Michael Drayton- Collected Poetical Works

by Michael Drayton

  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!

  IDEA, 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.

  IDEA, 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.

  IDEA, 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

  IDEA, 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!

  IDEA, 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.

  IDEA, 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

  IDEA, 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.

  IDEA, 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.

  IDEA, 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’ cold
ness of your blood,

  Not to avail you nor do others good.

  TO PROVERBS

  IDEA, 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.

  IDEA, 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.

  IDEA, 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!

  IDEA, 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.

  IDEA, 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.

  IDEA, LXIV.

  THINE eyes taught me the alphabet of Love,

  To con my cross-row ere I learned to spell

  (For I was apt, a scholar like to prove),

  Gave me sweet looks when-as I learned well.

  Vows were my vowels, when I then begun

  At my first lesson in thy sacred name ;

  My consonants, the next when I had done,

  Words consonant and sounding to thy fame ;

  My liquids then were liquid crystal tears,

  My cares my mutes, so mute to crave relief ;

  My doleful diphthongs were my life’s despairs,

  Redoubling sighs, the accents of my grief.

  My love’s school-mistress now hath taught me so,

  That I can read a story of my woe.

  IDEA, LXV.

  READING sometime, my sorrows to beguile

  I find old poets hills and floods admire ;

  One he doth wonder monster-breeding Nile,

  Another marvels sulphur Etna’s fire ;

  Now broad-brimmed Indus, then of Pindus’ height,

  Pelion and Ossa, frosty Caucase old ;

  The Delian Cynthus, then Olympus’ weight,

  Slow Arar, frantic Gallus, Cydnus cold ;

  Some Ganges, Ister, and of Tagus tell,

  Some whirlpool Po and sliding Hypasis,

  Some old Parnassus where the Muses dwell,

  Some Helicon, and some fair Simois.

  “Ah, fools,” think I, “had you Idea seen,

  Poor brooks and banks had no such wonders been.”

  IDEA, LXVI.

  SINCE holy Vestal laws have been neglected,

  The God’s pure fire hath been extinguished quite ;

  No virgin once attending on that light,

  Nor yet those heavenly secrets once respected ;

  Till thou alone, to pay the heavens their duty

  Within the temple of thy sacred name,

  With thine eyes kindling that celestial flame

  By those reflecting sunbeams of thy beauty.

  Here Chastity, that Vestal most divine,

  Attends that lamp with eye which never sleepeth ;

  The volumes of religion’s laws she keepeth,

  Making thy breast that sacred relic’s shrine,

  Where blessed angels, singing day and night,

  Praise Him which made that fire which lends that light.

  IDEA, LXVII.

  MY fair, look from those turrets of thine eyes

  Into the ocean of a troubled mind,

  Where my poor soul, the bark of sorrow, lies,

  Left to the mercy of the waves and wind.

  See where she floats, laden with purest love,

  Which those fair islands of thy looks afford,

  Desiring yet a thousand deaths to prove,

  Than so to cast her ballast overboard.

  See how her sails be rent, her tacklings worn,

  Her cable broke, her surest anchor lost ;

  Her mariners do leave her all forlorn,

  Yet how she bends towards that blessed coast !

  Lo, where she drowns in storms of thy displeasure,

  Whose worthy prize should have enriched thy treasure.

  IDEA, LXVIII.

  IF chaste and pure devotion of my youth,

  Or glory of my April-springing years,

  Unfeignèd love in naked simple truth,

  A thousand vows, a thousand sighs and tears ;

  Or if a world of faithful service done,

  Words, thoughts and deeds devoted to her honour,

  Or eyes that have beheld her as their sun,

  With admiration ever looking on her ;

  A life that never joyed but in her love,

  A soul that ever hath adored her name,

  A faith that time nor
fortune could not move,

  A Muse that unto heaven hath raised her fame ;

  Though these nor these deserve to be embraced,

  Yet, fair unkind, too good to be disgraced.

  IDEA, LXIX.

  DIE, die, my soul, and never taste of joy,

  If sighs nor tears nor vows nor prayers can move,

  If faith and zeal be but esteemed a toy,

  And kindness be unkindness in my love.

  Then with unkindness, Love, revenge thy wrong,

  O sweet’st revenge that e’er the heavens gave !

  And with the swan record thy dying song,

  And praise her still to thy untimely grave.

  So in love’s death shall love’s perfection prove,

  That love divine which I have borne to you,

  By doom concealèd to heavens above,

  That yet the world unworthy never knew,

  Whose pure idea never tongue exprest :

  I feel, you know, the heavens can tell, the rest.

  IDEA, LXX.

  BLACK pitchy night, companion of my woe,

  The inn of care, the nurse of dreary sorrow,

  Why lengthenest thou thy darkest hours so,

  Still to prolong my long-time-looked-for morrow ?

  Thou sable shadow, image of despair,

  Portrait of hell, the air’s black mourning weed,

  Recorder of revenge, remembrancer of care,

  The shadow and the veil of every sinful deed ;

  Death like to thee, so live thou still in death,

  The grave of joy, prison of day’s delight ;

  Let heavens withdraw their sweet ambrosian breath,

  Nor moon nor stars lend thee their shining light ;

  For thou alone renew’st that old desire,

  Which still torments me in day’s burning fire.

  IDEA, LXXI.

  WHO list to praise the day’s delicious light,

  Let him compare it to her heavenly eye,

  The sunbeams to the lustre of her sight ;

  So may the learned like the simile,

  The morning’s crimson to her lips’ alike,

  The sweet of Eden to her breath’s perfume,