Elizabethan Sonnet-Cycles Part 3

x.x.xII

And yet I cannot reprehend the flight, Or blame th'attempt, presuming so to soar; The mounting venture for a high delight Did make the honour of the fall the more.

For who gets wealth, that puts not from the sh.o.r.e?

Danger hath honours, great designs their fame, Glory doth follow, courage goes before; And though th'event oft answers not the same, Suffice that high attempts have never shame.

The mean observer whom base safety keeps, Lives without honour, dies without a name, And in eternal darkness ever sleeps.

And therefore, Delia, 'tis to me no blot To have attempted though attained thee not.

x.x.xIII

Raising my hopes on hills of high desire, Thinking to scale the heaven of her heart, My slender means presumed too high a part, Her thunder of disdain forced me retire, And threw me down to pain in all this fire, Where lo, I languish in so heavy smart Because th'attempt was far above my art; Her pride brooked not poor souls should come so nigh her.

Yet, I protest, my high desiring will Was not to dispossess her of her right; Her sovereignty should have remained still; I only sought the bliss to have her sight.

Her sight, contented thus to see me spill, Framed my desires fit for her eyes to kill.

x.x.xIV

Why dost thou, Delia, credit so thy gla.s.s, Gazing thy beauty deigned thee by the skies, And dost not rather look on him, alas!

Whose state best shows the force of murdering eyes?

The broken tops of lofty trees declare The fury of a mercy-wanting storm; And of what force thy wounding graces are Upon myself, you best may find the form.

Then leave thy gla.s.s, and gaze thyself on me; That mirror shows what power is in thy face; To view your form too much may danger be, Narcissus changed t'a flower in such a case.

And you are changed, but not t'a hyacinth; I fear your eye hath turned your heart to flint.

x.x.xV

I once may see when years shall wreck my wrong, And golden hairs shall change to silver wire, And those bright rays that kindle all this fire, Shall fail in force, their working not so strong, Then beauty, now the burden of my song, Whose glorious blaze the world doth so admire, Must yield up all to tyrant Time's desire; Then fade those flowers that decked her pride so long.

When if she grieve to gaze her in her gla.s.s, Which then presents her whiter-withered hue, Go you, my verse, go tell her what she was, For what she was, she best shall find in you.

Your fiery heat lets not her glory pa.s.s, But phoenix-like shall make her live anew.

x.x.xVI

Look, Delia, how w'esteem the half-blown rose, The image of thy blush, and summer's honour, Whilst yet her tender bud doth undisclose That full of beauty time bestows upon her.

No sooner spreads her glory in the air, But straight her wide-blown pomp comes to decline; She then is scorned that late adorned the fair; So fade the roses of those cheeks of thine.

No April can revive thy withered flowers, Whose springing grace adorns thy glory now; Swift speedy time, feathered with flying hours, Dissolves the beauty of the fairest brow.

Then do not thou such treasure waste in vain, But love now whilst thou mayst be loved again.

x.x.xVII

But love whilst that thou mayst be loved again, Now whilst thy May hath filled thy lap with flowers, Now whilst thy beauty bears without a stain, Now use thy summer smiles, ere winter lowers.

And whilst thou spread'st unto the rising sun, The fairest flower that ever saw the light, Now joy thy time before thy sweet be done; And, Delia, think thy morning must have night, And that thy brightness sets at length to west, When thou wilt close up that which now thou showest, And think the same becomes thy fading best, Which then shall most inveil and shadow most.

Men do not weigh the stalk for that it was, When once they find her flower, her glory pa.s.s.

x.x.xVIII

When men shall find thy flower, thy glory pa.s.s, And thou with careful brow sitting alone Received hast this message from thy gla.s.s That tells the truth, and says that all is gone; Fresh shalt thou see in me the wounds thou mad'st, Though spent thy flame, in me the heat remaining.

I that have loved thee thus before thou fad'st, My faith shall wax when thou art in thy waning.

The world shall find this miracle in me, That fire can burn when all the matter's spent; Then what my faith hath been thyself shalt see, And that thou wast unkind thou mayst repent.

Thou mayst repent that thou hast scorned my tears, When winter snows upon thy sable hairs.

x.x.xIX

When winter snows upon thy sable hairs, And frost of age hath nipped thy beauties near, When dark shall seem thy day that never clears, And all lies withered that was held so dear; Then take this picture which I here present thee, Limned with a pencil not all unworthy; Here see the gifts that G.o.d and nature lent thee, Here read thyself and what I suffered for thee.

This may remain thy lasting monument, Which happily posterity may cherish; These colours with thy fading are not spent, These may remain when thou and I shall perish.

If they remain, then thou shalt live thereby; They will remain, and so thou canst not die.

XL

Thou canst not die whilst any zeal abound In feeling hearts than can conceive these lines; Though thou a Laura hast no Petrarch found, In base attire yet clearly beauty shines.

And I though born within a colder clime, Do feel mine inward heat as great--I know it; He never had more faith, although more rhyme; I love as well though he could better show it.

But I may add one feather to thy fame, To help her flight throughout the fairest isle; And if my pen could more enlarge thy name, Then shouldst thou live in an immortal style.

For though that Laura better limned be, Suffice, thou shalt be loved as well as she!

XLI

Be not displeased that these my papers should Bewray unto the world how fair thou art; Or that my wits have showed the best they could The chastest flame that ever warmed heart.

Think not, sweet Delia, this shall be thy shame, My muse should sound thy praise with mournful warble.

How many live, the glory of whose name Shall rest in ice, while thine is graved in marble!

Thou mayst in after ages live esteemed, Unburied in these lines, reserved in pureness; These shall entomb those eyes, that have redeemed Me from the vulgar, thee from all obscureness.

Although my careful accents never moved thee, Yet count it no disgrace that I loved thee.

XLII

Delia, these eyes that so admireth thine, Have seen those walls which proud ambition reared To check the world, how they entombed have lain Within themselves, and on them ploughs have eared; Yet never found that barbarous hand attained The spoil of fame deserved by virtuous men, Whose glorious actions luckily had gained Th'eternal annals of a happy pen.

And therefore grieve not if thy beauties die Though time do spoil thee of the fairest veil That ever yet covered mortality, And must instar the needle and the rail.

That grace which doth more than inwoman thee, Lives in my lines and must eternal be.

XLIII

Most fair and lovely maid, look from the sh.o.r.e, See thy Leander striving in these waves, Poor soul quite spent, whose force can do no more.

Now send forth hope, for now calm pity saves, And waft him to thee with those lovely eyes, A happy convoy to a holy land.

Now show thy power, and where thy virtue lies; To save thine own, stretch out the fairest hand.

Stretch out the fairest hand, a pledge of peace, That hand that darts so right and never misses; I shall forget old wrongs, my griefs shall cease; And that which gave me wounds, I'll give it kisses.

Once let the ocean of my care find sh.o.r.e, That thou be pleased, and I may sigh no more.

XLIV

Read in my face a volume of despairs, The wailing Iliads of my tragic woe; Drawn with my blood, and painted with my cares, Wrought by her hand that I have honoured so.

Who whilst I burn, she sings at my soul's wrack, Looking aloft from turret of her pride; There my soul's tyrant joys her in the sack Of her own seat, whereof I made her guide.