THOMAS SACKVILLE, EARL OF DORSET
The wrathful winter, 'proaching on apace,
With blust'ring blasts had all ybared the treen,
And old Saturnus, with his frosty face,
With chilling cold had pierced the tender green;
The mantles rent, wherein enwrapped been
The gladsome groves that now lay overthrown,
The tapets torn, and every bloom down blown.
The soil, that erst so seemly was to seen,
Was all despoiled of her beauty's hue;
And soote fresh flowers, wherewith the summer's queen 10
Had clad the earth, now Boreas' blasts down blew;
And small fowls, flocking, in their song did rue
The winter's wrath, wherewith each thing defaced
In woeful wise bewailed the summer past.
Hawthorn had lost his motley livery;
The naked twigs were shivering all for cold,
And dropping down the tears abundantly.
Each thing, methought, with weeping eye me told
The cruel season, bidding me withhold
Myself within; for I was gotten out
Into the fields, whereas I walked about.
When lo, the Night, with misty mantles spread,
'Gan dark the day and dim the azure skies;
And Venus in her message Hermes sped
To bloody Mars, to will him not to rise,
Which she herself approached in speedy wise;
And Virgo, hiding her disdainful breast,
With Thetis now had laid her down to rest.
And pale Cynthea, with her borrowed light,
Beginning to supply her brother's place,
Was past the noonstead six degrees in sight,
When sparkling stars amid the heaven's face,
With twinkling light, shone on the earth apace,
That, while they brought about the Nightès chare,
The dark had dimmed the day ere I was ware.
And sorrowing I to see the summer flowers,
The lively green, the lusty leas, forlorn,
The sturdy trees so shattered with the showers,
The fields so fade that flourished so beforn,
It taught me well all earthly things be born
To die the death, for naught long time may last;
The summer's beauty yields to winter's blast.
Then, looking upward to the heaven's leams,
With nightès stars thick powdered everywhere,
Which erst so glistened with the golden streams
That cheerful Phoebus spread down from his sphere,
Beholding dark oppressing day so near,
The sudden sight reduced to my mind
The sundry changes that in earth we find.
That, musing on this worldly wealth in thought,
Which comes and goes more faster than we see
The flickering flame that with the fire is wrought,
My busy mind presented unto me
Such fall of peers as in this realm had be;
That oft I wished some would their woes descrive,
To warn the rest whom fortune left alive.
And straight, forth stalking with redoubled pace,
For that I saw the night drew on so fast,
In black all clad there fell before my face
A piteous wight, whom woe had all forwast:
Forth from her eyen the crystal tears outbrast;
And, sighing sore, her hands she wrung and fold,
Tare all her hair, that ruth was to behold.
I stood aghast, beholding all her plight,
"Tween dread and dolour so distrained in heart
That, while my hairs upstarted with the sight,
The tears outstreamed for sorrow of her smart.
But when I saw no end that could apart
The deadly dewle which she so sore did make,
With doleful voice then thus to her I spake:
"Unwrap thy woes, whatever wight thou be,
And stint in time to spill thyself with plaint.
Tell what thou art and whence, for well I see
Thou canst not dure, with sorrow thus attaint."
And with that word of "sorrow," all forfaint
She looked up, and, prostrate as she lay,
With piteous sound, lo, thus she 'gan to say:
"Alas, I wretch, whom thus thou seest distrained
With wasting woes, that never shall aslake,
Sorrow I am, in endless torments pained
Among the Furies in the infernal lake,
Where Pluto, god of hell, so griesly black,
Doth hold his throne, and Lethe's deadly taste
Doth reave remembrance of each thing forepast.
"I shall thee guide first to the griesly lake, And thence unto the blissful place of rest;
Where thou shalt see and hear the plaint they make
That whilom here bare swing among the best.
This shalt thou see; but great is the unrest
That thou must bide, before thou canst attain
Unto the dreadful place where these remain."
And with these words, as I upraised stood
And 'gan to follow her that straight forth paced,
Ere I was ware into a desert wood
We now were come, where, hand in hand embraced,
She led the way, and through the thick so traced
As, but I had been guided by her might,
It was no way for any mortal wight.
An hideous hole, all vast, withouten shape,
Of endless depth, o'erwhelmed with ragged stone,
With ugly mouth and griesly jaws doth gape,
And to our sight confounds itself in one.
Here entered we; and, yeding forth, anone
An horrible lothly lake we might discern,
As black as pitch, that clepèd is Averne.
A deadly gulf where naught but rubbish grows,
With foul black swelth in thickened lumps that lies,
Which up in the air such stinking vapours throws
That over there may fly no fowl but dies,
Choked with the pestilent savours that arise.
Hither we come, whence forth we still did pace,
In dreadful fear amid the dreadful place.
And first within the porch and jaws of hell
Sate deep Remorse of Conscience, all besprent
With tears; and to herself oft would she tell
Her wretchedness, and, cursing, never stent
To sob and sigh, but ever thus lament
With thoughtful care, as she that all in vain
Would wear and waste continually in pain.
Her eyes unsteadfast, rolling here and there,
Whirled on each place, as place that vengeance brought,
So was her mind continually in fear,
Tossed and tormented with the tedious thought
Of those detested crimes which she had wrought;
With dreadful cheer, and looks thrown to the sky,
Wishing for Death, and yet she could not die.
Next saw we Dread, all trembling how he shook,
With foot uncertain proferred here and there;
Benumbed of speech and with a ghastly look
Searched every place, all pale and dead for fear,
His cap borne up with staring of his hair,
Stoynd and amazed at his own shade for dreed,
And fearing greater dangers than was need.
And next in order sad Old Age we found,
His beard all hoar, his eyes hollow and blind,
With drooping cheer still poring on the ground,
As on the place where Nature him assigned
To rest, when that the Sisters had untwined
His vital thread, and ended with their knife
The fleeting course of fast declining life.
There heard we him with broken and hollow plaint
Rue with himself his end approaching fast,
And all for naught his wretched mind torment
With sweet remembrance of his pleasures past,
And fresh delights of lusty youth forwast;
Recounting which, how would he sob and shriek,
And to be young again of Jove beseek!
But and the cruel Fates so fixèd be
That time forepast cannot return again,
This one request of Jove yet prayed he:
That in such withered plight and wretched pain
As Eld, accompanied with his lothsome train,
Had brought on him, all were it woe and grief,
He might a while yet linger forth his lief,
And not so soon descend into the pit,
Where Death, when he the mortal corps hath slain,
With retchless hand in grave doth cover it,
Thereafter never to enjoy again
The gladsome light, but, in the ground y-lain,
In depth of darkness waste and wear to naught,
As he had never into the world been brought.
But who had seen him, sobbing how he stood
Unto himself, and how he would bemoan
His youth forepast, as though it wrought him good
To talk of youth, all were his youth foregone,
He would have mused, and marvelled much whereon
This wretched Age should life desire so fain,
And knows full well life doth but length his pain.
Crookbacked he was, toothshaken, and blear-eyed;
Went on three feet, and sometime crept on four;
With old lame bones, that rattled by his side;
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