Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

Wilt thou, whose will is large and spacious,
Not once vouchsafe to hide my will in thine?
Shall will in others seem right gracious,

And in my will no fair acceptance shine?
The sea, all water, yet receives rain still,
And in abundance addeth to his store;
So thou, being rich in will, add to thy will

One will of mine, to make thy large will more!
Let no unkind, no fair beseechers kill;
Think all but one, and me in that one Will.

CXXXVI.

If thy soul check thee, that I come so near, Swear to thy blind soul that I was thy Will, And will, thy soul knows, is admitted there; Thus far for love, my love-suit, sweet, fulfil. Will will fulfil the treasure of thy love,

Ay, fill it full with wills, and my will one. In things of great receipt with ease we prove; Among a number one is reckon'd none: Then in the number let me pass untold,

Though in thy stores' account I one must be; For nothing hold me, so it please thee hold

That nothing me, a something sweet to thee: Make but my name thy love, and love that still, And then thou lov'st me,-for my name is Will.

CXXXVII.

Thou blind fool, Love, what dost thou to mine eyes,
That they behold, and see not what they see?
They know what beauty is, see where it lies,
Yet what the best is, take the worst to be.
If eyes, corrupt by over-partial looks,

Be anchor'd in the bay where all men ride,
Why of eyes' falsehood hast thou forged hooks,
Whereto the judgment of my heart is ty'd?
Why should my heart think that a several plot,
Which my heart knows the wide world's common
place?

Or mine eyes seeing this, say, this is not,

To put fair truth upon so foul a face? In things right true my heart and eyes have err'd, And to this false plague are they now transferr'd.

CXXXVIII.

When my love swears that she is made of truth,
I do believe her, though I know she lies;
That she might think me some untutor'd youth,
Unlearned in the world's false subtleties.
Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,
Although she knows my days are past the best,
Simply I credit her false-speaking tongue;

On both sides thus is simple truth supprest.
But wherefore says she not, she is unjust?

And wherefore say not I, that I am old? O, love's best habit is in seeming trust,

And age in love loves not to have years told; Therefore I lie with her, and she with me, And in our faults by lies we flatter'd be.

CXXXIX.

O, call not me to justify the wrong

That thy unkindness lays upon my heart; Wound me not with thine eye, but with thy tongue; Use power with power, and slay me not by art. Tell me thou lov'st elsewhere; but in my sight, Dear heart, forbear to glance thine eye aside. What need'st thou wound with cunning, when thy might

Is more than my o'er-press'd aefence can 'bide?

Let me excuse thee: ah! my love well knows Her pretty looks have been mine enemies; And therefore from my face she turns my foes,

That they elsewhere might dart their injuries: Yet do not so; but since I am near slain, Kill me out-right with looks, and rid my pain. CXL.

Be wise as thou art cruel; do not press

My tongue-ty'd patience with too much disdain; Lest sorrow lend me words, and words express The manner of my pity-wanting pain.

If I might teach thee wit, better it were,

Though not to love, yet, love, to tell me so; (As testy sick men, when their deaths be near, No news but health from their physicians know ;) For, if I should despair, I should grow mad, And in my madness might speak ill of thee: Now this ill-wresting world is grown so bad,

Mad slanderers by mad ears believed be. That I may not be so, nor thou bely'd, Bear thine eyes straight, though thy proud heart go wide.

CXLI.

In faith I do not love thee with mine eyes,
For they in thee a thousand errors note;
But 'tis my heart that loves what they despise,
Nor are mine ears with thy tongue's tune delighted;
Who in despite of view is pleas'd to dote.
Nor tender feeling, to base touches prone,
Nor taste, nor smell, desire to be invited

To any sensual feast with thee alone:
But my five wits, nor my five senses can
Dissuade one foolish heart from serving thee,
Who lives unsway'd the likeness of a man,

Thy proud heart's slave and vassal wretch to be:
That she that makes me sin, awards me pain,
Only my plague thus far I count my gain,

CXLII.

