-a-dozen pieces in this volume which we owe to poets by profession. Most of these poems are little more than the comparatively idle words of busy men, whose end ''was not writing, even while they wrote;" those occasional sayings in which the character often reveals itself more clearly than in studied lan- guage. There is a special charm in compositions which have amused the leisure of distinguished persons, w r ho have won their spurs in very different fields ; of statesmen, soldiers, students and divines, who have used metre as the mere outlet for tran- sitory feelings, to give grace to a compliment, or terseness to the expression of a sudden emotion, or point and beauty to a calm reflection. To a great extent, such poems are likely to be imita- tive; and in that aspect they form a curiously exact measure of the influence exerted by a style or fashion. But several of the pieces which are brought together here may claim a higher rank than this. Raleigh himself was a man of marked ~ original power, which has left its record in his poems, as well as in his larger works, and in the varied achievements of his chequered life. He wrote a sonnet which Milton did not disdain to imitate. The Archbishop of Dublin says that " there have been seldom profounder thoughts more perfectly expressed " than in part of his XX INTRODUCTION. " Poesy to prove Affection is not Love." His poem called " The Lie " is probably the best in- stance of a poetical outburst of anger and scorn, which we can find throughout the minor literature of the proud and hasty Tudor times. His " Pil- grimage," with all its quaintness, is perhaps the most striking example of so-called death-bed verses. His reply to Marlowe remains even yet unrivalled, as the retort of polished common-sense to the conventionalities of pastoral poetry. Even when tested by this higher standard, the other courtiers whose verses are here represented are not unworthy to take their places by the side of Raleigh. But their poetry will also render us the minor service of enabling us to trace the changes in the tone of English society from one critical period to another ; through intervals of gloom under Mary, and bound- less energy under Elizabeth, and suspense under James, till the light-hearted gaiety of older Eng- land revived amidst the waning fortunes of Charles's cavaliers. By the side of much formal adulation, we can trace a vein of that manly self-respect, which has always formed the mainstay of our public life ; and a strong under-current of that religious feeling, which the darkest days could never hide. And we can also trace a deepening range of thought, and a richer harmony of verse, and a growing smoothness and facility of language, which bear witness to the influence of those greater writers, who sustain the main weight of the reputation of the Elizabethan age. J. H. Trinity College, Glenalmond, January 28, 1870. ff (f usrr APPENDIX A. EARLY EXTRACTS ON RALEIGH'S POETRY AND LIFE. I. THE CRITICS. 1. OR ditty and amorous ode, I fiiid Sir Walter Raleigh's vein most lofty, insolent, and pas- sionate." Puttenham's "Art of English Poesy," 1589, p. 51. 2. Francis Meres mentions Sir Walter Ra- leigh as one of " the most passionate among us to bewail and bemoan the perplexities of love." " Palladia Tamia," 1598, p. 154, repr. 3. Edmund Bolton speaks of his prose works, " Guiana, and his prefatory epistle before his mighty undertaking in the History of the World," as "full of proper, clear, and courtly graces of speech ;' ; \ and couples his English poems with those of Donne, Holland, and Lord Brooke as. "not easily to be mended." " Hypercritica," circ. 1610, pp. 249, 251, repr. 4. Gabriel Harvey is said, in some MS. notes on Chaucer, to have called Raleigh's " Cynthia" " a fine and sweet in- vention." Malone'b " Shakespeare," by Boswell, ii. 579. 5. " He who writeth the Art of English Poesy praiseth much Raleigh and Dyer; but their works are so few that are come to my hands, I cannot well say anything of them." Drummond of Hawthorndeu, "Works," 1711, p. 226. 6. " Sir Walter Raleigh, a person both sufficiently known in history, and by his * History of the World,' seems also by the character given him by the author of the 'Art of English Poetry' [Puttenham, as above], to have expressed xxn EXTRACTS ON RALEIGH S himself mere a poet than the little we have extant of his poetry seems to import." Edward Phillips, " 'Iheatrum Poetarum," 1675, ii. 233. EDMUND SPENSER. 1. "Considering she beareth two persons, the one of a most royal Queen or Empress, the other of a most virtuous and beautiful Lady, this latter part in some places I do ex- press in Belphoebe, fashioning her name according to your own excellent conceit of Cynthia, Phoebe and Cynthia being both names of Diana." Letter of the Author's (of the ** Faery Queen") to Sir Walter Raleigh, 1.090; Spenser's "Works,'' by Collier, i. 149. 2. " To thee, that art the summer's nightingale, Thy sovereign Goddess's most dear delight, Why do I send this rustic madrigal, That may thy tuneful ear unseason quite? Thou only fit this argument to write, In whose high thoughts pleasure hath built her bower, And dainty love learned sweetly to indite. My rhymes I know unsavoury and sour, To taste the streams that, like a golden shower, Flow from thy fruitful head, of thy love's praise ; Fitter, perhaps, to thunder martial stower, When so thee list thy lofty Muse to raise : Yt't, till that thou thy poem wilt make known, Let thy fair Cynthia's praises be thus rudely shewn." (Sonnet to Sir Walter Raleigh, printed with the first three books of the " Faery Queen," in 1590; ib. i. 164.) 3. "But if in living colours and right hue Thyself thou covet to see pictured, Who can it do more lively or more true Than that sweet verse, with nectar sprinkled, In which a gracious servant pictured His Cynthia, his heaven's fairest light? That with his melting sweetness ravished, And with the wonder of her beams bright, My senses lulled are in slumber of delight. " But let that same delicious poet lend A little leave unto a rustic Muse POETRY AND LIFE. To sing his mistress' praise ; and let him mend, If ought amiss her liking may abuse : Ne let his fairest Cynthia refuse In mirrors more than one herself to see ; But either Gloriana let her choose, Or in Belphoebe fashioned to be ; In th' one her rule, in th' other her rare chastity." (Introduction to the third book of the " Faery Queen," ib. ii. 336.) 