Elizabethan Sonnet-Cycles Part 12

II

Fair grace of graces, muse of muses all, Thou Paradise, thou only heaven I know!

What influence hath bred my hateful woe, That I from thee and them am forced to fall?

Thou falled from me, from thee I never shall, Although my fortunes thou hast brought so low; Yet shall my faith and service with thee go, For live I do, on heaven and thee to call.

Banish'd all grace, no graces with me dwell; Compelled to muse, my muses from me fly; Excluded heaven, what can remain but h.e.l.l?

Exiled from paradise, in hate I lie, Cursing my stars; albeit I find it true, I lost all these when I lost love and you.

III

What viewed I, dear, when I thine eyes beheld?

Love in his glory? No, him Thyrsis saw, And stood the boy, whilst he his darts did draw, Whose painted pride to baser swains he telled.

Saw I two suns? That sight is seen but seld.

Yet can their brood that teach the holy law Gaze on their beams, and dread them not a straw, Where princely looks are by their eyes repelled.

What saw I then? Doubtless it was Amen, Armed with strong thunder and a lightning's flame, Who bridegroom like with power was riding then, Meaning that none should see him when he came.

Yet did I gaze; and thereby caught the wound Which burns my heart and keeps my body sound.

IV

When tedious much and over weary long, Cruel disdain reflecting from her brow, Hath been the cause that I endured such wrong And rest thus discontent and weary now.

Yet when posterity in time to come, Shall find th' uncancelled tenour of her vow, And her disdain be then confessed of some, How much unkind and long, I find it now, O yet even then--though then will be too late To comfort me; dead, many a day, ere then-- They shall confess I did not force her heart; And time shall make it known to other men That ne'er had her disdain made me despair, Had she not been so excellently fair.

V

Had she not been so excellently fair, My muse had never mourned in lines of woe; But I did too inestimable weigh her, And that's the cause I now lament me so.

Yet not for her contempt do I complain me: Complaints may ease the mind, but that is all; Therefore though she too constantly disdain me, I can but sigh and grieve, and so I shall.

Yet grieve I not because I must grieve ever; And yet, alas, waste tears away, in vain; I am resolved truly to persever, Though she persisteth in her old disdain.

But that which grieves me most is that I see Those which most fair, the most unkindest be.

VI

Thus long imposed to everlasting plaining, Divinely constant to the worthiest fair, And moved by eternally disdaining, Aye to persever in unkind despair: Because now silence wearily confined In tedious dying and a dumb restraint, Breaks forth in tears from mine unable mind To ease her pa.s.sion by a poor complaint; O do not therefore to thyself suggest That I can grieve to have immured so long Upon the matter of mine own unrest; Such grief is not the tenour of my song, That 'bide so zealously so bad a wrong.

My grief is this; unless I speak and plain me, Thou wilt persever ever to disdain me.

VII

Thou wilt persever ever to disdain me; And I shall then die, when thou will repent it.

O do not therefore from complaint restrain me, And take my life from me, to me that lent it!

For whilst these accents, weepingly exprest In humble lines of reverentest zeal, Have issue to complaint from mine unrest, They but thy beauty's wonder shall reveal; And though the grieved muse of some other lover, Whose less devotions knew but woes like mine, Would rather seek occasion to discover How little pitiful and how much unkind, They other not so worthy beauties find.

O, I not so! but seek with humble prayer, Means how to move th' unmercifullest fair.

VIII

As draws the golden meteor of the day Exhaled matter from the ground to heaven, And by his secret nature, there to stay The thing fast held, and yet of hold bereaven; So by th' attractive excellence and might, Born to the power of thy transparent eyes, Drawn from myself, ravished with thy delight, Whose dumb conceits divinely sirenise, Lo, in suspense of fear and hope upholden, Diversely poised with pa.s.sions that pain me, No resolution dares my thoughts embolden, Since 'tis not I, but thou that dost sustain me.

O if there's none but thou can work my woe, Wilt thou be still unkind and kill me so?

IX

Wilt thou be still unkind and kill me so, Whose humbled vows with sorrowful appeal Do still persist, and did so long ago Intreat for pity with so pure a zeal?

Suffice the world shall, for the world can say How much thy power hath power, and what it can; Never was victor-hand yet moved to slay The rendered captive, or the yielding man.

Then, O, why should thy woman-thought impose Death and disdain on him that yields his breath, To free his soul from discontent and woes, And humble sacrifice to a certain death?

O since the world knows what the power can do, What were't for thee to save and love me too?

X

I meet not mine by others' discontent, For none compares with me in true devotion; Yet though my tears and sighs to her be spent, Her cruel heart disdains what they do motion.

Yet though persisting in eternal hate, To aggravate the cause of my complaining, Her fury ne'er confineth with a date, I will not cease to love, for her disdaining.

Such puny thoughts of unresolved ground, Whose inaudacity dares but base conceit, In me and my love never shall be found.

Those coward thoughts unworthy minds await.

But those that love well have not yet begun; Persever ever and have never done!

THE EIGHTH DECADE

I

Persever ever and have never done, You weeping accent of my weary song!

O do not you eternal pa.s.sions shun, But be you true and everlasting long!

Say that she doth requite you with disdain; Yet fortified with hope, endure your fortune; Though cruel now she will be kind again; Such haps as those, such loves as yours importune.

Though she protests the faithfullest severity Inexecrable beauty is inflicting, Kindness in time will pity your sincerity, Though now it be your fortune's interdicting.

For some can say, whose loves have known like pa.s.sion, "Women are kind by kind, and coy for fashion."

II

Give period to my matter of complaining, Fair wonder of our time's admiring eye, And entertain no more thy long disdaining, Or give me leave at last that I may die.

For who can live, perpetually secluded From death to life, that loathes her discontent?

Lest by some hope seducively deluded, Such thoughts aspire to fortunate event; But I that now have drawn mal-pleasant breath Under the burden of thy cruel hate, O, I must long and linger after death, And yet I dare not give my life her date; For if I die and thou repent t' have slain me, 'Twill grieve me more than if thou didst disdain me.

III

'Twill grieve me more than if thou didst disdain me, That I should die; and thou, because I die so.

And yet to die, it should not know to pain me, If cruel beauty were content to bid so.

Death to my life, life to my long despair Prolonged by her, given to my love and days, Are means to tell how truly she is fair, And I can die to testify her praise.

Yet not to die, though fairness me despiseth, Is cause why in complaint I thus persever; Though death me and my love inparadiseth, By interdicting me from her for ever.

I do not grieve that I am forced to die, But die to think upon the reason why.

IV