XXXVI
Thou purblind boy, since thou hast been so slack
To wound her heart whose eyes have wounded me
And suffered her to glory in my wrack,
Thus to my aid I lastly conjure thee!
By hellish Styx, by which the Thund'rer swears,
By thy fair mother's unavoided power,
By Hecate's names, by Proserpine's sad tears,
When she was wrapt to the infernal bower!
By thine own lovèd Psyche, by the fires
Spent on thine altars flaming up to heaven,
By all true lovers' sighs, vows, and desires,
By all the wounds that ever thou hast given;
I conjure thee by all that I have named,
To make her love, or, Cupid, be thou damned!
XXXVII
Dear, why should you command me to my rest,
When now the night doth summon all to sleep?
Methinks this time becometh lovers best;
Night was ordained together friends to keep.
How happy are all other living things,
Which though the day disjoin by several flight,
The quiet evening yet together brings,
And each returns unto his love at night!
O thou that art so courteous else to all,
Why shouldst thou, Night, abuse me only thus,
That every creature to his kind dost call,
And yet 'tis thou dost only sever us?
Well could I wish it would be ever day,
If when night comes, you bid me go away.
XXXVIII
Sitting alone, love bids me go and write;
Reason plucks back, commanding me to stay,
Boasting that she doth still direct the way,
Or else love were unable to indite.
Love growing angry, vexèd at the spleen,
And scorning reason's maimèd argument,
Straight taxeth reason, wanting to invent
Where she with love conversing hath not been.
Reason reproachèd with this coy disdain,
Despiteth love, and laugheth at her folly;
And love contemning reason's reason wholly,
Thought it in weight too light by many a grain.
Reason put back doth out of sight remove,
And love alone picks reason out of love.
XXXIX
Some, when in rhyme they of their loves do tell,
With flames and lightnings their exordiums paint.
Some call on heaven, some invocate on hell,
And Fates and Furies, with their woes acquaint.
Elizium is too high a seat for me,
I will not come in Styx or Phlegethon,
The thrice-three Muses but too wanton be,
Like they that lust, I care not, I will none.
Spiteful Erinnys frights me with her looks,
My manhood dares not with foul Ate mell,
I quake to look on Hecate's charming books,
I still fear bugbears in Apollo's cell.
I pass not for Minerva, nor Astrea,
Only I call on my divine Idea!
XL
My heart the anvil where my thoughts do beat,
My words the hammers fashioning my desire,
My breast the forge including all the heat,
Love is the fuel which maintains the fire;
My sighs the bellows which the flame increaseth,
Filling mine ears with noise and nightly groaning;
Toiling with pain, my labour never ceaseth,
In grievous passions my woes still bemoaning;
My eyes with tears against the fire striving,
Whose scorching gleed my heart to cinders turneth;
But with those drops the flame again reviving,
Still more and more it to my torment burneth,
With Sisyphus thus do I roll the stone,
And turn the wheel with damnèd Ixion.
LOVE'S LUNACY
XLI
Why do I speak of joy or write of love,
When my heart is the very den of horror,
And in my soul the pains of hell I prove,
With all his torments and infernal terror?
What should I say? what yet remains to do?
My brain is dry with weeping all too long;
My sighs be spent in utt'ring of my woe,
And I want words wherewith to tell my wrong.
But still distracted in love's lunacy,
And bedlam-like thus raving in my grief,
Now rail upon her hair, then on her eye,
Now call her goddess, then I call her thief;
Now I deny her, then I do confess her,
Now do I curse her, then again I bless her.
XLII
Some men there be which like my method well,
And much commend the strangeness of my vein;
Some say I have a passing pleasing strain,
Some say that in my humour I excel.
Some who not kindly relish my conceit,
They say, as poets do, I use to feign,
And in bare words paint out by passions' pain.
Thus sundry men their sundry minds repeat.
I pass not, I, how men affected be,
Nor who commends or discommends my verse!