4. " * One day,' quoth he, * I sat, as was my trade, Under the foot of Mole, that mountain hoar, Keeping my sheep amongst the coolly shade Of the green alders by the Mulla's shore : There a strange shepherd chanced to find me out, Whether allured with my pipe's delight, Whose pleasing sound yshrilled far about, Or thither led by chance, I know not right : Whom when I asked from what place he came, And how he hight, himself he did ycleepe The Shepherd of the Ocean by name, And said he came far from the main-sea deep. He, sitting me beside in that same shade, Provoked me to play some pleasant fit ; And, when he heard the music which I made, He found himself full greatfy pleased at it : Yet, aemuling my pipe, he took in hond My pipe, before that aemuled of many, And played thereon, for well that skill he conned, Himself as skilful in that art as any. He piped, I sung; and, when he sung, I piped ; By change of turns each making other merry ; Neither envying other, nor envied, So piped we, until we both were weary." * * * * * " His song was all a lamentable lay Of great unkindness and of usage hard, Of Cynthia, the Lady of the Sea, Which from her presence faultless him debarred. And ever and anon, with singulfs rife, He cried out, to make his undersong, ' Ah, my love's Queen, and Goddess of my life ! Who shall me pity, when thou dost me wrong?"' XXIV EXTRACTS ON RALEIGH'S "And there that Shepherd of the Ocean is, That spends his wit in love's consuming smart; Full sweetly tempered is that Muse of his, That can empierce a prince's mighty heart." (" Colin Clout's come home again," 1591 ; ib. v. 33,37,47.) III. SPECIMENS OF LAMPOONS ON RALEIGH. 1. " Water thy plants with grace divine, And hope to live for aye ; Then to thy Saviour Christ incline; In Him make steadfast stay ; Raw is the reason that doth lie Within an atheist's head, Which saith the soul of man doth die, When that the body's dead. " Now may you see the sudden fall Of him that thought to climb full high ; A man well known unto you all, Whose state, you see, doth stand Rawly?' &c. &c. &c. (The first eight lines printed in four as Raleigtis own composition, in the Oxford edition of his works, viii. 732, with the title " Moral Advice." They were taken from MS. Ashm. 781, p. 163, where they are signed " Sr. Wa. Raleigh." Also printed with a continuation, of which the above specimen will be sufficient, among Mr. Halliwell's u Poetical Miscellanies " from MSS. ; Percy Society, vol. xv. p. 14. The Oxford editors failed to observe the pun on Raleigh's name, to which James I. also condescended on a famous occasion.) 2. " Watt, I wot well thy overweening wit, Led by ambitious humours, wrought thy fall," &c" &c. &c. " I pity that the summer's nightingale^ Immortal Cynthia's sometime dear delight, That used to sing so sweet a madrigal, Should like an owl go wanderer in the night, 1 Quoted from Spenser's " Sonnet," above, p. xxii. The phrase was also adopted by Drayton ; see Collier's " Bibl. Cat." i. 224-5 ; and note on Spenser. POETRY AND LIFE. XXV Hated of all, but pitied of none, Though swanlike now he makes his dying moan." (Extracted from a long piece in Mr. Halliwell's " Poetical Miscellanies," as above, pp. 15, 16. The last line is im- portant, as proving that Raleigh was believed to have written verses shortly before his death.) 3. ** The Nightingale will scarce be tame, No company keep he can ; He dare not show his face for shame ; He feareth the look of man : But Robin like a man can look, And doth shun no place ; He will sing in every nook, And stare you in the face." (Extracted from a piece published from Gough's MSS. in the " Camden Society's Miscellany," iii. 22 ; and interpreted of the quarrel between Raleigh and Essex in Collier's " Life of Spenser," p. Ixix.) 4. " To whom shall cursed I my case complain, To move some pity of my wretched state? For though no other comfort doth remain Yet pity would my grief extenuate : For I towards God and man myself abused, And therefore am of God and man refused. " To Heaven I dare not lift my wretched eyes, Nor ask for pardon for my wretched deeds ; For I His word and service did despise, Esteeming them of no more worth than weeds: [From] which most vile conceits these woes proceeds; For now I find, and, finding, fear to rue, There is a God who is both just and true," &c. , (From " The despairing Complaint of wretched Raleigh for his treacheries wrought against the worthy Essex;" MS. Ashm. 36, p. 11. The piece contains forty-one stanzas, each of seven lines except the first.) 5. " I speak to such, if any such there be, Who are possessed, through their Prince's grace, XXvi EXTRACTS ON R'ALEIGH's With swelling pride and scornful insolency, Haughty disdaining and abuse or place : To such I say, if any such there be, Come, see these vices punished in me ! " &c. (From " Raleigh's Caveat to secure Courtiers;" following the above in the same MS. ; thirty-eight stanzas of six lines each.) IV. ANSWERS TO " THE LIE ;" CHIEFLY SUCH AS CONNECT RALEIGH WITH THAT POEM. 1. Go, echo of the mind, a careless truth protest ; Make answer that rude Rawly no stomach can digest : For why ? The lie's descent is over base to tell ; To us it came from Italy; to them it came from hell. What reason proves, confess; what slander saith, deny: Let no untruth with triumph pass; but never give the lie! Confess, in glittering court all are not gold that shine ; Yet say one pearl and much fine gold g[l]ows in the prince's mind. Confess that many [weeds] do overgrow the ground ; Yet say, within the field of God good corn is to be found. Confess, some judge unjust the widow's right delay; Yet say there are some Samuels that never say her nay. Admit, some man of state do pitch his thoughts too high ; Is that a rule for all the rest, their loyal hearts to try ? Your wits are in the wane; your autumn in the bud ; You argue from particulars ; your reason is not good. And still that men may see less reason to commend you, I marvel most, amongst the rest, how schools and arts offend you. But why pursue I thus the witless words of wind ? The more the crab doth seek to creep, the more she is behind. In church and commonwealth, in court and country both, What! nothing good? but all [s]o bad that every man doth loathe ? The further that you range, your error is the wider; The bee sometimes doth honey suck, but sure you are a spider ! And so my counsel is, for that you want a name, To seek some corner in the dark to hide yourself from shame. There wrap the silly fly within your spiteful web j POETRY AND LIFE. XXVil Both church and court may want you well ; they are not at such ebb. As quarrels once begun arfc not so quickly ended, So many faults may soon be lound,but not so soon amended. And when vou come again to give the world the lie, I pray you tell them how to live, and teach them how to die. (Cheiham MS. 8012, p. 117, each line as two. First printed by me, partially in 18^2, and at length in 1845.) 