Elizabethan Sonnet-Cycles Part 9

[The Sonnets numbered II to VIII in this Decade are by Sidney, and were printed among the _Certaine Sonets_ in the 1598 edition of the _Arcadia_.]

IX

Woe to mine eyes, the organs of mine ill; Hate to my heart, for not concealing joy; A double curse upon my tongue be still, Whose babbling lost what else I might enjoy!

When first mine eyes did with thy beauty joy, They to my heart thy wondrous virtues told; Who, fearing lest thy beams should him destroy, Whate'er he knew, did to my tongue unfold.

My tell-tale tongue, in talking over bold, What they in private council did declare, To thee, in plain and public terms unrolled; And so by that made thee more coyer far.

What in thy praise he spoke, that didst thou trust; And yet my sorrows thou dost hold unjust.

X

Of an Athenian young man have I read, Who on blind fortune's picture doated so, That when he could not buy it to his bed, On it he gazing died for very woe.

My fortune's picture art thou, flinty dame, That settest golden apples to my sight; But wilt by no means let me taste the same.

To drown in sight of land is double spite.

Of fortune as thou learn'dst to be unkind, So learn to be unconstant to disdain.

The wittiest women are to sport inclined.

Honour is pride, and pride is nought but pain.

Let others boast of choosing for the best; 'Tis substances not names must make us blest.

THE FOURTH DECADE

I

_Of the end and death of his love_

Needs must I leave and yet needs must I love; In vain my wit doth tell in verse my woe; Despair in me, disdain in thee, doth show How by my wit I do my folly prove.

All this my heart from love can never move.

Love is not in my heart. No, Lady, no, My heart is love itself. Till I forego My heart I never can my love remove.

How can I then leave love? I do intend Not to crave grace, but yet to wish it still; Not to praise thee, but beauty to commend; And so, by beauty's praise, praise thee I will; For as my heart is love, love not in me, So beauty thou, beauty is not in thee.

II

_Of the prowess of his lady_

Sweet sovereign, since so many minds remain Obedient subjects at thy beauty's call, So many hearts bound in thy hairs as thrall, So many eyes die with one look's disdain, Go, seek the honour that doth thee pertain, That the Fifth Monarchy may thee befall!

Thou hast such means to conquer men withal, As all the world must yield or else be slain.

To fight, thou need'st no weapons but thine eyes, Thine hair hath gold enough to pay thy men, And for their food thy beauty will suffice; For men and armour, Lady, care have none; For one will sooner yield unto thee then When he shall meet thee naked all alone.

III

_Of the discouragement he had to proceed in love, through the mult.i.tude of his lady's perfections and his own lowness_

When your perfections to my thoughts appear, They say among themselves, "O happy we, Whichever shall so rare an object see!"

But happy heart, if thoughts less happy were!

For their delights have cost my heart full dear, In whom of love a thousand causes be, And each cause breeds a thousand loves in me, And each love more than thousand hearts can bear.

How can my heart so many loves then hold, Which yet by heaps increase from day to day?

But like a ship that's o'ercharged with gold, Must either sink or hurl the gold away.

But hurl not love; thou canst not, feeble heart; In thine own blood, thou therefore drowned art!

IV

Fools be they that inveigh 'gainst Mahomet, Who's but a moral of love's monarchy.

But a dull adamant, as straw by jet, He in an iron chest was drawn on high.

In midst of Mecca's temple roof, some say, He now hangs without touch or stay at all.

That Mahomet is she to whom I pray; May ne'er man pray so ineffectual!

Mine eyes, love's strange exhaling adamants, Un'wares, to my heart's temple's height have wrought The iron idol that compa.s.sion wants, Who my oft tears and travails sets at nought.

Iron hath been transformed to gold by art; Her face, limbs, flesh and all, gold; save her heart.

V

Ready to seek out death in my disgrace, My mistress 'gan to smooth her gathered brows, Whereby I am reprieved for a s.p.a.ce.

O hope and fear! who half your torments knows?

It is some mercy in a black-mouthed judge To haste his prisoner's end, if he must die.

Dear, if all other favour you shall grudge, Do speedy execution with your eye; With one sole look you leave in me no soul!

Count it a loss to lose a faithful slave.

Would G.o.d, that I might hear my last bell toll, So in your bosom I might dig a grave!

Doubtful delay is worse than any fever, Or help me soon, or cast me off for ever!

VI

_Of the end and death of his love_

Each day, new proofs of new despair I find, That is, new deaths. No marvel then, though I Make exile my last help; to th'end mine eye Should not behold the death to me a.s.signed.

Not that from death absence might save my mind, But that it might take death more patiently; Like him, the which by judge condemned to die, To suffer with more ease, his eyes doth blind.

Your lips in scarlet clad, my judges be, p.r.o.nouncing sentence of eternal "No!"

Despair, the hangman that tormenteth me; The death I suffer is the life I have.

For only life doth make me die in woe, And only death I for my pardon crave.

VII

The richest relic Rome did ever view Was' Caesar's tomb; on which, with cunning hand, Jove's triple honours, the three fair Graces, stand, Telling his virtues in their virtues true.

This Rome admired; but dearest dear, in you Dwelleth the wonder of the happiest land, And all the world to Neptune's furthest strand, For what Rome shaped hath living life in you.

Thy naked beauty, bounteously displayed, Enricheth monarchies of hearts with love; Thine eyes to hear complaints are open laid; Thine eyes' kind looks requite all pains I prove; That of my death I dare not thee accuse; But pride in me that baser chance refuse.

VIII

Why thus unjustly, say, my cruel fate, Dost thou adjudge my luckless eyes and heart, The one to live exiled from that sweet smart, Where th' other pines, imprisoned without date?

My luckless eyes must never more debate Of those bright beams that eased my love apart; And yet my heart, bound to them with love's dart, Must there dwell ever to bemoan my state.

O had mine eyes been suffered there to rest, Often they had my heart's unquiet eased; Or had my heart with banishment been blest, Mine eye with beauty never had been pleased!

But since these cross effects hath fortune wrought, Dwell, heart, with her; eyes, view her in my thought!