Love is my sin, and thy dear virtue hate,

Hate of my sin, grounded on sinful loving: O, but with mine compare thou thine own state, And thou shalt find it merits not reproving; Or, if it do, not from those lips of thine,

That have profan'd their scarlet ornaments, And seal'd false bonds of love as oft as mine; Robb'd others' beds revenues of their rents. Be it lawful I love thee, as thou lov'st those Whom thine eyes woo as mine importune thee: Root pity in thy heart, that when it grows, Thy pity may deserve to pitied be. If thou dost seek to have what thou dost hide, By self-example may'st thou be deny'd!

CXLIII.

Lo, as a careful house-wife runs to catch
One of her feather'd creatures broke away,
Sets down her babe, and makes all swift despatch
In pursuit of the thing she would have stay;
Whilst her neglected child holds her in chace,
Cries to catch her whose busy care is bent
To follow that which flies before her face,

Not prizing her poor infant's discontent;
So run'st thou after that which flies from thee,
Whilst I thy babe chace thee afar belrind;
But if thou catch thy hope, turn back to me,

And play the mother's part, kiss me, be kind; So will I pray that thou may'st have thy Will, If thou turn back, and my loud crying still,

CXLIV.

Two loves I have of comfort and despair, Which like two spirits do suggest me still; The better angel is a man right fair,

The worser spirit a woman, colour'd ill. To win me soon to hell, my female evil

Tempteth my better angel from my side, And would corrupt my saint to be a devil, Wooing his purity with her foul pride. And whether that my angel be turn'd fiend, Suspect I may, yet not directly tell; But being both from me, both to each friend, I guess one angel in another's hell: Yet this shall I ne'er know, but live in doubt, Till my bad angel fire my good one out.

CXLV.

Those lips that Love's own hand did make, Breath'd forth the sound that said, I hate, To me that languish'd for her sake:

But when she saw my woeful state, Straight in her heart did mercy come, Chiding that tongue, that ever sweet Was us'd in giving gentle doom;

And taught it thus a-new to greet;
I hate she alter'd with an end,

That follow'd it as gentle day
Doth follow night, who, like a fiend,
From heaven to hell is flown away;
I hate from hate away she threw,
And sav'd my life, saying-not you.
CXLVI.

Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth,

Fool'd by those rebel powers that thee array Why dost thou pine within, and suffer dearth, Painting thy outward walls so costly gay? Why so large cost, having so short a lease,

Dost thou upon thy fading mansion speud? Shall worms, inheritors of this excess,

Eat up thy charge? Is this thy body's end? Then, soul, live thou upon thy servant's loss, And let that pine to aggravate thy store; Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross;

Within be fed, without be rich no more: So shalt thou feed on death, that feeds on men, And, death once dead, there's no more dying then.

CXLVII.

My love is a fever, longing still

For that which longer nurseth the disease; Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill, The uncertain sickly appetite to please. My reason, the physician to my love,

Angry that his prescriptions are not kept, Hath left me, and I desperate now approve, Desire is death, which physic did except. Past cure I am, now reason is past care,

And frantic-mad with ever-more unrest; My thoughts and my discourse as madmen's are, At random from the truth vainly express'd; For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright, Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.

CXLVIII.

O me! what eyes hath love put in my head,
Which have no correspondence with true sight?
Or, if they have, where is my judgment fled,
That censures falsely what they see aright?

If that be fair whereon my false eyes dote,
What means the world to say it is not so?
If it be not, then love doth well denote

Love's eye is not so true as all men's: no,
How can it? O, how can Love's eye be true,
That is so vex'd with watching and with tears?
No marvel then though I mistake my view;

The sun itself sees not, till heaven clears. O cunning Love! with tears thou keep'st me blind, Lest eyes well-seeing thy foul faults should find.

CXLIX.

Canst thou, O cruel! say I love thee not, When I, against myself, with thee partake? Do I not think on thee, when I forgot

Am of myself, all tyrant, for thy sake? Who hateth thee, that I do call my friend? On whom frown'st thou that I do fawn upon? Nay, if thou low'rst on me, do I not spend Revenge upon myself with present moan? What merit do I in myself respect,

That is so proud thy service to despise, When all my best doth worship thy defect,

Commanded by the motion of thine eyes? But, love, hate on, for now I know thy mind; Those that can see thou lov'st, and I am blind.