2. The Answer to the Lie. Court's scorn, state's disgracing, potentates' scoff, govern- ments' defacing, Princes' touch, church's unh allowing, arts' injury, virtue's debasing, Age's monster, honour's wasting, beauty's blemish, favour's blasting, Wit's excrement, wisdom's vomit, physic's scorn, law's comet, Fortune's child, valour's defiler, justice' revenger, friendship's beguiler, Such is the song, such is the author; worthy to be rewarded with a halter. Erroris Rcsponsio. Court's commender, state's maintainer, potentate's defender, governments' gainer, Princes' praiser, church's preacher, arts' raiser, virtue's teacher, Age's re warder, honour's strengthener, beauty's guarder, favour's lengthener, Wit's admirer, wisdom's scholar, physic's desirer, law's fol- lower, Fortune's blamer, nature's observer, justice' proclaimer, friendship's preserver; Such is the author, such is the song; returning the halter, contemning the wrong. SR. WA. RA. (MS. Ashm. 781, p. 164. Printed from that MS. among Raleigh's own poems in the Oxford edition of his works, viii. 735.) 3. Extract from another Contemporary Answer to the Lie. St. 2. " The Court hath settled sureness Jn banishing such boldness \ EXTRACTS ON RALEIGH'S The Church retains her pureness, Though Atheists show their coldness : The Court and Church, though base, Turn lies into thy face." St. 3. " The Potentates reply, Thou base, by them advanced, Sinisterly soarest high, And at their actions glanced : They, for this thankless part, Turn lies into thy heart," &c. (MS. Tann. 306, fol. 188 ; written stanza by stanza at the side of a copy of the original poem.) V. THE REACTION AFTER HIS DEATH. 1. " hadst thou served thy Heroine all thy days ! Had Heaven from storms of envy screened thy bays ! Hadst thou still flourished in a warlike reign, Thy sword had made a conquest, like thy pen ! But nought to such untimely fate could bring The valiant subject, but a coward king." ("Phcbnix Britannicus," 1732, p. 453; Oldys' " Life of Raleigh," p. clxxxv., slightly altered. I have taken one \vord from Oldys' copy.) 2. te 1 will not weep ; for 'twere as great a sin To shed a tear for thee, as to have been An actor in thy death. Thy life and age Was but a various scene on Fortune's stage, With whom thou tugg'st and strov'st even out of breath In thy long toil, ne'er mastered till thy death ; And then, despite of trains and cruel wit, Thou didst at once subdue malice and it. " I dare not then so blast thy memory As say I do lament or pity thee. Were I to choose a subject to bestow My pity on, he should be one as low In spirit as desert; that durst not die, But rather were content by slavery To purchase life : or I would pity those. POETRY ATs 7 D LIFE. xxix Thy most industrious and friendly foes, Who, when they thought to make thee scandal's story, Lent thee a swifter flight to heaven and glory ; That thought, by cutting off some withered days Which thou could'st spare them, to eclipse thy praise; Yet gave it brighter foil ; made thy ag'd fame Appear more white and fair than foul their shame ; And did promote an execution Which, but for them, nature and age had done. " Such worthless things as these were only born To live on pity's alms, too mean for scorn. Thou diedst an envious wonder, whose high fate The world must still admire, scarce imitate." (From Bishop Henry King's " Poems, Elegies, Paradoxes, and Sonnets," 1657, p. 97, as "An Elegy upon S. W. R." Also in Oldys, p. ccxxxi.) 3. " Great heart, who taught thee thus to die, Death yielding thee the victory ? Where took'st thou leave of life ? If here, How could'st thou be so free from fear? But sure thou diedst, and quittedst the state Of flesh and blood before that fate : Else what a miracle were wrought, To triumph both in life and thought 1 I saw in every stander by Pale Death ; Life only in thine eye. The legacy thou gav'st, we then Will sue for, when thou diest again. Farewell ! Truth shall this story say, We died, thou only livedst that day !" (Printed in Shirley's <( Life of Raleigh," ad fn. y as "a taste of the poetry of those times." It occurs in MS. Rawl. Misc. 699, p. 35, along with the preceding elegy; also among the Hawthornden MSS. vol. viii. as by " A. B.," and was printed from this last copy by Mr. Laing. "Arch. Scot." iv. 238.) XXX LIST OF POEMS APPENDIX B. ALPHABETICAL LIST OF POEMS WHICH HAVE BEEN ASCRIBED TO SIR W. RALEIGH WITHOUT OR AGAINST EVIDENCE. 1. RE women fair ? aye, wondrous fair to see too/' Included among " Poems supposed to be written by Sir W. Raleigh," in the Lee Priory ed. of Davison's tl Poetical Rhapsody," vol. ii. p. 89, on no evidence but the signature "Ignoto." Title, " An Invective against Women." An anonymous copy in the Percy folio ; see FurnivalFs edit. vol. iii. p. 364. 2. " As at noon Dulcina rested." Given to Raleigh in Ellis's " Specimens," edit. 1801 (not retained in edit. 1811). Thence Cayley and Brydges, and the Oxford editors. No evidence whatever. An anonymous copy in the Percy folio ; see Furnivall's edit. vol. iv. p. 32. 3. " Come, gentle herdman, sit by me." Among Ra leigh's poems in Lee Priory ed. of Davison's " Poetical Rhapsody" (as above), vol. ii. p. 92. No evidence but the signature " Ignoto." Title, " Eclogue." 4. " Come, live with me and be my dear." E. H., p. 21 G, as a second reply to Marlowe's song (see this vol. p. 10). It is headed, ts Another of the same nature made since," and signed " Ignoto." Hence claimed for Raleigh by Ellis, Cayley, Brydges, and the Oxford editors. 5. ** Corydon, arise, my Corydon." E. H., p. 73, signed " Ignoto." Hence claimed for Raleigh by Brydges and the Oxford editors. There is an anonymous copy in the ft Crown- Garland of Golden Roses," 1612,' p. 63, repr. 6. " Court's commender, state's maintainer." A defence of " The Lie" in the Ashm. MSS. ; claimed for Raleigh by the Oxford editors. (See it in this vol. above, p. xxvii.) 7. " Court's scorn, state's disgracing." The attack to which the above is a reply. Printed among Raleigh's poems by the Oxford editors. (See it in this vol. above, p. xxvii.) WRONGLY ASCRIBED TO RALEIGH. XXXI 8 " Eternal mover, whose diffused glory." Sir Henry Wotton's (see it in this vol. p. 91). Erroneously claimed for Raleigh in the " Topographer," on the authority of a 13. M. MS. 9. " Farewell, ye gilded follies, pleasing troubles!" Author uncertain. (See it in this vol. p. 109.) Ascribed to Raleigh by Sir H. Nicolas, without any known authority. 