m\ 2 Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2007 with funding from Microsoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/englishlyricpoetOOcarprich Gbe Marwtck XibrarB Edited by C. H. HERFORD, Litt.D. ENGLISH LYRIC POETRY (i5cx>-i7oo) FREDERIC IVES CARPENTER -English Lyric Poetry> 1500 — 1700 WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY fiXuA. FREDERIC IVES CARPENTER LONDON: MDCCCXCVII BLACKIE & SON, LIMITED NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 153 FIFTH AVENUE dqt+Lic TO MY FfATHER TABLE OF CONTENTS AND INDEX OF AUTHORS Page Introduction, xix Anonymous Lyrics, 1588-1603— The Quiet Life, 69 Love's Perfections, 70 Sweet Lamenting, 70 The Test, 70 The Shepherd's Praise of his Sacred Diana, - 71 The Shepherd to the Flowers, 72 To Zepheria, 73 Hence, Care! 73 The Month of Maying, 74 Brown is my Love, 75 Come Away ! Come, Sweet Love ! - - - - 75 Madrigal : Lady, when I behold, - - - - 76 I saw my Lady weep, 76 Love and May, 77 Love's Realities, 77 Madrigal : My Love in her Attire, 78 The Grace of Beauty, 78 Lullaby, 79 Anonymous Lyrics, 1604-1675 — Summer, - % 163 In Laudem Amoris, 163 Ye little Birds that sit and sing, - - - - 164 There is a Lady, - 165 Revels, 165 Fain I would, - - 166 The Bellman's Song, 166 Two in One, 166 A-Maying, -------- 167 The Hunt is Up, 168 (M349) B ENGLISH LYRIC POETRY. Page The Urchins' Dance, 168 The Elves' Dance, 168 The Fairies' Dance, 169 The Satyrs' Dance, 169 Sweet Suffolk Owl, 169 The Merry Bells of Oxford, 170 Love in thy Youth, 170 Parting, 171 HeyNonnyNo! 171 The Great Adventurer, - - - - - 172 The King's Progress, 173 Waly, Waly, 174 Francis Bacon — The World, 148 Barnabe Barnes — Ode : Behold, out walking in these valleys, - - 105 Sonnet : Ah, Sweet Content, 106 Francis Beaumont— On the Life of Man, 152 Lines on the Tombs in Westminster Abbey, - - 153 Nicholas Breton — A Sweet Lullaby, 65 I would thou wert not fair, 66 Lovely kind and kindly loving, 67 What is Love? 68 Earl of Bristol — Song: See, Osee! 231 Richard Brome — The Merry Beggars, ■ 227 William Browne — Carpe Diem, 135 The Song in the Wood, 135 The Siren's Song, 136 Love's Reasons, 137 Epitaph on the Countess of Pembroke, - - - 137 Epitaph, - - - 137 Welcome, 138 Vision of the Rose, - • - - - 139 "J. C."— Beauty and Time, 107 TABLE OF CONTENTS AND INDEX OF AUTHORS. XI Thomas Campion— p age To Lesbia, 126 Come Away ! - - - 127 The Measure of Beauty, 128 The Shadow, 128 When thou must home, 129 Day and Night, 130 The Man of Life Upright, 1 30 A Hymn in Praise of Neptune, - - - - 13 1 Winter Nights, - 132 The Charm, 132 There is none, O none but you, - - - - 1 33 Follow your Saint ! 134 Rose-cheeked Laura, 134 Thomas Carew — Song : Ask me no more where Jove bestows, - - 219 Disdain Returned, 220 The Primrose, 220 Epitaph on the Lady Mary Villers, - - - - 221 George Chapman — Her Coming, 104 Of Circumspection, 104 Charles Cotton — Ode : Laura Sleeping, 228 Abraham Cowley — Ode : On Solitude, 234 Richard Crashaw — Wishes : To his Supposed Mistress, - - - 245 The Flaming Heart, ...... 247 Two went up into the Temple to Pray, - - - 248 Samuel Daniel — Sonnet to Delia : Beauty, sweet Love, 94 Sonnet : Care-charmer Sleep, 95 Song : Are they shadows that we see? - - - 95 Love's Birth and Becoming, 96 Robert Davenport — A Requiem, 161 Sir John Davies — To the Rose, 104 Xll ENGLISH LYRIC POETRY. Thomas Dekker — Pag e Troll the Bowl ! 109 The Merry Month of May, no Content, m Lullaby, in The Gifts of Fortune and Cupid, - - - - 112 Robert Devereux : see Essex, Earl of. John Dickenson — A Pastoral Catch, 64 George Digby : see Bristol, Earl of. John Donne — A Valediction Forbidding Mourning, - - • 113 The Funeral, 114 Ode : Absence, hear thou my protestation, - - 115 Song: Sweetest Love, I do not go, - - - - 116 The Undertaking, 1 17 The Blossom, 118 Sonnet: Death, be not proud, - - - - 119 Hymn to God the Father, 1 19 Michael Drayton — Sonnet : To the Lady L. S., 97 Sonnet : To the River Ankor, 98 Sonnet : Since there 's no help, come, 98 To the Cambro-Britons and their Harp: his Ballad ofAgincourt, 99 William Drummond of Hawthornden — Sonnet : To the Nightingale, 139 Sonnet: Spring, 140 Sonnet : Posting Time, 140 Sonnet: Sweet Bird, 141 Sonnet: On Solitude, 141 Sonnet: Repent, Repent! 142 Sonnet : To Sir W. Alexander, - - • - 142 Madrigal : This Life, which seems so fair, - - 143 Song: Phoebus, arise! 143 Madrigal : Sweet Rose, whence is this hue, - - 144 John Dryden — Alexander's Feast, or the Power of Music, - - 256 A Song for St. Cecilia's Day, 262 Song : Ah, Fading Joy ! 264 Incantation from GLdipus, 264 Song from King Arthur, 266 TABLE OF CONTENTS AND INDEX OF AUTHORS. Xlll Sir Edward Dyer — P age My mind to me a Kingdom is, 48 Earl of Essex — " A Passion of my Lord of Essex ", - - - 112 John Fletcher, or Beaumont and Fletcher — Sweetest Melancholy, 154 Love's Emblems, 155 Invocation to Sleep, 155 Song to Bacchus, 156 Drink To-Day, 156 Beauty Clear and Fair, 157 The Charm, 157 To his Sleeping Mistress, - -- - -158 Weep no More, - 158 Dirge, 158 Marriage Hymn, - - 159 Phineas Fletcher — Hymn : Drop, drop, slow tears, - - - - 160 John Ford — Calantha's Dirge, 160 Penthea's Dying Song, 161 George Gascoigne — The Lullaby of a Lover, 8 James Graham : see Montrose, Marquis of. Robert Greene — Sephestia's Song to her Child, 53 Fawnia, 54 Philomela's Ode, - 55 William Habington — To Castara : The Reward of Innocent Love, - - 200 To the Moment Last Past, 201 Nox Nocti Iridicat Scientiam, 202 Cogitabo pro Peccato Meo, 203 Lord Herbert of Cherbury — Love's Eternity, 238 George Herbert — Virtue, 239 The Collar, 239 Love, 241 XIV ENGLISH LYRIC POETRY. Robert Herrick — Page The Argument of the Hesperides, .... 205 Upon the Loss of his Mistresses, .... 20^ To live Merrily, and to Trust to Good Verses, - 200 An Ode for Ben Jonson, ..... 208 His Prayer to Ben Jonson, 208 To Anthea, -- 209 The Night Piece, -210 Cherry Ripe, -- 210 To Electra, 211 Delight in Disorder, 211 Upon Julia's Clothes, 211 To the Rose, 212 To Dianeme, - 212 This Age Best, - - 212 Divination by a Daffodil, 213 To the Virgins, 213 To Blossoms, 213 To Daffodils, 214 To Violets, 215 To Meadows, 215 Anacreontic, 216 Upon a Child that Died, 216 Upon a Child, 216 Grace for a Child, ------- 217 The Litany, - 217 Thomas Heywood — Pack Clouds, Away, 108 Song of the Bell, - - - - - - - 108 Henry Howard : see Surrey, Earl of. Ben Jonson — Echo's Lament of Narcissus, 120 Hymn to Diana, 121 Hymn to Pan, 121 Song: To Celia, 122 How near to what is good is what is fair, - - 123 Buzz ! quoth the Blue-fly, 123 The fairy beam upon you, 123 Charis' Triumph, - - - - - - -124 The Measure of the Perfect Life, - - - - 125 Hymn: Hear me, O God! 125 TABLE OF CONTENTS AND INDEX OF AUTHORS. XV Thomas Lodge— Page Rosader's Description of Rosalynd, - - - 61 The Harmony of Love, 63 Whilst Youthful Sports are Lasting, 63 Richard Lovelace — Going to the Wars, 223 To Althea from Prison, 223 The Rose, - 224 John Lyly — Apelles' Song, 50 Spring's Welcome, 51 Hymn to Apollo, 51 Fairy Revels, 52 John Milton — Hymn on the Nativity, 176 L'Allegro, 183 II Penseroso, 187 Song : O'er the smooth enamelled green, - - - 192 Song : Nymphs and Shepherds, dance no more, - 193 Song : Sweet Echo, sweetest Nymph, - - - 193 Incantation: Sabrina fair, 194 The Land of Eternal Summer, - - - - 195 Song on May Morning, 196 Sonnet: To the Nightingale, 196 Sonnet: On his Blindness, 197 Sonnet : On the Late Massacre in Piedmont, - - 197 Marquis of Montrose — My dear and only Love, ... - - 236 Henry More — The Philosopher's Devotion, 243 Thomas Nash— Spring, the sweet Spring, 58 Death's Summons, 59 Fading Summer, 60 George Peele — Song of Paris and QLnone, 56 Harvestmen A-Singing, 57 Farewell to Arms, 57 Francis Quarles — Phosphor, bring the Day, 241 XVI ENGLISH LYRIC POETRY. Sir Walter Raleigh— p Pilgrim to Pilgrim, 43 Even such is Time, 45 Earl of Rochester— Song : Dear, from thine Arms, - - - - -253 To his Mistress, 254 Love and Life, 254 Sir Charles Sedley — To Celia, - 255 William Shakespeare— When icicles hang by the wall, - - - - 80 Over hill, over dale, 80 You spotted snakes, 81 Who is Silvia? 81 Tell me where is fancy bred, 82 Under the greenwood tree, 82 Blow, blow, thou winter wind, .... 83 Sigh no more, ladies, 84 O mistress mine, 84 Come away, come away, death, - - - - 85 How should I your true love know, ... 85 Take, O take those lips away, 86 Hark, hark ! the lark, 86 Fear no more the heat o' the sun, - - - - 86 Full fathom five thy father lies, .... 87 Where the bee sucks, 87 Sonnets Nos. 29, 30, 33, 60, 66, 71, 73, 104, 106, 107, 109, 116, 129, 146, .... 88-94 Samuel Sheppard— Epithalamium, 230 James Shirley — A Dirge, 225 Peace Restored, - ..... 226 Sir Philip Sidney — Sonnet: Philomela, - - ... . - 45 Sonnet: Heart-Exchange, 46 Sonnet : To the Moon, - - - - - - 46 Sonnet : Love is Enough, - - - . . 47 Sonnet: Inspiration, ----.. 47 Sonnet : Eternal Love, 48 TABLE OF CONTENTS AND INDEX OF AUTHORS. XV11 John Skelton — p age To Mistress Margery Wentworth, I To Mistress Isabel Pennell, 2 Robert Southwell — The Burning Babe, 103 Edmund Spenser — The Song of Enchantment, 13 From the Daphnaida, 14 Sonnets (8, 34, 68, 79), - - - < ; • - - 16 Prothalamion, - - - -•- - -18 Epithalamion, 24 From an Hymn in Honour of Beauty, 37 From an Hymn of Heavenly Beauty, 42 William Strode— Song : In Commendation of Music, - - - 229 Sir John Suckling — Orsames' Song, 221 Constancy, 222 Earl of Surrey — Sonnet : Description of Spring, .... 3 Sonnet: Geraldine, 4 Sonnet : Complaint of a Lover Rebuked, 4 The Means to Attain Happy Life, 5 George Turbervile — The Lover to his Lady, 9 Nicholas Udall — Pipe, merry Annot, - - - - - -12 Henry Vaughan — The Retreat, 249 The World, 250 Peace, 250 Beyond the Veil, 251 The Chosen Path, 252 "A. W.»— A Dialogue between the Soul and the Body, - - 162 Edmund Waller — On a Girdle, 232 Song : Go, lovely Rose, 232 To a Lady in Retirement, 233 The Last Prospect, 234 XV111 ENGLISH LYRIC POETRY. Simon Wastell — p flge Of Man's Mortality, - - - . - - . 145 John Webster — Dirge : Call for the robin redbreast, - - - 146 Hark, now everything is still, 146 Vanitas Vanitatum, 147 James Wedderburn— Go, Heart, 10 Leave me not, II John Wilmott : see Rochester, Earl of. George Wither— The Author's Resolution in a Sonnet, - - - 198 The Flower of Virtue, - - - - - - 199 Sir Henry Wotton — The Character of a Happy Life, - 149 On his Mistress, the Queen of Bohemia, - - - 150 Sir John Wotton — Damaetas' Jig in Praise of his Love, - - - 151 Sir Thomas Wyatt— Forget not yet, 5 An Earnest Suit to his Unkind Mistress, ... 6 The Lover sheweth how he is Forsaken, - - - j Index of First Lines, 268 INTRODUCTION THE English Lyric has been late in coming into its own. For a full century the exquisite song of the lesser Elizabethan choir lay perdue History of the while the great critics of the classical SJSSJff* period, following in the way of the later Lyric - Aristotelian tradition, solemnly discussed theory and practice in epic and drama only. Dryden, ever a jealous defender of English literary per- formance, has next to nothing to say of the Eng- lish Lyric. The eighteenth-century imitators of Milton and Spenser catch not so much at the lyric vein of these masters as at their tricks of diction and at their narrative or their idyllic manner. Percy's Reliques, in 1765, however, began to bring back into esteem the wilding flavour of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century verse, both art-lyric and popular song and ballad. And perhaps the obscurer collections of verse which earlier in the century preceded the Reliques, such as Allan Ramsay's Evergreen, also helped to insinuate something of the spirit of the older lyric, and something of its peculiar cadence and rhythm of song, into the minds of impressionable youths like Burns and Blake and Chatterton, and to prepare the taste of the new generation little by little for the new things which XX WHAT IS LYRIC? were coming in poetry. The Romantic revolution was certainly in part a literary revolution, involving a return to higher sources of inspiration and to older poetic ideals than had prevailed for so long. Wordsworth, writing in 1815, testifies as to the effect wrought by Percy's Reliques, that " For our own country its poetry has been absolutely re- deemed by it". The lyrical spirit of modern English poetry is in considerable measure a develop- ment from the lyrical spirit of the Elizabethan age ; and the appreciation of the Elizabethan lyric has grown with the growth of the modern lyric. The term ' Lyric ' in modern times has always been of uncertain usage. In the broadest sense it is often taken to cover all poetry which does not fall under the species Epic or Drama, or any of their allied forms. Vagueness of connotation has attached to the term, also, from the implicit acceptance by some modern writers of the lyric form and mood as the poetic form and mood par excellence. In this sense lyrical expression is conceived as the very soul and essence of poetical expression. Thus Gray in a letter to Mason, December 19th, 1756, writes: " The true lyric style, with all its nights of fancy, ornaments, and heighten- ing of expression, and harmony of sound, is in its nature superior to every other style; which is just the cause why it could not be borne in a work of great length, no more than the eye could bear to see all this scene that we constantly gaze upon — the verdure of the fields and woods, the azure of the sea and skies — turned into one dazzling ex- panse of gems ". The same idea has been elaborated THE LYRIC AND MUSIC. XXI by Poe in his essay on The Poetic Principle \ and Coleridge, in his summary of the characteristics of Shakespeare's work, calls attention to the "inter- fusion of the lyrical — that which in its very essence is poetical ". In the stricter sense of the term, however, two essential ideas attach to the lyric: the idea of its musical character and associations, and The Lyric and the idea of the lyric as the peculiar poetic Music- instrument for the expression of personal mood and feeling. In its origins generally, no doubt, and in its highest development as an unmixed species in the lyrical poetry of the Greeks, the lyric is alway? closely associated with music. Wordsworth, indeed, asserts that in all lyric kinds, "for the production of their full effect, an accompaniment of music is indispensable " : although he modifies this statement by adding that in most of his own verse, " as a sub- stitute for the classic lyre or romantic harp, I re- quire nothing more than an animated or impassioned recitation, adapted to the subject ". In the modern lyric accordingly there are two classes: on the one hand such verse as in form and spirit is most nearly associated with the idea of musical delivery or accompaniment, like the Elizabethan song-lyric; and on the other hand such verse as most closely imitates the form and spirit of verse in other tongues, especially Greek or Italian, which origin- ally was associated with that idea, like the modern ode or sonnet. 1 From the variety of its funda- J See the discussion of the relations of music and poetry by Mr. Theodore Watts in the article on ' Poetry ' in the Encyclopedia Bri- tannica. XX11 CLASSIFICATION OF LYRICS. mental musical associations, direct or remote, flows that variety of metrical form which is characteristic of the lyric species. In the perfect or ideal lyric } whether poem or song, the form must be the perfect expression of the mood. " In the last resort," as M. Brunetiere writes, 1 "this conformity of the move- ment with the emotion in a poem is all that is needed to constitute it a true lyric." Similarly, as music is perhaps the most delicate and wonder- whence Lyric ^ artistic instrument for the expression subjectivity. Q f esthetic mood, the lyric, which is the poetic form most nearly allied to music, is that in which aesthetic individualism and subjectivity attain their fullest utterance. In his famous preface of 1815, Wordsworth con- fines the lyric to " the hymn, the ode, the elegy, the , . . song, and the ballad ", and postulates, The several Lync fe ' ' r ' kinds: doubtful i n addition to narrative poetry, to the varieties. i i • i ■ drama, and to the lyric, three other main poetic divisions, viz., ' the idyllium ', didactic poetry, and satiric poetry. The ballad in the stricter sense — the communal or folk-epic, innocent of the personal and subjective note — is obviously allied rather with narrative than with lyrical poetry, Wordsworth's Lyrical Ballads to the contrary not- withstanding. On the other hand the sonnet, which Wordsworth oddly enough ranks with the idyl, should be classed with the modern lyric, where it belongs by right both of its ultimate musical origin and of the lyrical subjectivity of its inspiration. The idyl, represented by such poems as L Allegro and II Penseroso, is a class obviously allied to both x L Evolution de la Poisie Lyrique en France (Paris, 1895), vol. i., 152. // ^ OF THE ^\ I UNIVERSITY J TESTS OF LY^^CUiFORH^^ Xxiii narrative and lyric, and much of the composite poetry of the present century which is usually classed as lyrical is rather idyllic in form and spirit. 1 Didactic poetry and satiric poetry, finally, the two leading poetic types of the English 'classical' period, are also the two pre-eminently anti-lyrical forms, and consequently under no classification can they be properly ranked as any part of that literary residuum sometimes 2 called 1 lyrical poetry '. Conformance to the external marks of any re- cognized lyric kind constitutes perhaps 'a lyric', pro forma) but such is not the criterion of 'the lyrical '. Quality, on the contrary, quality and inspiration, are the subtle tests of all lyrical writing. Lyric poetry is pre-eminently the outcome of u the best and happiest moments of the happiest and best minds". Apply this test never so strictly, and it is still amazing what extent and variety of product remains from the two great periods of English poetry. And outside of these periods also, there are important lyrical gleanings, especially in the poetry of the pre-Elizabethan period. The Anglo-Saxon poetry, which, like all primi- tive poetry, is mostly of an indeterminate and un- differentiated species, is streaked here and there by lyricism. It presents perhaps no lyric in the x The Idyl of course is of classical origin. The species in modern poetry is discussed in the interesting essay, entitled ' ' A Comparison of Elizabethan with Victorian Poetry ", by the late Mr. J. A. Symonds (in his Essays Speculative and Suggestive, 399 f.). See also his Greek Poets, ch. xx. 2 As, for example, by Landor (Works, iv. 56): — "all that portion of our metre, which, wanting a definite term, is ranged under the capitulary of lyric ". XXIV ANGLO-SAXON LYRICS. modern sense, but various short pieces, mostly in the elegiac manner, approach the lyric in form, ...... and are of interest for what they re- Lyncism in J Anglo-Saxon ve al of the fundamental subjective and poetry. ■* poetic temper of the Saxon mind. In the poem called Deor's Lament, the compelling impulse of the lyric mood breaks through the re- straint of the common alliterative measure in which almost all Old English poetry is written and forces the lines into a rude strophic movement: Das ofereode, ©isses swa maeg — That was overpassed ; and so this I may endure the poet sings as the burden of his lament at the conclusion of each irregular stanza, in a mood like the mood of that man of many wiles, the much- enduring Odysseus, when he cries out: "Endure, my heart, for already a worse thing than this hast thou endured!" This fragment, however, as well as a few others, may be relics of an earlier poetry no longer extant, wherein greater variety of lyric measure prevailed. Other Anglo-Saxon poems, TJie Wanderer, TJie Ruin, The Seafarer, The Wife's Co7nplaint, and TJie Husband's Message, in the elegiac manner, are fundamentally lyrical, and fore- shadow much that is permanent in the lyrical moods of the English poetic genius. 1 They may be compared with some of the passages of an elegiac or lyrical cast in the Beowulf, as, for ex- ample, the valedictory lament of the last owner of the hoard, over the hidden treasure of the departed 1 Versions of considerable portions of these poems may be found in Stopford Brooke's History of Early English Literature. ANGLO-SAXON LYRICS. XXV warriors (lines 2247-2266). The Battle of Brunan- burgh 1 and the fragment entitled The Fight at Finnsburgh? may fairly be classed as lyrical ballads. In The Song of Azarias* of the Exeter T heAn g io-Saxon MS., we have a lyric in everything Religious Lyric - except metrical form. It is a nature-song of praise and thanksgiving addressed to the Creator of this universe of wonders : f)e gebletsige, bylywit Faeder, Woruldcraefta wlite, and weorca gehwilc — To Thee, O Father, blest and merciful, Face of wisdom and created things; To Thee the heavens and the seas beneath, And all the angels of the better world Among the stars, together render praise ! — so the hymn begins (in the longer version quoted in the Caedmonic poem of Daniel), revolving in an artless maze of fervent and earnest repetition around this simple theme to the end. Another poem shows this tendency to the lyrical mood and manner in a still more marked degree. This is the Christ, ascribed to Cynewulf. 4 It is a typical early mediaeval poem, founded in parts on the model of the Christian Latin poetry, and may be described as a sort of elaborate hymn on a narrative and didactic groundwork. 5 The eager aspiration for poetic and above all for 1 Everyone is familiar with Tennyson's version of this poem. 2 A version may be consulted in Garnett's Translation of Beowulf, p. 97. 3 A paraphrase of the Apocryphal book of The Song of the Three Children. 4 Accessible in an admirable edition with modern version by Mr. I. Gollancz (London, 1892). 5 Recent authorities argue that the Christ is properly to be regarded as three separate poems, of which the last doubtless is not by Cynewulf. Cf. Profs. Trautmann and Blackburn in Anglia, vols, xviii. and xix., 1896. (M349) C XXVI MIDDLE ENGLISH LYRICS. lyric utterance is apparent throughout the Anglo- Saxon period, without articulate and adequate artistic form for such utterance. 1 Potentiality of mood, however, and the ideality of temperament requisite for a great national school of poetry are plainly in the race, and it will require but the slight alloy and fusion of foreign blood and culture to bring them to utterance at a later day. After the Norman conquest the influence of mediaeval asceticism and of the Latin poetry of the Middle En fish cnurcn * s st ^ apparent in the Middle Lyrical Poetry: English religious lyric. Under French the chief kinds. ° ° J influence, however, a new lyric kind gradually develops, and, under the poetic impulse of Troubadour and Trouvere, a new range of feelings and motives is introduced into English poetry. The lyric production of this period in England was undoubtedly very considerable, although the greater part of it has disappeared. What is left falls into three principal classes : the religious lyric, produced under strict Latin and ecclesiastical influence; the political songs, best exemplified in the poems of Laurence Minor., 2 which are racy and original enough in matter and manner, but which are rather satirical than lyrical in spirit; and the secular and amatory lyrics, produced under French and courtly 1 In the Gnomic Verses occurs the following passage (Brooke, History of Early English Literature, p. 10): "To all men wise words are becoming ; songs to the gleemen and wisdom to men. As many as men are on the earth, so many are their thoughts ; each to himself has a separate soul. So then he who knows many songs and can greet the harp with his hands, hath the less of vain longing, for he hath in himself his gift of joy which God gave to him." - Edited by Mr. Joseph Hall (Clarendon Press Series, 1887). EARLY RELIGIOUS LYRICS. XXvii influence— often, however, composed by wandering students and minstrels,— among which are to be classed a considerable number of miscellaneous lyrics, mainly adespota of unnamed authors, as well as the more formal poetry in lyrical measures, but with meagre lyrical inspiration, of Chaucer and his English followers. 