CL.

O, from what power hast thou this powerful might, With insufficiency my heart to sway?

To make me give the lie to my true sight,

And swear that brightness doth not grace the day?

Whence hast thou this becoming of things ill,

That in the very refuse of thy deeds
There is such strength and warrantise of skill,

That in my mind thy worst all best exceeds ?
Who taught thee how to make me love thee more,
The more I hear and see just cause of hate?
O, though I love what others do abhor,

With others thou should'st not abhor my state; If thy unworthiness rais'd love in me, More worthy I to be belov'd of thee.

CLI.

Love is too young to know what conscience is; Yet who knows not, conscience is born of love? Then, gentle cheater, urge not my amiss,

Lest guilty of my faults thy sweet self prove. For, thou betraying me, I do betray

My nobler part to my great body's treason; My soul doth tell my body that he may

Triumph in love; flesh stays no farther reason;
But rising at thy name, doth point out thee
As his triumphant prize. Proud of this pride,
He is contented thy poor drudge to be,

To stand in thy affairs, fall by thy side.
No want of conscience hold it that I call
Her-love, for whose dear love I rise and fall.

[blocks in formation]

For I have sworn deep oaths of thy deep kindness,
Oaths of thy love, thy truth, thy constancy;
And, to enlighten thee, gave eyes to blindness,

Or made them swear against the thing they see;
For I have sworn thee fair: more perjur'd I,
To swear, against the truth, so foul a lie!

CLIII.

Cupid laid by his brand, and fell asleep;
A maid of Dian's this advantage found,
And his love-kindling fire did quickly steep
In a cold valley-fountain of that ground;
Which borrow'd from this holy fire of love
A dateless lively heat, still to endure,
And grew a seething bath, which yet men prove,
Against strange maladies a sovereign cure.
But at my mistress' eye love's brand new fir'd,
The boy for trial needs would touch my breast
I sick withal, the help of bath desir'd,
And thither hied, a sad distemper'd guest

But found no cure: the bath for my help lies Where Cupid got new fire; my mistress' eyes. CLIV.

The little love-god lying once asleep,

Laid by his side his heart-inflaming brand, Whilst many nymphs that vow'd chaste life to keep,

Came tripping by; but in her maiden hand The fairest votary took up that fire

Which many legions of true hearts had warm'd; And so the general of hot desire

Was sleeping by a virgin hand disarm'd. This brand she quenched in a cool well by, Which from love's fire took heat perpetual, Growing a bath and healthful remedy

For men diseas'd; but I, my mistress' thrall, Came there for cure, and this by that I prove, Love's fire heats water, water cools not love.

A LOVER'S COMPLAINT.

FROM off a hill whose concave womb re-worded
A plaintful story from a sistering vale,
My spirits to attend this double voice accorded,
And down I lay to list the sad-tun'd tale:
Ere long espy'd a fickle maid full pale,
Tearing of papers, breaking rings a-twain,
Storming her world with sorrow's wind and rain.

Upon her head a platted hive of straw,
Which fortified her visage from the sun,
Whereon the thought might think sometime it saw
The carcase of a beauty spent and done.
Time had not scythed all that youth begun,
Nor youth all quit; but, spite of heaven's fell rage,
Some beauty peep'd through lattice of sear'd age.

Oft did she heave her napkin to her eyne,
Which on it had conceited characters,
Laund'ring the silken figures in the brine
That season'd woe had pelleted in tears,
And often reading what contents it bears;
As often shrieking undistinguish'd woe,
In clamours of all size, both high and low.

Sometimes her level'd eyes their carriage ride,
As they did battery to the spheres intend;
Sometime diverted their poor balls are ty'd
To the orbed earth; sometimes they do extend
Their view right on; anon their gazes lend
To every place at once, and no where fix'd,
The mind and sight distractly commix'd.