10. "Hey, down-a-down, did Dian sing." E. H., p. 135, as " A Nymph's disdain of Love," signed " Ignoto." Hence claimed for Raleigh by Brydges and the Oxford editors. 11. " If love be life, I long to die." E. H., p. 211, as " Dispraise of love and lovers' follies," signed " Jgnoto." Hence claimed for Raleigh by Brydges and the Oxford editors. It was added in the second ed. of E. H., from Davison's " Poetical Rhapsody," and is really by A. W. 12. 4< In Peascod time, when hound to horn. 5 ' E. H. f p. 206, as " The Shepherd's Slumber," signed " Ignoto" in the first edition. Hence claimed for Raleigh by Brydges and the Oxford editors. 13. " It chanced of late a shepherd's swain." In the first part of the Lee Priory ed. of Davison's " Poetical Rhapsody," vol. i. p. 17, as " a Fiction how Cupid made a Nymph wound herself with his arrows." Brydges " sus- pected" it " to be Raleigh's, as well from internal evidence, as because it had the signature of i Anomos ' (!) in the edition of 1602." Ibid. p. 40; see also his Introduction, p. 39, and " Exc. Tudor." ii. 123. It has been ascribed to Sidney Godolphin, though written, as Percy remarks, ft before he was born." It is really by A. W. 14. lt Lady, my flame still burning." The first part of a " Dialogue betwixt the Lover and his Lady" (see No. 23). Included among Raleigh's supposed poems in the Lee Priory ed. of Davison's " Poetical Rhapsody" (as before), vol. ii. p. 88. No evidence but the signature " Ignoto." 15. "Like desert woods with darksome shades obscured." E. H., p. 224, as " Thyrsis the shepherd to his pipe," signed " Ignoto." Hence claimed for Raleigh by Brydges and the Oxford editors. It is either by Lodge or Dyer (see note in this vol. p. 245). 16. " Love is the link, the knot, the band of unity." In- cluded among Raleigh's supposed poems in the Lee Priory XXXii LIST OF POEMS ed. of Davison's " Poetical Rhapsody," vol. ii. p. 90. No evidence but the signature * c Ignoto." 17. " Man's life's a tragedy : his mother's womb." Marked " Ignoto " in " Rel. Wotton." and hence claimed for Raleigh by Brydges and the Oxford editors ; (see it in this vol. p. 120.) 18. " My prime of youth is but a frost of cares." Tych bourne's verses ; (see them in this vol. p. 114.) Mr. D'Israeli says that "they have at onetime been assigned to Raleigh;" on what authority I do not know. 19. (t My wanton Muse, that whilome wont to sing." E. H., p. 225, as " An heroical poem," signed " Ignoto." Hence claimed for Raleigh by Ellis, Cayley, Brydges, and the Oxford editors ; (see it in this vol. p. 179.) It was added to the second ed. of E. H., from Davison's " Poetical Rhapsody," and is really by A. W. 20. " Now have I learnt with much ado at last." E. H., p. 241, as " a Defiance to disdainful Love," signed " Ignoto." Hence claimed for Raleigh by Ellis, Cayley, Brydges, and the Oxford editors. It was added to the second ed. of E. H., from Davison's u Poetical Rhapsody," and is really by A. W. 21. " Quivering fears, heart-tearing cares." Marked " Ignoto " in " Rel. Wotton." and hence claimed for Raleigh by Brydges and the Oxford editors ; (see it in this volume, p. 106.) 22. " Rise, my soul ! with thy desires to heaven." Marked " Ignoto" in " Rel. Wotton." and hence claimed for Raleigh by Brydges and the Oxford editors; (see it in this vol. p. 116.) 23. " Sweet Lord, your flame still burning." The lady's answer to the piece here numbered 14. Included among Raleigh's supposed Poems in the Lee Priory ed. of Davison's " Poetical Rhapsody," vol. ii. p. 88. No evidence but the signature " Ignoto." 24. " Sweet violets, Love's Paradise, that spread." E. H., p. 161, as - 30 THE POEMS OF XIX. TO THE TBANSLATOK OF LUCAN. 1 (1614.) j AD Lucan hid the truth to please the time, He had been too unworthy of thy pen, Who never sought nor ever cared to climb By flattery, or seeking worthless men . For this thou hast been bruised ; but yet those scars Do beautify no less than those wounds do, Received in just and in religious wars ; Though thou hast bled by both, and bearest them too. Change not ! To change thy fortune 'tis too late : Who with a manly faith resolves to die, May promise to himself a lasting state, Though not so great, yet free from infamy. Such was thy Lucan, whom so to translate, Nature thy muse like Lucan's did create. W. K. 1 Prefixed to Sir A. Gorges' translation of Lucau's " Pharsalia," 1614. SIR WALTER RALEIGH. 31 XX. CONTINUATION OF THE LOST POEM, CYNTHIA; NOW FIBST PUBLISHED FROM THE HATFIELD MSS. 1 (1604-1618?) I. [F Cynthia be a Queen, a princess, and supreme, Keep these among the rest, or say it was a dream ; For those that like, expound, and those that loathe, express Meanings according as their minds are moved more or less. For writing what thou art, or showing what thou were, Adds to the one disdain, to the other but despair. Thy mind of neither needs, in both seeing it exceeds. ii. My body in the walls captived Feels not the wounds of spiteful envy ; But my thralled mind, of liberty deprived, Fast fettered in her ancient memory, Doth nought behold but sorrow's dying face : Such prison erst was so delightful, As it desired no other dwelling place : But time's effects and destinies despiteful Hatfield MSS., vol. cxliv., fol. 238, qq. " In Sir Walter's own hand.' 1 32 THE POEMS OF Have changed both my keeper and my fare. Love's fire and beauty's light I then had store ; But now, close kept, as captives wonted are, That food, that heat, that light, I find no more. Despair bolts up my doors ; and I alone Speak to dead walls ; but those hear not my moan. in. THE 21sT AND LAST BOOK OF THE OCEAN, TO CYNTHIA. jfUFFICETH it to you, my joys interred, In simple words that I my woes complain ; You that then died when first my fancy erred, Joys under dust that never live again ? If to the living were my muse addressed, Or did my mind her own spirit still inhold, Were not my living passion so repressed As to the dead the dead did these unfold, Some sweeter words, some more becoming verse Should witness my mishap in higher kind ; But my love's wounds, my fancy in the hearse, The idea but resting of a wasted mind, The blossoms fallen, the sap gone from the tree, The broken monuments of my great desires, From these so lost what may the affections be ? What heat in cinders of extinguished fires ? SIR WALTER RALEIGH. 