A fearful boldness takes my mind,
Sweet honey Love with gall doth mix,
And is unkindly kind :
It seems to breed,
And is indeed
A special pleasure to be pined.
No danger then I dread :
For though I went a thousand times to Styx,
I know she can revive me with her eye
As many looks, as many lives to me:
And yet had I a thousand hearts,
As many looks, as many darts,
Might make them all to die.
W. Alexander, Earl of Stirling.
HEART'S HIDING
SWEET Love, mine only treasure,
For service long unfeigned,
Wherein I nought have gained
Vouchsafe this little pleasure,
To tell me in what part
My mistress keeps her heart.
If in her hair so slender
Like golden nets entwined
Which fire and art have 'finèd,
Her thrall my heart I render
For ever to abide
With locks so dainty tied.
If in her eyes she bind it,
Wherein that fire was framèd
By which it is inflamed,
I dare not look to find it :
I only wish it sight
To see that pleasant light.
But if her breast have deignèd
With kindness to receive it,
I am content to leave it,
Though death thereby were gainèd.
Then, Lady, take your own
That lives for you alone.
So sweet is thy discourse to me,
And so delightful is thy sight,
As I taste nothing right but thee.
O why invented Nature light?
Was it alone for Beauty's sake,
That her graced words might better take?
No more can I old joys recall :
They now to me become unknown,
Not seeming to have been at all.
Alas! how soon is this Love grown
To such a spreading height in me
As with it all must shadow'd be !
FAIN would I change that note
To which fond Love hath charm'd me
Long long to sing by rote,
Fancying that that harm'd me:
Yet when this thought doth come,
'Love is the perfect sum
Of all delight,'
I have no other choice
Either for pen or voice
To sing or write.
O Love, they wrong thee much
That say thy sweet is bitter,
When thy rich fruit is such
As nothing can be sweeter.
Fair house of joy and bliss,
Where truest pleasure is,
I do adore thee:
I know thee what thou art,
I serve thee with my heart,
And fall before thee.
O Love, sweet Love, O high and heavenly Love!
The court of pleasures, paradise of rest,
Without whose circuit all things bitter prove,
Within whose ceinture every wretch is blest:
O grant me pardon, sacred deity,
I do recant my former heresy !
And thou, the dearest idol of my thought,
Whom love I did, and do, and always will:
O pardon what my coy disdain hath wrought,
My coy disdain, the author of this ill:
And for the pride that I have show'd before,
By Love I swear I'll love thee ten times more.
HIGHWAY, since you my chief Parnassus be,
And that my Muse, to some ears not unsweet,
Tempers her words to trampling horses' feet
More oft than to a chamber-melody,-
Now blessed you bear onward blessed me
To her, where I my heart, safe-left, shall meet ;
My Muse and I must you of duty greet
With thanks and wishes, wishing thankfully;
Be you still fair, honour'd by public heed;
By no encroachment wrong'd, nor time forgot;
Nor blamed for blood, nor shamed for sinful deed;
And that you know I envy you no lot
Of highest wish, I wish you so much bliss,
Hundreds of years you Stella's feet may kiss!
WHEN in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself, and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possest,
Desiring this man's art and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least,
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,—
Haply I think on Thee: and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;
For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my fate with kings.
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