by Paul Keegan
Shuttle-Cocke nor trundle ball,
To present thy love with all:
But a heart as true and kinde,
As an honest faithfull minde
Can device for to invent,
To thy patience I present:
At thy fairest feete it lies:
Blesse it with thy blesséd eyes:
Take it up into thy handes,
At whose onely grace it standes,
To be comforted for ever,
Or to looke for comfort never:
Oh it is a strange affecte,
That my fancie doth effect.
I am caught and can not start,
Wit and reason, eye and heart:
All are witnesses to mee,
Love hath sworne me slave to thee,
Let me then be but thy slave,
And no further favour crave:
Send mee foorth to tende thy flocke,
On the highest Mountaine rocke.
Or commaund me but to goe,
To the valley grownd belowe:
All shall be a like to me,
Where it please thee I shall bee.
Let my face be what thou wilt:
Save my life, or see it spilt.
Keepe me fasting on thy Mountaine:
Charge me not come neere thy Fountaine.
In the stormes and bitter blastes,
Where the skie all overcasts.
In the coldest frost and snowe,
That the earth did ever knowe:
Let me sit and bite my thumbes,
Where I see no comfort comes.
All the sorrowes I can proove,
Cannot put me from my love.
Tell me that thou art content,
To beholde me passion-rente,
That thou know’st I deerely love thee,
Yet withall it cannot moove thee.
That thy pride doth growe so great,
Nothing can thy grace intreate,
That thou wilt so cruell bee,
As to kill my love and mee:
That thou wilt no foode reserve,
But my flockes and I shall sterve.
Be thy rage yet nere so great,
When my little Lambes doe bleate,
To beholde their Shepheard die:
Then will truth her passion trie.
How a Hart it selfe hath spent,
With concealing of content.
1607BEN JONSON / CATULLUS from Volpone
[Volpone sings.]
Come my CELIA, let us prove,
While we may, the sports of love;
Time will not be ours, for ever:
He, at length, our good will sever.
Spend not then his guifts in vaine.
Sunnes, that set, may rise againe:
But if once we loose this light,
’Tis, with us, perpetuall night.
Why should we deferre our joyes?
Fame, and rumor are but toyes.
Cannot we delude the eyes
Of a few poore houshold spyes?
Or his easier eares beguile,
So removed by our wile?
’Tis no sinne, loves fruit to steale,
But the sweet theft to reveale:
To be taken, to be seene,
These have crimes accounted beene.
ANONYMOUS 1608
Ay me, alas, heigh ho, heigh ho!
Thus doth Messalina go
Up and down the house a-crying,
For her monkey lies a-dying.
Death, thou art too cruel
To bereave her jewel,
Or to make a seizure
Of her only treasure.
If her monkey die,
She will sit and cry,
Fie fie fie fie fie!
BEN JONSON from Epicoene 1609
Still to be neat, still to be drest,
As, you were going to a feast;
Still to be pou’dred, still perfum’d:
Lady, it is to be presum’d,
Though arts hid causes are not found,
All is not sweet, all is not sound.
Give me a looke, give me a face,
That makes simplicitie a grace;
Robes loosely flowing, haire as free:
Such sweet neglect more taketh me,
Then all th’adulteries of art.
They strike mine eyes, but not my heart.
(1616)
EDMUND SPENSER from Two Cantos of Mutabilitie
[Nature’s Reply to Mutabilitie]
Then since within this wide great Universe
Nothing doth firme and permanent appeare,
But all things tost and turned by transverse:
What then should let, but I aloft should reare
My Trophee, and from all, the triumph beare?
Now judge then (ô thou greatest goddesse trew!)
According as thy selfe doest see and heare,
And unto me addoom that is my dew;
That is the rule of all, all being rul’d by you.
So having ended, silence long ensewed,
Ne Nature to or fro spake for a space,
But with firme eyes affixt, the ground still viewed.
Meanewhile, all creatures, looking in her face,
Expecting th’end of this so doubtfull case,
Did hang in long suspence what would ensew,
To whether side should fall the soveraigne place:
At length, she looking up with chearefull view,
The silence brake, and gave her doome in speeches few.
I well consider all that ye have sayd,
And find that all things stedfastnes doe hate
And changed be: yet being rightly wayd
They are not changed from their first estate;
But by their change their being doe dilate:
And turning to themselves at length againe,
Doe worke their owne perfection so by fate:
Then over them Change doth not rule and raigne;
But they raigne over change, and doe their states maintaine.
Cease therefore daughter further to aspire,
And thee content thus to be rul’d by me:
For thy decay thou seekst by thy desire;
But time shall come that all shall changed bee,
And from thenceforth, none no more change shall see.
So was the Titaness put downe and whist,
And Jove confirm’d in his imperiall see.
Then was that whole assembly quite dismist,
And Natur’s selfe did vanish, whither no man wist.
The VIII Canto, unperfite
When I bethinke me on that speech whyleare,
Of Mutability, and well it way:
Me seemes, that though she all unworthy were
Of the Heav’ns Rule; yet very sooth to say,
In all things else she beares the greatest sway.