33 Lost in the mud of those high-flowing streams, Which through more fairer fields their courses bend. Slain with self- thoughts, amazed in fearful dreams, Woes without date, discomforts without end : From fruitless] trees I gather withered leaves, And glean the broken ears with miser's hand, Who sometime did enjoy the weighty sheaves ; I seek fair flowers amid the brinish sand. All in the shade, even in the fair sun days, Under those healthless trees I sit alone, Where joyful birds sing neither lovely lays, Nor Philomen recounts her direful moan. No feeding flocks, no shepherd's company, That might renew my dolorous conceit, While happy then, while love and fantasy Confined my thoughts on that fair flock to wait ; No pleasing streams fast to the ocean wending, The messengers sometimes of my great woe ; But all on earth, as from the cold storms bending, Shrink from my thoughts in high heavens or below. Oh, hopeful love, my object and invention, Oh, true desire, the spur of my conceit, Oh, worthiest spirit, my mind's impulsion, Oh, eyes transpersant, my affection's bait ; Oh, princely form, my fancy's adamant, Divine conceit, my pains' acceptance, Oh, all in one ! oh, heaven on earth transparent I The seat of joys and love's abundance ! 34 THE POEMS OF Out of that mass of miracles, my muse Gathered those flowers, to her pure sense! pleasing ; Out of her eyes, the store of joys, did choose Equal delights, my sorrow's counterpoising. Her regal looks my vigorous sighs suppressed ; Small drops of joys sweetened great worlds of woes; One gladsome day a thousand cares redressed; Whom love defends, what fortune overthrows ? When she did well, what did there else amiss ? When she did ill, what empires would have pleased ? No other power effecting woe or bliss, She gave, she took, she wounded, she appeased. The honour of her love love still devising, Wounding my mind with contrary conceit, Transferred itself sometime to her aspiring, Sometime the trumpet of her thought's retreat. To seek new worlds for gold, for praise, for glory, To try desire, to try love severed far, When I was gone, she sent her memory, More strong than were ten thousand ships of war; To call me back, to leave great honour's thought, To leave my friends, my fortune, my attempt ; To leave the purpose I so long had sought, And hold both cares and comforts in contempt. Such heat in ice, such fire in frost remained, Such trust in doubt, such comfort in despair, Which, like the gentle lamb, though lately weaned, Plays with the dug, though finds no comfort there. SIR WALTER RALEIGH. 35 But as a body, violently slain, Retaineth warmth although the spirit be gone, And by a power in nature moves again Till it be laid below the fatal stone ; Or as the earth, even in cold winter days, Left for a time by her life-giving sun, Doth by the power remaining of his rays Produce some green, though not as it hath done ; Or as a wheel, forced by the falling stream, Although the course be turned some other way, Doth for a time go round upon the beam, Till, wanting strength to move, it stands at stay ; So my forsaken heart, my withered mind, Widow of all the joys it once possessed, My hopes clean out of sight with forced wind, To kingdoms strange, to lands far-off addressed, Alone, forsaken, friendless, on the shore With many wounds, with death's cold pangs embraced, Writes in the dust, as one that could no more, Whom love, and time, and fortune, had defaced ; Of things so great, so long, so manifold, With means so weak, the soul even then depicting The weal, the woe, the passages of old, And worlds of thoughts described by one last sighing. As if, when after Phoebus is descended, And leaves a light much like the past day's dawning, And, every toil and labour wholly ended, Each living creature draweth to his resting, 136 THE POEMS OF We should begin by such a parting light To write the story of all ages past, And end the same before the approaching night. Such is again the labour of my mind, Whose shroud, by sorrow woven now to end, Hath seen that ever shining sun declined, So many years that so could not descend, But that the eyes of my mind held her beams In every part transferred by love's swift thought; Far off or near, in waking or in dreams, Imagination strong their lustre brought. Such force her angelic appearance had To master distance, time, or cruelty ; Such art to grieve, and after to make glad ; Such fear in love, such love in majesty. My weary lines her memory embalmed ; My darkest ways her eyes make clear as day. What storms so great but Cynthia's beams appeased? What rage so fierce, that love could not allay ? Twelve years entire I wasted in this war ; Twelve years of my most happy younger days ; But I in them, and they now wasted are : " Of all which past, the sorrow only stays." So wrote I once, and my mishap foretold, My mind still feeling sorrowful success ; Even as before a storm the marble cold Doth by moist tears tempestuous times express, So felt my heavy mind my harms at hand, Which my vain thought in vain sought to recure : At middle day my sun seemed under land, When any little cloud did it obscure. SIR WALTER RALEIGH. 37 And as the icicles in a winter's day, Whenas the sun shines with unwonted warm, * * * So did my joys melt into secret tears ; So did my heart dissolve in wasting drops : And as the season of the year outwears, And heaps of snow from off the mountain tops With sudden streams the valleys overflow, So did the time draw on my more despair : Then floods of sorrow and whole seas of woe The banks of all my hope did overbear, And drowned my mind in depths of misery : Sometime I died ; sometime I was distract, My soul the stage of fancy's tragedy ; Then furious madness, where true reason lacked, Wrote what it would, and scourged mine own conceit. Oh, heavy heart ! who can thee witness bear ? What tongue, what pen, could thy tormenting treat, But thine own mourning thoughts which present were ? What stranger mind believe the meanest part ? What altered sense conceive the weakest woe, That tare, that rent, that pierced thy sad heart ? And as a man distract, with triple might Bound in strong chains doth strive and rage in vain, Till, tired and breathless, he is forced to rest, Finds by contention but increase of pain, And fiery heat inflamed in swollen breast ; 38 THE POEMS OF So did my mind in change of passion From woe to wrath, from wrath return to woe, Struggling in vain from love's subjection ; Therefore, all lifeless and all helpless bound, My fainting spirits sunk, and heart appalled, My joys and hopes lay bleeding on the ground, That not long since the highest heaven scaled. I hated life and cursed destiny ; The thoughts of passed times, like flames of hell, Kindled afresh within my memory The many dear achievements that befell In those prime years and infancy of love, Which to describe were but to die in writing ; Ah, those I sought, but vainly, to remove, And vainly shall, by which I perish living. And though strong reason hold before mine eyes The images and forms of worlds past, Teaching the cause why all those flames that rise From forms external can no longer last, Than that those seeming beauties hold in prime Love's ground, his essence, and his empery, All slaves to age, and vassals unto time, Of which repentance writes the tragedy : But this my heart's desire could not conceive, Whose love outflew the fastest flying time, A beauty that can easily deceive The arrest of years, and creeping age outclimb. SIR WALTER RALEIGH. 