1 All these kinds receive their chief development in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, when finally the new nation comes into a heritage of language and culture adequate to such uses. The spirit of the Middle English religious lyrics is still that of Christian asceticism, inspired and solaced by a piety fervent and intense if also narrow and conventionalized. The l^Ktofrt* greater number are hymns to Christ and Lync ' to the Virgin. Occasionally there is abundant lyric sweetness and a persuasive grace of movement, re- vealing the influence of Latin hymnody, as in the following stanza, slightly modernized, from The Virgin's Complaint, a poem of the fifteenth century: I abode and abide with great longing, I love and look when man will crave, I plain me for pity of pining ; Would he ask mercy, he should it have j See to me, soul, I shall thee save ; Bid me, child, and I will go ; Prayedst me never, but I forgave,— Quia amore langueo. 1 There is as yet no convenient anthology of Middle English Lyrics. Consequently they must be sought for generally in the volumes of the Early English Text Society and in similar publications. Boeddeker's edition of MS. Harl. 2253 (Berlin, 1878), however, contains many of the best of the miscellaneous lyrics. A few in modern versions may be found in Fitzgibbon's Early English Poetry (Canterbury Poets), and in Dr. Mac Donald's England's Antiphon. XXX EARLY SECULAR LYRICS. I dwindle, fordokked of love-dangere, \u£s "{octroi Of that privy pearl withouten spot. ' O Pearl ', quoth I, l of rich renown, So was it me dear that thou con deem, { J?j5y2S In this very avision ; If it be a very and sooth sermoun {^Sgf<£? ** That thou so goest in garlands gay, Then well is it me in this doel-dungeon, dungeon of woe That thou art to that Prince's pay ! ' Chaucer's few poems in lyrical measures are exotic trifles, lacking seriousness; but outside of Chaucer there is a secular lyric of con- Engiish secular siderable extent, and presenting much variety and freshness of feeling. Spring songs like " Sumer is icumen in ", songs of politics and of patriotism, love -songs, snatches of refrain like the following: Blow, northern wind ; Send thou me my sweeting! Blow, northern wind Blow! blow! blow! and short pieces in many other sorts can be found among the scanty remains of this poetry. The greater number, perhaps, are love-lyrics, songs of a somewhat conventional cast, after the Norman model, but still with an old-world sweetness and charm. A sweetly suyre she hath to holde, neck With armes, shouldre, as man wolde, And fingers fair to folde ; God wolde she were mine ! She is crystal of clannesse, And banner of beaute ; NORMAN INFLUENCE. XXXI She is lily of largesse, She is paruenke of prouesse, {^Ztfje ° f She is selsecle of sweetnesse, heliotrope And lady of lealte. The Normans are teaching the Englishmen the arts of gallantry and the graces of the lyric turn, and are visibly subduing the serious northern mind to the spirit of romantic love! The lyric manner, however, is not yet free. A narrow conventionalism lies behind it all — behind the religious lyric the cloistered pessimism and Manicheeism of mediaeval Christianity; and the artless artificiality and form- alism of mediaeval court- life and chivalry behind the secular lyric. Thus in these love-songs there are scarcely more than two normal motives: the praise of the beloved set forth in a fixed poetry- stuff of conventional similes for her beauty: She is crystal of clannesse, And banner of beaute ; She is lily of largesse ; and love-plaints, turning on the hopeless aspiration of the lover for a lady whose qualities set her far above possibility of attainment, presented usually in a spring-tide setting, and full of conventional lover's hyperbole. Through all this, indeed, the poetic emotion may still be felt, but it is not strictly original. Mediaeval poetry, except in the hands of great masters, like Dante and Chaucer, is highly impersonal. Lyric subjectivity is the gift of the Renaissance. The emotion of the mediaeval poet takes the form of a set theme, whether of praise or plaint, as in the love-lyric, or of ascetic renuncia- XXX11 LACK OF PERSONAL NOTE. tion, as in the religious lyric, or of evanescence, of mutability, the melancholy reflection of the passing of things — theme beloved alike by the poets of the Greek Anthology, by the minstrels of the Middle Ages, and by the poets of the Renaissance — which Spenser, as last of the medisevals, has sung so eloquently. Nowhere in the mediaeval lyric do we find the note of personal revelation and confession, the subjective and individualistic note of the son- nets of Sidney and Drummond and Shakespeare, or of the lyrics of Donne; nowhere anything like the purely personal accent of Shelley's lyric cry, that concentrated utterance of the soul's despair of the modern idealist, sounding like the wail of a lost spirit: O world, O life, O time, On whose last steps I climb, Trembling at that where I had stood before ; When will return the glory of your prime? No more; ah! nevermore! The Middle English period was, doubtless, a period of artistic and poetic education for the race, and the gains are not a few, but most of them seem to be lost before the sixteenth century — lost from disuse, and fading into insignificance before the new and brilliant gains of the poetry founded on Italian art, that more fortunate offspring and development on a foreign soil of the happy first influence of the Troubadour song. The Middle English lyric is but the twittering of birds before the dawn. The full lyric chorus is not yet heard. From the death of Chaucer to the advent of Wyatt and Surrey there is practically an inter- fl UNIVERSITY J EARLY SCOTCH g^£^Taj.lFORH^^XXxiii regnum in the history of the English lyric as in that of most other literary forms, marked only by a few belated specimens of the earlier , „ . ,.. , 11. i 11 i Scotch Lyrists religious and secular lyrical style, by the of the Fifteenth ballads and other verses in imitation of exotic French forms written by Gower, Lydgate, Occleve, and similar contemporaries or disciples of Chaucer, by the rare and remarkable phenomenon of laureate Skelton's few lyrics of occasion, and, most noteworthy of all, by the lyrical attempts of the Scotch imitators of Chaucer — James I. of Scot- land, Henryson, and Dunbar. In the allegories and visions of these Scotch poets the influence of French mediaeval culture is still predominant; but here first, nevertheless, we begin to feel that a new light is already dawning. We feel this, for example, in Dunbar's Lament for the Makers, in some of his shorter lyrics, nay, even in his grotesque and terribly mediaeval Dance of the Seven Deadly Sins; we feel it also in many passages of the King's Quair: Worshipe, ye that lovers been, this May, For of your bliss the kalends are begun ; And sing with us, ' Away, Winter, away ! Come, Summer, come, the sweet season and sun ! ' Awake, for shame ! that have your heavens won, And amorously lift up your heades all ; Thank Love, that list you to his mercy call. But in relation to the main growth of the English lyric, the poetry of this group of singers seems to have been an isolated phenomenon. 1 1 The poetry of this Scotch School may be conveniently read in the volume of Mediceval Scottish Poetry in the Abbotsford Series of the Scottish Poets, edited by Mr. George Eyre Todd (Glasgow, 1892). XXXIV ELIZABETHAN LYRIC. Many strands, new and old — strands of Middle English song, and strands of ballad music and The Elizabethan folk-song, as well as the innumerable Lync. iridescent threads of Italian and Re- naissance poetry — go to the weaving of the great Elizabethan lyric. This lyric, indeed, in its per- fected form, is an art-lyric, a cultivated lyric, and not an autochthonous popular lyric or volkslied. A national lyric it is at its best, but its appeal is always really to artistic and sophisticated sensi- bilities, and not to the rustic, nor even to Vhomme sensuel moyen, inhabitant in court or in town. As a poetic art-form the Elizabethan lyric Italian Sources x . - , . ... ■ of Elizabethan owes its first inspiration almost ex- . clusively to the influence of Italian poetry. Until the full Elizabethan chorus is heard, until Spenser and Sidney have begun their song, it is mainly an imitative lyric, a lyric in its forma- tive stage. Matter and manner are largely para- phrased from the Italian throughout Surrey, Wyatt, and Watson, and in much of Gascoigne and Tur- bervile, and the writers in the early miscellanies. The predominant influence in England, as it had been throughout Europe for so long before, is that of Petrarch and his Italian followers. Petrarch's treatment of romantic love, his use of Nature, his management of the sonnet-sequence, and his chief poetic forms — the sonnet, the canzone or ode, the sestina, and the madrigal — are all adopted, with only slight modifications at first, in this early Re- naissance poetry of England. This influence of the earlier Italian lyric is received and assimilated by a vigorous poetic brood. If the note of direct EARLY ELIZABETHAN LYRISTS. XXXV imitation prevails in the earliest Elizabethans, in Spenser and in the best lyrists contemporary with Spenser it is already subdued to the colour of the genius of the individual poet. Indeed from the beginning the voices we hear are the voices of Englishmen, and the native accent breaks through the foreign idiom. Skelton, your uni- Manner of the versity laureate and the first of the Early Eiiza- , ... .- bethan Lyrists. moderns, is English and idiosyncratic with a vengeance! The mood of English reflection marks much of the poetry of Wyatt, of Gascoigne, and of the anonymous contributors to the mis- cellanies ; while many of the old conventions and many of the old poetic forms, such as the couplet, rime royal, Poulter's measure, ballad measure, and the fourteeners are retained, and appear sporadically throughout the period. Before Spenser and Sid- ney, however, everything is tentative and experi- mental. The lyric has not attained to freedom of feeling and of expression. The heavy atmosphere of the fifteenth century is not yet dissipated. The early lyrists write in an idiom neither mediaeval nor yet quite modern. The manner of continental culture is with difficulty caught. But the change when it does come is very rapid. Gaiety, expan- siveness, fanciful ease, richness, and music, all at once startle the timid ear of the early twilight, when, about 1580, the level sun begins to shine across the skies. The imaginary courts of love, the allegoric visions, the cavalcades, and the didactic commonplaces of the mediaeval age dis- appear in an instant, or shine in a tender afterglow in the pages of Spenser's romance. Poetry all of XXXVI DOMINANCE OF LYRICISM. a sudden becomes subjective, personal, reflective, alive, intense. The individual is liberated from the blighting anonymity of mediaevalism. He seeks the free expression of himself in art. The arts accessible to him in England are music, the drama, and lyric poetry, and these accordingly are the chief arts developed during the succeeding period. In the broadest sense lyricism, the salient, per- sonal, and rhythmical expression of the individual Lyricism the passion and sense of things, is the per- beS^Lhe?" vading note of the Elizabethan times, ature. English history at all times has been largely the struggle of the individual for emanci- pation and self-manifestation. Hence lyric art in all its composite forms is peculiarly an English art, and the lyricism of English poetry is its most constant and permanent element. So we find that the very drama of the Elizabethans is pervaded by this prevailing lyric mood. 1 The Elizabethan lyrical impulse seeks expression in a great variety of poetical forms. 2 The lyric proper appears, now under the pastoral Leading forms . of the Eliza- convention, now as sonnet and sonnet- bethan Lyric. sequence, now in various composite 1 See the ingenious essay by the late Mr. J. A. Symonds on ' The Lyrisra of the English Romantic Drama ' (in The Key of Blue and other Prose Essays, London and New York, 1893). 2 The extensive lyrical production of the Elizabethan period is to be found scattered through innumerable publications, such as the works of individual poets, the various miscellanies and anthologies of the day, occasional songs in prose romances, in the drama, in the masques (in itself a quasi-lyrical species), and in the song-books which supplied and delighted the musical tastes of our forefathers. In addition to all this many pieces in manuscript yet remain unpublished. More specific bibliographical indications are to be found in the body of the present volume in the brief introductory notes accompanying the text. VARIETIES OF LYRIC. XXXV11 literary forms, such as formal ode and epithalamium, and again as the pure^ong-lyjic of the Elizabethan song-books, in madr igal, canzon, ' ode V- roundelay, and catch^that altogether delightful and exquisite outburst of bird-like music, exotic and Italianate, and yet, to modern ears, at the same time so freshly English and native. 1 Further than this, many elegiac and idyllic variations, prolonged to more than lyric length, are frequently heard. The variety and scope of Elizabethan lyrical production as a whole are as remarkable as its distinction and perfection of style in many parts. The more purely literary lyric in almost every kind of form known at the present day is produced in abundance, in addition to the lyric in which the pastoral manner, or the note of song, or the sonnet convention predominates. Lyrics in these forms reach their chief perfection, perhaps, in the more literary poets, such as Spenser, Daniel, Drayton, Browne, Drummond, and Milton. In Spenser's Epithalamion and the Four Hymns y especially, is exemplified what has been called the Greater Lyric, 2 the long-breathed lyric of elaborate involu- tions in subject-matter and in metrical form, which in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is represented principally by the formal ode, Pindaric and otherwise. No one in English has managed this difficult form of art with such constancy of 1 On the various forms of the Elizabethan lyric Professor Schelling's Introduction, pp. xiv f., to his charming anthology of Elizabethan lyrics (Boston, 1895), may be consulted with advantage by the reader interested in the further study of the subject. 2 See Mr. Ernest Rhys's Introduction to his volume of selections from the lyric poems of Spenser. Xl SONG-LYRICS. English poetry of the subjective spirit of modern lyricism. <> In the song-lyric of the Elizabethan age con- ventionality is melted into pure lyric mood, or only The Elizabethan a< 3ds a further ornament and grace to Song-Lyric. a mus j ca i utterance without it some- what formless and unstayed. The exquisite accord of music and words in this lyric has been noted by all competent judges. Elizabethan music was a music perfectly fitted to song, slight and melodic, full of local colour and suggestiveness, and admir- ably adapted to commend and ensure and fortify lyric poetry of as perfect a quality in its particular kind as probably has been or ever will be written to the accompaniment of musical notes in so in- tractable a language as English. The Elizabethan song-lyric is a form of pure art — poetic emotion stirred by the sense of beauty and of musical delight, with the slightest possible admixture of the temporal and the adventitious. These haunting measures of song, the secret of which seems to be now lost from our speech, are never overweighted with meaning, nor at their best are they over- charged with convention or with ornament. The Elizabethan song-writer understands instinctively the laws of the kind in which he works. How free are the lyrics in Shakespeare's plays, for example, from the subtleties and the compressions of the dramatic style of that master. Meaning here is masked in pure mood, is suggested and potential, not hardened into thought. "The apothecaries", writes Thomas .Campion in the preface to his Fourth Book of Airs \ *'have Books of Gold, whose leaves, SONG-LYRICS. xli being opened, are so light as that they are subject to be shaken with the least breath; yet, rightly handled, they serve both for ornament and use. Such are light Airs." And yet, in all this lyric-song there is almost never the suggestion of the mere exercise in versification. It has everywhere the note of spontaneity. A flying mood is caught in its passage, is slightly idealized, and then is fitted to diction and verse which by association and by cadence exactly render it to the hearer or reader. If the mood be inconsequential and fleeting, it is so much the more the proper material for musical and lyric expression. The mere music of words, allied to the exact quantum and substance of feeling and idea, has never elsewhere been equalled in English for lightness and grace, and an indescribable charm and singularity of verbal expressiveness. In Shake- speare, Campion, Heywood, Dekker, and Breton, and in the single masterpieces of a host of minor or unnamed singers, is found in unapproachable perfection that peculiar artless art, that first fine careless rapture, that exquisite harmony and union of form and substance, which in the last resort, as M. Brunetiere rightly says, is all that is needed in poetic form to constitute the true lyric, and which in any form seems to be the crowning attainment of art. In its day the Elizabethan song-lyric is a holiday lyric, the sweetener and solace of life in hall and bower, in court and city. It responds to the superabundant play-instinct of the age — the instinct of men seeking free expression after the long ascetic repression of the Middle Ages. The Elizabethan period is partly, and for a few brief (M349) D Xlii ELIZABETHAN LYRISTS. years, what Taine calls it, the period of a Pagan Renaissance. Life all at once has come to have a new joy and interest for men, here, now, and of itself. The senses reassert their rights. And it is still a half-century before the relapse into the black remorse of Puritanism. And so, meanwhile, the romantic comedy of life is played out to the sound of the lyre and of song. This sense of joyous elation, this spontaneity and careless ease of the early Elizabethan song, is that which gives it high permanent worth to us; and no one can appreciate its richness and inspiration who does not drink somewhat deeply of it — who cannot for the moment give himself up to the mood of it, rejoice in its joy, and admire its seeming-careless art and its happy music. It supplies something not elsewhere found in English poetry. Afterwards^ and all too soon, the eternal note of sadness is brought in. The chief lyric writers typical of the first great poetic period extending to the death of Elizabeth chi ef Elizabethan are Spenser, Sidney, Raleigh, Lyly, Lyrists. Greene, Peele, Nash, Lodge, Breton, Shakespeare, Daniel, Drayton, Southwell, Barnes, Heywood, and Dekker. Others — Donne, Jonson, Campion, and Sir John Davies, for example — fall partly within the same period, but their lyric manner, as well as in a less degree also the lyric manner of Shakespeare, Chapman, and Daniel, points rather to the special style of the lyric of the Jacobean period, and is rather transitional than typically Elizabethan. Spenser and Sidney fitly usher in the great period of the lyric. In the SPENSER — SIDNEY. xliii Shepherd's Calendar the lyric and the pastoral notes are blended. Fresh and elate, if also slightly- conscious and naive, like the voice of youth, it jstruck out a new music in English verse. The Lyrics of Spenser's characteristic lyric, however, s P enser - is the Greater Lyric, the prolonged lyric. His art requires ample room for its evolutions. Ac- cordingly his lyric utterance, as in the Epithala- mion, is large, harmonious, and splendidly impassive. The sharper lyrical cry, the strenuous utterance of brief but deep emotion, first comes from Sidriey, as in the sonnet beginning: Leave me, O Love, which readiest but to dust. After this the way is open to all comers, and the full choir of song is heard in the land. In this choir are many notes and many voices: f afcnor the delicate melody of Lyly, perfect in L y rists - diction, light and refined ; the richer note of Greene, full of English feeling, strangely heightened with pastoral and Renaissance fancies, varied in rhythm, but somewhat languorous and overwrought; Peek's few lyrics, golden in cadence, that go on murmur- ing in the memory; the fresh voice of Nash, now rollicking and open, and again musically melan- cholic; Lodge, more inclined to pastoralism, trying experiments in motives and rhythms that evade failure by a hand's-breadth, and too copious in his vein of song to be uniformly felicitous; Breton, as fresh as Nash, as copious as Lodge, but endowed with a finer artistic feeling, and altogether captivat- ing in his ready grace and buoyancy; Dekker and Heywood, lyrical and Elizabethan in spirit, humane, f ^ OF TfiK ^>^\ Xliv SHAKESPEARE. lovers of sunshine and song, and carrying down into the midst of the perplexities of the Jacobean age the simpler lyrical snatches that had pleased their youth; Drayton, grave- minded, with the ethical poet's fuller ambition, and touched with the new and deeper lyric feeling that utters itself most perfectly in Shakespeare's sonnets; Daniel, pure in utterance, refined and meditative, and typical minor master of the closet lyric; and, lastly, the sum of all these parts and master of the poetic schools of both periods, the lyric Shakespeare, most poignant and intense of sonnetteers, through all whose moods runs a hidden noble harmony, bitter-sweet, ever broken and ever synthesized anew, the fire of desire and the calm of aesthetic contemplation alternately active and quiescent, large, self-sacrific- ing, and Promethean, — and on the other hand, and in the same breath, subtlest and aptest singer of a lyric song, tuned to the whole gamut of singable emotions, from the woodnotes wild of the lyrics in As You Like It to the last solemn perfect simplicity of the Dirge in Cymbeline. The history of its lyrical poetry exhibits a strenuous and fervent idealism as one of the con- stant traits of the English mind. We and d M, heart, unto thy Saviour. Go, heart, right humble and full meek, Go, heart, as leal and true servitour, To him that health is for all flesh, Go, heart, unto thy Saviour. Go, heart, with true and whole intent, To Christ, thy help and whole succour; Thee to redeem He was all rent; Go, heart, unto thy Saviour. To Christ, that rose from death to life, Go, heart, unto my latter hour, Whose great mercy can none descrive, Go, heart, unto thy Saviour. 1 death. JAMES WEDDERBURN. II LEAVE ME NOT. Psalm xxvii. 9. A H ! my Lord, leave me not, ** Leave me not, leave me not, Ah ! my Lord, leave me not, Thus mine alone: With ane burden on my back I may not bear, I am so weak, Lord, this burden from me take, Or else I am gone. With Thy hands Thou hast me wrought, Leave me not, leave me not, With Thy hands Thou hast me wrought, Leave me not alone; I was sold and Thou me bought, With Thy blood Thou hast me coft 1 * Now am I hither sought To Thee, Lord, alone. I cry and I call to Thee, To leave me not, to leave me not, I cry and I call to Thee, To leave me not alone : All they that laden be, Thou bidst them come to Thee, Then shall they saved be, Through Thy mercy alone. 1 bought. 12 ENGLISH LYRIC POETRY. NICHOLAS UDALL(?). (iSo 4 ?-i5s6.) PIPE, MERRY ANNOT. This is a song from the early comedy of Ralph Roister Doister (printed 1566), of which Udall is thought to have been the author. The song seems to be of earlier date, and may not have been of Udall's composition. The play may be found in Hazlitt's Dodsley, vol. iii. piPE, merry Annot, * Trilla, Trilla, Trillary. Work, Tibet; work, Annot; work, Margery; Sew, Tibet; knit, Annot; spin, Margery. Let us see who will win the victory. Pipe, merry Annot, Trilla, Trilla, Trillary. What, Tibet! what, Annot! what, Margery! Ye sleep, but we do not, that shall we try; Your fingers be numbed, our work will not lie. Pipe, merry Annot, Trilla, Trilla, Trillary. Now, Tibet; now, Annot; now, Margery; Now whippet apace for the maistry : But it will not be, our mouth is so dry. Pipe, merry Annot, Trilla, Trilla, Trillary. When, Tibet? when, Annot? when, Margery? I will not, — I can not, — no more can I. Then give we all over, and there let it lie ! EDMUND SPENSER. 