154

SONGS AND SONNETS

THE GARDEN OF LOVE

HE forward violet thus did I chide :

THE

Sweet thief, whence didst thou steal thy sweet
that smells,

If not from my Love's breath? The purple pride
Which on thy soft cheek for complexion dwells
In my Love's veins thou hast too grossly dyed.

The lily I condemned for thy hand,

And buds of marjoram had stol'n thy hair:
The roses fearfully on thorns did stand,
One blushing shame, another white despair;

A third, nor red nor white, had stol'n of both
And to his robbery had annex'd thy breath;
But, for his theft, in pride of all his growth
A vengeful canker eat him up to death.

More flowers I noted, yet I none could see
But sweet or colour it had stol'n from thee.

OF SHAKESPEARE

155

A REAWAKENING

WHERE art thou, Muse, that thou forget'st so

long

To speak of that which gives thee all thy might? Spend'st thou thy fury on some worthless song Darkening thy power to lend base subjects light?

Return, forgetful Muse, and straight redeem
In gentle numbers time so idly spent ;
Sing to the ear that doth thy lays esteem
And gives thy pen both skill and argument.

Rise, resty Muse, my Love's sweet face survey,
If Time have any wrinkle graven there;
If any, be a satire to decay,

And make Time's spoils despised every where :

Give my Love fame faster than Time wastes

life;

So thou prevent' st his scythe and crooked knife.

156

SONGS AND SONNETS

INVOCATION

TRUANT Muse, what shall be thy amends
For thy neglect of truth in beauty dyed?
Both truth and beauty on my Love depends;
So dost thou too, and therein dignified.

Make answer, Muse: wilt thou not haply say,
'Truth needs no colour, with his colour fix'd;
Beauty no pencil, beauty's truth to lay ;
But best is best, if never intermix'd ?'

Because he needs no praise, wilt thou be dumb ?

Excuse not silence so; for't lies in thee

To make him much outlive a gilded tomb,
And to be praised of ages yet to be.

Then do thy office, Muse; I teach thee how

To make him seem long hence as he shows now.

OF SHAKESPEARE

157

SILENT ADORATION

MY love is strengthen'd, though more weak in

seeming;

I love not less, though less the show appear: That love is merchandized whose rich esteeming The owner's tongue doth publish every where.

Our love was new and then but in the spring
When I was wont to greet it with my lays,
As Philomel in summer's front doth sing
And stops her pipe in growth of riper days :

Not that the summer is less pleasant now Than when her mournful hymns did hush the night,

But that wild music burthens every bough

And sweets grown common lose their dear delight.

Therefore like her I sometime hold my tongue, Because I would not dull you with my song.

158

SONGS AND SONNETS

WEAK WORDS

ALACK, what poverty my Muse brings forth,

That having such a scope to show her pride,

The argument all bare is of more worth
Than when it hath my added praise beside!

O blame me not, if I no more can write !
Look in your glass, and there appears a face
That over-goes my blunt invention quite,
Dulling my lines and doing me disgrace.

Were it not sinful then, striving to mend,
To mar the subject that before was well?
For to no other pass my verses tend

Than of your graces and your gifts to tell;

And more, much more, than in my verse can sit

་

Your own glass shows you when you look in it.