THOSE Snary locks, are those same nets (my dear)
Wherewith my liberty thou didst surprize;
Love was the flame that fired me so near,
The dart transpiercing were those crystal eyes:
Strong is the net, and fervent is the flame;
Deep is the wound, my sighs can well report :
Yet do I love, adore, and praise the same,
That holds, that burns, that wounds me in this sort :
And list not seek to break, to quench, to heal
The bond, the flame, the wound that fest'reth so;
By knife, by liquor, or by salve to heal :
So much I please to perish in my woe.
Yet-lest long travels be above my strength,
Good Delia, loose, quench, heal me now at length.
IF Beauty thus be clouded with a frown,
That pity shines no comfort to my bliss,
And vapours of disdain so overgrown,
That my life's light wholly endarkened is:
Why should I more molest the world with cries;
The air with sighs, the earth below with tears?
Sith I live hateful to those ruthless eyes.
Vexing with untuned moan her dainty ears.
If I have loved her dearer than my breath,
My breath that calls the heavens to witness it;
And still must hold her dear till after death;
And that all this moves not her thoughts a whit:
Yet sure she cannot but must think a part,
She doth me wrong to grieve so true a heart.
I ONCE may see when years shall wreak my wrong,
When golden hairs shall change to silver wire;
And those bright rays that kindle all this fire,
Shall fail in force, their working not so strong:
Then Beauty (now the burthen of my song)
Whose glorious blaze the world doth so admire,
Must yield up all to tyrant Time's desire;
Then fade those flowers that decked her pride so long. When if she grieve to gaze her in her glass,
Which then presents her winter-withered hue;
Go you, my verse; go tell her what she was:
For what she was, she best shall find in you:
Your fiery heat lets not her glory pass,
But (Phoenix-like) shall make her live anew.
LOOK, Delia, how w' esteem the half-blown rose,
The image of thy blush and summer's honour,
Whilst yet her tender bud doth undisclose
That full of beauty Time bestows upon her.
No sooner spreads her glory in the air,
But straight her wide-blown pomp comes to decline; She then is scorned that late adorned the fair;
So fade the roses of those cheeks of thine.
No April can revive thy withered flowers,
Whose springing grace adorns thy glory now,
Swift speedy Time, feathered with flying hours,
Dissolves the beauty of the fairest brow ;
Then do not thou such treasure waste in vain,
But love now whilst thou may'st be loved again.
BUT love whilst that thou may'st be loved again,
Now whilst thy May hath filled thy lap with flowers;
Now whilst thy beauty bears without a stain;
Now use the Summer smiles, ere Winter lowers.
And whilst thou spread'st unto the rising sun,
The fairest flower that ever saw the light,
Now joy thy time before thy sweet be done;
And, Delia, think thy morning must have night;
And that thy brightness sets at length to West,
When thou wilt close up that which now thou showest, And think the same becomes thy fading best,
Which then shall most unveil, and shadow most.
Men do not weigh the stalk for that it was,
When once they find her flower, her glory pass.
WHEN men shall find thy flower, thy glory pass,
And thou with careful brow sitting alone,
Received hadst this message from thy glass,
That tells the truth, and says that all is gone.
Fresh, shalt thou see in me the wounds thou madest;
Though spent thy flame, in me the heat remaining:
I that have loved thee thus before thou fadest,
My faith shall wax, when thou art in thy waning.
The world shall find this miracle in me,
That fire can burn when all the matter's spent:
Then what my faith hath been, thyself shalt see;
And that thou wast unkind, thou may'st repent.
Thou may'st repent that thou hast scorned my tears,
When Winter snows upon thy sable hairs.
WHEN Winter snows upon thy sable hairs,
And Frost of Age hath nipt thy beauties near;
*When dark shall seem thy day that never clears,
And all lies withered that was once so dear:
Then take this picture which I here present thee,
Limned with a pencil not all unworthy :
Here see the gifts that God and nature lent thee;
Here read thyself, and what I suffered for thee.
This may remain thy lasting monument,
Which happily posterity may cherish;
These colours with thy fading are not spent;
These may remain when thou and I shall perish.
If they remain, then thou shalt live thereby;
They will remain, and so thou canst not die.
THOU canst not die, whilst any zeal abound
In feeling hearts that can conceive these lines;
Though thou a LAURA, hast no PETRARCH found,
In base attire yet clearly Beauty shines.
And I (though born within a colder clime)
Do feel my inward heat as great, (I know it);
He never had more faith, although more rhyme;
I love as well, though he could better show it.
But I may add one feather to thy Fame,
To help her flight throughout the fairest Isle :
And if my pen could more enlarge thy name,
Then should'st thou live in an immortal style.
For though that Laura better limned be,
Suffice thou shalt be loved as well as she.
* This line will remind the reader of a passage in Ecclesiastes, "And the clouds return after the rain," in the description of Old Age in the last chapter.
LIKE as the lute delights, or else dislikes,*
As is his art that plays upon the same;
So sounds my Muse, according as she strikes
On my heart-strings high-tuned unto her fame.
Her touch doth cause the warble of the sound,
Which here I yield in lamentable wise;
A wailing descant on the sweetest ground,†
Whose due reports give honour to her eyes.
Else harsh my style, untunable my Muse;
Hoarse sounds the voice, that praiseth not her name :
If any pleasing relish here I use,
Then judge the world her beauty gives the same,
For no ground else could make the music such,
No other hand could give so true a touch.
WHY should I sing in verse?-why should I frame
These sad neglected notes for her dear sake?
Why should I offer up unto her name
The sweetest sacrifice my youth can make?
Why should I strive to make her live for ever,
That never deigns to give me joy to live?
Why should my afflicted Muse so much endeavour
Such honour unto cruelty to give?
If her defects have purchased her this fame,
What should her virtues do, her smiles, her love ?
If this her worst, how should her best inflame?
What passions would her milder favours move?
Favours, I think, would sense quite overcome,
And that makes happy lovers ever dumb.
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