1 3 EDMUND SPENSER. (i552?-i599.) THE SONG OF ENCHANTMENT. Spenser's Lyrical Poems (the Shepherd's Calendar, Astrophel, the Amoretti, Epithalamion, Four Hymns, and Prothalamion) have appeared in a separate volume in Mr. Ernest Rhys' series of "The Lyric Poets" (London and New York, 1895). Extracts of a lyrical cast from the Shepherd's Calendar, 1579, appear in the volume of English Pastorals in the present series. The Daphnaida, ' ' an elegy upon the death of the noble and virtuous Douglas Howard", appeared in 1591 ; the Amoretti or Sonnets in 1595 (written 1592-3) ; the Epithalamion, a song in celebra- tion of the poet's own marriage, in 1595 (written 1594-5) ! tne Protha- lamion, or a "Spousal Verse, in honour of the double marriage of two honourable and virtuous ladies, the Lady Elizabeth and the Lady Katherine Somerset ", in 1596; and the Four Hymns in the same year. The following is the famous Song of Despair from the Fairy Queen, book I. , canto ix. "\I7HO travels by the weary wandering way, To come unto his wished home in haste, And meets a flood that doth his passage stay, Is not great grace to help him over past, Or free his feet that in the mire stick fast? Most envious man, that grieves at neighbour's good, And fond, that joyest in the woe thou hast ! Why wilt not let him pass, that long hath stood Upon the bank, yet wilt thyself not pass the flood? He there does now enjoy eternal rest And happy ease, which thou dost want and crave, And further from it daily wanderest : What if some little pain the passage have, That makes frail flesh to fear the bitter wave? Is not short pain well borne, that brings long ease, And lays the soul to sleep in quiet grave? Sleep after toil, port after stormy seas, Ease after war, death after life does greatly please ! 14 ENGLISH LYRIC POETRY. The lenger life, I wot, the greater sin; The greater sin, the greater punishment : All those great battles, which thou boasts to win Through strife, and bloodshed, and avengement, Now praised, hereafter dear thou shalt repent; For life must life, and blood must blood repay. Is not enough thy evil life forespent? For he that once hath missed the right way, The further he doth go, the further he doth stray. Then do no further go, no further stray, But here lie down, and to thy rest betake, Th' ill to prevent, that life ensewen may; For what hath life that may it loved make, And gives not rather cause it to forsake? Fear, sickness, age, loss, labour, sorrow, strife, Pain, hunger, cold that makes the heart to quake; And ever fickle fortune rageth rife; All which, and thousands mo, do make a loathsome life. FROM THE DAPHNAIDA. U OW happy was I when I saw her lead The shepherds' daughters dancing in a round ! How trimly would she trace and softly tread The tender grass, with rosy garland crowned ! And when she list advance her heavenly voice, Both Nymphs and Muses nigh she made astownd, And flocks and shepherds caused to rejoice. But now, ye shepherd lasses ! who shall lead Your wandering troups, or sing your virelayes 1 ? Or who shall dight your bowers, sith she is dead That was the Lady of your holy- days? Let now your bliss be turned into bale, 1 light songs. EDMUND SPENSER. 1 5 And into plaints convert your joyous plays, And with the same fill every hill and dale. Henceforth I hate what ever Nature made, And in her workmanship no pleasure find; For they be all but vain, and quickly fade, So soon as on them blows the Northern wind; They tarry not, but flit and fall away, Leaving behind them nought but grief of mind, And mocking such as think they long will stay. I hate the heaven, because it doth withhold Me from my love, and eke my love from me; I hate the earth, because it is the mould Of fleshly slime and frail mortality; I hate the fire, because to nought it flies; I hate the air, because sighs of it be; I hate the sea, because it tears supplies. I hate to speak, my voice is spent with crying; I hate to hear, loud plaints have dulled mine ears; I hate to taste, for food withholds my dying; I hate to see, mine eyes are dimmed with tears; I hate to smell, no sweet on earth is left; I hate to feel, my flesh is numbed with fears: So all my senses from me are bereft. I hate all men, and shun all womankind; The one, because as I they wretched are; The other, for because I do not find My love with them, that wont to be their star: And life I hate, because it will not last; And death I hate, because it life doth mar; And all I hate that is to come or past. To live I find it deadly dolorous, For life draws care, and care continual woe; 1 6 ENGLISH LYRIC POETRY. Therefore to die must needs be joyeous, And wishful thing this sad life to forgo: But I must stay; I may it not amend; My Daphne hence departing bade me so; She bade me stay, till she for me did send. Yet, whilst I in this wretched vale do stay My weary feet shall ever wandering be, That still I may be ready on my way When as her messenger doth come for me; Ne will I rest my feet for feebleness, Ne will I rest my limbs for frailty, Ne will I rest mine eyes for heaviness. ^SONNETS. "TTLIL j\1" ORE than most fair, full of the living fire, Kindled above unto the Maker near; No eyes but joys, in which all powers conspire, That to the world naught else be counted dear; Through your bright beams doth not the blinded guest Shoot out his darts to base affections wound; But Angels come to lead frail minds to rest In chaste desires, on heavenly beauty bound. You frame my thoughts, and fashion me within; You stop my tongue, and teach my heart to speak; You calm the storm that passion did begin, Strong through your cause, but by your virtue weak. Dark is the world, where your light shined never; Well is he born that may behold you ever. 3$% IKE 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 ! EDMUND SPENSER. 1 7 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 plast; 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 1 , comfortless, In secret sorrow, and sad pensiveness. >j ||) . "IVIOST glorious Lord of life! that, on this day, "" i ' 1 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 clea\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 £\» pRESH Spring, the herald of love's mighty king, In whose coat-armour richly are displayed All sorts of flowers, the which on earth do spring In goodly colours gloriously arrayed; 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 stayed, 1 full of care. 1 8 ENGLISH LYRIC POETRY. Unless she do him by the forelock take; Bid her therefore herself soon ready make, To wait on Love amongst his lovely crew; Where everyone, 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. AM EN call you fair, and you do credit it, For that yourself ye daily such do see : But the true fair, that is the gentle wit, And virtuous mind, is much more praised of me: For all the rest, however fair it be, Shall turn to nought and lose that glorious hue; But only that is permanent and free From frail corruption, that doth flesh ensue. That is true beauty : that doth argue you To be divine, and born of heavenly seed; Derived from that fair Spirit, from whom all true And perfect beauty did at first proceed: He only fair, and what he fair hath made; All other fair, like flowers, untimely fade. PROTHALAMION. pALM was the day, and through the trembling air ^ Sweet-breathing Zephyrus did softly play A gentle spirit, that lightly did delay Hot Titan's beams, which then did glister fair; When I (whom sullen care, Through discontent of my long fruitless stay In princes' court, and expectation vain Of idle hopes, which still do fly away, Like empty shadows, did afflict my brain) Walked forth to ease my pain 1 mate. EDMUND SPENSER. 1 9 Along the shore of silver streaming Thames; Whose rutty 1 bank, the which his river hems, Was painted all with variable flowers, And all the meads adorned with dainty gems Fit to deck maidens' bowers, And crown their paramours Against the bridal day, which is not long: Sweet Thames ! run softly, till I end my song. There, in a meadow, by the river's side, A flock of Nymphs I chanced to espy, All lovely daughters of the flood thereby, With goodly greenish locks, all loose untied, As each had been a bride; And each one had a little wicker basket, Made of fine twigs, entrailed curiously, In which they gathered flowers to fill their flasket, And with fine fingers cropt full feateously The tender stalks on hie. Of every sort, which in that meadow grew, They gathered some; the violet, pallid blue, The little daisy, that at evening closes, The virgin lily, and the primrose true, With store of vermeil roses, To deck their bridegroom's posies Against the bridal day, which was not long: Sweet Thames ! run softly, till I end my song. With that I saw two swans of goodly hue Come softly swimming down along the Lee; Two fairer birds I yet did never see; The snow, which doth the top of Pindus strew, Did never whiter shew, Nor Jove himself, when he a swan would be For love of Leda, whiter did appear; 1 rooty. 20 ENGLISH LYRIC POETRY. Yet Leda was (they say) as white as he, Yet not so white as these, nor nothing near; So purely white they were, That even the gentle stream, the which them bare, Seemed foul to them, and bade his billows spare To wet their silken feathers, lest they might Soil their fair plumes with water not so fair, And mar their beauties bright, That shone as heaven's light, Against their bridal day, which was not long: Sweet Thames ! run softly, till I end my song. Eftsoons the Nymphs, which now had flowers their fill, Ran all in haste to see that silver brood, As they came floating on the crystal flood; Whom when they saw, they stood amazed still, Their wondering eyes to fill; Them seemed they never saw a sight so fair, Of fowls so lovely, that they sure did deem Them heavenly born, or to be that same pair Which through the sky draw Venus' silver team; For sure they did not seem To be begot of any earthly seed, But rather Angels, or of Angels' breed; Yet were they bred of summer's heat, they say, In sweetest season, when each flower and weed The earth did fresh array; So fresh they seemed as day, Even as their bridal day, which was not long: Sweet Thames ! run softly, till I end my song. Then forth they all out of their baskets drew Great store of flowers, the honour of the field, That to the sense did fragrant odours yield, All which upon those goodly birds they threw And all the waves did strew, EDMUND SPENSER. 21 That like old Peneus' waters they did seem, When down along by pleasant Tempe's shore, Scattered with flowers, through Thessaly they stream, That they appear, through lilies' plenteous store, Like a bride's chamber floor. Two of those Nymphs, meanwhile, two garlands bound Of freshest flowers which in that mead they found, The which presenting all in trim array, Their snowy foreheads therewithal they crowned, Whilst one did sing this lay, Prepared against that day, Against their bridal day, which was not long: Sweet Thames ! run softly, till I end my song. * Ye gentle birds ! the world's fair ornament, And heaven's glory, whom this happy hour Doth lead unto your lovers' blissful bower, Joy may you have, and gentle hearts' content Of your love's couplement; And let fair Venus, that is queen of love, With her heart-quelling son upon you smile, Whose smile, they say, hath virtue to remove All love's dislike, and friendship's faulty guile For ever to assoil. Let endless peace your steadfast hearts accord, And blessed plenty wait upon your board; And let your bed with pleasures chaste abound, That fruitful issue may to you afford, Which may your foes confound, And make your joys redound Upon your bridal day, which is not long: Sweet Thames! run softly, till I end my song. So ended she; and all the rest around To her redoubled that her undersong, Which said their bridal day should not be long : 22 ENGLISH LYRIC POETRY. And gentle Echo from the neighbour ground Their accents did resound. So forth those joyous birds did pass along, Adown the Lee, that to them murmured low, As he would speak, but that he lacked a tongue, Yet did by signs his glad affection show, Making his stream run slow. And all the fowl which in his flood did dwell Gan flock about these twain, that did excel The rest, so far as Cynthia doth shend 1 The lesser stars. So they, enranged well, Did on those two attend, And their best service lend Against their wedding day, which was not long: Sweet Thames ! run softly, till I end my song. At length they all to merry London came, To merry London, my most kindly nurse, That to me gave this life's first native source; Though from another place I take my name, An house of ancient fame : There when they came, whereas those bricky towers The which on Thames' broad aged back do ride, Where now the studious lawyers have their bowers, There whilom wont the Templar Knights to bide, Till they decayed through pride : Next whereunto there stands a stately place, Where oft I gained gifts and goodly grace Of that great lord, which therein wont to dwell, Whose want too well now feels my friendless case; But ah ! here fits not well Old woes, but joys, to tell Against the bridal day, which is not long: Sweet Thames ! run softly, till I end my song. 1 shame, confound. EDMUND SPENSER. 23 Yet therein now doth lodge a noble peer, Great England's glory, and the world's wide wonder, Whose dreadful name late through all Spain did thunder, And Hercules' two pillars standing near Did make to quake and fear: Fair branch of honour, flower of chivalry ! That fillest England with thy triumph's fame, Joy have thou of thy noble victory, And endless happiness of thine own name That promiseth the same ; That through thy prowess, and victorious arms, Thy country may be freed from foreign harms; And great Elisa's glorious name may ring Through all the world, filled with thy wide alarms, Which some brave muse may sing To ages following, Upon the bridal day, which is not long: Sweet Thames ! run softly, till I end my song. From those high towers this noble lord issuing, Like radiant Hesper, when his golden hair In th' ocean billows he hath bathed fair, Descended to the river's open viewing, With a great train ensuing. Above the rest were goodly to be seen Two gentle knights of lovely face and feature, Beseeming well the bower of any queen, With gifts of wit, and ornaments of nature, Fit for so goodly stature, That like the twins of Jove they seemed in sight, Which deck the baldrick of the heavens bright; They two, forth pacing to the river's side, Received those two fair brides, their love's delight; Which, at th' appointed tide, Each one did make his bride (M349) g 24 ENGLISH LYRIC POETRY. Against their bridal day, which is not long: Sweet Thames ! run softly, till I end my song. EPITHALAMION. "U'E learned sisters, which have oftentimes Been to me aiding, others to adorn, Whom ye thought worthy of your graceful rimes, That ever the greatest did not greatly scorn To hear their names sung in your simple lays, But joyed in their praise; And when ye list your own mishaps to mourn, Which death, or love, or fortune's wreck did raise, Your string could soon to sadder tenor turn, And teach the woods and waters to lament Your doleful dreariment: Now lay those sorrowful complaints aside; And, having all your heads with garlands crowned, Help me mine own love's praises to resound; Ne let the same of any be envied : So Orpheus did for his own bride! So I unto myself alone will sing; The woods shall to me answer, and my echo ring. Early, before the world's light-giving lamp His golden beam upon the hills doth spread, Having dispersed the night's uncheerful damp, Do ye awake, and, with fresh lusty-hed, Go to the bower of my beloved love, My truest turtle dove; Bid her awake; for Hymen is awake, And long since ready forth his mask to move, With his bright tead 1 that flames with many a flake, And many a bachelor to wait on him, In their fresh garments trim, 1 torch. EDMUND SPENSER. 25 Bid her awake therefore, and soon her dight, For lo ! the wished day is come at last, That shall, for all the pains and sorrows past, Pay to her usury of long delight : And, whilst she doth her dight, Do ye to her of joy and solace sing, That all the woods may answer, and your echo ring. Bring with you all the Nymphs that you can hear, Both of the rivers and the forests green, And of the sea that neighbours to her near, All with gay garlands goodly well beseen. And let them also with them bring in hand Another gay garland, For my fair love, of lilies and of roses, Bound truelove wise with a blue silk riband; And let them make great store of bridal posies, And let them eke bring store of other flowers, To deck the bridal bowers. And let the ground whereas her foot shall tread, For fear the stones her tender foot should wrong, Be strewed with fragrant flowers all along, And diapered like the discoloured 1 mead; Which done, do at her chamber door await, For she will waken straight; The whiles do ye this song unto her sing, The woods shall to you answer, and your echo ring. Ye Nymphs of Mulla, which with careful heed The silver scaly trouts do tend full well, And greedy pikes which use therein to feed; (Those trouts and pikes all others do excel); And ye likewise, which keep the rushy lake, Where none do fishes take; 1 variegated. 26 ENGLISH LYRIC POETRY. Bind up the locks the which hang scattered light, And in his waters, which your mirror make, Behold your faces as the crystal bright, That when you come whereas my love doth lie, No blemish she may spy. And eke, ye lightfoot maids, which keep the door, That on the hoary mountain used to tower; And the wild wolves, which seek them to devour, With your steel darts do chase from coming near; Be also present here, To help to deck her, and to help to sing, That all the woods may answer, and your echo ring. Wake now, my love, awake! for it is time; The rosy morn long since left Tithone's bed, All ready to her silver coach to climb; And Phcebus gins to show his glorious head. Hark, how the cheerful birds do chant their lays And carol of love's praise. The merry lark her matins sings aloft; The thrush replies; the mavis descant plays; The ouzel shrills; the ruddock warbles soft; So goodly all agree, with sweet concent, To this day's merriment Ah ! my dear love, why do ye sleep thus long, When meeter were that ye should now awake, T' await the coming of your joyous make, And hearken to the birds' love-learned song, The dewy leaves among! For they of joy and pleasance to you sing, That all the woods them answer, and their echo ring. My love is now awake out of her dreams, And her fair eyes, like stars that dimmed were With darksome cloud, now show their goodly beams More bright than Hesperus his head doth rear. EDMUND SPENSER. 27 Come now, ye damsels, daughters of delight, Help quickly her to dight : But first come ye fair hours, which were begot, In Jove's sweet paradise of Day and Night; Which do the seasons of the year allot, And all that ever in this world is fair, Do make and still repair: And ye three handmaids of the Cyprian queen, The which do still adorn her beauty's pride, Help to adorn my beautifulest bride; And as ye her array, still throw between Some graces to be seen, And, as ye use to Venus, to her sing, The whiles the woods shall answer, and your echo ring. Now is my love all ready forth to come: Let all the virgins therefore well await; And ye fresh boys that tend upon her groom Prepare yourselves; for he is coming straight. Set all your things in seemly good array, Fit for so joyful day, The joyful'st day that ever sun did see. Fair Sun ! show forth thy favourable ray, And let thy life-full heat not fervent be. For fear of burning her sunshiny face, Her beauty to disgrace. O fairest Phoebus ! father of the Muse . If ever I did honour thee aright, Or sing the thing that mote thy mind delight, Do not thy servant's simple boon refuse; But let this day, let this one day be mine; Let all the rest be thine; Then I thy sovereign praises loud will sing, That all the woods shall answer, and their echo ring. Hark ! how the minstrels gin to shrill aloud 28 ENGLISH LYRIC POETRY. Their merry music that resounds from far, The pipe, the tabor, and the trembling crowd 1 , That well agree withouten breach or jar. But, most of all, the Damsels do delight When they their timbrels smite, And thereunto do dance and carol sweet, That all the senses they do'ravish quite; The whiles the boys run up and down the street, Crying aloud with strong confused noise, As if it were one voice, Hymen, io Hymen, Hymen, they do shout; That even to the heavens their shouting shrill Doth reach, and all the firmament doth fill; To which the people standing all about, As in approvance do thereto applaud, And loud advance her laud; And evermore they Hymen, Hymen sing, That all the woods them answer, and their echo ring. Lo ! where she comes along with portly pace, Like Phcebe, from her chamber of the East, Arising forth to run her mighty race, Clad all in white, that seems a virgin best. So well it her beseems, that ye would ween Some angel she had been. Her long loose yellow locks like golden wire, Sprinkled with pearl, and pearling flowers atween, Do like a golden mantle her attire; And, being crowned with a garland green, Seem like some maiden queen. Her modest eyes, abashed to behold So many gazers as on her do stare, Upon the lowly ground affixed are; Ne dare lift up her countenance too bold, 1 a kind of violin. EDMUND SPENSER. 29 But blush to hear her praises sung so loud, So far from being proud. Nathless do ye still loud her praises sing, That all the woods may answer, and your echo ring. Tell me, ye merchants' daughters, did ye see So fair a creature in your town before; So sweet, so lovely, and so mild as she, Adorned with beauty's grace and virtue's store? Her goodly eyes like sapphires shining bright, Her forehead ivory white, Her cheeks like apples which the sun hath rudded, Her lips like cherries charming men to bite, Her breast like to a bowl of cream uncrudded, Her paps like lilies budded, Her snowy neck like to a marble tower; And all her body like a palace fair, Ascending up, with many a stately stair, To honour's seat and chastity's sweet bower. Why stand ye still, ye virgins, in amaze, Upon her so to gaze, Whiles ye forget your former lay to sing, To which the woods did answer, and your echo ring? But if ye saw that which no eyes can see, The inward beauty of her lively spright, Garnished with heavenly gifts of high degree, Much more then would ye wonder at that sight, And stand astonished like to those which read Medusa's mazeful head. There dwells sweet love, and constant chastity, Unspotted faith, and comely womanhood, Regard of honour, and mild modesty; There virtue reigns as queen in royal throne, And giveth laws alone, The which the base affections do obey, 30 ENGLISH LYRIC POETRY. And yield their services unto her will; Ne thought of thing uncomely ever may Thereto approach to tempt her mind to ill. Had ye once seen these her celestial treasures, And unrevealed pleasures, Then would ye wonder, and her praises sing, That all the woods should answer, and your echo ring. Open the temple gates unto my love, Open them wide that she may enter in, And all the posts adorn as doth behove, And all the pillars deck with garlands trim, For to receive this Saint with honour due, That cometh in to you. With trembling steps, and humble reverence She cometh in, before th' Almighty's view; Of her ye virgins learn obedience, When so ye come into those holy places, To humble your proud faces : Bring her up to th' high altar, that she may The sacred ceremonies there partake, The which do endless matrimony make; And let the roaring organs loudly play The praises of the Lord in lively notes; The whiles, with hollow throats, The choristers the joyous anthem sing, That all the woods may answer, and their echo ring. Behold, whiles she before the altar stands, Hearing the holy priest that to her speaks, And blesseth her with his two happy hands, How the red roses flush up in her cheeks, And the pure snow, with goodly vermill stain, Like crimson dyed in grain: That even th' Angels, which continually About the sacred altar do remain, EDMUND SPENSER. 