To Whom it appertains; wherein you show
How worthily your clearness hath condemned
Base Malediction, living in the dark,
That at the rays of goodness still doth bark:
Knowing the heart of man is set to be
The centre of this world, about the which
These revolutions of disturbances
Still roll, where all th' aspects of misery
Predominate, whose strong effects are such
As he must bear, being pow'rless to redress;
And that, unless above himself he can
Erect himself, how poor a thing is man;
And how turmoiled they are that level lie
With earth, and cannot lift themselves from thence;
That never are at peace with their desires,
But work beyond their years, and even deny
Dotage her rest, and hardly will dispense
With death; that when ability expires,
Desire lives still so much delight they have
To carry toil and travail to the grave.
Whose ends you see, and what can be the best
They reach unto when they have cast the sum
And reckonings of their glory. And you know
This floating life hath but this port of rest—
A heart prepared, that fears no ill to come;
And that man's greatness rests but in his show,
The best of all whose days consumed are
Either in war or peace conceiving war.
This concord, madam, of a well-tuned mind
Hath been so set by that all-working hand
Of Heaven, that though the world hath done his worst
To put it out by discords most unkind,
Yet doth it still in perfect union stand
With God and man, nor ever will be forced
From that most sweet accord, but still agree,
Equal in fortune's inequality.
And this note, madam, of your worthiness
Remains recorded in so many hearts
As time nor malice cannot wrong your right
In 'th' inheritance of fame you must possess;
You that have built you by your great deserts,
Out of small means, a far more exquisite
And glorious dwelling for your honoured name
Than all the gold that leaden minds can frame.
Gorbo, as thou cam'st this way,
By yonder little hill,
Or as thou through the fields didst stray,
Saw'st thou my Daffadil?
She's in a frock of Lincoln green,
Which colour likes her sight;
And never hath her beauty seen
But through a veil of white,
Than roses richer to behold,
That trim up lover's bowers,
The pansy and the marigold,
Though Phoebus' paramours.
Thou well describ'st the daffadil:
It is not full an hour
Since by the spring near yonder hill
I saw that lovely flower.
Yet my fair flower thou didst not meet,
Nor news from her didst bring;
And yet my Daffadil's more sweet
Than that by yonder spring.
As though their heads they downward bent
With homage to her feet.
And all the shepherds that were nigh,
From top of every hill,
Unto the valleys loud did cry,
"There goes sweet Daffadil."
Ay; gentle shepherd, now with joy
Thou all my flocks dost fill;
That's she alone, kind shepherd boy:
An evil spirit, your beauty, haunts me still,
Wherewith, alas, I have been long possest;
Which ceaseth not to attempt me to each ill,
Nor gives me once but one poor minute's rest.
In me it speaks, whether I sleep or wake;
And when by means to drive it out I try,
With greater torments then it me doth take,
And tortures me in most extremity:
Before my face it lays down my despairs,
And hastes me on unto a sudden death;
Now tempting me to drown myself in tears,
And then in sighing to give up my breath.
Thus am I still provoked to every evil
By this good-wicked spirit, sweet angel-devil.
Clear Ankor, on whose silver-sanded shore
My soul-shrined saint, my fair Idea, lies;
O blessed brook, whose milk-white swans adore
The crystal stream refinèd by her eyes;
Where sweet myrrh-breathing zephyr in the spring
Gently distils his nectar-dropping show'rs;
Where nightingales in Arden sit and sing
Amongst the dainty dew-impearlèd flow'rs;
Say thus, fair brook, when thou shalt see thy queen:
"Lo, here thy shepherd spent his wand'ring years;
And in these shades, dear nymph, he oft hath been,
And here to thee he sacrificed his tears."
Fair Arden, thou my Tempe art alone;
And thou, sweet Ankor, art my Helicon.
Since there's no help, come let us kiss and part!
Nay, I have done, you get no more of me;
And I am glad, yea, glad with all my heart,
That thus so cleanly I myself can free.
Shake hands for ever, cancel all our vows;
And when we meet at any time again,
Be it not seen in either of our brows
That we one jot of former love retain.
Now at the last gasp of Love's latest breath,
When, his pulse failing, Passion speechless lies,
When Faith is kneeling by his bed of 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!
THE BARONS' WARS
Long after Phoebus took his lab'ring team
To his pale sister and resigned his place,
To wash his cauples in the ocean stream
And cool the fervour of his glowing face;
And Phoebe, scanted of her brother's beam,
Into the west went after him apace,
Leaving black darkness to possess the sky,
To fit the time of that black tragedy:
What time by torchlight they attempt the cave,
Which at their entrance seemèd in a fright
With the reflection that their armour gave,
As it till then had ne'er seen any light;
Which, striving there pre-eminence to have,
Darkness therewith so daringly doth fight
That, each confounding other, both appear
As darkness light, and light but darkness were.
The craggy cleeves, which cross them as they go,
Made as their passage they would have denied,
And threatened them their journey to forslow,
As angry with the path that was their guide,
And sadly seemed their discontent to show
To the vile hand that did them first divide;
Whose cumbrous falls and risings seemed to say
So ill an action could not brook the day.
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