39 A spring of beauties which time ripeth not Time that but works on frail mortality ; A sweetness which woe's wrongs outwipeth not, Whom love hath chose for his divinity ; A vestal fire that burns but never wasteth, That loseth nought by giving light to all, That endless shines each where, and endless lasteth, Blossoms of pride that can nor fade nor fall ; These were those marvellous perfections, The parents of my sorrow and my envy, Most deathful and most violent infections ; These be the tyrants that in fetters tie Their wounded vassals, yet nor kill nor cure, But glory in their lasting misery That, as her beauties would, our woes should dure These be the effects of powerful empery. Yet have these wounders want, which want com- passion ; Yet hath her mind some marks of human race ; Yet will she be a woman for a fashion, So doth she please her virtues to deface. And like as that immortal power doth seat An element of waters, to allay The fiery sunbeams that on earth do beat, And temper by cold night the heat of day, So hath perfection, which begat her mind, Added thereto a change of fantasy, And left her the affections of her kind, Yet free from every evil but cruelty. 40 THE POEMS OF But leave her praise ; speak thou of nought but woe ; Write on the tale that sorrow bids thee tell ; Strive to forget, and care no more to know Thy cares are known, by knowing those too well. Describe her now as she appears to thee ; Not as she did appear in days fordone : In love, those things that were no more may be, For fancy seldom ends where it begun. And as a stream by strong hand bounded in From nature's course where it did sometime run, By some small rent or loose part doth begin To find escape, till it a way hath won ; Doth then all unawares in sunder tear The forced bounds, and, raging, run at large In the ancient channels as they wonted were ; Such is of women's love the careful charge, Held and maintained with multitude of woes ; Of long erections such the sudden fall : One hour diverts, one instant overthrows, For which our lives, for which our fortune's thrall So many years those joys have dearly bought ; Of which when our fond hopes do most assure, All is dissolved ; our labours come to nought ; Nor any mark thereof there doth endure : No more than when small drops of rain do fall Upon the parched ground by heat updried ; No cooling moisture is perceived at all, Nor any show or sign of wet doth bide. SIR AVAL1ER RALEIGH. 4] But as the fields, clothed with leaves and flowers, The banks of roses smelling precious sweet, Have but their beauty's date and timely hours, And then, defaced by winter's cold and sleet, ***** So far as neither fruit nor form of flower Stays for a witness what such branches bare, But as time gave, time did again devour, And change our rising joy to falling care : So of affection which our youth presented ; When she that from the sun reaves power and light, Did but decline her beams as discontented, Converting sweetest days to saddest night, All droops, all dies, all trodden under dust, The person, place, and passages forgotten ; The hardest steel eaten with softest rust, The firm and solid tree both rent and rotten. Those thoughts, so full of pleasure and content, That in our absence were affection's food, Are razed out and from the fancy rent ; In highest grace and heart's dear care that stood, Are cast for prey to hatred and to scorn, Our dearest treasures and our heart's true joys ; The tokens hung on breast and kindly worn, Are now elsewhere disposed or held for toys. And those which then our jealousy removed, And others for our sakes then valued dear, The one forgot, the rest are dear beloved, When all of ours doth strange or vild appear. LIB : UNIVELMTY 42 THE POEMS OF Those streams seem standing puddles, which before We saw our beauties in, so were they clear ; Belphcebe's course is now observed no more ; That fair resemblance weareth out of date ; Our ocean seas are but tempestuous waves, And all things base, that blessed were of late And as a field, wherein the stubble stands Of harvest past, the ploughman's eye offends ; He tills again, or tears them up with hands, And throws to fire as foiled and fruitless ends, And takes delight another seed to sow ; So doth the mind root up all wonted thought, And scorns the care of our remaining woes ; The sorrows, which themselves for us have wrought, Are burnt to cinders by new kindled fires ; The ashes are dispersed into the air ; The sighs, the groans of all our past desires Are clean outworn, as things that never were. With youth is dead the hope of love's return, Who looks not back to hear our after-cries : Where he is not, he laughs at those that mourn ; Whence he is gone, he scorns the mind that dies. When he is absent, he believes no words ; When reason speaks, he, careless, stops his ears ; Whom he hath left, he never grace affords, But bathes his wings in our lamenting tears. Unlasting passion, soon outworn conceit, Whereon I built, and on so dureless trust ! SIR WALTER RALEIGH. 43 My mind had wounds, I dare not say deceit, Were I resolved her promise was not just. Sorrow was my revenge and woe my hate ; I powerless was to alter my desire ; My love is not of time or bound to date ; My heart's internal heat and living fire Would not, or could, be quenched with sudden showers ; My bound respect was not confined to days ; My vowed faith not set to ended hours ; I love the bearing and not bearing sprays Which now to others do their sweetness send ; The incarnate, snow-driven white, and purest azure, Who from high heaven doth on their fields descend, Filling their barns with grain, and towers with treasure. Erring or never erring, such is love As, while it lasteth, scorns the account of those Seeking but self-contentment to improve, And hides, if any be, his inward woes, And will not know, while he knows his own passion, The often and unjust perseverance In deeds of love and state, and every action From that first day and year of their joy's entrance. But I, unblessed and ill-born creature, That did embrace the dust her body bearing, That loved her, both by fancy