31 Forget their service and about her fly, Oft peeping in her face, that seems more fair, The more they on it stare. But her sad eyes, still fastened on the ground, Are governed with goodly modesty, That suffers not one look to glance awry, Which may let in a little thought unsound. Why blush ye, love, to give to me your hand, The pledge of all our band? Sing, ye sweet Angels, Alleluia sing, That all the woods may answer, and your echo ring. Now all is done: bring home the bride again; Bring home the triumph of our victory : Bring home with you the glory of her gain With joyance bring her and with jollity. Never had man more joyful day than this Whom heaven would heap with bliss, Make feast therefore now all this live-long day; This day for ever to me holy is. Pour out the wine without restraint or stay, Pour not by cups, but by the bellyful, Pour out to all that will, And sprinkle all the posts and walls with wine, That they may sweat, and drunken be withal. Crown ye god Bacchus with a coronal, And Hymen also crown with wreaths of vine; And let the Graces dance unto the rest, For they can do it best : The whiles the maidens do their carol sing, To which the woods shall answer, and their echo ring. Ring ye the bells, ye young men of the town, And leave your wonted labours for this day: This day is holy; do ye write it down, That ye for ever it remember may. 32 ENGLISH LYRIC POETRY. This day the sun is in his chiefest height, With Barnaby the bright, From whence declining daily by degrees, He somewhat loseth of his heat and light, When once the Crab behind his back he sees. But for this time it ill ordained was, To choose the longest day in all the year, And shortest night, when longest fitter were: Yet never day so long, but late would pass. Ring ye the bells, to make it wear away, And bonfires make all day; And dance about them, and about them sing, That all the woods may answer, and your echo ring. Ah ! when will this long weary day have end, And lend me leave to come unto my love? How slowly do the hours their numbers spend ! How slowly does sad Time his feathers move ! Haste thee, O fairest planet, to thy home, Within the western foam: Thy tired steeds long since have need of rest. Long though it be, at last I see it gloom, And the bright evening-star with golden crest Appear out of the East. Fair child of beauty ! glorious lamp of love ! That all the host of heaven in ranks dost lead, And guidest lovers through the night's sad dread, How cheerfully thou lookest from above, And seem'st to laugh atween thy twinkling light, As joying in the sight Of these glad many, which for joy do sing, That all the woods them answer, and their echo ring! Now cease, ye damsels, your delights forepast; Enough it is that all the day was yours : Now day is done, and night is nighing fast, EDMUND SPENSER. 33 Now bring the bride into the bridal bowers. The night is come, now soon her disarray, And in her bed her lay; Lay her in lilies and in violets, And silken curtains over her display, And odoured sheets, and Arras coverlets. Behold how goodly my fair love does lie, In proud humility ! Like unto Maia, whenas Jove her took In Tempe, lying on the flowery grass, Twixt sleep and wake, after she weary was With bathing in the Acidalian brook. Now it is night, ye damsels may be gone, And leave my love alone, And leave likewise your former lay to sing: The woods no more shall answer, nor your echo ring. Now welcome, Night ! thou night so long expected, That long day's labour dost at last defray, And all my cares, which cruel love collected, Hast summed in one, and cancelled for aye : Spread thy broad wing over my love and me, That no man may us see; And in thy sable mantle us enwrap, From fear of peril and foul horror free. Let no false treason seek us to entrap, Nor any dread disquiet once annoy The safety of our joy; But let the night be calm and quietsome, Without tempestuous storms or sad affray: Like as when Jove with fair Alcmena lay, When he begot the great Tirynthian groom: Or like as when he with thyself did lie And begot Majesty. And let the maids and young men cease to sing; Ne let the woods them answer, nor their echo ring. 34 ENGLISH LYRIC POETRY. Let no lamenting cries, nor doleful tears Be heard all night within, nor yet without: Ne let false whispers, breeding hidden fears, Break gentle sleep with misconceived doubt Let no deluding dreams, nor dreadful sights, Make sudden sad affrights; Ne let house-fires, nor lightning's helpless harms, Ne let the Pouke 1 , nor other evil sprights, Ne let mischievous witches with their charms Ne let hob goblins, names whose sense we see not, Fray us with things that be not: Let not the screechowl nor the stork be heard, Nor the night raven, that still deadly yells; Nor damned ghosts, called up with mighty spells, Nor griesly vultures, make us once arTeared: Ne let th' unpleasant choir of frogs still croaking Make us to wish their choking. Let none of these their dreary accents sing; Ne let the woods them answer, nor their echo ring. But let still Silence true night-watches keep, That sacred Peace may in assurance reign, And timely Sleep, when it is time to sleep, May pour his limbs forth on your pleasant plain; The whiles an hundred little winged loves, Like diverse-feathered doves, Shall fly and flutter round about your bed, And in the secret dark, that none reproves, Their pretty stealths shall work, and snares shall spread, To filch away sweet snatches of delight, Concealed through covert night. Ye sons of Venus, play your sports at will J For greedy Pleasure, careless of your toys, Thinks more upon her paradise of joys, 1 Puck. EDMUND SPENSER. 35 Than what ye do, albeit good or ill. All night therefore attend your merry play, For it will soon be day: Now none doth hinder you, that say or sing; Ne will the woods now answer, nor your echo ring. Who is the same, which at my window peeps? Or whose is that fair face that shines so bright? Is it not Cynthia, she that never sleeps, But walks about high heaven all the night? O ! fairest goddess, do thou not envy My love with me to spy: For thou likewise didst love, though now unthought, And for a fleece of wool, which privily The Latmian shepherd once unto thee brought His pleasures with thee wrought. Therefore to us be favourable now; And sith of women's labours thou hast charge, And generation goodly dost enlarge, Incline thy will t' effect our wishful vow, And the chaste womb inform with timely seed, That may our comfort breed: Till which we cease our hopeful hap to sing; Ne let the woods us answer, nor our echo ring. And thou, great Juno ! which with awful might The laws of wedlock still doth patronize And the religion of the faith first plight With sacred rites hast taught to solemnize; And eke for comfort often called art Of women in their smart; Eternally bind thou this lovely band, And all thy blessings unto us impart. And thou, glad Genius ! in whose gentle hand The bridal bower and genial bed remain, Without blemish or stain; 36 ENGLISH LYRIC POETRY. And the sweet pleasures of their love's delight With secret aid dost succour and supply, Till they bring forth the fruitful progeny; Send us the timely fruit of this same night. And thou, fair Hebe! and thou, Hymen free! Grant that it may so be. Till which we cease your further praise to sing; Ne any woods shall answer, nor your echo ring. And ye high heavens, the temple of the gods, In which a thousand torches flaming bright Do burn, that to us wretched earthly clods In dreadful darkness lend desired light : And all ye powers which in the same remain, More than we men can feign ! Pour out your blessing on us plenteously, And happy influence upon us rain, That we may raise a large posterity, Which from the earth, which they may long possess With lasting happiness, Up to your haughty palaces may mount; And, for the guerdon of their glorious merit, May heavenly tabernacles there inherit, Of blessed saints for to increase the count. So let us rest, sweet love, in hope of this, And cease till then our timely joys to sing: The woods no more us answer, nor our echo ring! Song! made in lieu of many ornaments. With which my love should duly have been decked, Which cutting off through hasty accidents, Ye would not stay our due time to expect, But promised both to recompense; Be unto her a goodly ornament, And for short time an endless monument. EDMUND SPENSER. 37 FROM AN HYMN IN HONOUR OF BEAUTY. TI7"HAT time this world's great Workmaster did cast To make all things such as we now behold, It seems that he before his eyes had plast A goodly pattern, to whose perfect mould He fashioned them as comely as he could, That now so fair and seemly they appear, As nought may be amended anywhere. That wondrous pattern, wheresoe'er it be, Whether in earth laid up in secret store, Or else in heaven, that no man may it see With sinful eyes, for fear it to deflore, Is perfect Beauty, which all men adore; Whose face and feature doth so much excel All mortal sense, that none the same may tell. Thereof as every earthly thing partakes Or more or less, by influence divine, So it more fair accordingly it makes, And the gross matter of this earthly mine Which clotheth it, thereafter doth refine, Doing away the dross which dims the light Of that fair beam which therein is empight 1 . For, through infusion of celestial power, The duller earth it quickeneth with delight, And life-full spirits privily doth pour Through all the parts, that to the looker's sight They seem to please : That is thy sovereign might, O Cyprian queen ! which flowing from the beam Of thy bright star, thou into them dost stream. That is the thing which giveth pleasant grace To all things fair, that kindleth lively fire, 1 confined. 38 ENGLISH LYRIC POETRY. Light of thy lamp; which, shining in the face, Thence to the soul darts amorous desire, And robs the hearts of those which it admire; Therewith thou pointest thy son's poisoned arrow, That wounds the life, and wastes the inmost marrow. How vainly then do idle wits invent, That beauty is nought else but mixture made Of colours fair, and goodly temp'rament Of pure complexions, that shall quickly fade And pass away, like to a summer's shade; Or that it is but comely composition Of parts well measured, with meet disposition ! Hath white and red in it such wondrous power, That it can pierce through th' eyes unto the heart, And therein stir such rage and restless stour 1 , As nought but death can stint his dolour's smart? Or can proportion of the outward part Move such affection in the inward mind, That it can rob both sense, and reason blind? Why do not then the blossoms of the field, Which are arrayed with much more orient hue, And to the sense most dainty odours yield, Work like impression in the looker's view? Or why do not fair pictures like power shew, In which ofttimes we nature see of art Excelled, in perfect limning every part? But ah ! believe me there is more than so, That works such wonders in the minds of men; I, that have often prov'd, too well it know, And whoso list the like assays to ken, Shall find by trial, and confess it then, That Beauty is not, as fond men misdeem, An outward show of things that only seem 1 tumult. EDMUND SPENSER. 39 For that same goodly hue of white and red, For which the cheeks are sprinkled, shall decay, And those sweet rosy leaves, so fairly spread Upon the lips, shall fade and fall away To that they were, even to corrupted clay : That golden wire, those sparkling stars so bright, Shall turn to dust, and lose their goodly light. But that fair lamp, from whose celestial ray That light proceeds, which kindleth lovers' fire, Shall never be extinguished nor decay; But, when the vital spirits do expire, Unto her native planet shall retire; For it is heavenly born and cannot die, Being a parcel of the purest sky. For when the soul, the which derived was, At first, out of that great immortal Spright, By whom all live to love, whilom did pass Down from the top of purest heaven's height To be embodied here, it then took light And lively spirits from that fairest star Which lights the world forth from his fiery car. Which power retaining still or more or less, When she in fleshly seed is eft 1 enraced 2 , Through every part she doth the same impress, According as the heavens have her graced, And frames her house, in which she will be placed, Fit for herself, adorning it with spoil Of th' heavenly riches which she robbed erewhile. Thereof it comes that these fair souls, which have The most resemblance of that heavenly light, Frame to themselves most beautiful and brave Their fleshly bower, most fit for their delight, And the gross matter by a sovereign might 1 afterwards. a implanted. (M349) H 40 ENGLISH LYRIC POETRY. Tempers so trim, that it may well be seen A palace fit for such a virgin queen. So every spirit, as it is most pure, And hath in it the more of heavenly light, So it the fairer body doth procure To habit in, and it more fairly dight With cheerful grace and amiable sight; For of the soul the body form doth take; For soul is form, and doth the body make. Therefore wherever that thou dost behold A comely corpse 1 , with beauty fair endued, Know this for certain, that the same doth hold A beauteous soul, with fair conditions thewed 2 , Fit to receive the seed of virtue strewed; For all that fair is, is by nature good; That is a sign to know the gentle blood. Yet oft it falls that many a gentle mind Dwells in deformed tabernacle drowned, Either by chance, against the course of kind 3 , Or through unaptness in the substance found. Which it assumed of some stubborn ground, That will not yield unto her form's direction, But is deformed with some foul imperfection. And oft it falls, (ay me, the more to rue!) That goodly beauty, albe heavenly born, Is foul abused, and that celestial hue, Which doth the world with her delight adorn, Made but the bait of sin, and sinners' scorn, Whilst every one doth seek and sue to have it, But every one doth seek but to deprave it. Yet nathemore is that fair beauty's blame, But theirs that do abuse it unto ill : 1 frame. * endowed with fair qualities. * nature. EDMUND SPENSE Nothing so good, but that through guilty shame May be corrupt, and wrested unto will : Natheless the soul is fair and beauteous still, However flesh's fault it filthy make; For things immortal no corruption take. But ye, fair Dames ! the world's dear ornaments And lively images of heaven's light, Let not your beams with such disparagements Be dimmed, and your bright glory darkened quite; But, mindful still of your first country's sight, Do still preserve your first informed grace, Whose shadow yet shines in your beauteous face. For Love is a celestial harmony Of likely hearts composed of stars' consent, Which join together in sweet sympathy, To work each other's joy and true content, Which they have harboured since their first descent Out of their heavenly bowers, where they did see And know each other here beloved to be. Then wrong it were that any other twain Should in Love's gentle band combined be But those whom heaven did at first ordain, And made out of one mould the more t' agree; For all that like the beauty which they see, Straight do not love; for Love is not so light As straight to burn at first beholder's sight. But they, which love indeed, look otherwise, With pure regard and spotless true intent, Drawing out of the object of their eyes A more refined form, which they present Unto their mind, void of all blemishment; Which it reducing to her first perfection, Beholdeth free from flesh's frail infection. 42 ENGLISH LYRIC POETRY. FROM AN HYMN OF HEAVENLY BEAUTY. THE means, therefore, which unto us is lent Him to behold, is on his works to look, Which he hath made in beauty excellent, And in the same, as in a brazen book, To read enregistered in every nook His goodness which his beauty doth declare; For all that 's good is beautiful and fair. Thence gathering plumes of perfect speculation, To imp 1 the wings of thy high-flying mind, Mount up aloft through heavenly contemplation, From this dark world, whose damps the soul do blind, And, like the native brood of eagle's kind, On that bright Sun of Glory fix thine eyes, Cleared from gross mists of frail infirmities. Humbled with fear and awful reverence, Before the footstool of his Majesty Throw thyself down, with trembling innocence, Ne dare look up with corruptible eye On the dread face of that great Deity, For fear, lest if he chance to look on thee, Thou turn to nought, and quite confounded be. But lowly fall before his mercy-seat, Close covered with the Lamb's integrity From the just wrath of his avengeful threat That sits upon the righteous throne on high; His throne is built upon Eternity, More firm and durable than steel or brass, Or the hard diamond, which them both doth pass. His sceptre is the rod of Righteousness, With which he bruiseth all his foes to dust And the great Dragon strongly doth repress, 1 To enlarge by engrafting. SIR WALTER RALEIGH. 43 Under the rigour of his judgment just; His seat is Truth, to which the faithful trust, From whence proceed her beams so pure and bright That all about him sheddeth glorious light. Ah, then, my hungry soul ! which long hast fed On idle fancies of thy foolish thought, And, with false beauty's flattering bait misled, Hast after vain deceitful shadows sought, Which all are fled, and now have left thee nought But late repentance through thy follies' prief 1 ; Ah ! cease to gaze on matter of thy grief: And look at last up to that Sovereign Light, From whose pure beams all perfect beauty springs, That kindleth love in every godly spright Even the love of God; which loathing brings Of this vile world and these gay-seeming things; With whose sweet pleasures being so possessed, Thy straying thoughts henceforth forever rest. SIR WALTER RALEIGH (?). (1552-1618.) Most of the poems which pass under the name of Raleigh, like Pil- grim to Pilgrim, are of quite uncertain ascription. His career as author began about 1576. Even Such is Time is said by Oldys to have been written by Raleigh on the eve of his execution. His poems are included in the volume of Courtly Poets, edited by Rev. J. Hannah (Aldine Poets, 1870). PILGRIM TO PILGRIM. A S you came from the holy land Of Walsinghame, Met you not with my true love By the way as you came? 1 proof trial. 44 ENGLISH LYRIC POETRY. How should I know your true love, That have met many one, As I came from the holy land, That have come, that have gone? She is neither white nor brown, But as the heavens fair; There is none hath a form so divine On the earth or the air. Such a one did I meet, good sir, Such an angelic face, Who like a queen, like a nymph, did appear, By her gait, by her grace. She hath left me here all alone, All alone, as unknown, Who sometimes did me lead with herself, And me loved as her own. What 's the cause that she leaves you alone, And a new way doth take, Who loved you once as her own, And her joy did you make? I have loved her all my youth, But now old, as you see : Love likes not the falling fruit From the withered tree. Know that Love is a careless child, And forgets promise past; He is blind, he is deaf when he list, And in faith never fast His desire is a dureless content, And a trustless joy; He is won with a world of despair, And is lost with a toy. SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 45 Of womenkind such indeed is the love, Or the word love abused, Under which many childish desires And conceits are excused. But true love is a durable fire, In the mind ever burning, Never sick, never old, never dead, From itself never turning. EVEN SUCH IS TIME. "CVEN 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 ! SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. (1554-1586.) Sidney's Lyrics are gathered into a volume in the series of Rhys' Lyric Poets. The first selection below is found in the early editions of the Arcadia among other poems of Sidney's not germane to that work. Dr. Grosart ascribes it positively to the "Astrophel and Stella" series. The second occurs in the Arcadia, 1590, written 1580, although it first appears in slightly different form as quoted in Puttenham's Arte of English Poesie, 1589. The sonnets of the "Astrophel and Stella" series were written probably before 1582, and appeared in 1591. Dr. Grosart 's editions of Sidney's Complete Poems are the standard modern editions. PHILOMELA. THE nightingale, as soon as April bringeth A Unto her rested sense a perfect waking, While late bare earth, proud of new clothing, springeth, 46 ENGLISH LYRIC POETRY. Sings out her woes, a thorn her song-book making, And mournfully bewailing, Her throat in tunes expresseth What grief her breast oppresseth, For Tereus' force on her chaste will prevailing. O Philomela fair, O take some gladness, That here is juster cause of plaintful sadness : Thine earth now springs, mine fadeth; Thy thorn without, my thorn my heart invadeth. HEART-EXCHANGE. TV/TY 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 bargain better 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 our bliss, My true love hath my heart, and I have his. TO THE MOON. TI HTH 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 languisht grace, SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 47 To me, that feel the like, thy state descries. That, even of fellowship, O Moon, tell me, Is constant love deem'd 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? LOVE IS ENOUGH. VTO more, my dear, no more these counsels try; O give my passions leave to run their race; Let Fortune lay on me her worst disgrace; Let folk o'ercharged with brain against me cry; Let clouds bedim my face, break in mine eye; Let me no steps but of lost labour trace; Let all the earth with scorn recount my case — But do not will me from my love to fly. I do not envy Aristotle's wit, Nor do aspire to Caesar's bleeding fame, Nor aught do care though some above me sit; Nor hope nor wish another course to frame, But that which once may win thy cruel heart: Thou art my wit, and thou my virtue art. INSPIRATION. T NEVER drank of Aganippe well, A Nor ever did in shade of Tempe sit, And Muses scorn with vulgar brains to dwell Poor layman I, for sacred rites unfit. Some do I hear of poets' fury tell, But, God wot, wot not what they mean by it; And this I swear by blackest brook of hell, I am no pick-purse of another's wit. How falls it then, that with so smooth an ease 48 ENGLISH LYRIC POETRY. My thoughts I speak; and what I speak doth flow In verse, and that my verse best wits doth please? Guess we the cause! What, is it this? Fie, no. Or so? Much less. How then? Sure thus it is, My lips are sweet, inspired with Stella's kiss. ETERNAL LOVE. T EAVE 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. O take fast hold; let that light be thy guide In this small course which birth draws out to death, And think how ill 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! SIR EDWARD DYER. (i55o?-i6o7.) MY MIND TO ME A KINGDOM IS This poem is found in MS. Rawl. 85 (date uncertain). Dyer's scanty poetic remains are included in vol. iv. of Dr. Grosart's edition of the Miscellanies of the Fuller Worthies Library. A| Y mind to me a kingdom is, ** Such present joys therein I find, b That it excels all other bliss £•- That earth affords or grows by kind -£> SIR EDWARD DYER. 49 Though much I want which most would have, g. Yet still my mind forbids to crave. C No princely pomp, no wealthy store, CL No force to win the victory, b No wily wit to salve a sore, 0L No shape to feed a loving eye ; b To none of these I yield as thrall:^ For why? My mind doth serve for all.C I see how plenty surfeits oft, And hasty climbers soon do fall; I see that those which are aloft Mishap doth threaten most of all; They get with toil, they keep with fear; Such cares my mind could never bear. Content to live, this is my stay; I seek no more than may suffice; I press to bear no haughty sway; Look, what I lack my mind supplies: Lo, th us I triumph like a king, C ontent w itTi that lliylmnd doth bring. Some have too much, yet still do crave; I little have, and seek no more. They are but poor, though much they have, And I am rich with little store; They poor, I rich; they beg, I give; They lack, I leave; they pine, I live. I laugh not at another's loss; I grudge not at another's pain; No worldly waves my mind can toss; My state at one doth still remain : I fear no foe, I fawn no friend; I loathe not life, nor dread my end. 50 ENGLISH LYRIC POETRY Some weigh their pleasure by their lust, Their wisdom by their rage of will; Their treasure is their only trust; A cloaked craft their store of skill : But all the pleasure that I find Is to maintain a quiet mind. My wealth is health and perfect ease : My conscience clear my chief defence; I neither seek by bribes to please, Nor by deceit to breed offence: Thus do I live; thus will I die; Would all did so as well as 1 1 JOHN LYLY. (i554?