It pleaseth me if I my woes rehearse,
And in my lines if she my love may see.
Only my comfort still consists in this,
Writing her praise I cannot write amiss.
XLIII
Why should your fair eyes with such sov'reign grace
Disperse their rays on every vulgar spirit,
Whilst I in darkness in the self-same place,
Get not one glance to recompense my merit?
So doth the plowman gaze the wand'ring star,
And only rest contented with the light,
That never learned what constellations are,
Beyond the bent of his unknowing sight.
O why should beauty, custom to obey,
To their gross sense apply herself so ill!
Would God I were as ignorant as they,
When I am made unhappy by my skill,
Only compelled on this poor good to boast!
Heavens are not kind to them that know them most.
XLIV
Whilst thus my pen strives to eternise thee,
Age rules my lines with wrinkles in my face,
Where in the map of all my misery
Is modelled out the world of my disgrace;
Whilst in despite of tyrannising times,
Medea-like, I make thee young again,
Proudly thou scorn'st my world-outwearing rhymes,
And murther'st virtue with thy coy disdain;
And though in youth my youth untimely perish,
To keep thee from oblivion and the grave,
Ensuing ages yet my rhymes shall cherish,
Where I intombed my better part shall save;
And though this earthly body fade and die,
My name shall mount upon eternity.
XLV
Muses which sadly sit about my chair,
Drowned in the tears extorted by my lines;
With heavy sighs whilst thus I break the air,
Painting my passions in these sad designs,
Since she disdains to bless my happy verse,
The strong built trophies to her living fame,
Ever henceforth my bosom be your hearse,
Wherein the world shall now entomb her name.
Enclose my music, you poor senseless walls,
Sith she is deaf and will not hear my moans;
Soften yourselves with every tear that falls,
Whilst I like Orpheus sing to trees and stones,
Which with my plaint seem yet with pity moved,
Kinder than she whom I so long have loved.
XLVI
Plain-pathed experience, the unlearnèd's guide,
Her simple followers evidently shows
Sometimes what schoolmen scarcely can decide,
Nor yet wise reason absolutely knows;
In making trial of a murder wrought,
If the vile actors of the heinous deed
Near the dead body happily be brought,
Oft 't hath been proved the breathless corse will bleed.
She coming near, that my poor heart hath slain,
Long since departed, to the world no more,
The ancient wounds no longer can contain,
But fall to bleeding as they did before.
But what of this? Should she to death be led,
It furthers justice but helps not the dead.
XLVII
In pride of wit, when high desire of fame
Gave life and courage to my lab'ring pen,
And first the sound and virtue of my name
Won grace and credit in the ears of men,
With those the throngèd theatres that press,
I in the circuit for the laurel strove,
Where the full praise I freely must confess,
In heat of blood a modest mind might move;
With shouts and claps at every little pause,
When the proud round on every side hath rung,
Sadly I sit unmoved with the applause,
As though to me it nothing did belong.
No public glory vainly I pursue;
All that I seek is to eternise you.
XLVIII
Cupid, I hate thee, which I'd have thee know;
A naked starveling ever mayst thou be!
Poor rogue, go pawn thy fascia and thy bow
For some poor rags wherewith to cover thee;
Or if thou'lt not thy archery forbear,
To some base rustic do thyself prefer,
And when corn's sown or grown into the ear,
Practice thy quiver and turn crowkeeper;
Or being blind, as fittest for the trade,
Go hire thyself some bungling harper's boy;
They that are blind are minstrels often made,
So mayst thou live to thy fair mother's joy;
That whilst with Mars she holdeth her old way,
Thou, her blind son, mayst sit by them and play.