and by nature, That drew, even with the milk in my first sucking, 44 THE POEMS OF Affection from the parent's breast that bare me, Have found her as a stranger so severe, Improving my mishap in each degree ; But love was gone : so would I my life were ! A queen she was to me, no more Belpho3be ; A lion then, no more a milk-white dove ; A prisoner in her breast I could not be ; She did untie the gentle chains of love. ***** Love was no more the love of hiding All trespass and mischance for her own glory : It had been such ; it was still for the elect ; But I must be the example in love's story ; This was of all forepast the sad effect. But thou, my weary soul and heavy thought, Made by her love a burthen to my being, Dost know my error never was forethought, Or ever could proceed from sense of loving. Of other cause if then it had proceeding, I leave the excuse, sith judgment hath been given ; The limbs divided, sundered, and ableeding, Cannot complain the sentence was uneven. This did that nature's wonder, virtue's choice, The only paragon of time's begetting, Divine in words, angelical in voice, That spring of joys, that flower of love's own setting, SIR WALTER RALEIGH. 45 The idea remaining of those golden ages, That beauty, braving heavens and earth em- balming, Which after worthless worlds but play on stages, Such didst thou her long since describe, yet sighing That thy unable spirit could not find aught, In heaven's beauties or in earth's delight, For likeness fit to satisfy thy thought : But what hath it availed thee so to write ? She cares not for thy praise, who knows not theirs ; It's now an idle labour, and a tale Told out of time, that dulls the hearer's ears ; A merchandize whereof there is no sale. Leave them, or lay them up with thy despairs ! She hath resolved, and judged thee long ago. Thy lines are now a murmuring to her ears, Like to a falling stream, which, passing slow, Is wont to nourish sleep and quietness ; So shall thy painful labours be perused, And draw on rest, which sometime had regard ; But those her cares thy errors have excused. Thy days fordone have had their day's reward ; So her hard heart, so her estranged mind, In which above the heavens I once reposed ; So to thy error have her ears inclined, And have forgotten all thy past deserving, Holding in mind but only thine offence; And only now affecteth thy depraving, And thinks all vain that pleadeth thy defence. 46 THE POEMS OF Yet greater fancy beauty never bred ; A more desire the heart-blood never nourished ; Her sweetness an affection never fed, Which more in any age hath ever flourished. The mind and virtue never have begotten A firmer love, since love on earth had power ; A love obscured, but cannot be forgotten ; Too great and strong for time's jaws to devour ; Containing such a faith as ages wound not, Care, wakeful ever of her good estate, Fear, dreading loss, which sighs and joys not, A memory of the jo}^s her grace begat ; A lasting gratefulness for those comforts past, Of which the cordial sweetness cannot die ; These thoughts, knit up by faith, shall ever last ; These time assays, but never can untie, Whose life once lived in her pearl-like breast, Whose joys were drawn but from her happiness, Whose heart's high pleasure, and whose mind's true rest, Proceeded from her fortune's blessedness ; Who was intentive, wakeful, and dismayed In fears, in dreams, in feverous jealousy, Who long in silence served, and obeyed With secret heart and hidden loyalty, Which never change to sad adversity, Which never age, or nature's overthrow, Which never sickness or deformity, Which never wasting care or wearing woe, If subject unto these she could have been, SIR WALTER RALEIGH. 47 Which never words or wits malicious, Which never honour's bait, or world's fame, Achieved by attempts adventurous, Or aught beneath the sun or heaven's frame Can so dissolve, dissever, or destroy The essential love of no frail parts compounded, Though of the same now buried be the joy, The hope, the comfort, and the sweetness ended, But that the thoughts and memories of these Work a relapse of passion, and remain Of my sad heart the sorrow-sucking bees ; The wrongs received, the frowns persuade in vain. And though these medicines work desire to end, And are in others the true cure of liking, The salves that heal love's wounds, and do amend Consuming woe, and slake our hearty sighing, They work not so in thy mind's long decease ; External fancy time alone recureth : All whose effects do wear away with ease Love of delight, while such delight endure th ; Stays by the pleasure, but no longer stays .... But in my mind so is her love inclosed, And is thereof not only the best part, But into it the essence is disposed : Oh love ! (the more my woe) to it thou art Even as the moisture in each plant that grows ; Even as the sun unto the frozen ground ; Even as the sweetness to the incarnate rose ; Even as the centre in each perfect round : 48 THE POEMS OF As water to the fish, to men as air, As heat to fire, as light unto the sun ; Oh love ! it is but vain to say thou were ; Ages and times cannot thy power outrun. Thou art the soul of that unhappy mind Which, being by nature made an idle thought, Began even then to take immortal kind, When first her virtues in thy spirits wrought. From thee therefore that mover cannot move, Because it is become thy cause of being ; Whatever error may obscure that love, Whatever frail effect in mortal living, Whatever passion from distempered heart, What absence, time, or injuries effect, What faithless friends or deep dissembled art Present to feed her most unkind suspect. ****** Yet as the air in deep caves underground Is strongly drawn when violent heat hath vent, Great clefts therein, till moisture do abound, And then the same, imprisoned and uppent, Breaks out in earthquakes tearing all asunder ; So, in the centre of my cloven heart My heart, to whom her beau ties were such wonder Lies the sharp poisoned head of that love's dart Which, till all break and all dissolve to dust, Thence drawn it cannot be, or therein known : There, mixed with my heart-blood, the fretting rust The better part hath eaten and outgrown. SIR WALTER RALEIGH. 