-i6o6.) These are the first of the numerous songs from the Elizabethan Dramatists included in this volume. Mr. Bullen has edited a volume of such Lyrics from the Dramatists (London, 1889). The first and second occur in Alexander and Campaspe, 1584 (acted 1581). The Hymn to Apollo is in Midas, 1592 (acted 1590): Mr. Symonds compares this Hymn to the Processional Hymns of the Greek Parthenia, and says that it ' ' might well have been used at such a festival ". The Fairy Song is from Endymion, 1591 (acted circa 1580). The songs, however, were not included with the plays until the collective edition of 1632. There is a modern edition of Lyly's Dramatic Works edited by F. W. Fairholt (London, 1858, 2 vols.). APELLES' SONG. pUPID and my Campaspe played ^ At cards for kisses — Cupid paid. He stakes his quiver, bow, and arrows, His mother's doves and team of sparrows : Loses them too; then down he throws The coral of his lip, the rose JOHN LYLY. 51 Growing on's cheek (but none knows how); With these the crystal of his brow, And then the dimple of his chin — All these did my Campaspe win. At last he set her both his eyes. She won, and Cupid blind did rise. O Love, has she done this to thee? What shall, alas! become of me? SPRING'S WELCOME. T 1 7 HAT bird so sings, yet so does wail? O 't is the ravished nightingale. " Jug, jug, jug, jug, tereu," she cries, And still her woes at midnight rise. Brave prick-song! who is 't now we hear? None but the lark so shrill and clear; Now at heaven's gates she claps her wings, The morn not waking till she sings. Hark, hark, with what a pretty throat, Poor robin redbreast tunes his note; Hark how the jolly cuckoos sing, Cuckoo, to welcome in the spring; Cuckoo, to welcome in the spring! HYMN TO APOLLO. CING to Apollo, god of day, ^ Whose golden beams with morning play, And make her eyes so brightly shine, Aurora's face is called divine; Sing to Phoebus and that throne Of diamonds which he sits upon. Io, paeans let us sing To Physic's and to Poesy's king! 52 ENGLISH LYRIC POETRY. Crown all his altars with bright fire, Laurels bind about his lyre, A Daphnean coronet for his head, The Muses dance about his bed; When on his ravishing lute he plays, Strew his temple round with bays. Io, paeans let us sing To the glittering Delian king ! FAIRY REVELS. Omnes. DINCH him, pinch him black and blue A Saucy mortals must not view What the queen of stars is doing, Nor pry into our fairy wooing. i Fairy. Pinch him blue — 2 Fairy. And pinch him black — j Fairy. Let him not lack Sharp nails to pinch him blue and red, Till sleep has rocked his addlehead. 4. Fairy. For the trespass he hath done, Spots o'er all his flesh shall run. Kiss Endymion, kiss his eyes, Then to our midnight heydeguyes. ROBERT GREENE. 53 ROBERT GREENE. (iS6o?-i592.) Greene's Lullaby is from his pastoral romance of Menaphon, 1589. The second song is from Pandosto, 1588, and the last from Philomela, 1592. Dyce has edited the Dramatic and Poetical Works of Greene, and his Complete Works, edited by Dr. Grosart, occupy fifteen volumes in the Huth Library. Selections from his verse occur in Bullen's Poems from Elizabethan Romances, and also accompany the last edition of the same editor's Lyrics from Elizabethan Dramatists. Additional selections from Greene and other Elizabethan writers of pastoral lyrics may be found in Chambers's English Pastorals, in the present series. SEPHESTIA'S SONG TO HER CHILD. "II7EEP not, my wanton, smile upon my knee; ■ " When thou art old there 's grief enough for thee Mother's wag, pretty boy, Father's sorrow, father's joy; When thy father first did see Such a boy by him and me, He was glad, I was woe; Fortune changed made him so, When he left his pretty boy, Last his sorrow, first his joy. Weep not, my wanton, smile upon my knee; When thou art old there 's grief enough for thee. Streaming tears that never stint, Like pearl drops from a flint, Fell by course from his eyes, That one another's place supplies; Thus he grieved in every part, Tears of blood fell from his heart, When he left his pretty boy, Father's sorrow, father's joy. Weep not, my wanton, smile upon my knee, When thou art old there 's grief enough for thee. The wanton smiled, father wept, Mother cried, baby leapt; 54 ENGLISH LYRIC POETRY. More he crowed, more we cried, Nature could not sorrow hide: He must go, he must kiss Child and mother, baby bless; For he left his pretty boy, Father's sorrow, father's joy. Weep not, my wanton, smile upon my knee; When thou art old there 's grief enough for thee. FAWNIA. A H, 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 I know not such. So as she shows, she seems the budding rose, Yet sweeter far than is an earthly flower, Sovereign of beauty, like the spray she grows, Compassed she is with thorns and cankered flower; Yet were she willing to be plucked and worn, She would be gathered, though she grew on thorn. Ah, when she sings, all music else be still, For none must be compared to her note; Ne'er breathe4 such glee from Philomela's bill, Nor from the morning-singer's swelling throat. Ah, when she riseth from her blissful bed, She comforts all the world, as doth the sun, And at her sight the night's foul vapour 's fled; When she is set, the gladsome day is done. O glorious sun, imagine me the west, Shine in my arms, and set thou in my breast! ROBERT GREENE. 55 PHILOMELA'S ODE. CITTING by a river's side, ^ Where a silent stream did glide, Muse I did of many things, That the mind in quiet brings. I 'gan think how some men deem Gold their god; and some esteem Honour is the chief content, That to man in life is lent. And some others do contend, Quiet none, like to a friend. Others hold, there is no wealth Compared to a perfect health. Some man's mind in quiet stands When he is lord of many lands : But I did sigh, and said all this Was but a shade of perfect bliss; And in my thoughts I did approve Nought so sweet as is true love. Love 'twixt lovers passeth these, When mouth kisseth and heart 'grees, With folded arms and lips meeting, Each soul another sweetly greeting; For by the breath the soul fleeteth, And soul with soul in kissing meeteth If love be so sweet a thing, That such happy bliss doth bring, Happy is love's sugared thrall; But unhappy maidens all, Who esteem your virgin blisses Sweeter than a wife's sweet kisses. No such quiet to the mind As true love with kisses kind: (ittt) 56 ENGLISH LYRIC POETRY. But if a kiss prove unchaste, Then is true love quite disgraced. Though love be sweet, learn this of me, No sweet love but honesty. GEORGE PEELE. (i558?-i 59 2?.) The Song of Paris and (Enone is from the drama of the Arraignment of Paris, 1584 (acted 1581?). The Song of the Harvesters occurs in the Old Wives' Tale, 1595 (acted 1590?); and the Farewell to Arms in Polyhymnia, " a Description of a Triumph at Tilt ", 1590. In Sir W. Segar's Honors, Military and Civil, 1602, it is related that it was actually sung for Sir Henry Lea before Queen Elizabeth as the demis- sion of his office as her champion at tilt on account of age, and as his recommendation of the Earl of Cumberland for the post in his place. Peele's Poems are included in Bullen's edition of Peele's Works (London and Boston, 1888). SONG OF PARIS AND (ENONE. CEnone. p AIR and fair, and twice so fair, A As fair as any may be; The fairest shepherd on our green, A love for any lady. Paris. Fair and fair, and twice so fair, As fair as any may be; Thy love is fair for thee alone, And for no other lady. (En. My love is fair, my love is gay, As fresh as bin the flowers in May, And of my love my roundelay, My merry, merry roundelay, Concludes with Cupid's curse, — They that do change old love for new, Pray gods they change for worse ! Ambo simul. They that do change, &c. GEORGE PEELE. (En. Fair and fair, &c. Par. Fair and fair, &c. Thy love is fair, &c. (En. My love can pipe, my love can sing, My love can many a pretty thing, And of his lovely praises ring My merry, merry roundelays, Amen to Cupid's curse, — They that do change, &c. Par. They that do change, &c. Ambo. Fair and fair, &c. 57 HARVESTMEN A-SINGING. A LL ye that lovely lovers be, ** Pray you for me : Lo, here we come a-sowing, a-sowing, And sow sweet fruits of love; In your sweet hearts well may it prove! Lo, here we come a-reaping, a-reaping, To reap our harvest-fruit ! And thus we pass the year so long, And never be we mute. FAREWELL TO ARMS. TJTS golden locks time hath to silver turned; O time too swift, O swiftness never ceasing ! His youth 'gainst time and age hath ever spurned, But spurned in vain ; youth waneth by increasing : Beauty, strength, youth, are flowers but fading seen; Duty, faith, love, are roots, and ever green. His helmet now shall make a hive for bees, And, lovers' sonnets turned to holy psalms, 58 ENGLISH LYRIC POETRY. A man-at-arms must now serve on his knees, And feed on prayers, which are age his alms: But though from court to cottage he depart, His saint is sure of his unspotted heart. And when he saddest sits in homely cell, He'll teach his swains this carol for a song, — " Blessed be the hearts that wish my sovereign well, Cursed be the souls that think her any wrong ". Goddess, allow this aged man his right, To be your beadsman now that was your knight THOMAS NASH. (1567-1601?.) These songs are from the comedy of Summer's Last Will and Testa- ment, 1600 (acted 1592). Nash's works have been edited by Dr. Grosart in the Huth Library. SPRING, THE SWEET SPRING. OPRING, the sweet spring, is the year's pleasant king; ^ Then blooms each thing, then maids dance in a ring; Cold doth not sting, the pretty birds do sing, Cuckoo, jug, jug, pu we, to witta woo. The palm and may make country houses gay, Lambs frisk and play, the shepherds pipe all day, And hear we aye birds tune this merry lay, Cuckoo, jug, jug, pu we, to witta woo. The fields breathe sweet, the daisies kiss our feet, Young lovers meet, old wives a-sunning sit; In every street these tunes our ears do greet, Cuckoo, jug, jug, pu we, to witta woo. Spring, the sweet spring! THOMAS NASH. DEATH'S SUMMONS. A DIEU, farewell, earth's bliss, ■** This world uncertain is : Fond are life's lustful joys, Death proves them all but toys. None from his darts can fly: I am sick, I must die. Lord have mercy on us! Rich men, trust not in wealth, Gold cannot buy you health; Physic himself must fade; All things to end are made; The plague full swift goes byj I am sick, I must die. Lord have mercy on us ! Beauty is but a flower, Which wrinkles will devour: Brightness falls from the air; Queens have died young and fair; Dust hath closed Helen's eye; I am sick, I must die. Lord have mercy on us ! Strength stoops unto the grave: Worms feed on Hector brave; Swords may not fight with fate: Earth still holds ope her gate. Come, come, the bells do cry; I am sick, I must die. Lord have mercy on us ! Wit with his wantonness, Tasteth death's bitterness. 59 60 ENGLISH LYRIC POETRY. Hell's executioner Hath no ears for to hear What vain art can reply; I am sick, I must die. Lord have mercy on us ! Haste therefore each degree To welcome destiny: Heaven is our heritage, Earth but a player's stage. Mount we unto the sky; I am sick, I must die. Lord have mercy on us ! FADING SUMMER. pj\AIR summer droops, droop men and beasts therefore; So fair a summer look for never more : All good things vanish less than in a day; Peace, plenty, pleasure, suddenly decay. Go not yet away, bright soul of the sad year, The earth is hell when thou leaVst to appear. What ! shall those flowers that decked thy garland erst, Upon thy grave be wastefully dispersed? O trees, consume your sap in sorrow's source, Streams, turn to tears your tributary course. Go not yet hence, bright soul of the sad year, The earth is hell when thou leaVst to appear. THOMAS LODGE. 6 1 THOMAS LODGE. (iSS8?-i625.) The " Song of Rosaline" is in the pastoral romance of Rosalind, 1590, the source of As You Like It. The second selection is one of the "Sundrie Sweet Sonnets" contained in Scilla's Metamorphosis, 1589, written i577( ? )• The last selection is found in the Life of Robert, Second Duke of Normandy, 1591. Lodge's works are reprinted in the Hunterian Club publications ; Rosalind in Hazlitt's Shakespeare's Library. Many of his lyrics are included among Mr. Bullen's Lyrics from Elizabethan Romances. * ROSADER'S DESCRIPTION OF ROSALYND. I" IKE to the clear in highest sphere, ^ Where all imperial glory shines, Of self-same colour is her hair, Whether unfolded or in twines; Heigh ho, fair Rosalynd! Her eyes are sapphires set in snow, Refining heaven by every wink; The gods do fear whenas they glow, And I do tremble when I think: Heigh ho, would she were mine ! Her cheeks are like the blushing cloud That beautifies Aurora's face, Or like the silver-crimson shroud That Phoebus' smiling looks doth grace; Heigh ho, fair Rosalynd ! Her lips are like two budded roses, Whom ranks of lilies neighbour nigh, 62 ENGLISH LYRIC POETRY. Within whose bounds she balm encloses Apt to entice a deity. Heigh ho, would she were mine I Her neck like to a stately tower, Where Love himself imprisoned lies, To watch for glances every hour, From her divine and sacred eyes; Heigh ho, fair Rosalynd! Her paps are centres of delight, Her paps are orbs of heavenly frame, Where nature moulds the dew of light, To feed perfection with the same. Heigh ho, would she were mine! With orient pearl, with ruby red, With marble white, with sapphire blue, Her body every way is fed, Yet soft to touch, and sweet in view; Heigh ho, fair Rosalynd! Nature herself her shape admires, The gods are wounded in her sight, And Love forsakes his heavenly fires, And at her eyes his brand doth light. Heigh ho, would she were mine ! Then muse not, Nymphs, though I bemoan The absence of fair Rosalynd; Since for her fair there is fairer none, Nor for her virtues so divine. Heigh ho ! fair Rosalynd ! Heigh ho! my heart, would God that she were mine! THOMAS LODGE. 63 THE HARMONY OF LOVE. A VERY phoenix, in her radiant eyes ■**■ I leave mine age, and get my life again; True Hesperus, I watch her fall and rise, And with my tears extinguish all my pain; My lips for shadows shield her springing roses, Mine eyes for watchmen guard her while she sleepeth, My reasons serve to 'quite her faint supposes; Her fancy, mine; my faith her fancy keepeth; She flowers, I branch; her sweet my sour supporteth, O happy Love, where such delights consorteth! WHILST YOUTHFUL SPORTS ARE LASTING. DLUCK the fruit and taste the pleasure, A Youthful lordings, of delight; Whilst occasion gives you seizure, Feed your fancies and your sight: After death, when you are gone, Joy and pleasure is there none. Here on earth nothing is stable; Fortune's changes well are known : Whilst as youth doth then enable, Let your seeds of joy be sown : After death, when you are gone. Joy and pleasure is there none. Feast it freely with your lovers, Blithe and wanton sports do fade, Whilst that lovely Cupid hovers Round about this lovely shade: Sport it freely one to one, After death is pleasure none. 64 ENGLISH LYRIC POETRY. Now the pleasant spring allureth, And both place and time invites: But, alas, what heart endureth To disclaim his sweet delights? After death, when we are gone, Joy and pleasure is there none. JOHN DICKENSON. (Fl. 1590-1600.) A PASTORAL CATCH. From the Shepherd 's Complaint, circa 1594. Printed also in England 's Helicon, 1600. Shepherd. OWEET thrall, first step to Love's felicity! Shepherdess. Sweet thrall, no stop to perfect liberty! He. O life! She. What life? He. Sweet life. She. No life more sweet. He. O love. She. What love? He. Sweet love. She. No love more meet. NICHOLAS BRETON. 65 NICHOLAS BRETON. (i545?-i626?.) The "Lullaby" is found in the Arbor of Amorous Devises, 1594; " I Would Thou Wert Not Fair" from the Strange Fortunes of Two Excellent Princes, 1600; "Lovely Kind and Kindly Loving" from Melancholic Humours, 1600; and "What is Love?" from the Longing of a Blessed Heart, 1601. Breton's Works, edited by Dr. Grosart, are in the Chertsey Worthies' Library. "Chosen Poems of Nicholas Breton" are appended to Bullen's Lyrics from Elizabethan Romances. A SWEET LULLABY. POME little babe, come silly soul, ^ Thy father's shame, thy mother's grief, Born as I doubt to all our dole, And to thyself unhappy chief: Sing lullaby and lap it warm, Poor soul that thinks no creature harm. Thou little think'st and less dost know The cause of this thy mother's moan; Thou want'st the wit to wail her woe, And I myself am all alone; Why dost thou weep, why dost thou wail, And know'st not yet what thou dost ail? Come little wretch, ah silly heart, Mine only joy; what can I more? If there be any wrong, thy smart, That may the destinies implore; 'Twas I, I say, against my will; I wail the time, but be thou still. And dost thou smile? O, thy sweet face! Would God himself he might thee see ! No doubt thou soon would'st purchase grace, 66 ENGLISH LYRIC POETRY. I know right well, for thee and me. But come to mother, babe, and play; For father false is fled away. Sweet boy, if it by fortune chance Thy father home again to send, If death do strike me with his lance, Yet may'st thou me to him commend; If any ask thy mother's name, Tell how by love she purchased blame. Then will his gentle heart soon yield; I know him of a noble mind; Although a lion in the field, A lamb in town thou shalt him find; Ask blessing, babe! be not afraid; His sugared words have me betrayed Then may'st thou joy and be right glad, Although in woe I seem to moan; Thy father is no rascal lad, A noble youth of blood and bone; His glancing looks, if once he smile Right honest women may beguile. Come, little boy, and rock asleep; Sing lullaby and be thou still; I that can do nought else but weep, Will sit by thee and wail my fill : God bless my babe, and lullaby From this thy father's quality ! I WOULD THOU WERT NOT FAIR. [ WOULD thou wert not fair, or I were wise * I would thou hadst no face, or I no eyes; I would thou wert not wise, or I not fond; Or thou not free, or I not so in bond. NICHOLAS BRETON. 67 But thou art fair, and I cannot be wise: Thy sunlike face hath blinded both mine eyes; Thou canst not be but wise, nor I but fond; Nor thou but free, nor I but still in bond. Yet am I wise to think that thou art fair; Mine eyes their pureness in thy face repair; Nor am I fond, that do thy wisdom see; Nor yet in bond, because that thou art free. Then in thy beauty only make me wise, And in thy face the Graces guide thine eyes; And in thy wisdom only see me fond; And in thy freedom keep me still in bond. So shalt thou still be fair and I be wise; Thy face shine still upon my cleared eyes; Thy wisdom only see how I am fond; Thy freedom only keep me still in bond. So would I thou wert fair and I were wise; So would thou hadst thy face and I mine eyes; So would I thou wert wise, and I were fond; And thou wert free, and I were still in bond. LOVELY KIND, AND KINDLY LOVING. T OVELY kind, and kindly loving, ■^ Such a mind were worth the moving: Truly fair, and fairly true, — Where are all these, but in you? Wisely kind, and kindly wise; Blessed life, where such love lies ! Wise, and kind, and fair, and true, — Lovely live all these in you. ^^^tTr^^ ff X* OF THK ' 68 ENGLISH LYRIC POETRY. Sweetly dear, and dearly sweet;. Blessed where these blessings meet! Sweet, fair, wise, kind, blessed, true, — Blessed be all these in you ! WHAT IS LOVE? TT is too clear a brightness for man's eye; A Too high a wisdom for his wits to find; Too deep a secret for his sense to try; And all too heavenly for his earthly mind ; It is a grace of such a glorious kind As gives the soul a secret power to know it, But gives no heart nor spirit power to show it. It is of heaven and earth the highest beauty, The powerful hand of heaven's and earth's creation, The due commander of all spirits' duty, The Deity of angels' adoration, The glorious substance of the soul's salvation : The light of truth that all perfection trieth, And life that gives the life that never dieth. It is the height of good and hate of ill, Triumph of truth, and falsehood's overthrow; The only worker of the highest will; And only knowledge that doth knowledge know; The only ground where it doth only grow : It is in sum the substance of all bliss, Without whose blessing all thing nothing is. ANONYMOUS LYRICS. 69 ANONYMOUS LYRICS. (1588-1603.) The writing of lyrics was an art to almost everyone's hand in the days of Elizabeth. Songs sung themselves ; the music of words as well as of tones was in the air. The authorship of hundreds of these songs conse- quently is now unknown, — they came easily, and were easily forgotten. THE QUIET LIFE. From William Byrd's Psalms, Sonnets, and Songs, 1588. "II7HAT pleasure have great princes More dainty to their choice Than herdsmen wild, who careless In quiet life rejoice, And fortune's fate not fearing, Sing sweet in summer morning? Their dealings plain and rightful, Are void of all deceit; They never know how spiteful It is to kneel and wait On favourite presumptuous Whose pride is vain and sumptuous. All day their flocks each tendeth; At night, they take their rest; More quiet than who sendeth His ship into the East, Where gold and pearl are plenty; But getting, very dainty. For lawyers and their pleading, They 'steem it not a straw; They think that honest meaning Is of itself a law : Whence conscience judgeth plainly, They spend no money vainly. 70 ENGLISH LYRIC POETRY. O happy who thus liveth ! Not caring much for gold; With clothing which sufficeth To keep him from the cold. Though poor and plain his diet, Yet merry it is, and quiet. LOVE'S PERFECTIONS. This and the following piece are translations from the Italian, and appear in Yonge's Musica Transalpina, 1588, reprinted in Arber's Garner, vol. iii. TN vain he seeks for beauty that excelleth, A That hath not seen her eyes where Love sojourneth; How sweetly here and there the same she turneth. He knows not how Love healeth, and how he quelleth : That knows not how she sighs, and sweet beguileth; And how she sweetly speaks, and sweetly smileth. SWEET LAMENTING. T SAW my lady weeping, and Love did languish, And of their plaint ensued so rare consenting That never yet was heard more sweet lamenting, Made all of tender pity and mournful anguish. The floods forsaking their delightful swelling, Stayed to attend their plaint. The winds enraged, Still and content, to quiet calm assuaged Their wonted storming and every blast rebelling. THE TEST. From The Phoenix Nest, 1593. CET me where Phcebus' heat the flowers slayeth, ^ Or where continual snow withstands his forces; Set me where he his temperate rays displayeth, Or where he comes, or where he never courses ! ANONYMOUS LYRICS. 