XLIX
Thou leaden brain, which censur'st what I write,
And sayst my lines be dull and do not move,
I marvel not thou feel'st not my delight,
Which never felt'st my fiery touch of love;
But thou whose pen hath like a packhorse served,
Whose stomach unto gall hath turned thy food,
Whose senses like poor prisoners, hunger-starved
Whose grief hath parched thy body, dried thy blood;
Thou which hast scornèd life and hated death,
And in a moment, mad, sober, glad, and sorry;
Thou which hast banned thy thoughts and curst thy birth
With thousand plagues more than in purgatory;
Thou thus whose spirit love in his fire refines,
Come thou and read, admire, applaud my lines!
L
As in some countries far remote from hence,
The wretched creature destinèd to die,
Having the judgment due to his offence,
By surgeons begged, their art on him to try,
Which on the living work without remorse,
First make incision on each mastering vein,
Then staunch the bleeding, then transpierce the corse,
And with their balms recure the wounds again,
Then poison and with physic him restore;
Not that they fear the hopeless man to kill,
But their experience to increase the more:
Even so my mistress works upon my ill,
By curing me and killing me each hour,
Only to show her beauty's sovereign power.
LI
Calling to mind since first my love begun,
Th'uncertain times, oft varying in their course,
How things still unexpectedly have run,
As't please the Fates by their resistless force;
Lastly, mine eyes amazedly have seen
Essex's great fall, Tyrone his peace to gain,
The quiet end of that long living Queen,
This King's fair entrance, and our peace with Spain,
We and the Dutch at length ourselves to sever;
Thus the world doth and evermore shall reel;
Yet to my goddess am I constant ever,
Howe'er blind Fortune turn her giddy wheel;
Though heaven and earth prove both to me untrue,
Yet am I still inviolate to you.
LII
What dost thou mean to cheat me of my heart,
To take all mine and give me none again?
Or have thine eyes such magic or that art
That what they get they ever do retain?
Play not the tyrant but take some remorse;
Rebate thy spleen if but for pity's sake;
Or cruel, if thou can'st not, let us scorse,
And for one piece of thine my whole heart take.
But what of pity do I speak to thee,
Whose breast is proof against complaint or prayer?
Or can I think what my reward shall be
From that proud beauty which was my betrayer!
What talk I of a heart when thou hast none?
Or if thou hast, it is a flinty one.
ANOTHER TO THE RIVER ANKOR
LIII
Clear Ankor, on whose silver-sanded shore,
My soul-shrined saint, my fair Idea lives;
O blessèd brook, whose milk-white swans adore
Thy crystal stream, refinèd 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-impearlèd flowers;
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!
LIV
Yet read at last the story of my woe,
The dreary abstracts of my endless cares,
With my life's sorrow interlinèd so,
Smoked with my sighs, and blotted with my tears,
The sad memorials of my miseries,
Penned in the grief of mine afflicted ghost,
My life's complaint in doleful elegies,
With so pure love as time could never boast.
Receive the incense which I offer here,
By my strong faith ascending to thy fame,
My zeal, my hope, my vows, my praise, my prayer,
My soul's oblations to thy sacred name;
Which name my Muse to highest heavens shall raise,
By chaste desire, true love, and virtuous praise.
LV
My fair, if thou wilt register my love,
A world of volumes shall thereof arise;
Preserve my tears, and thou thyself shall prove
A second flood down raining from mine eyes;
Note but my sighs, and thine eyes shall behold
The sunbeams smothered with immortal smoke;
And if by thee my prayers may be enrolled,
They heaven and earth to pity shall provoke.
Look thou into my breast, and thou shalt see
Chaste holy vows for my soul's sacrifice,
That soul, sweet maid, which so hath honoured thee,
Erecting trophies to thy sacred eyes,
Those eyes to my heart shining ever bright,
When darkness hath obscured each other light.
AN ALLUSION TO THE EAGLETS
LVI
When like an eaglet I first found my love,
For that the virtue I thereof would know,
Upon the nest I set it forth to prove
If it were of that kingly kind or no;
But it no sooner saw my sun appear,
But on her rays with open eyes it stood,
To show that I had hatched it for the air,
And rightly came from that brave mounting brood;
And when the plumes were summed with sweet desire,
To prove the pinions it ascends the skies;
Do what I could, it needsly would aspire
To my soul's sun, those two celestial eyes.
