Elizabethan Sonnet-Cycles Part 10

[The Sonnet numbered IX is by Sidney, and is found in the _Certaine Sonets_ printed in the 1598 edition of the _Arcadia_.]

X

Hope, like the hyaena, coming to be old, Alters his shape, is turned into despair.

Pity my h.o.a.ry hopes, Maid of clear mould!

Think not that frowns can ever make thee fair.

What harm is it to kiss, to laugh, to play?

Beauty's no blossom, if it be not used.

Sweet dalliance keeps the wrinkles long away; Repentance follows them that have refused.

To bring you to the knowledge of your good, I seek, I sue. O try and then believe!

Each image can be chaste that's carved of wood.

You show you live, when men you do relieve.

Iron with wearing shines; rust wasteth treasure.

On earth but love there is no other pleasure.

THE FIFTH DECADE

I

Ay me, poor wretch, my prayer is turned to sin!

I say, "I love!" My mistress says "'Tis l.u.s.t!"

Thus most we lose where most we seek to win.

Wit will make wicked what is ne'er so just.

And yet I can supplant her false surmise.

l.u.s.t is a fire that for an hour or twain Giveth a scorching blaze and then he dies; Love a continual furnace doth maintain.

A furnace! Well, this a furnace may be called; For it burns inward, yields a smothering flame, Sighs which, like boiled lead's smoking vapour, scald.

I sigh apace at echo of sighs' name.

Long have I served; no short blaze is my love.

Hid joys there are that maids scorn till they prove.

II

I do not now complain of my disgrace, O cruel fair one! fair with cruel crost; Nor of the hour, season, time, nor place; Nor of my foil, for any freedom lost; Nor of my courage, by misfortune daunted; Nor of my wit, by overweening struck; Nor of my sense, by any sound enchanted; Nor of the force of fiery-pointed hook; Nor of the steel that sticks within my wound; Nor of my thoughts, by worser thoughts defaced; Nor of the life I labour to confound.

But I complain, that being thus disgraced, Fired, feared, frantic, fettered, shot through, slain, My death is such as I may not complain.

III

If ever sorrow spoke from soul that loves, As speaks a spirit in a man possest, In me her spirit speaks. My soul it moves, Whose sigh-swoll'n words breed whirlwinds in my breast; Or like the echo of a pa.s.sing bell, Which sounding on the water seems to howl; So rings my heart a fearful heavy knell, And keeps all night in consort with the owl.

My cheeks with a thin ice of tears are clad, Mine eyes like morning stars are bleared and red.

What resteth then but I be raging mad, To see that she, my cares' chief conduit-head, When all streams else help quench my burning heart, Shuts up her springs and will no grace impart.

IV

You secret vales, you solitary fields, You sh.o.r.es forsaken and you sounding rocks!

If ever groaning heart hath made you yield, Or words half spoke that sense in prison locks, Then 'mongst night shadows whisper out my death.

That when myself hath sealed my lips from speaking, Each tell-tale echo with a weeping breath, May both record my truth and true love's breaking.

You pretty flowers that smile for summer's sake, Pull in your heads before my wat'ry eyes Do turn the meadows to a standing lake, By whose untimely floods your glory dies!

For lo, mine heart, resolved to moistening air, Feedeth mine eyes which double tear for tear.

V

His shadow to Narcissus well presented, How fair he was by such attractive love!

So if thou would'st thyself thy beauty prove, Vulgar breath-mirrors might have well contented, And to their prayers eternally consented, Oaths, vows and sighs, if they believe might move; But more thou forc'st, making my pen approve Thy praise to all, least any had dissented.

When this hath wrought, thou which before wert known But unto some, of all art now required, And thine eyes' wonders wronged, because not shown The world, with daily orisons desired.

Thy chaste fair gifts, with learning's breath is blown, And thus my pen hath made thy sweets admired.

VI

I am no model figure, or sign of care, But his eternal heart's-consuming essence, In whom grief's commentaries written are, Drawing gross pa.s.sion into pure quintessence, Not thine eye's fire, but fire of thine eye's disdain, Fed by neglect of my continual grieving, Attracts the true life's spirit of my pain, And gives it thee, which gives me no relieving.

Within thine arms sad elegies I sing; Unto thine eyes a true heart love-torn lay I: Thou smell'st from me the savours sorrows bring; My tears to taste my truth to touch display I.

Lo thus each sense, dear fair one, I importune; But being care, thou flyest me as ill fortune.

VII

But being care, thou flyest me as ill fortune;-- Care the consuming canker of the mind!

The discord that disorders sweet hearts' tune!

Th' abortive b.a.s.t.a.r.d of a coward mind!

The lightfoot lackey that runs post by death, Bearing the letters which contain our end!

The busy advocate that sells his breath, Denouncing worst to him, is most his friend!

O dear, this care no interest holds in me; But holy care, the guardian of thy fair, Thine honour's champion, and thy virtue's fee, The zeal which thee from barbarous times shall bear, This care am I; this care my life hath taken.

Dear to my soul, then leave me not forsaken!

VIII

Dear to my soul, then, leave, me not forsaken!

Fly not! My heart within thy bosom sleepeth; Even from myself and sense I have betaken Me unto thee for whom my spirit weepeth, And on the sh.o.r.e of that salt teary sea, Couched in a bed of unseen seeming pleasure, Where in imaginary thoughts thy fair self lay; But being waked, robbed of my life's best treasure, I call the heavens, air, earth, and seas to hear My love, my truth, and black disdained estate, Beating the rocks with bellowings of despair, Which still with plaints my words reverberate, Sighing, "Alas, what shall become of me?"

Whilst echo cries, "What shall become of me?"

IX

Whilst echo cries, "What shall become of me?"

And desolate, my desolations pity, Thou in thy beauty's carack sitt'st to see My tragic downfall, and my funeral ditty.

No timbrel, but my heart thou play'st upon, Whose strings are stretched unto the highest key; The diapason, love; love is the unison; In love my life and labours waste away.

Only regardless to the world thou leav'st me, Whilst slain hopes, turning from the feast of sorrow, Unto despair, their king, which ne'er deceives me, Captives my heart, whose black night hates the morrow, And he in truth of my distressed cry Plants me a weeping star within mine eye.

X