7 1 Set me in Fortune's grace, or else discharged; In sweet and pleasant air, or dark and glooming; Where days and nights are lesser or enlarged; In years of strength, in failing age, or blooming ! Set me in heaven, or earth, or in the centre; Low in a vale, or on a mountain placed; Set me to danger, peril, or adventure, Graced by fame, or infamy disgraced! Set me to these, or any other trial Except my Mistress' anger and denial. THE SHEPHERD'S PRAISE OF HIS SACRED DIANA. From The Phoenix Nest, 1593. DRAISED be Diana's fair and harmless light, A Praised be the dews, wherewith she moists the ground : Praised be her beams, the glory of the night, Praised be her power, by which all powers abound Praised be her nymphs, with whom she decks the woods, Praised be her knights, in whom true honour lives : Praised be that force by which she moves the floods, Let that Diana shine which all these gives. In heaven Queen she is among the spheres; She, mistress-like, makes all things to be pure: Eternity in her oft change she bears; She beauty is, by her the fair endure. Time wears her not, she doth his chariot guide; Mortality below her orb is placed; By her the virtue of the stars down slide, In her is Virtue's perfect image cast. (M349) k 72 ENGLISH LYRIC POETRY. A knowledge pure it is her worth to know: With Circes let them dwell that think not so. THE SHEPHERD TO THE FLOWERS. From The Phcenix Nest, 1593. OWEET violets, Love's paradise, that spread ^ Your gracious odours, which you couched bear Within your paly faces, Upon the gentle wing of some calm breathing wind, That plays amidst the plain, If by the favour of propitious stars you gain Such grace as in my lady's bosom place to find, Be proud to touch those places : And when her warmth your moisture forth doth wear, Whereby her dainty parts are sweetly fed, You honours of the flow'ry meads, I pray, You pretty daughters of the earth and sun, With mild and seemly breathing straight display My bitter sighs, that have my heart undone. Vermilion roses, that with new day's rise Display your crimson folds fresh looking fair, Whose radiant bright disgraces The rich adorned rays of roseate rising morn; Ah, if her virgin's hand Do pluck your pure, ere Phoebus view the land, And veil your gracious pomp, in lovely Nature's scorn ; If chance my mistress traces Fast by your flowers to take the summer's air, Then woful blushing tempt her glorious eyes, To spread their tears, Adonis' death reporting, And tell Love's torments, sorrowing for her friend, Whose drops of blood, within your leaves consorting ANONYMOUS LYRICS. 73 Report fair Venus' moans to have no end. Then may remorse, in pitying of my smart, Dry up my tears, and dwell within her heart. TO ZEPHERIA. From Zepheria, 1594, a volume of anonymous poetry, reprinted in Arber's Garner, vol. v. TI7"HAT! shall I ne'er more see those halcyon days! * " Those sunny Sabbaths ! days of jubilee ! Wherein I carolled merry roundelays, Odes, and love songs? which, being viewed by thee, Received allowance worthy better writ ! When we, on shepherds' holy days have hied Down to the flowery pastures (flowers, for thy treading fit !) Holy the day, when thou it sanctified ! When thou, Zepheria, wouldst but deign to bless it, How have I, jealous over Phoebus' rays, Clouded thy fair! Then, fearing he would guess it By thy white brow, it have I cinct' with bays ! But, woe is me ! that I have fenced thy beauty ! Sith other must enjoy it, and not I. HENCE CARE! From Thomas Morley's First Book o f Ballets, 1595. CING we and chant it ^ While love doth grant it Fa la la! Not long youth lasteth And old age hasteth. Fa la la! 74 ENGLISH LYRIC POETRY. Now is best leisure To take our pleasure. Fa la la! All things invite us Now to delight us. Fa la la! Hence care be packing, No mirth be lacking. Fa la la! Let spare no treasure To live in pleasure. Fa la la! THE MONTH OF MAYING. MOW is the month of maying, •^ When merry lads are playing Each with his bonny lass Upon the greeny grass. Fa la la! The spring clad all in gladness Doth laugh at winter's sadness, And to the bagpipe's sound The nymphs tread out their ground. Fa la la! Fie then, why sit we musing, Youth's sweet delight refusing? Say, dainty nymphs, and speak, Shall we play barley-break? Fa la la! ANONYMOUS LYRICS. 75 BROWN IS MY LOVE. From the Second Book of Musica Transalpine^, 1597. DROWN is my Love, but graceful; *"* And each renowned whiteness Matched with thy lovely brown loseth its brightness. Fair is my Love, but scornful; Yet have I seen despised Dainty white lilies, and sad flowers well prized. COME AWAY! COME, SWEET LOVE! From John Dowland's First Book of Songs or Airs, 1597; reprinted in Arber's Garner, vol. iv. POME away! come, sweet love! *■* The golden morning breaks; All the earth, all the air, Of love and pleasure speaks ! Teach thine arms then to embrace, And sweet rosy lips to kiss, And mix our souls in mutual bliss ! Eyes were made for beauty's grace, Viewing, ruing, love's long pain, Procured by beauty's rude disdain. Come away! come, sweet love! Do not in vain adorn Beauty's grace, that should rise Like to the naked morn ! Lilies on the river's side, And fair Cyprian flowers new-blown, Desire no beauties but their own : Ornament is nurse of pride, Pleasure, measure love's delight, Haste then, sweet love, our wished flight! 76 ENGLISH LYRIC POETRY. MADRIGAL. From Wilbye's Madrigals, 1598. I" ADY, when I behold the roses sprouting, *^ Which, clad in damask mantles, deck the arbours, And then behold your lips, where sweet love harbours, My eyes present me with a double doubting : For viewing both alike, hardly my mind supposes, Whether the roses be your lips, or your lips the roses. I SAW MY LADY WEEP. From Dowland's Second Book of Songs or Airs, 1600. 1 SAW my lady weep, And Sorrow proud to be advanced so In those fair eyes where all perfections keep. Her face was full of woe : But such a woe, believe me, as wins more hearts Than Mirth can do with her enticing parts. Sorrow was there made fair, And passion wise; tears a delightful thing; Silence beyond all speech, a wisdom rare; She made her sighs to sing, And all things with so sweet a sadness move As made my heart at once both grieve and love. O fairer than aught else The world can show, leave off in time to grieve. Enough, enough! your joyful look excels; Tears kill the heart, believe. O strive not to be excellent in woe, Which only breeds your beauty's overthrow. ANONYMOUS LYRICS. 77 LOVE AND MAY. From T. Morley's Madrigals, 1600. MOW is the gentle season, freshly flowering, ^ To sing, and play, and dance, while May endureth, And woo, and wed too, that sweet delight procureth. The fields abroad with spangled flowers are gilded, The meads are mantled, and closes 1 ; In May each bush arrayed, and sweet wild roses. The nightingale her bower hath gaily builded, And full of kindly lust and loves inspiring, I love, I love, she sings, hark, her mate desiring. LOVE'S REALITIES. From Robert Jones' First Book of Songs and Airs, i6or. "\I7HEN love on time and measure makes his ground, * V Time that must end, though love can never die, 'T is love betwixt a shadow and a sound, A love not in the heart but in the eye; A love that ebbs and flows, now up, now down, A morning's favour and an evening's frown. Sweet looks show love, yet they are but as beams : Fair words seem true, yet they are but as wind; Eyes shed their tears, yet are but outward streams; Sighs paint a shadow in the falsest mind. Looks, words, tears, sighs show love when love they leave; False hearts can weep, sigh, swear, and yet deceive. 1 closes, gardens. The music in the original text shows that the composer had this apparently defective line before him. 78 ENGLISH LYRIC POETRY. MADRIGAL, From Davison's Poetical Rhapsody, 1602. TV1Y love in her attire doth show her wit, It doth so well become her: For every season she hath dressings fit, For winter, spring, and summer. No beauty she doth miss, When all her robes are on: But Beauty's self she is When all her robes are gone. THE GRACE OF BEAUTY. From Dowland's Third Book of Songs or Airs, 1603. DY a fountain where I lay, *-* (All blessed be that blessed day !) By the glimmering of the sun, (O never be her shining done !) When I might see alone My true love, fairest one! Love's dear light ! Love's clear sight ! No world's eyes can clearer see ! A fairer sight none can be ! Fair with garlands all addrest, (Was never Nymph more fairly blest!) Blessed in the highest degree; (So may she ever blessed be!) Came to this fountain near, With such a smiling cheer! Such a face ! Such a grace ! Happy! happy eyes! that see Such a heavenly sight as she ! ANONYMOUS LYRICS. 79 Then I forthwith took my pipe, Which I all fair and clean did wipe, And upon a heavenly ground, All in the grace of beauty found, Played this roundelay, " Welcome, fair Queen of May ! Sing, sweet air! Welcome Fair! Welcome be the Shepherds' Queen ! The glory of all our green!" LULLABY. From Dowland's Third Book of Songs or Airs, 1603. TI7EEP you no more, sad fountains, " V What need you flow so fast? Look how the snowy mountains Heaven's sun doth gently waste. But my sun's heavenly eyes, View not your weeping, That now lies sleeping, Softly, now softly lies Sleeping. Sleep is a reconciling, A rest that peace begets; Doth not the sun rise smiling When fair at even he sets? Rest you, then, rest sad eyes, Melt not in weeping, While she lies sleeping, Softly, now softly lies Sleeping. 8o ENGLISH LYRIC POETRY. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. (1564-1616.) There are several convenient modern reprints of Shakespeare's Songs and Sonnets, including Prof. Dowden's, Prof. Palgrave's, and the edition by Mr. William Sharp in the Canterbury Poets. About the sonnets a voluminous literature has grown up. They appeared in 1609. It is conjectured they were written about 1598. From Love's Labour 's Lost, Act v. Sc. 2. TI7HEN icicles hang by the wall, " And Dick the shepherd blows his nail, And Tom bears logs into the hall, And milk comes frozen home in pail, When blood is nipped and ways be foul, Then nightly sings the staring owl, Tu-whit j Tu-who, a merry note, While greasy Joan doth keel the pot. When all aloud the wind doth blow, And coughing drowns the parson's saw, And birds sit brooding in the snow, And Marian's nose looks red and raw, When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl, Then nightly sings the staring owl, Tu-whit; Tu-who, a merry note, While greasy Joan doth keel the pot. From Midsummer Night's Dream, Act ii. Sc. 1. QVER hill, over dale, ^ Thorough bush, thorough brier, Over park, over pale, Thorough flood, thorough fire, WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 8 1 1 do wander everywhere, Swifter than the moones sphere; And I serve the fairy queen, To dew her orbs upon the green. The cowslips tall her pensioners be; In their gold coats spots you see; Those be rubies, fairy favours, In those freckles live their savours: I must go seek some dewdrops here, And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear. From Midsummer Night's Dream, Act ii. Sc. 2. First Fairy. "VTOU spotted snakes with double tongue, 1 Thorny hedge-hogs, be not seen; Newts and blind-worms, do no wrong; Come not near our fairy queen. Chorus. Philomel, with melody, Sing in our sweet lullaby; Lulla, lulla, lullaby, lulla, lulla, lullaby; Never harm, Nor spell, nor charm, Come our lovely lady nigh; So, good night, with lullaby. First Fairy. Weaving spiders, come not here: Hence, you long-legged spinners, hence! Beetles black, approach not near; Worm, nor snail, do no offence. Chorus. Philomel, with melody, &c. From The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act iv. Sc. 1. TI7HO is Silvia? what is she, That all our swains commend her? Holy, fair, and wise is she; 82 ENGLISH LYRIC POETRY. The heaven such grace did lend her, That she might admired be. Is she kind as she is fair? For beauty lives with kindness. Love doth to her eyes repair, To help him of his blindness, And, being helped, inhabits there. Then to Silvia let us sing, That Silvia is excelling; She excels each mortal thing Upon the dull earth dwelling: To her let us garlands bring. From The Merchant of Venice, Act iii. Sc. 2. 'PELL me where is fancy bred, Or in the heart, or in the head? How begot, how nourished? Reply, reply. It is engendered in the eyes, With gazing fed; and fancy dies In the cradle where it lies : Let us all ring fancy's knell; I'll begin it, — Ding-dong, bell. Ding, dong, bell. From As You Like It, Act ii. Sc. 5. T TNDER the greenwood tree ^ Who loves to lie with me And turn his merry note Unto the sweet bird's throat, WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 83 Come hither, come hither, come hither: Here shall he see No enemy But winter and rough weather. Who doth ambition shun And loves to live i' the sun, Seeking the food he eats, And pleased with what he gets, Come hither, come hither, come hither: Here shall he see No enemy But winter and rough weather. From As You Like It, Act ii. Sc, 7. "DLOW, blow, thou winter wind, ■^ Thou art not so unkind As man's ingratitude; . Thy tooth is not so keen, Because thou art not seen, Although thy breath be rude. Heigh ho ! sing, heigh ho ! unto the green holly : Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly ; Then, heigh ho, the holly ! This life is most jolly. Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky, That dost not bite so nigh As benefits forgot : Though thou the waters warp, Thy sting is not so sharp As friend remembered noc. Heigh ho ! sing, heigh ho ! &c. 84 ENGLISH LYRIC POETRY. From Much Ado about Nothing, Act ii. Sc. 3. OIGH no more, ladies, sigh no more, ^ Men were deceivers ever, One foot in sea and one on shore, To one thing constant never : Then sigh not so, but let them go, And be you blithe and bonny, Converting all your sounds of woe Into Hey nonny, nonny. Sing no more ditties, sing no moe, Of dumps so dull and heavy; The fraud of men was ever so, Since summer first was leafy : Then sigh not so, but let them go, And be you blithe and bonny, Converting all your sounds of woe Into Hey nonny, nonny. From Twelfth Night, Act ii. Sc. 3. Q MISTRESS mine, where are you roaming? ^ O, stay and hear; your true love's coming, That can sing both high and low: Trip no further, pretty sweeting; Journeys end in lovers' meeting Every wise man's son doth know. What is love? 't is not hereafter; Present mirth hath present laughter; What 's to come is still unsure : In delay there lies no plenty; Then come kiss me, sweet and twenty, Youth 's a stuff will not endure. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 85 From Twelfth Night % Act ii. Sc. 4. pOME away, come away, death, ^ And in sad cypress let me be laid; Fly away, fly away, breath; I am slain by a fair cruel maid. My shroud of white, stuck all with yew, O, prepare it! My part of death, no one so true Did share it. Not a flower, not a flower sweet, On my black coffin let there be strown; Not a friend, not a friend greet My poor corpse, where my bones shall be thrown ; A thousand thousand sighs to save, Lay me, O, where Sad true lover never find my grave, To weep there ! From Hamlet, Act iv. Sc. 5. TJOW should I your true love know *• From another one? By his cockle hat and staff, And his sandal shoon. He is dead and gone, lady, He is dead and gone; At his head a grass-green turf, At his heels a stone. White his shroud as the mountain snow, Larded with sweet flowers, Which bewept to the grave did go With true-love showers. 86 ENGLISH LYRIC POETRY. From Measure for Measure, Act iv. Sc. i. npAKE, O, take those lips away, That so sweetly were forsworn; And those eyes, the break of day, Lights that do mislead the morn: But my kisses bring again, Bring again; Seals of love, but sealed in vain, Sealed in vain. From Cymbeline, Act ii. Sc. 3. TJARK, hark! the lark at heaven's gate sings, And Phoebus 'gins arise, His steeds to water at those springs On chaliced flowers that lies; And winking Mary-buds begin To ope their golden eyes : With every thing that pretty is, My lady sweet, arise: Arise, arise. From Cymbeline, Act iv. Sc. 2. PEAR no more the heat o' the sun, A Nor the furious winter's rages; Thou thy worldly task hast done, Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages: Golden lads and girls all must, As chimney-sweepers, come to dust. Fear no more the frown o' the great; Thou art past the tyrant's stroke; Care no more to clothe and eat; To thee the reed is as the oak : The sceptre, learning, physic, must All follow this, and come to dust. UNIVERSITY WILLIAM SHMC^gBA^^^ Fear no more the lightning-flash, Nor the all-dreaded thunder-stone; Fear not slander, censure rash; Thou hast finished joy and moan : All lovers young, all lovers must Consign to thee, and come to dust. No exorciser harm thee! Nor no witchcraft charm thee! Ghost unlaid forbear thee ! Nothing ill come near thee ! Quiet consummation have; And renowned be thy grave ! From The Tempest, Act i. Sc. 2. PULL fathom five thy father lies; 1 Of his bones are coral made; Those are pearls that were his eyes : Nothing of him that doth fade But doth suffer a sea-change Into something rich and strange. Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell: Ding-dong. Hark ! now I hear them, Ding-dong, bell. From The Tempest, Act v. Sc. 1. TI7"HERE the bee sucks, there suck I : In a cowslip's bell I lie: There I couch when owls do cry. On the bat's back I do fly After summer merrily. Merrily, merrily, shall I live now Under the blossom that hangs on the bough. (M349) L 88 ENGLISH LYRIC POETRY. SONNETS. TI7HEN, 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 possessed, 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 remembered such wealth brings That then I scorn to change my state with kings. "\I7HEN 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 cancelled woe, And moan the expense of many a vanished 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 new pay as if not paid before. But if the while I think on thee, dear friend, All losses are restored and sorrows end. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 89 "CULL many a glorious morning have I seen *■ Flatter the mountain-tops with sovran 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! he was but one hour mine; The region cloud hath masked him from me now. Yet him for this my love no whit disdaineth; Suns of the world may stain when heaven's sun staineth. T IKE 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, Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crowned, Crooked eclipses 'gainst his glory fight, And Time that gave doth now his gift confound. 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. 'TIRED with all these, for restful death I cry, * As, to behold desert a beggar born, And needy nothing trimmed in jollity, And purest faith unhappily forsworn, • 90 ENGLISH LYRIC POETRY. And gilded honour shamefully misplaced, And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted, And right perfection wrongfully disgraced, And strength by limping sway disabled, And art made tongue-tied by authority, And folly doctor-like controlling skill, And simple truth miscalled simplicity, And captive good attending captain ill . Tired with all these, from these would I be gone, Save that, to die, I leave my love alone. "VTO 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. Oh, 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. ^PHAT time of year thou mayst in me behold A 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. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 91 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 nourished by. This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong, To love that well which thou must leave ere long. '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 turned In process of the seasons have I seen, Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burned, 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 summer dead. "II7HEN 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 expressed Even such a beauty as you master now. So all their praises are but prophecies Of this our time, all you prefiguring; 92 ENGLISH LYRIC POETRY. And, for they looked 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. MOT 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 subscribes, Since, spite of him, I '11 live in this poor rhyme, While he insults o'er dull and speechless tribes : And thou in this shalt find thy monument, When tyrants' crests and tombs of brass are spent. QH, never say that I was false of heart, ^ Though absence seemed 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 reigned All frailties that besiege all kinds of blood, That it could so preposterously be stained, 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. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. . 93 [ ET 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 : Oh 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. 'TTHE 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; Enjoyed no sooner but despised straight; Past reason hunted; and no sooner had, Past reason hated, as a swallowed 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. POOR soul, the centre of my sinful earth, [Foiled by] these rebel powers that thee array, Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth, Painting thy outward walls so costly gay? 94 ENGLISH LYRIC POETRY. 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 dead, there 's no more dying then. SAMUEL DANIEL. (i562?-i6i9.) The Sonnets are from Delia, containing Certain Sonnets, 1592. The Shadow-Song is from Thetys Festival, a masque presented in 1610. The last selection is a lyric passage occurring in Hymen's Triumph, "A Pastoral Tragicomedy", 1614. Daniel's Works are edited by Dr. Grosart (Spenser Society, 1885), and his poems are to be found in Chalmer's Poets, vol. iii. Delia is reprinted in Arber's Garner, vol. iii. SONNET TO DELIA. "DEAUTY, sweet love, is like the morning dew, *-* Whose short refresh upon the tender green Cheers for a time, but till the Sun doth shew, And straight 't is 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 foretold: For women grieve to think they must be old. SAMUEL DANIEL. 95 CARE-CHARMER SLEEP. PARE-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 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. SONG. A RE they shadows that we see? *r And can shadows pleasure give? Pleasures only shadows be Cast by bodies we conceive, And are made the things we deem, In those figures which they seem. But these pleasures jvanish fast. Which by shadows are exprest: Pleasures are not if they last, In their passing is their best. Glory is most bright and gay In a flash, and so away. Feed apace then, greedy eyes, On the wonder you behold. Take it sudden as it flies, Though you take it not to hold : 96 ENGLISH LYRIC POETRY. When your eyes have done their part, Thought must length it in the heart. LOVE'S BIRTH AND BECOMING. From Hymen's Triumph. Thyrsis. I I remember well (and how can I A But evermore remember well) when first Our flame began, when scarce we knew what was The flame we felt, when as we sat and sighed And looked upon each other, and conceived Not what we ailed; yet something we did ail, And yet were well, and yet we were not well; And what was our disease we could not tell. Then would we kiss, then sigh, then look; and thus In that first garden of our simpleness We spent our childhood; but when years began To reap the fruit of knowledge, ah, how then Would she with graver looks, with sweet stern brow Check my presumption and my forwardness; Yet still would give me flowers, still would me show What she would have me, yet not have me know. Palcemon. Alas with what poor coin are lovers paid, And taken with the smallest bait is laid ! Thyrsis. And when in sport with other company, Of nymphs and shepherds we have met abroad How would she steal a look : and watch mine eye Which way it went ! and when at barley-break It came unto my turn to rescue her, With what an earnest, swift, and nimble pace MICHAEL DRAYTON. 97 Would her affection make her feet to run, Nor farther run than to my hand ! her race Had no stop but my bosom, where no end. And when we were to break again, how late And loath her trembling hand would part with mine, And with how slow a pace would she set forth To meet th' encountering party, who contends T' attain her, scarce affording him her fingers' ends ! MICHAEL DRAYTON. (1563-1631.) The first two sonnets occur in Drayton's Poems, 1605 ; ' ' Since there 's no help " in the Poems, 1619 ; and the ' ' Ballad of Agincourt " in the Poems, Lyric and Pastoral, 1606 (?). There is no satisfactory modern edition of Drayton. Most of his poems are reprinted in Chalmer's Poets, vol. iv. Mr. Oliver Elton has written an " Introduction to Michael Drayton ", 1895, containing a sketch of the poet's life and a bibliography of his works, to accompany the reprint of the Poems by the Spenser Society. SONNET: TO THE LADY L. S. "D RIGHT star of beauty, on whose eyelids sit *-* A thousand nymph-like and enamoured graces, The goddesses of memory and wit, Which in due order take their several places; In whose dear bosom, sweet delicious Love Lays down his quiver, that he once did bear, Since he that blessed Paradise did prove, Forsook his mother's lap to sport him there. Let others strive to entertain with words, My soul is of another temper made; I hold it vile that vulgar wit affords, Devouring time my faith shall not invade : Still let my praise be honoured thus by you, Be you most worthy, whilst I be most true. 98 ENGLISH LYRIC POETRY. TO THE RIVER ANKOR. r^LEAR Ankor, on whose silver-sanded shore, ^ My soul-shrined saint, my fair Idea lies, O blessed brook, whose milk-white 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 had been, And here to thee he sacrificed his tears : Fair Arden, thou my Tempe art alone, And thou, sweet Ankor, art my Helicon. SONNET. OINCE 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 death, And Innocence is closing up his eyes, — Now if thou would'st, when all have given him over, From death to life thou might'st him yet recover ! MICHAEL DRAYTON. 