Thus from my breast, where it was bred alone,
It after thee is like an eaglet flown.
LVII
You best discerned of my mind's inward eyes,
And yet your graces outwardly divine,
Whose dear remembrance in my bosom lies,
Too rich a relic for so poor a shrine;
You, in whom nature chose herself to view,
When she her own perfection would admire;
Bestowing all her excellence on you,
At whose pure eyes Love lights his hallowed fire;
Even as a man that in some trance hath seen
More than his wond'ring utterance can unfold,
That rapt in spirit in better worlds hath been,
So must your praise distractedly be told;
Most of all short when I would show you most,
In your perfections so much am I lost.
LVIII
In former times, such as had store of coin,
In wars at home or when for conquests bound,
For fear that some their treasure should purloin,
Gave it to keep to spirits within the ground;
And to attend it them as strongly tied
Till they returned. Home when they never came,
Such as by art to get the same have tried,
From the strong spirit by no means force the same.
Nearer men come, that further flies away,
Striving to hold it strongly in the deep.
Ev'n as this spirit, so you alone do play
With those rich beauties Heav'n gives you to keep;
Pity so left to th' coldness of your blood,
Not to avail you nor do others good.
TO PROVERBS
LIX
As Love and I late harboured in one inn,
With Proverbs thus each other entertain.
"In love there is no lack," thus I begin:
"Fair words make fools," replieth he again.
"Who spares to speak, doth spare to speed," quoth I.
"As well," saith he, "too forward as too slow."
"Fortune assists the boldest," I reply.
"A hasty man," quoth he, "ne'er wanted woe!"
"Labour is light, where love," quoth I, "doth pay."
Saith he, "Light burden's heavy, if far born."
Quoth I, "The main lost, cast the by away!"
"You have spun a fair thread," he replies in scorn.
And having thus awhile each other thwarted,
Fools as we met, so fools again we parted.
LX
Define my weal, and tell the joys of heaven;
Express my woes and show the pains of hell;
Declare what fate unlucky stars have given,
And ask a world upon my life to dwell;
Make known the faith that fortune could no move,
Compare my worth with others' base desert,
Let virtue be the touchstone of my love,
So may the heavens read wonders in my heart;
Behold the clouds which have eclipsed my sun,
And view the crosses which my course do let;
Tell me, if ever since the world begun
So fair a rising had so foul a set?
And see if time, if he would strive to prove,
Can show a second to so pure a love.
LXI
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;
Shakes 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 wouldst, when all have given him over,
From death to life thou might'st him yet recover!
LXII
When first I ended, then I first began;
Then more I travelled further from my rest.
Where most I lost, there most of all I won;
Pinèd with hunger, rising from a feast.
Methinks I fly, yet want I legs to go,
Wise in conceit, in act a very sot,
Ravished with joy amidst a hell of woe,
What most I seem that surest am I not.
I build my hopes a world above the sky,
Yet with the mole I creep into the earth;
In plenty I am starved with penury,
And yet I surfeit in the greatest dearth.
I have, I want, despair, and yet desire,
Burned in a sea of ice, and drowned amidst a fire.
LXIII
Truce, gentle Love, a parley now I crave,
Methinks 'tis long since first these wars begun;
Nor thou, nor I, the better yet can have;
Bad is the match where neither party won.
I offer free conditions of fair peace,
My heart for hostage that it shall remain.
Discharge our forces, here let malice cease,
So for my pledge thou give me pledge again.
Or if no thing but death will serve thy turn,
Still thirsting for subversion of my state,
Do what thou canst, raze, massacre, and burn;
Let the world see the utmost of thy hate;
I send defiance, since if overthrown,
Thou vanquishing, the conquest is mine own.