Her hair, nor loose, nor ty'd in formal plat,
Proclaim'd in her a careless hand of pride;
For some, untnck'd, descended her sheav'd hat,
Hanging her pale and pined cheek beside;
Some in her threaden fillet still did bide,
And, true to bondage, would not break from thence,
Though slackly braided in loose negligence.

A thousand favours from a maund she drew
Of amber, crystal, and of bedded jet,
Which one by one she in a river threw,
Upon whose weeping margent she was set;
Like usury, applying wet to wet,

Or monarch's hands, that let not bounty fall
Where want cries some, but where excess begs all.

Of folded schedules had she many a one,
Which she perus'd, sigh'd, tore, and gave the flood;
Crack'd many a ring of posied gold and bone,
Bidding them find their sepulchres in mud;
Fonud yet more letters sadly pen'd in blood,
With sleided silk feat and affectedly
Enswath d, and scal'd to curious secrecy.

These often bath'd she in her flux ve eyes,
And often kiss'd, and often 'gan to tear;
Cry'd, O false blood! thou register of lies
What unapproved witness dost thou bear!
Ink would have seem'd more black and damned here
This said, in top of rage the lines she rents,
Big discontent so breaking their contents.

A reverend man that graz'd his cattle nigh,
(Sometime a blusterer, that the ruffle knew
Of court, of city, and had let go by
The swiftest hours,) observed as they filew;
Towards this afflicted fancy fastly drew;
And, privileged by age, desires to know
In brief, the grounds and motives of her 7700.

So slides he down upon his grained bat,
And comely-distant sits he by her side;
When he again desires her, being sat,
Her grievance with his hearing to divide :
If that from him there may be aught apply'd,
Which may her suffering ecstasy assuage,
'Tis promis'd in the charity of age.

Father, she says, though in me you behold
The injury of many a blasting hour,
Let it not tell your judgment I am old;
Not age, but sorrow, over me hath power:
I might as yet have been a spreading flower,
Fresh to myself, if I had self-apply'd
Love to myself, and to no love beside.

But woe is me! too early I attended
A youthful suit (it was to gain my grace)
Of one by nature's outwards so commended,
That maidens' eyes stuck over all his face:
Love lack'd a dwelling, and made him her place;
And when in his fair parts she did abide,
She was new lodg'd, and newly deified.

His browny locks did hang in crooked curls;
And every light occasion of the wind
Upon his lips their silken parcels hurls
What's sweet to do, to do will aptly find:
Each eye that saw him did enchant the mind;
For on his visage was in little drawn,
What largeness thinks in paradise was sawn.

Small shew of man was yet upon his chin;
His phoenix down began but to appear,
Like unshorn velvet, on that termless skin,
Whose bare out-brag'd the web it seem'd to wear
Yet shew'd his visage by that cost most dear;
And nice affections wavering stood in doubt
If best 'twere as it was, or best without.

His qualities were beauteous as his form,
For maiden-tongu'd he was, and thereof free;
Yet, if men mov'd him, was he such a storm
As oft 'twixt May and April is to see,

When winds breathe sweet, unruly though they be.
His rudeness so with his authoriz'd youth
Did livery falseness in a pride of truth.

Well could he ride, and often men would say,
That horse his mettle from his rider takes:
Proud of subjection, noble by the sway,

Nor gives it satisfaction to our blood,
That we must curb it upon others' proof;
To be forbid the sweets that seem so good,
For fear of harms that preach in our behoof.
O appetite, from judgment stand aloof!
The one a palate hath that needs will taste,
Though reason weep, and cry-it is thy last.

For further I could say, this man's untrue,
And knew the patterns of his foul beguiling;
Heard where his plants in others' orchards grew,

What rounds, what bounds, what course, what stop he Saw how deceits were gilded in his smiling;

makes!

Aud controversy hence a question takes,
Whether the horse by him became his deed,
Or he his manage by the well-doing steed.