99 TO THE CAMBRO-BRITONS AND THEIR HARP HIS BALLAD OF AGINCOURT. pj\AIR stood the wind for France, When we our sails advance, Nor now to prove our chance Longer will tarry; But putting to the main, At Caux, the mouth of Seine, With all his martial train, Landed King Harry. And taking many a fort, Furnished in warlike sort, Marcheth towards Agincourt In happy hour; Skirmishing day by day, With those that stopped his way Where the French general lay With all his power; Which in his height of pride, King Henry to deride, His ransom to provide To the king sending. Which he neglects the while, As from a nation vile, Yet with an angry smile Their fall portending. And turning to his men, Quoth our brave Henry then, Though they to one be ten, Be not amazed. 100 ENGLISH LYRIC POETRY. Yet have we well begun, Battles so bravely won, Have ever to the sun By fame been raised. And for myself (quoth he), This my full rest shall be: England ne'er mourn for me, Nor more esteem me; Victor I will remain, Or on this earth lie slain, Never shall she sustain Loss to redeem me. Poitiers and Cressy tell, When most their pride did swell, Under our swords they fell; No less our skill is, Than when our grandsire-great, Claiming the regal seat, By many a warlike feat Lopped the French lilies. The Duke of York so dread The eager vaward led, With the main, Henry sped, Amongst his henchmen; Exeter had the rear, A braver man not there : O Lord, how hot they were On the false Frenchmen ! They now to fight are gone, Armour on armour shone, Drum now to drum did groan, To hear was wonder; MICHAEL DRAYTON. IOI That with the cries they make, The very earth did shake, Trumpet to trumpet spake, Thunder to thunder. Well it thine age became, O noble Erpingham, Which didst the signal aim To our hid forces ! When from a meadow by, Like a storm suddenly, The English archery Struck the French horses. With Spanish yew so strong, Arrows a cloth-yard long, That like to serpents stung, Piercing the weather; None from his fellow starts, But playing manly parts, And like true English hearts Stuck close together. When down their bows they threw, And forth their bilbos drew, And on the French they flew, Not one was tardy; Arms were from shoulders sent, Scalps to the teeth were rent, Down the French peasants went, Our men were hardy. This while our noble king, His broadsword brandishing, Down the French host did ding, As to o'erwhelm it. 102 ENGLISH LYRIC POETRY. And many a deep wound lent, His arms with blood besprent, And many a cruel dent Bruised his helmet. Gloucester, that duke so good, Next of the royal blood, For famous England stood, With his brave brother; Clarence, in steel so bright, Though but a maiden knight, Yet in that furious fight Scarce such another! Warwick in blood did wade. Oxford the foe invade, And cruel slaughter made, Still as they ran up; Suffolk his axe did fly, Beaumont and Willoughby Bear them right doughtily, Ferrers and Fanhope. Upon Saint Crispin's day Fought was this noble fray, Which fame did not delay To England to carry; O when shall Englishmen With such acts fill a pen, Or England breed again Such a King Harry? ROBERT SOUTHWELL. 1 03 ROBERT SOUTHWELL. (i562?-i595.) THE BURNING BABE. In St. Peter's Complaint, with other Poems, 1595. Ben Jonson greatly admired this poem. Southwell's Poetical Works, edited by Mr. W. B. Turnbull, were issued in 1856. A S I in hoary winter's night stood shivering in the snow, "^ Surprised I was with sudden heat which made my heart to glow; And lifting up a fearful eye to view what fire was near, A pretty babe all burning bright did in the air appear, Who scorched with exceeding heat such floods of tears did shed, As though His floods should quench His flames with what His tears were fed; Alas ! quoth He, but newly born, in fiery heats I fry, Yet none approach to warm their hearts or feel my fire but I! My faultless breast the furnace is, the fuel wounding thorns; Love is the fire and sighs the smoke, the ashes shame and scorns; The fuel Justice layeth on, and Mercy blows the coals, The metal in this furnace wrought are men's defiled souls For which, as now on fire I am, to work them to their good, So will I melt into a bath, to wash them in my blood. With this He vanished out of sight, and swiftly shrunk away, And straight I called unto mind that it was Christmas-day. (M349) 104 ENGLISH LYRIC POETRY. GEORGE CHAPMAN. (15577-1634.) HER COMING. Ascribed to Chapman in England s Parnassus, 1600. Chapman's Minor Poems and Translations have been reprinted (London, 1875). GEE where she issues in her beauty's pomp, *** As Flora to salute the morning sun; Who when she shakes her tresses in the air, Rains on the earth dissolved pearl in showers, Which with his beams the sun exhales to heaven : She holds the spring and summer in her arms, And every plant puts on his freshest robes, To dance attendance on her princely steps, Springing and fading as she comes and goes. OF CIRCUMSPECTION. TN hope to 'scape the law, do naught amiss, The penance ever in the action is. SIR JOHN DAVIES. (1569-1626.) From the Hymns to Astraa, 1599, — in acrostics ! Davies' Poems may be read in volume v. of Chalmers Poets, or in Dr. Grosart's edition (2 vols., London, 1876), or in Arber's Garner, vol. v. TO THE ROSE. "C YE of the garden, queen of flowers, Love's cup wherein he nectar pours, Ingendered first of nectar: Sweet nurse-child of the spring's young hours, And beauty's fair character. BARNABE BARNES. I05 Best jewel that the earth doth wear ! Even when the brave young sun draws near, To her hot love pretending; Himself likewise like form doth bear, At rising and descending. Rose, of the queen of love beloved; England's great kings divinely moved Gave roses in their banner; It showed that beauty's rose indeed, Now in this age should them succeed, And reign in more sweet manner. BARNABE BARNES. (iS69?-i6o9.) >^ Ode 9 and Sonnet lxvi. of Parthenophil and Parthenope, 1593. Reprinted in Arber's Garner, vol. v. ODE. DEHOLD, out walking in these valleys, U When fair Parthenope doth tread, How joy some Flora with her dallies ! And, at her steps, sweet flowers bred! Narcissus yellow, And Amaranthus ever red, Which all her footsteps overspread; With Hyacinth that finds no fellow. Behold, within that shady thick, Where my Parthenope doth walk, Her beauty makes trees moving quick, Which of her grace in murmur talk ! The Poplar trees shed tears; 106 ENGLISH LYRIC POETRY. The blossomed Hawthorn, white as chalk; And Aspen trembling on his stalk; The tree which sweet frankincense bears; The barren Hebene coaly black; Green Ivy, with his strange embraces; Daphne, 1 which scorns Jove's thundercrack; Sweet Cypress, set in sundry places; And singing Atys 2 tells Unto the rest, my Mistress' graces ! From them, the wind her glory chases Throughout the West, where it excels. SONNET. 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 wilt not harbour here ! 1 the laurel. * the pine-tree. io7 "J. C." BEAUTY AND TIME. From A Icilia: Philopartheii s Loving Folly, 1595. Reprinted in Arber's Garner, vol. iv. TI7HAT thing is Beauty? "Nature's dearest Minion!" ** "The Snare of Youth! like the inconstant moon Waxing and waning ! " " Error of Opinion ! " "A Morning's Flower, that withereth ere noon!" "A swelling Fruit! no sooner ripe, than rotten! " "Which sickness makes forlorn, and time forgotten!" ....... The time will come when, looking in a glass, Thy rivelled face with sorrow thou shalt see! And sighing, say, " It is not as it was ! These cheeks were wont more fresh and fair to be ! But now, what once made me so much admired Is least regarded, and of none desired!" Though thou be fair, think Beauty but a blast ! A morning's dew! a shadow quickly gone! A painted flower, whose colour will not last ! Time steals away, when least we think thereon. Most precious time! too wastefully expended; Of which alone the sparing is commended. Thy large smooth forehead, wrinkled shall appear! Vermilion hue, to pale and wan shall turn ! Time shall deface what Youth has held most dear! Yea, those clear Eyes (which once my heart did burn) Shall, in their hollow circles, lodge the night; And yield more cause of terror than delight ! 108 ENGLISH LYRIC POETRY. THOMAS HEYWOOD. (i575?-i65o?) These are songs in the drama of the Rape of Lucrece, 1608 (acted 1605), accessible in the Mermaid edition of Heywood's Best Plays, or in the collected edition of his Dramatic Works (in six volumes, London, 1874). PACK CLOUDS AWAY. P>ACK clouds away, and welcome day, A With night we banish sorrow; Sweet air, blow soft; mount, lark, aloft, To give my love good-morrow. Wings from the wind to please her mind, Notes from the lark I '11 borrow: Bird, prune thy wing; nightingale, sing, To give my love good-morrow. To give my love good-morrow, Notes from them all I '11 borrow. Wake, from thy nest, robin redbreast, Sing, birds, in every furrow; And from each bill let music shrill Give my fair love good-morrow. Blackbird and thrush in every bush, Stare, linnet, and cock-sparrow, You pretty elves, amongst yourselves, Sing my fair love good-morrow. To give my love good-morrow, Sing, birds, in every furrow. SONG OF THE BELL. POME, list and hark; ^ The bell doth toll, For some but now Departing soul. THOMAS DEKKER. IO9 And was not that Some ominous fowl The bat, the night- Crow, or screech owl? To these I hear The wild wolf howl In this black night That seems to scowl. All these my black- Book shall enroll; For hark! still, still The bell doth toll For some but now Departing soul. THOMAS DEKKER. (i57o?-i6 4 i.) The first two songs are from the Shoemakers Holiday, acted 1599. The next two occur in the Pleasant Comedy of Patient Grissell, acted 1599, which was only written in part by Dekker, and possibly they are not by Dekker. The music of the first and fourth is given in Chappell's Old English Popular Music, and in Hullah's Golden Treasury Song Book. ' ' The Gifts of Fortune and Cupid " is found in the Sun's Darling, a Moral Masque, by Ford and Dekker, acted 1624, which however is probably an adaptation of Dekker's Phaeton, a play of much earlier date. Dekker probably wrote the song. Dekker's Dramatic Works were collected into four volumes in 1873 ; they were also edited by Mr. Bullen in 1887. TROLL THE BOWL! POLD 'S the wind, and wet 's the rain, ^ Saint Hugh be our good speed ! Ill is the weather that bringeth no gain, Nor helps good hearts in need. Troll the bowl, the jolly nut-brown bowl, And here, kind mate, to thee! IIO ENGLISH LYRIC POETRY. Let 's sing a dirge for Saint Hugh's soul, And down it merrily. Down-a-down, hey, down-a-down, Hey deny deny down-a-down! Ho! well done, to me let come, Ring compass, gentle joy ! Troll the bowl, the nut-brown bowl, And here kind, &c. (as often as there be men to drink). At last, when all have drunk, this verse. Cold 's the wind, and wet 's the rain, Saint Hugh be our good speed ! Ill is the weather that bringeth no gain, Nor helps good hearts in need. THE MERRY MONTH OF MAY. C\ THE month of May, the meny month of May, ^' So frolic, so gay, and so green, so green, so green ! O, and then did I unto my true love say, Sweet Peg, thou shalt be my summer's queen. Now the nightingale, the pretty nightingale, The sweetest singer in all the forest quire, Entreats thee, sweet Peggy, to hear thy true love's tale; Lo, yonder she sitteth, her breast against a brier. But O, I spy the cuckoo, the cuckoo, the cuckoo; See where she sitteth; come away, my joy: Come away, I prithee, I do not like the cuckoo Should sing where my Peggy and I kiss and toy. O, the month of May, the merry month of May, So frolic, so gay, and so green, so green, so green; And then did I unto my true love say, Sweet Peg, thou shalt be my summer's queen. THOMAS DEKKER. Ill CONTENT. A RT thou poor, yet hast thou golden slumbers? ** O sweet Content! Art thou rich, yet is thy mind perplexed? O Punishment! Dost laugh to see how fools are vexed To add to golden numbers golden numbers? O sweet Content, O sweet, O sweet Content! Work apace, apace, apace, apace; Honest labour bears a lovely face. Then hey noney, noney; hey noney, noney. Canst drink the waters of the crisped spring? O sweet Content! Swim'st thou in wealth, yet sink'st in thine own tears? O Punishment! Then he that patiently Want's burden bears No burden bears, but is a king, a king. O sweet Content, O sweet, O sweet Content ! Work apace, apace, &c. LULLABY. P OLDEN slumbers kiss your eyes, ^* Smiles awake you when you rise. Sleep, pretty wantons, do not cry, And I will sing a lullaby. Rock them, rock them, lullaby. Care is heavy, therefore sleep you. You are care, and care must keep you. Sleep, pretty wantons, do not cry, And I will sing a lullaby, Rock them, rock them, lullaby. 112 ENGLISH LYRIC POETRY. THE GIFTS OF FORTUNE AND CUPID. Fortune. DEa merchant, I will freight thee •^ With all store that time is bought for. Cupid. Be a lover, I will wait thee With success in life most sought for. Fortune. Be enamoured on bright honour, And thy greatness shall shine glorious. Cupid. Chastity, if thou smile on her, Shall grow servile, thou victorious. Fortune. Be a warrior, conquest ever Shall triumphantly renown thee. Cupid. Be a courtier, beauty never Shall but with her duty crown thee. Fortune. Fortune's wheel is thine, depose me; I'm thy slave, thy power hath bound me. Cupid. Cupid's shafts are thine, dispose me; Love loves love; thy graces wound me. Both. Live, reign! pity is fame's jewel; We obey; O, be not cruel! ROBERT DEVEREUX, EARL OF ESSEX. (1567-1601.) "A PASSION OF MY LORD OF ESSEX." From Ashm. MS. 781. In Grosart's edition of Essex in vol. iv. of the Miscellanies of the Fuller Worthies' Library. It is said to have been inclosed in a letter to the queen from Ireland, in 1599. "LTAPPY were he could finish forth his fate A In some unhaunted desert, most obscure From all societies, from love and hate Of worldly folk; then might he sleep secure; Then wake again, and ever give God praise, Content with hips and haws and bramble-berry; JOHN DONNE. 113 In contemplation spending all his days, And change of holy thoughts to make him merry; Where, when he dies, his tomb may be a bush, Where harmless robin dwells with gentle thrush. JOHN DONNE. (1573-1631.) From Poems, 1633. Although not published till after the author's death, almost all of Donne's poetry was written in his youth, before 1600. The Ode to Absence appeared in Davison's Poetical Rhapsody, 1602. Donne's poems are reprinted in Chalmer's Poets ; in Grosart s edition, two vols., 1872 ; and in the Muses' Library, edited by Mr. E. K. Chambers, two vols., 1895. The Sonnet to Death was written before 1607, and the Hymn to God the Father in 1627. A VALEDICTION FORBIDDING MOURNING. A S virtuous men pass mildly away, And whisper to their souls to go, Whilst some of their sad friends do say, "Now his breath goes", and some say "No"; So let us melt and make no noise, No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move, 'T were profanation of our joys, To tell the laity our love. Moving of th' earth brings harm and fears, Men reckon what it did and meant; But trepidation of the spheres, Though greater far, is innocent. Dull sublunary lovers' love, Whose soul is sense, cannot admit Absence, for that it doth remove Those things which elemented it 114 ENGLISH LYRIC POETRY. But we by a love so far refined, That ourselves know not what it is, Inter-assured of the mind, Careless eyes, lips, and hands, to miss; Our two souls therefore, which are one, Though I must go, endure not yet A breach, but an expansion, Like gold to airy thinness beat. If they be two, they are two so As stiff twin compasses are two; Thy soul, the fixed foot, makes no show To move, but doth, if the other do. And though it in the centre sit, Yet when the other far doth roam, It leans and hearkens after it, And grows erect as that comes home. Such wilt thou be to me, who must, Like the other foot, obliquely run; Thy firmness makes my circle just, And makes me end where I begun. THE FUNERAL. "\I7HOEVER comes to shroud me, do not harm * " Nor question much That subtle wreath of hair about mine arm ; The mystery, the sign, you must not touch, For 't is my outward soul, Viceroy to that which, unto heaven being gone, Will leave this to control And keep these limbs, her provinces, from dissolution. JOHN DONNE. 115 For if the sinewy thread my brain lets fall Through every part, Can tie those parts, and make me one of all; The hairs, which upward grew and strength and art Have from a better brain, Can better do it: except she meant that I By this should know my pain, As prisoners then are manacled, when they're con- demned to die. Whate'er she meant by't, bury it with me; For since I am Love's martyr, it might breed idolatry, If into others' hands these relics came. As 't was humility To afford to it all that a soul can do; So 't is some bravery, That, since you would have none of me, I bury some of you. ODE. "That time and absence proves Rather helps than hurts to loves." A BSENCE, hear thou my protestation ■** Against thy strength, Distance and length: Do what thou canst for alteration, For hearts of truest mettle Absence doth join, and time doth settle. Who loves a mistress of such quality, He soon hath found Affection's ground Beyond time, place, and all mortality. To hearts that cannot vary Absence is present, Time doth tarry. Il6 ENGLISH LYRIC POETRY. My senses want their outward motions, Which now within Reason doth win, Redoubled in her secret notibns: Like rich men that take pleasure In hiding more than handling treasure. By absence this good means I gain, That I can catch her, Where none can watch her, In some close corner of my brain : There I embrace and kiss her; And so I both enjoy and miss her. SONG. CWEETEST love, I do not go ^* For weariness of thee, Nor in hope the world can show A fitter love for me; But since that I Must die at last, 't is best Thus to use myself in jest By feigned deaths to die. Yesternight the sun went hence, And yet is here to-day; He hath no desire nor sense, Nor half so short a way; Then fear not me, But believe that I shall make Hastier journeys, since I take More wings and spurs than he. O how feeble is man's power, That if good fortune fall, JOHN DONNE. 117 Cannot undo another hour, Nor a lost hour recall ! But come bad chance, And we join to it our strength, And we teach it art and length, Itself o'er us to advance. When thou sigh'st thou sigh'st no wind, But sigh'st my soul away; When thou weep'st, unkindly kind, My life's blood doth decay. It cannot be That thou lov'st me, as thou say'st; If in thine my life thou waste, Thou art the best of me. Let not thy divining heart Forethink me any ill, Destiny may take my part And may thy fears fulfil; But think that we Are but turned aside to sleep : They who one another keep Alive, ne'er parted be. THE UNDERTAKING. T HAVE done one braver thing, * Than all the worthies did; And yet a braver thence doth spring, Which is, to keep that hid. It were but madness now to impart The skill of specular stone, When he, which can have learned the art To cut it, can find none. Il8 ENGLISH LYRIC POETRY. So, if I now should utter this, Others (because no more Such stuff to work upon there is) Would love but as before. Be he, who loveliness within Hath found, all outward loathes; For he, who colour loves and skin, Loves but their oldest clothes. If, as I have, you also do Virtue in woman see, And dare love that, and say so too, And forget the he and she; And if this love, though placed so, From profane men you hide, Which will no faith on this bestow, Or, if they do, deride : Then you have done a braver thing, Than all the worthies did, And a braver thence will spring, Which is, to keep that hid. THE BLOSSOM. T ITTLE think'st thou, poor flower, Whom I have watched six or seven days, And seen thy birth, and seen what every hour Gave to thy growth, thee to this height to raise, And now dost laugh and triumph on this bough, — Little think'st thou That it will freeze anon, and that I shall To-morrow find thee fallen, or not at all. JOHN DONNE. II9 Little think'st thou, poor heart, That labourest yet to nestle thee, And think'st by hovering here to get a part In a forbidden or forbidding tree, And hop'st her stiffness by long siege to bow, — Little think'st thou That thou to-morrow, ere the sun doth wake, Must with this sun and me a journey take. SONNET. PJEATH, 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 picture 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 art 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 shalt die! HYMN TO GOD THE FATHER. "\I7TLT Thou forgive that sin, where I begun, * " Which was my sin, though it were done before? Wilt Thou forgive that sin, through which I run, And do run still, though still I do deplore? When Thou hast done, Thou hast not done; For I have more. (M349) N 120 ENGLISH LYRIC POETRY. Wilt Thou forgive that sin, which I have won Others to sin, and made my sins their door? Wilt Thou forgive that sin, which I did shun A year or two, but wallowed in a score? When Thou hast done, Thou hast not done; For I have more. I have a sin of fear, that when I Ve spun My last thread, I shall perish on the shore; But swear by Thyself, that at my death Thy Son Shall shine, as He shines now and heretofore : And having done that, Thou hast done; I fear no more. BEN JONSON. (1573 1637.) The Works of Ben Jonson, edited by Gifford and Cunningham, 3 vols. , London, 1874, is a convenient modern edition. The third volume con- tains the masques and poems. ECHO'S LAMENT OF NARCISSUS. From Cynthia s Revels (acted 1600), Act i. Sc. 1. CLOW, slow, fresh fount, keep time with my salt tears; ^ Yet slower, yet; O faintly, gentle springs: List to the heavy part the music bears, Woe weeps out her division, when she sings. Droop herbs and flowers, Fall grief in showers, Our beauties are not ours; O, I could still, Like melting snow upon some craggy hill, Drop, drop, drop, drop, Since nature's pride is now a withered daffodil. BEN JONSON. 121 HYMN TO DIANA. From Cynthia's Revels, 1600. QUEEN and huntress, chaste and fair, Now the sun is laid to sleep, Seated in thy silver chair, State in wonted manner keep: Hesperus entreats thy light, Goddess excellently bright. Earth, let not thy envious shade Dare itself to interpose; Cynthia's shining orb was made Heaven to clear when day did close: Bless us then with wished sight, Goddess excellently bright. Lay thy bow of pearl apart, And thy crystal shining quiver; Give unto the flying hart Space to breathe, how short soever: Thou that mak'st a day of night, Goddess excellently bright. HYMN TO PAN. From Pans Anniversary, a masque presented at court in 1625. i Nymph. C\F Pan we sing, the best of singers, Pan, ^ That taught us swains how first to tune our lays, And on the pipe more airs than Phoebus can. Chorus. Hear, O you groves, and hills resound his praise. 2 Nymph. Of Pan we sing, the best of leaders, Pan, That leads the Naiads and the Dryads forth; And to their dances more than Hermes can. Chorus. Hear, O you groves, and hills resound his X* OF THK TTTkT TTTT—'-T— > nTrmr 122 ENGLISH LYRIC POETRY. j Nymph; Of Pan we sing, the best of hunters, Pan, That drives the hart to seek unused ways, And in the chase more than Sylvanus can. Chorus. Hear, O you groves, and hills resound his praise. 