FIDESSA
MORE CHASTE THAN KIND
BY
B. GRIFFIN, GENT.
BARTHOLOMEW GRIFFIN
The author of Fidessa has gained undeserved notice from the fact that
the piratical printer W. Jaggard, included a transcript of one of his
sonnets in a volume that he put forth in 1599, under the name of
Shakespeare. It would be easy to believe, in spite of the doubtful rimes
characteristic of Fidessa, that sonnet three was not Griffin's, for no
singer in the Elizabethan choir was more skilful in turning his voice to
other people's melodies than was he. He has been called "a gross
plagiary;" yet it must be realised that the sonneteers of that time felt
they had a right, almost a duty, to take up the poetic themes used by
their models. Griffin shows great ingenuity in the manipulation of the
stock-themes, and the lover of Petrarch and all the young
Abraham-Slenders of the day must have been delighted with the familiar
"designs" as they re-appeared in Fidessa.
Bartholomew Griffin was buried in Coventry in 1602. In 1596 he
dedicated his "slender work" Fidessa to William Essex of Lamebourne in
Berkshire. He adds an address to the Gentlemen of the Inns of Court,
whom he begs to "censure mildly as protectors of a poor stranger" and
"judge the best as encouragers of a young beginner." Of the poet little
further is known. From the sonnets themselves we learn that Fidessa was
"of high regard," the child of a beautiful mother and of a renowned
father; she sprang in fact from the same root with the poet himself, who
writes "Gent." after his name on the title-page. She had been kind to
him in sickness and had "yielded to each look of his a sweet reply."
After giving these slight hints, he pushes forth from the moorings of
realism and sets sail on the ocean of the sonneteer's fancy, meeting the
usual adventures. His sonnets, while showing versatility and ingenuity,
lack spontaneous feeling and have serious defects in form; yet these
defects are in part offset by their conversational ease and dramatic
vividness.
TO FIDESSA
I
Fertur Fortunam Fortuna favere ferenti
Fidessa fair, long live a happy maiden!
Blest from thy cradle by a worthy mother,
High-thoughted like to her, with bounty laden,
Like pleasing grace affording, one and other;
Sweet model of thy far renownèd sire!
Hold back a while thy ever-giving hand,
And though these free penned lines do nought require,
For that they scorn at base reward to stand,
Yet crave they most for that they beg the least
Dumb is the message of my hidden grief,
And store of speech by silence is increased;
O let me die or purchase some relief!
Bounteous Fidessa cannot be so cruel
As for to make my heart her fancy's fuel!
II
How can that piercing crystal-painted eye,
That gave the onset to my high aspiring.
Yielding each look of mine a sweet reply,
Adding new courage to my heart's desiring,
How can it shut itself within her ark,
And keep herself and me both from the light,
Making us walk in all misguiding dark,
Aye to remain in confines of the night?
How is it that so little room contains it,
That guides the orient as the world the sun,
Which once obscured most bitterly complains it,
Because it knows and rules whate'er is done?
The reason is that they may dread her sight,
Who doth both give and take away their light.
III
Venus, and young Adonis sitting by her,
Under a myrtle shade, began to woo him;
She told the youngling how god Mars did try her,
And as he fell to her, so fell she to him.
"Even thus," quoth she, "the wanton god embraced me!"
And then she clasped Adonis in her arms;
"Even thus," quoth she, "the warlike god unlaced me!"
As if the boy should use like loving charms.
But he, a wayward boy, refused the offer,
And ran away the beauteous queen neglecting
Showing both folly to abuse her proffer,
And all his sex of cowardice detecting.
O that I had my mistress at that bay,
To kiss and clip me till I ran away!
IV
Did you sometimes three German brethren see,
Rancour 'twixt two of them so raging rife,
That th' one could stick the other with his knife?
Now if the third assaulted chance to be
By a fourth stranger, him set on the three,
Them two 'twixt whom afore was deadly strife
Made one to rob the stranger of his life;
Then do you know our state as well as we.
Beauty and chastity with her were born,
Both at one birth, and up with her did grow.