49 But what of those or these ? or what of ought Of that which was, or that which is, to treat ? What I possess is but the same I sought : My love was false, my labours were deceit. Nor less than such they are esteemed to be ; A fraud bought at the price of many woes ; A guile, whereof the profits unto me Could it be thought premeditate for those ? Witness those withered leaves left on the tree, The sorrow-worn face, the pensive mind ; The external shews what may the internal be : Cold care hath bitten both the root and rind. But stay, my thoughts, make end : give fortune way : Harsh is the voice of woe and sorrow's sound : Complaints cure not, and tears do but allay Griefs for a time, which after more abound. To seek for moisture in the Arabian sand Is but a loss of labour and of rest : The links which time did break of hearty bands Words cannot knit, or wailings make anew. Seek not the sun in clouds when it is set. . . . On highest mountains, where those cedars grew, Against whose banks the troubled ocean beat, And were the marks to find thy hoped port, Into a soil far off themselves remove. On Sestus' shore, Leander's late resort, Hero hath left no lamp to guide her love. Thou lookest for light in vain, and storms arise ; She sleeps thy death, that erst thy danger sighed; 50 THE POEMS OF Strive then no more ; bow down thy weary eyes Eyes which to all these woes thy heart have guided. She is gone, she is lost, she is found, she is ever fair : Sorrow draws weakly, where love draws not too : Woe's cries sound nothing, but only in love's ear. Do then by dying what life cannot do. Unfold thy flocks and leave them to the fields, To feed on hills, or dales, where likes them best, Of what the summer or the spring-time yields, For love and time hath given thee leave to rest. Thy heart which was their fold, now in decay By often storms and winter's many blasts, All torn and rent becomes misfortune's prey ; False hope my shepherd's staff, now age hath brast My pipe, which love's own hand gave my desire To sing her praises and my woe upon, Despair hath often threatened to the fire, As vain to keep now all the rest are gone. Thus home I draw, as death's long night draws on ; Yet every foot, old thoughts turn back mine eyes: Constraint me guides, as old age draws a stone Against the hill, which over- weighty lies For feeble arms or wasted strength to move : My steps are backward, gazing on my loss, My mind's affection and my soul's sole love, Not mixed with fancy's chaff or fortune's dross. SIR W ALTER RALEIGH. 51 To God I leave it, who first gave it me, And I her gave, and she returned again, As it was hers ; so let His mercies be Of my last comforts the essential mean. But be it so or not, the effects are past ; Her love hath end ; my woe must ever last. The end of the books of the " Ocean's Love to Cynthia," and the beginning of the 22nd book, entreating of Sorrow. My days' delights, my spring-time joys fordone, Which in the dawn and rising sun of youth Had their creation, and were first begun, Do in the evening and the winter sad Present my mind, which takes my time's account, The grief remaining of the joy it had. My times that then ran o'er themselves in these, And now run out in other's happiness, Bring unto those new joys and new-born days. So could she not if she were not the sun, Which sees the birth and burial of all else, And holds that power with which she first begun, Leaving each withered body to be torn By fortune, and by times tempestuous, Which, by her virtue, once fair fruit have born ; Knowing she can renew, and can create Green from the ground, and flowers even out of stone, By virtue lasting over time and date, Leaving us only woe, which, like the moss, Having compassion of unburied bones, Cleaves to mischance, and unrepaired loss. For tender stalks (MS. abruptly ends here.) 52 THE POEMS OF XXI. SIR WALTER RALEIGH'S PETITION TO THE QUEEN (ANNE OF DENMAEK). 1 (1618.) HAD truth power, the guiltless could not fall, Malice win glory, or revenge triumph ; But trTith alone cannot encounter all. Mercy is fled to God, which mercy made ; Compassion dead ; faith turned to policy ; Friends know not those who sit in sorrow's shade. For what we sometime were, we are no more : Fortune hath changed our shape, and destiny Defaced the very form we had before. All love, and all desert of former times, Malice hath covered from my sovereign's eyes, And largely laid abroad supposed crimes. But kings call not to mind what vassals were, But know them now, as envy hath described them : So can I look on no side from despair. 1 Hawthornden MSS. in the Library of the Antiquarian Society of Scotland ; vol. viii. " Drummond Miscellanies," II. First printed by Mr. D. Laing in "Archseol. Scot.," vol. iv. pp. 236-8. The original title runs : " S. W. Raghlies Petition to the Queene. 1618." SIR WALTER RALEIGH. 53 Cold walls ! to you I speak; but you are senseless : Celestial Powers ! you hear, but have determined, And shall determine, to my greatest happiness. Then unto whom shall I unfold my wrong, Cast down my tears, or hold up folded hands ? To Her, to whom remorse doth most belong ; To Her who is the first, and may alone Be justly called the Empress of the Bretanes. Who should have mercy if a Queen have none? Save those that would have died for your defence ! Save him whose thoughts no treason ever tainted ! For lo ! destruction is no recompense. If I have sold my duty, sold my faith To strangers, which was only due to One ; Nothing I should esteem so dear as death. But if both God and Time shall make you know That I, your humblest vassal, am oppressed, Then cast your eyes on undeserved woe ; That I and mine may never mourn the miss Of Her we had, but praise our living Queen, Who brings us equal, if not greater, bliss. 64 THE POEMS OF XXII. SIR WALTER RALEIGH'S VERSES, FOUND IN HIS BIBLE IN THE GATE-HOUSE AT WESTMINSTER. 1 (1618.) VEN such is time, that takes in trust Our youth, our joys, our all we have, And pays us but with earth and dust ; Who, in the dark and silent grave, When we have wandered all our ways, Shuts up the story of our days ; But from this earth, this grave, this dust, My God shall raise me up, I trust ! W. R. 1 Printed with Raleigh's " Prerogative of Parliaments," 1628, and probably still earlier; also with "To-day a Man, To-morrow none," 1643-4; in Raleigh's " Remains," 1661, &c., with the title given above; and in " Rel. Wotton." 1651, &c., with the title, "Sir Walter Raleigh the night before his death." Also found with several variations in many old MS. copies. SIR WALTER RALEIGK. 55 XXIII. FEAGMENTS AND EPIGEAMS. i. JHIS made him write in a glass window, obvious to the Queen's eye " ' Fain would I climb, yet fear I to fall.' Her Majesty, either espying or being shown it, did under-write " ' If thy heart fails thee, ctimb not at all.' " 1 IT. " SIR WA. EAWLEY made this rhyme upon the name of a gallant, one Mr. Noel : " Noe. L. " ' The word of denial and the letter of fifty Makes the gentleman's name that will never be thrifty. 7 " And Noel's answer : "