2 Nymph. Of Pan we sing, the best of shepherds, Pan, That keeps our flocks and us, and both leads forth To better pastures than great Pales can. Chorus. Hear, O you groves, and hills resound his worth. And while his powers and praises thus we sing, The valleys let rebound and all the rivers ring. SONG— TO CELIA. From The Forest, 1616 (written 1605). See the music in Hullah's Song Book, p. 47. F\RINK to me only with thine eyes, *-* And I will pledge with mine: Or leave a kiss but in the cup, And I '11 not look for wine. The thirst that from the soul doth rise, Doth ask a drink divine: But might I of Jove's nectar sup, I would not change for thine. I sent thee late a rosy wreath, Not so much honouring thee, As giving it a hope, that there It could not withered be. But thou thereon didst only breathe, And sent'st it back to me : Since when it grows, and smells, I swear, Not of itself, but thee. BEN JONSON. 123 From Love Freed from Ignorance and Folly, a masque presented in 1610. TTOW near to good is what is fair! ■* -"■ Which we no sooner see, But with the lines and outward air Our senses taken be. We wish to see it still, and prove What ways we may deserve; We court, we praise, we more than love: We are not grieved to serve. From The Masque of Oberon, 1611. DUZZ! quoth the Blue-fly, P Hum ! quoth the Bee ; Buzz and hum ! they cry, And so do we. In his ear ! in his nose ! Thus, — do you see? He eat the Dormouse — Else it was he. From The Gipsies Metamorphosed, a masque presented in 1621. HTHE fairy beam upon you, *■ The stars to glister on you; A moon of light, In the noon of night, Till the fire-drake hath o'ergone you ! The wheel of fortune guide you, The boy with the bow beside you; Run aye in the way, Till the bird of day, And the luckier lot betide you ! 124 ENGLISH LYRIC POETRY. CHARTS' TRIUMPH. One of the ten pieces forming A Celebration of Charts, in Underwoods. The last two stanzas are sung or said by Wittipol in The Devil is an Ass (acted 1616), Act ii. Sc. 2. OEE the chariot at hand here of Love, ^ Wherein my lady rideth! Each that draws is a swan or a dove, And well the car Love guideth. As she goes, all hearts do duty Unto her beauty; And enamoured do wish, so they might And enjoy such a sight, That they still were to run by her side, Thorough swords, thorough seas, whither she would ride. But look on her eyes, they do light All that Love's world compriseth ! Do but look on her hair, it is bright As Love's star when it riseth ! Do but mark, her forehead's smoother Than words that soothe her; And from her arched brows, such a grace Sheds itself through the face, As alone there triumphs to the life All the gain, all the good of the elements' strife. Have you seen but a bright lily grow Before rude hands have touched it ? Have you marked but the fall o' the snow Before the soil hath smutched it? Have you felt the wool of beaver? Or swan's down ever? Or have smelt o' the bud o' the briar? Or the nard in the fire? Or have tasted the bag of the bee? O so white, — O so soft, — O so sweet is she! BEN JONSON. 125 THE MEASURE OF THE PERFECT LIFE. From A Pindaric Ode on the Death of Sir H. Morison, in Underwoods. TT is not growing like a tree In bulk, doth make man better be; Or standing long an oak, three hundred year, To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sear : A lily of a day, Is fairer far, in May, Although it fall and die that night; It was the plant and flower of light. In small proportions we just beauties see; And in short measures life may perfect be, A HYMN. From Underwoods. IT EAR me, O God! * * A broken heart Is my best part: Use still Thy rod, That I may prove Therein, Thy love. If Thou hadst not Been stern to me, But left me free, I had forgot Myself and Thee. For, sin 's so sweet, As minds ill bent Rarely repent, Until they meet Their punishment 126 ENGLISH LYRIC POETRY. Who more can crave Than Thou hast done? That gav'st a Son To free a slave : First made of nought; With all since bought. Sin, death, and hell His glorious name Quite overcame; Yet I rebel, And slight the same. But, I '11 come in, Before my loss Me further toss, As sure to win Under His cross. THOMAS CAMPION. (i567?-i623.) Campion's works have been edited by Mr. Bullen (London, 1889); selections from Campion are edited by Mr. Ernest Rhys in the Lyric Poets Series (London, 1896) ; in Arber's Garner, vol. iii.; and in Bullen's Lyrics from Elizabethan Song-Books. TO LESBIA From Campion and Rosseter's Book of Airs, 1601. Vivamus, tnea Lesbia, atque amemus. jV/TY sweetest Lesbia, let us live and love, ™ And though the sager sort our deeds reprove Let us not weigh them. Heaven's great lamps do dive Into their west, and straight again revive; THOMAS CAMPION. 1 27 But soon as once set is our little light, Then must we sleep one ever-during night. If all would lead their lives in love like me, Then bloody swords and armour should not be; No drum nor trumpet peaceful sleeps should move, Unless alarm came from the camp of love : But fools do live and waste their little light, And seek with pain their ever-during night. When timely death my life and fortune ends, Let not my hearse be vext with mourning friends; But let all lovers, rich in triumph, come And with sweet pastimes grace my happy tomb: And, Lesbia, close up thou my little light, And crown with love my ever-during night. COME AWAY! T I T HAT then is love but mourning? ** What desire, but a self-burning? Till she, that hates, doth love return, Thus will I mourn, thus will I sing, "Come away! come away, my darling!" Beauty is but a blooming, Youth in his glory entombing; Time hath a while, which none can stay: Then come away, while thus I sing, "Come away! come away, my darling!" Summer in winter fadeth; Gloomy night heavenly light shadeth; Like to the morn are Venus' flowers; Such are her hours : then will I sing, "Come away! come away, my darling!" 128 ENGLISH LYRIC POETRY. THE MEASURE OF BEAUTY. From Thomas Campion's Two Books of Airs (circ. 1613). piVE Beauty all her right, ^* She 's not to one form tied; Each shape yields fair delight, Where her perfections bide : Helen, I grant, might pleasing be, And Ros'mond was as sweet as she. Some the quick eye commends, Some swelling lips and red; Pale looks have many friends, Through sacred sweetness bred: Meadows have flowers that pleasure move, Though roses are the flowers of love. Free beauty is not bound To one unmoved clime; She visits every ground And favours every time. Let the old loves with mine compare, My sovereign is as sweet and fair. THE SHADOW. From Campion and Rosseter's Book of Airs, 1601. "COLLOW thy fair sun, unhappy shadow! Though thou be black as night, And she made all of light, Yet follow thy fair sun, unhappy shadow! Follow her whose light thy light depriveth; Though here thou livest disgraced, THOMAS CAMPION. 1 29 And she in heaven is placed, Yet follow her whose light the world reviveth! Follow those pure beams whose beauty burneth, That so have scorched thee, As thou still black must be, Till her kind beams thy black to brightness turneth. Follow her ! while yet her glory shineth : There comes a luckless night, That will dim all her light; And this the black unhappy shade divineth. Follow still! since so thy fates ordained; The sun must have his shade, Till both at once do fade; The sun still proved, the shadow still disdained. WHEN THOU MUST HOME. From Campion and Rosseter's Book of Airs, 1601. "\I7*HEN thou must home to shades of underground, And there arrived, a new admired guest The beauteous spirits do engirt thee round, White lope, blithe Helen, and the rest, To hear the stories of thy finished love From that smooth tongue whose music hell can move; Then wilt thou speak of banqueting delights, Of masques and revels which sweet youth did make, Of tourneys and great challenges of knights, And all these triumphs for thy beauty's sake: When thou hast told these honours done to thee, Then tell, O tell, how thou didst murder me. 130 ENGLISH LYRIC POETRY. DAY AND NIGHT. From Campion's Two Books of Airs, 1613. POME, cheerful day, part of my life to me . V For while thou view'st me with thy fading light, Part of my life doth still depart with thee, And I still onward haste to my last night. Time's fatal wings do ever forward fly: So every day we live a day we die. But, O ye nights, ordained for barren rest, How are my days deprived of life in you, When heavy sleep my soul hath dispossest, By feigned death life sweetly to renew ! Part of my life in that, you life deny : So every day we live a day we die. THE MAN OF LIFE UPRIGHT. From Campion and Rosseter's Book of Airs, 1601. THE man of life upright, A Whose guiltless heart is free From all dishonest deeds, Or thought of vanity; The man whose silent days In harmless joys are spent, Whom hopes cannot delude Nor sorrow discontent: That man needs neither towers Nor armour for defence, Nor secret vaults to fly From thunder's violence: He only can behold With unaffrighted eyes THOMAS CAMPION. 13I The horrors of the deep And terrors of the skies. Thus scorning all the cares That fate or fortune brings, He makes the heaven his book, His wisdom heavenly things; Good thoughts his only friends, His wealth a well-spent age, The earth his sober inn And quiet pilgrimage. A HYMN IN PRAISE OF NEPTUNE. From Gesta Graiorum: Gray's Inn Masque, 1594. f\F Neptune's empire let us sing, ^ At whose command the waves obey; To whom the rivers tribute pay, Down the high mountains sliding : To whom the scaly nation yields Homage for the crystal fields Wherein they dwell: And every sea-god pays a gem Yearly out of his watery cell To deck great Neptune's diadem. The Tritons dancing in a ring, Before his palace-gates do make The water with their echoes quake, Like the great thunder sounding: The sea-nymphs chant their accents shrill, And the sirens, taught to kill With their sweet voice, Make every echoing rock reply, Unto their gentle murmuring noise, The praise of Neptune's empery. 132 ENGLISH LYRIC POETRY. WINTER NIGHTS. From Campion's Third Book of Airs, about 1617. VTOW winter nights enlarge The number of their hours; And clouds their storms discharge Upon the airy towers. Let now the chimneys blaze And cups o'erflow with wine, Let well-tuned words amaze With harmony divine ! Now yellow waxen lights Shall wait on honey love While youthful revels, masques, and courtly sights. Sleep's leaden spells remove. This time doth well dispense With lovers' long discourse; Much speech hath some defence, Though beauty no remorse. All do not all things well: Some measures comely tread, Some knotted riddles tell, Some poems smoothly read. The summer hath his joys, And winter his delights; Though love and all his pleasures are but toys, They shorten tedious nights. THE CHARM. From Campion's Third Book of Airs. 'THRICE toss these oaken ashes in the air, A Thrice sit thou mute in this enchanted chair, Then thrice-three times tie up this true love's knot, And murmur soft " She will or she will not ". THOMAS CAMPION. 1 33 Go, burn these poisonous weeds in yon blue fire, These screech-owl's feathers and this prickling briar, This cypress gathered at a dead man's grave, That all thy fears and cares an end may have. Then come, you Fairies ! dance with me a round ! Melt her hard heart with your melodious sound! In vain are all the charms I can devise : She hath an art to break them with her eyes. THERE IS NONE, O, NONE BUT YOU. From Campion's Two Books of Airs. ''THERE is none, O none but you, A That from me estrange your sight, Whom mine eyes affect to view Or chained ears hear with delight. Other beauties others move, In you I all graces find; Such is the effect of Love, To make them happy that are kind. Women in frail beauty trust, Only seem you fair to me; Yet prove truly kind and just, For that may not dissembled be. Sweet, afford me then your sight, That, surveying all your looks, Endless volumes I may write And fill the world with envied books : Which when after-ages view, All shall wonder and despair, Woman to find man so true, Or man a woman half so fair. 134 ENGLISH LYRIC POETRY. FOLLOW YOUR SAINT! From Campion and Rosseter's Book of Airs, 1601. "POLLOW your saint, follow with accents sweet ! Haste you, sad notes, fall at her flying feet ! There, wrapped in cloud of sorrow, pity move, And tell the ravisher of my soul I perish for her love: But, if she scorns my never-ceasing pain, Then burst with sighing in her sight and ne'er return again. All that I sang still to her praise did tend, Still she was first, still she my songs did end, Yet she my love and music both doth fly, The music that her echo is and beauty's sympathy: Then let my notes pursue her scornful flight ! It shall suffice that they were breathed and died for her delight. ROSE-CHEEKED LAURA. From Campion's Observations on the Art of English Poesy, 1602. DOSE-CHEEKED Laura, come; 1 ^ Sing thou smoothly with thy beauty's Silent music, either other Sweetly gracing. Lovely forms do flow From concent divinely framed; Heaven is music, and thy beauty's Birth is heavenly. These dull notes we sing Discords need for helps to grace them, Only beauty purely loving Knows only discord; WILLIAM BROWNE. 1 35 But still moves delight, Like clear springs renewed by flowing, Ever perfect, ever in them- selves eternal. WILLIAM BROWNE. (i590?-i6 4 5?.) Browne's Poems are published in the Roxburghe Library, edited by Mr. W. C. Hazlitt, and in the Muses' Library, edited by Mr. Gordon Goodwin, 1894. CARPE DIEM. From Britannia's Pastorals, Book i., 1613. pENTLE nymphs, be not refusing, ^* Love's neglect is time's abusing, They and beauty are but lent you, Take the one and keep the other: Love keeps fresh what age doth smother: Beauty gone you will repent you. 'T will be said when ye have proved, Never swains more truly loved : O then fly all nice behaviour. Pity fain would, as her duty, Be attending still on beauty, Let her not be out of favour. THE SONG IN THE WOOD. From the Inner Temple Masque, 1614-15. T17HAT sing the sweet birds in each grove? * " Nought but love. What sound our echoes day and night? All delight. (M849) ° 136 ENGLISH LYRIC POETRY. What doth each wind breathe as it fleets? Endless sweets. Chorus. Is there a place on earth this Isle excels, Or any nymphs more happy live than we? When all our songs, our sounds, and breathings be, That here all love, delight, and sweetness dwells. THE SIREN'S SONG. From the Inner Temple Masque. OTEER hither, steer your winged pines, ^ All beaten mariners, Here lie Love's undiscovered mines, A prey to passengers; Perfumes far sweeter than the best Which make the Phoenix' urn and nest. Fear not your ships, Nor any to oppose you save our lips, But come on shore, Where no joy dies till love hath gotten more. For swelling waves our panting breasts, Where never storms arise, Exchange; and be awhile our guests: For stars gaze on our eyes. The compass love shall hourly sing, And as he goes about the ring, We will not miss To tell each point he nameth with a kiss Chorus. Then come on shore, Where no joy dies till love hath gotten more. WILLIAM BROWNE. 137 LOVE'S REASONS. From Lansdowne MS. 777, first printed 1815. "POR her gait if she be walking, A Be she sitting I desire her For her state's sake, and admire her For her wit if she be talking. Gait and state and wit approve her; For which all and each I love her. Be she sullen, I commend her For a modest. Be she merry, For a kind one her prefer I. Briefly everything doth lend her So much grace and so approve her, That for everything I love her. EPITAPH ON THE COUNTESS OF PEMBROKE From Lansdowne MS. 777, first published in Osborne's Memoirs of the Reign of King James, 1658 ; often, but erroneously, ascribed to Ben Jonson. T TNDERNEATH this sable hearse, ^ Lies the subject of all verse, Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother; Death! ere thou hast slain another, Fair and learn'd, and good as she, Time shall throw a dart at thee EPITAPH. From Lansdowne MS. 777 iy/f AY ! be thou never graced with birds that sing, ^ Nor Flora's pride! In thee all flowers and roses spring; Mine only died. I3& ENGLISH LYRIC POETRY. WELCOME. From Lansdowne MS. yjj. TITELCOME, welcome do I sing, ** Far more welcome than the spring: He that parteth from you never Shall enjoy a spring for ever. Love, that to the voice is near Breaking from your ivory pale, Need not walk abroad to hear The delightful nightingale. Welcome, welcome then I sing, Far more welcome than the spring: He that parteth from you never Shall enjoy a spring for ever. Love, that looks still on your eyes Though the winter have begun To benumb our arteries, Shall not want the summer's sun. Welcome, welcome, &c. Love, that still may see your cheeks, Where all rareness still reposes, Is a fool if e'er he seeks Other lilies, other roses. Welcome, welcome, &c Love, to whom your soft lip yields, And perceives your breath in kissing, All the odours of the fields Never, never shall be missing. Welcome, welcome, &c. Love, that question would anew What fair Eden was of old, Let him rightly study you, And a brief of that behold. Welcome, welcome, &c. WILLIAM DRUMMOND OF HAWTHORNDEN. 139 VISION OF THE ROSE. From Lansdowne MS. yyj. 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 well-a-day, 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. WILLIAM DRUMMOND OF HAWTHORNDEN. (1585-1649.) Drummond's Poems are reprinted in Chalmers' Poets : and are also edited by Mr. W. B. Turnbull in the Library of Old Authors, 1856, and by Mr. W. C. Ward in the Muses' Library, 1895. The first sonnet and the three madrigals are from Drummond's Poems, Amorous, Funeral, &>c, Part i. 16 16 ; the other sonnets are from the Flowers of Sion, 1623. SONNET: TO THE NIGHTINGALE. FiEAR chorister, who from those shadows sends, ■^ Ere that the blushing morn dare show her light, Such sad lamenting strains, that night attends, Become all ear, stars stay to hear thy plight: If one whose grief even reach of thought transcends, Who ne'er, not in a dream, did taste delight, I40 ENGLISH LYRIC POETRY. May thee importune who like case pretends, And seems to joy in woe, in woe's despite; Tell me (so may thou fortune milder try, And long, long sing) for what thou thus complains, Sith, winter gone, the sun in dappled sky Now smiles on meadows, mountains, woods, and plains? The bird, as if my question did her move, With trembling wings sobbed forth, " I love, I love ". SONNET: SPRING. CWEET 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 before, Delicious, wanton, amiable, fair; But she whose breath embalmed thy wholesome air Is gone; nor gold, nor gems can her restore. Neglected virtue, seasons go and come, While thine forgot lie closed in a tomb. SONNET: POSTING TIME. T OOK 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. WILLIAM DRUMMOND OF HAWTHORNDEN. 141 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. SONNET: SWEET BIRD CWEET 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 reverent eye and thought to heaven? Sweet artless songster, thou my mind dost raise To airs of spheres, yes, and to angel's lays. SONNET: ON SOLITUDE. HPHRICE happy he who by some shady grove, A Far from the clamorous world, doth live his own; Though solitary, who is not alone, But doth converse with that eternal love. O ! how more sweet is birds' harmonious moan, Or the hoarse sobbings of the widowed dove, Than those smooth whisperings near a prince's throne, Which good make doubtful, do the evil approve ! O ! how more sweet is zephyr's wholesome breath, And sighs embalmed, which new born flowers unfold, 142 ENGLISH LYRIC POETRY. Than that applause vain honour doth bequeath ! How sweet are streams, to poison drunk in gold! The world is full of horrors, troubles, slights : Woods' harmless shades have only true delights. SONNET: REPENT, REPENT! HTHE 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 young doth spring, With honey that from virgin hives distilled; Parched 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 marble caves, " Repent, repent ". SONNET TO SIR WILLIAM ALEXANDER. ''THOUGH I have twice been at the doors of death, *• And twice found shut those gates which ever mourn, This but a lightening is, truce ta'en to breath, For lata-born sorrows augur fleet return. Amidst thy sacred cares and courtly toils, Alexis, when thou shalt hear wandering Fame Tell Death hath triumphed o'er my mortal spoils, And that on earth I am but a sad name; If thou e'er held me dear, by all our love, By all that bliss, those joys Heaven here us gave, I conjure thee, and by the maids of Jove, To grave this short remembrance on my grave : Here Damon lies, whose songs did sometime grace The murmuring Esk; may roses shade the place! WILLIAM DRUMMOND OF HAWTHORNDEN. 1 43 MADRIGAL. ''PHIS Life, which seems so fair, Is like a bubble blown up in the air By sporting children's breath, Who chase it everywhere And strive who can most motion it bequeath; And though it sometime seem of its own might, Like to an eye of gold, to be fixed there, And firm to hover in that empty height; That only is because it is so light. But in that pomp it doth not long appear; For when 't is most admired, in a thought, Because it erst was naught, it turns to naught. SONG. DHCEBUS, arise, A And paint the sable skies With azure, white, and red; Rouse Memnon's mother from her Tithon's bed, That she thy career may with roses spread; The nightingales thy coming each where sing; Make an eternal spring, Give life to this dark world which lieth dead; Spread forth thy golden hair In larger locks than thou wast wont before, And, emperor-like, decore With diadem of pearl thy temples fair: Chase hence the ugly night, Which serves but to make dear thy glorious light This is that happy morn That day, long-wished day, Of all my life so dark (If cruel stars have not my ruin sworn, 144 ENGLISH LYRIC POETRY. And fates not hope betray), Which, only white, deserves A diamond for ever should it mark : This is the morn should bring unto this grove My love, to hear and recompense my love. Fair king, who all preserves, But show thy blushing beams, And thou two sweeter eyes Shalt see, than those which by Peneus' streams Did once thy heart surprise; Nay, suns, which shine as clear As thou when two thou did to Rome appear. Now, Flora, deck thyself in fairest guise; If that ye, winds, would hear A voice surpassing far Amphion's lyre, Your stormy chiding stay; Let zephyr only breathe, And with her tresses play, Kissing sometimes these purple ports of death. The winds all silent are, And Phoebus in his chair, Ensaffroning sea and air, Makes vanish every star: Night like a drunkard reels Beyond the hills to shun his naming wheels; The fields with flowers are decked in every hue, The clouds bespangle with bright gold their blue: Here is the pleasant place, And every thing, save her, who all should grace. MADRIGAL. OWEET rose, whence is this hue ^ Which doth all hues excel? Whence this most fragrant smell? And whence this form and gracing grace in you? SIMON WASTELL. 1 45 In fair Psestana's fields perhaps you grew, Or Hybla's hills you bred, Or odoriferous Enna's plains you fed, Or Tmolus, or where boar young Adon slew; Or hath the queen of love you dyed of new, In that dear blood, which makes you look so red? No, none of those, but cause more high you blissed, My lady's breast you bore, her lips you kissed. SIMON WASTELL. (Fl. circa 1625.) OF MAN'S MORTALITY. From Microbiblion, 1629. I" IKE as the damask rose you see, ~ Or like the blossom on the tree, Or like the dainty flower of May, Or like the morning to the day, Or like the sun, or like the shade, Or like the gourd which Jonas had, E'en such is man; — whose thread is spun, Drawn out, and cut, and so is done. — The rose withers, the blossom blasteth, The flower fades, the morning hasteth, The sun sets, the shadow flies, The gourd consumes — and man he dies ! Like to the grass that 's newly sprung, Or like a tale that 's new begun, Or like a bird that 's here to-day, Or like the pearled dew of May, Or like an hour, or like a span, Or like the singing of a swan, 146 ENGLISH LYRIC POETRY. E'en such is man; — who lives by breath, Is here, now there, in life and death. — The grass withers, the tale is ended, The bird is flown, the dew 's ascended, The hour is short, the span not long, The swan 's near death, — man's life is done ! JOHN WEBSTER. (?-i625?.) These are dirges from Webster's sombre dramas; the first is from Vittoria Coromb