Beauty still foe to chastity was sworn,
And chastity sworn to be beauty's foe;
And yet when I lay siege unto her heart,
Beauty and chastity both take her part.
V
Arraigned, poor captive at the bar I stand,
The bar of beauty, bar to all my joys;
And up I hold my ever trembling hand,
Wishing or life or death to end annoys.
And when the judge doth question of the guilt,
And bids me speak, then sorrow shuts up words.
Yea, though he say, "Speak boldly what thou wilt!"
Yet my confused affects no speech affords,
For why? Alas, my passions have no bound,
For fear of death that penetrates so near;
And still one grief another doth confound,
Yet doth at length a way to speech appear.
Then, for I speak too late, the Judge doth give
His sentence that in prison I shall live.
VI
Unhappy sentence, worst of worst of pains,
To be in darksome silence, out of ken,
Banished from all that bliss the world contains,
And thrust from out the companies of men!
Unhappy sentence, worse than worst of deaths,
Never to see Fidessa's lovely face!
O better were I lose ten thousand breaths,
Than ever live in such unseen disgrace!
Unhappy sentence, worse than pains of hell,
To live in self-tormenting griefs alone;
Having my heart, my prison and my cell,
And there consumed without relief to moan!
If that the sentence so unhappy be,
Then what am I that gave the same to me?
VII
Oft have mine eyes, the agents of mine heart,
False traitor eyes conspiring my decay,
Pleaded for grace with dumb and silent art,
Streaming forth tears my sorrows to allay;
Moaning the wrong they do unto their lord,
Forcing the cruel fair by means to yield;
Making her 'gainst her will some grace t'afford,
And striving sore at length to win the field;
Thus work they means to feed my fainting hope,
And strengthened hope adds matter to each thought;
Yet when they all come to their end and scope
They do but wholly bring poor me to nought.
She'll never yield although they ever cry,
And therefore we must all together die.
VIII
Grief-urging guest, great cause have I to plain me,
Yet hope persuading hope expecteth grace,
And saith none but myself shall ever pain me;
But grief my hopes exceedeth in this case;
For still my fortune ever more doth cross me
By worse events than ever I expected;
And here and there ten thousand ways doth toss me,
With sad remembrance of my time neglected.
These breed such thoughts as set my heart on fire,
And like fell hounds pursue me to my death;
Traitors unto their sovereign lord and sire,
Unkind exactors of their father's breath,
Whom in their rage they shall no sooner kill
Than they themselves themselves unjustly spill.
IX
My spotless love that never yet was tainted,
My loyal heart that never can be moved,
My growing hope that never yet hath fainted,
My constancy that you full well have proved,
All these consented have to plead for grace
These all lie crying at the door of beauty;—
This wails, this sends out tears, this cries apace,
All do reward expect of faith and duty;
Now either thou must prove th' unkindest one,
And as thou fairest art must cruelest be,
Or else with pity yield unto their moan,
Their moan that ever will importune thee.
Ah, thou must be unkind, and give denial,
And I, poor I, must stand unto my trial!
X
Clip not, sweet love, the wings of my desire,
Although it soar aloft and mount too high:
But rather bear with me though I aspire,
For I have wings to bear me to the sky.
What though I mount, there is no sun but thee!
And sith no other sun, why should I fear?
Thou wilt not burn me, though thou terrify,
And though thy brightness do so great appear.
Dear, I seek not to batter down thy glory,
Nor do I envy that thy hope increaseth;
O never think thy fame doth make me sorry!
For thou must live by fame when beauty ceaseth.
Besides, since from one root we both did spring,
Why should not I thy fame and beauty sing?
XI
Winged with sad woes, why doth fair zephyr blow
Upon my face, the map of discontent?
Is it to have the weeds of sorrow grow
So long and thick, that they will ne'er be spent?
No, fondling, no! It is to cool the fire
Which hot desire within thy breast hath made.
Check him but once and he will soon retire.
O but he sorrows brought which cannot fade!