Which makes me loath this state of life so tickle,
And love of things so vaine to cast away;
Whose flowring pride, so fading and so fickle,
Short Time shall soon cut down with his consuming sickle.
Then gin I thinke on that which Nature sayd,
Of that same time when no more Change shall be,
But stedfast rest of all things firmely stayd
Upon the pillours of Eternity,
That is contrayr to Mutabilitie:
For, all that moveth, doth in Change delight:
But thence-forth all shall rest eternally
With Him that is the God of Sabbaoth hight:
O that great Sabbaoth God, graunt me that Sabaoths sight.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE from Sonnets
18
Shall I compare thee to a Summers day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough windes do shake the darling buds of Maie,
And Sommers lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
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And often is his gold complexion dimm’d,
And every faire from faire some-time declines,
By chance, or natures changing course untrim’d:
But thy eternall Sommer shall not fade,
Nor loose possession of that faire thou ow’st,
Nor shall death brag thou wandr’st in his shade,
When in eternall lines to time thou grow’st,
So long as men can breath or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
55
Not marble, nor the guilded monuments
Of Princes shall out-live this powrefull rime,
But you shall shine more bright in these contents
Then unswept stone, besmeer’d with sluttish time.
When wastefull warre shall Statues over-turne,
And broiles roote out the worke of masonry,
Nor Mars his sword, nor warres quick fire shall burne
The living record of your memory.
Gainst death, and all oblivious enmity
Shall you pace forth, your praise shall stil finde roome,
Even in the eyes of all posterity
That weare this world out to the ending doome.
So til the judgement that your selfe arise,
You live in this, and dwell in lovers eies.
60
Like as the waves make towards the pibled shore,
So do our minuites hasten to their end,
Each changing place with that which goes before,
In sequent toile all forwards do contend.
Nativity once in the maine of light,
Crawles to maturity, wherewith being crown’d,
Crooked eclipses gainst his glory fight,
And time that gave, doth now his gift confound.
Time doth transfixe the florish set on youth,
And delves the paralels in beauties brow,
Feedes on the rarities of natures truth,
And nothing stands but for his sieth to mow.
And yet to times in hope, my verse shall stand
Praising thy worth, dispight his cruell hand.
66
Tyr’d with all these for restfull death I cry,
As to behold desert a begger borne,
And needie Nothing trimd in jollitie,
And purest faith unhappily forsworne,
And gilded honor shamefully misplast,
And maiden vertue rudely strumpeted,
And right perfection wrongfully disgrac’d,
And strength by limping sway disabled,
And arte made tung-tide by authoritie,
And Folly (Doctor-like) controuling skill,
And simple-Truth miscalde Simplicitie,
And captive-good attending Captaine ill.
Tyr’d with all these, from these would I be gone,
Save that to dye, I leave my love alone.
73
That time of yeeare thou maist in me behold,
When yellow leaves, or none, or few doe hange
Upon those boughes which shake against the could,
Bare ruin’d quiers, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou seest the twi-light of such day,
As after Sun-set fadeth in the West,
Which by and by blacke night doth take away,
Deaths second selfe that seals up all in rest.
In me thou seest the glowing of such fire,
That on the ashes of his youth doth lye,
As the death bed, whereon it must expire,
Consum’d with that which it was nurrisht by.
This thou percev’st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well, which thou must leave ere long.
94
They that have powre to hurt, and will doe none,
That doe not do the thing, they most do showe,
Who moving others, are themselves as stone,
Unmooved, could, and to temptation slow:
They rightly do inherrit heavens graces,
And husband natures ritches from expence,
They are the Lords and owners of their faces,
Others, but stewards of their excellence:
The sommers flowre is to the sommer sweet,
Though to it selfe, it onely live and die,
But if that flowre with base infection meete,
The basest weed out-braves his dignity:
For sweetest things turne sowrest by their deedes,
Lillies that fester, smell far worse then weeds.
107
Not mine owne feares, nor the prophetick soule,
Of the wide world, dreaming on things to come,
Can yet the lease of my true love controule,
Supposde as forfeit to a confin’d doome.
The mortall Moone hath her eclipse indur’de,
And the sad Augurs mock their owne presage,
Incertenties now crowne them-selves assur’de,
And peace proclaimes Olives of endlesse age.
Now with the drops of this most balmie time,
My love lookes fresh, and death to me subscribes,
Since spight of him Ile live in this poore rime,
While he insults ore dull and speachlesse tribes.
And thou in this shalt finde thy monument,
When tyrants crests and tombs of brasse are spent.
116
Let me not to the marriage of true mindes
Admit impediments, love is not love
Which alters when it alteration findes,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no, it is an ever fixed marke
That lookes on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandring barke,
Whose worths unknowne, although his higth be taken.
Lov’s not Times foole, though rosie lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickles compasse come,
Love alters not with his breefe houres and weekes,
But beares it out even to the edge of doome:
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
124
Yf my deare love were but the childe of state,
It might for fortunes basterd be unfathered,