But quickly on this side the verdict went;
His real habitude gave life and grace
To appertainings and to ornament,
Accomplish'd in himself, not in his case:
All aids themselves made fairer by their place;
Came for additions, yet their purpos'd trim
Piec'd not his grace, but were all grac'd by him.

So on the tip of his subduing tongue
All kind of arguments and question deep,
All replication prompt, and reason strong,
For his advantage still did wake and sleep
To make the weeper laugh, the laugher weep,
He nad the dialect and different skill,
Catching all passions in his craft of will;

That he did in the general bosom reign
Of young, of old; and sexes both enchanted,
To dwell with him in thoughts, or to remain
In personal duty, following where he haunted:
Consents bewitch'd, ere he desire, have granted;
And dialogu'd from him what he would say,
Ask'd their own wills, and made their wills obey.

Many there were that did his picture get,
To serve their eyes, and in it put their mind;
Like fools that in the imagination set
The goodly objects which abroad they find
Of lands and mansions, their's in thought assign'd;
And labouring in more pleasures to bestow them,
Than the true gouty landlord which doth owe them.

So many have, that never touch'd his hand,
Sweetly suppos'd them mistress of his heart.
My woeful self, that did in freedom stand,
And was my own fee-simple, (not in part,)
What with his art in youth, and youth in art,
Threw my affections in his charmed power,
Reserv'd the stalk, and gave him all my flower.

Yet did I not, as some my equals did,
Demand of hiin, nor being desired, yielded;
Finding myself in honour so forbid,
With safest distance I mine honour shielded:
Experience for me many bulwarks builded
Of proofs new-bleeding, which remain'd the foil
Of this false jewel, and his amorous spoil.

But ah! who ever shunn'd by precedent
The destin'd ill she must herself assay?
Or forc'd examples, 'gainst her own content,
To put the by-pass'd perils in her way?
Counsel may stop a while what will not stay;
For when we rage, advice is often seen
By blunting us to make our wits more keen

Knew vows were ever brokers to defiling; Thought, characters, and words, merely but art, And bastards of his foul adulterate heart.

And long upon these terms I held my city,
Till thus he 'gan besiege me: "Gentle maid,
Have of my suffering youth some feeling pity,
And be not of my holy vows afraid :
That's to you sworn, to none was ever said;
For feasts of love I have been call'd unto,
Till now did ne'er invite, nor never vow.

All my offences that abroad you see,

Are errors of the blood, none of the mind; Love made them not: with acture they may be, Where neither party is nor true nor kind:

They sought their shame that so their shame did find;

And so much less of shame in me remains,
By how much of me their reproach contains.

Among the many that mine eyes have seen,
Not one whose flame my heart so much as warm'd,
Or my affection put to the smallest teen,
Or any of my leisures ever charm'd:
Harm have I done to them, but ne'er was harm'd;
Kept hearts in liveries, but mine own was free,
And reign'd, commanding in his monarchy.

Look here, what tributes wounded fancies sent me,
Of paled pearls, and rubies red as blood;
Figuring that they their passions likewise lent me
Of grief and blushes, aptly understood
In bloodless white and the encrimson'd mood;
Effects of terror and dear modesty,
Encamp'd in hearts, but fighting outwardly.

And lo! behold these talents of their hair,
With twisted metal amorously impleach'd,
I have receiv'd from many a several fair,
(Their kind acceptance weepingly beseech'd,)
With the annexions of fair gems enrich'd,
And deep-brain'd sonnets, that did amplify
Each stone's dear nature, worth, and quality.

The diamond; why 'twas beautiful and hard,
Whereto his invis'd properties did tend;
The deep-green emerald, in whose fresh regard
Weak sights their sickly radiance do amend;
The heaven-hued sapphire and the opal blend
With objects manifold; each several stone,
With wit well blazon'd, smil'd or made some moan.

Lo! all these trophies of affections hot,
Of pensiv'd and subdued desires the tender,
Nature hath charg'd me that I hoard them not,
But yield them up where I myself must render,
That is, to you, my origin and ender:
For these, of force, must your oblations be,
Since I their altar, you enpatron me.

« AnteriorContinuar »