The sorrows that he brought, he took from thee,
Which fair Fidessa span and thou must wear!
Yet hath she nothing done of cruelty,
But for her sake to try what thou wilt bear.
Come, sorrows, come! You are to me assigned;
I'll bear you all, it is Fidessa's mind.
XII
O if my heavenly sighs must prove annoy,
Which are the sweetest music to my heart,
Let it suffice I count them as my joy,
Sweet bitter joy and pleasant painful smart!
For when my breast is clogged with thousand cares,
That my poor loaded heart is like to break,
Then every sigh doth question how it fares,
Seeming to add their strength, which makes me weak;
Yet for they friendly are, I entertain them,
And they too well are pleasèd with their host.
But I, had not Fidessa been, ere now had slain them;
It's for her cause they live, in her they boast;
They promise help but when they see her face;
They fainting yield, and dare not sue for grace.
XIII
Compare me to the child that plays with fire,
Or to the fly that dieth in the flame,
Or to the foolish boy that did aspire
To touch the glory of high heaven's frame;
Compare me to Leander struggling in the waves,
Not able to attain his safety's shore,
Or to the sick that do expect their graves,
Or to the captive crying evermore;
Compare me to the weeping wounded hart,
Moaning with tears the period of his life,
Or to the boar that will not feel the smart,
When he is stricken with the butcher's knife;
No man to these can fitly me compare;
These live to die, I die to live in care.
XIV
When silent sleep had closèd up mine eyes,
My watchful mind did then begin to muse;
A thousand pleasing thoughts did then arise,
That sought by slights their master to abuse.
I saw, O heavenly sight! Fidessa's face,
And fair dame nature blushing to behold it;
Now did she laugh, now wink, now smile apace,
She took me by the hand and fast did hold it;
Sweetly her sweet body did she lay down by me;
"Alas, poor wretch," quoth she, "great is thy sorrow;
But thou shall comfort find if thou wilt try me.
I hope, sir boy, you'll tell me news to-morrow."
With that, away she went, and I did wake withal;
When ah! my honey thoughts were turned to gall.
XV
Care-charmer sleep! Sweet ease in restless misery!
The captive's liberty, and his freedom's song!
Balm of the bruisèd heart! Man's chief felicity!
Brother of quiet death, when life is too too long!
A comedy it is, and now an history;
What is not sleep unto the feeble mind!
It easeth him that toils and him that's sorry;
It makes the deaf to hear, to see the blind;
Ungentle sleep, thou helpest all but me!
For when I sleep my soul is vexèd most.
It is Fidessa that doth master thee;
If she approach, alas, thy power is lost!
But here she is! See how he runs amain!
I fear at night he will not come again.
XVI
For I have lovèd long, I crave reward;
Reward me not unkindly, think on kindness;
Kindness becometh those of high regard;
Regard with clemency a poor man's blindness;
Blindness provokes to pity when it crieth;
It crieth "Give!" Dear lady, shew some pity!
Pity or let him die that daily dieth;
Dieth he not oft who often sings this ditty?
This ditty pleaseth me although it choke me;
Methinks dame Echo weepeth at my moaning,
Moaning the woes that to complain provoke me.
Provoke me now no more, but hear my groaning,
Groaning both day and night doth tear my heart,
My heart doth know the cause and triumphs in the smart.
XVII
Sweet stroke,—so might I thrive as I must praise—
But sweeter hand that gives so sweet a stroke!
The lute itself is sweetest when she plays.
But what hear I? A string through fear is broke!
The lute doth shake as if it were afraid.
O sure some goddess holds it in her hand,
A heavenly power that oft hath me dismayed,
Yet such a power as doth in beauty stand!
Cease lute, my ceaseless suit will ne'er be heard!
Ah, too hard-hearted she that will not hear it!
If I but think on joy, my joy is marred;
My grief is great, yet ever must I bear it;
But love 'twixt us will prove a faithful page,
And she will love my sorrows to assuage.