On

Not a flower, not a flower sweet,

my

black coffin let there be strown;

Not a friend, not a friend greet

My poor corse, where my bones shall be thrown: A thousand thousand sighs to save

Lay me, O, where

Sad true lover never find my grave

To weep there!

Shakespeare.

CXCV

THE NOBLE FALL

1

My spotless love hovers with purest wings,
About the temple of the proudest frame,

Where blaze those lights, fairest of earthly things,
Which clear our clouded world with brightest flame.

My ambitious thoughts, confinèd in her face,
Affect no honour but what She can give;
My hopes do rest in limits of her grace;
I weigh no comfort unless she relieve.

For She, that can my heart imparadise,
Holds in her fairest hand what dearest is ;
My Fortune's wheel's the circle of her eyes,
Whose rolling grace deign once a turn of bliss.

All my life's sweet consists in her alone;
So much I love the most Unloving one.

S. Daniel.

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 shore? Danger hath honour, 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, tho' attain'd thee not.

S. Daniel.

CXCVII

ICARUS

LOVE wing'd my Hopes and taught me how to fly Far from base earth, but not to mount too high:

For true pleasure

Lives in measure,

Which if men forsake,

Blind they into folly run and grief for pleasure take.

But my vain Hopes, proud of their new-taught

flight,

Enamour'd sought to win the sun's fair light,

Whose rich brightness

Moved their lightness

To aspire so high

That all scorch'd and consumed with fire now drown'd in woe they lie.

And none but Love their woeful hap did rue,
For Love did know that their desires were true;
Though fate frowned,

And now drowned

They in sorrow dwell,

It was the purest light of heav'n for whose fair love

they fell.

CXCVIII

Anon.

ARISE, my Thoughts, and mount you with the sun!
Call all the winds to make you speedy wings,
And to my fairest Maia see you run

And weep your last while wantonly she sings:
Then if you cannot move her heart to pity,
Let Oh, alas, ay me! be all your ditty.

Arise, my Thoughts, beyond the highest star!
And gently rest you in fair Maia's eye,
For that is fairer than the brightest are:
But, if she frown to see you climb so high,
Couch in her lap, and with a moving ditty
Of smiles and love and kisses beg for pity.

Anon.

TRUE DEVOTION

177

CXCIX

My Thoughts are wing'd with Hopes, my Hopes with Love:

Mount, Love, unto the Moon in clearest night,
And say, As she doth in the heavens move,
In earth so wanes and waxes my delight:

And whisper this, but softly, in her ears,

'Hope oft doth hang the head and Trust shed tears.'

Anon.

CC

TRUE DEVOTION

FOLLOW your saint, follow with accents sweet!
Haste you, sad notes, fall at her flying feet!
There, wrapt in cloud of sorrow, pity move,

And tell the ravisher of my soul I perish for her love:
But if she scorn my never-ceasing pain,

Then burst with sighing in her sight, and ne'er return again.

All that I sang still to her praise did tend;
Still she was first, still she my songs did end;

Yet she my love and music both doth fly,

The music that her echo is and beauty's sympathy: Then let my notes pursue her scornful flight!

It shall suffice that they were breath'd and died for

her delight.

M

T. Campion.

CCI

THE SHADOW

1

FOLLOW thy fair sun, unhappy shadow!
Though thou be black as night,
And she made all of light,

Yet follow thy fair sun, unhappy shadow !

Follow her, whose light thy light depriveth!
Though here thou liv'st disgraced,

And she in heaven is placed,

Yet follow her whose light the world reviveth!

Follow those pure beams, whose beauty burneth! That so have scorched thee

As thou still black must be,

Till her kind beams thy black to brightness turneth.

Follow her, while yet her glory shineth!

There comes a luckless night

That will dim all her light;

And this the black unhappy shade divineth.

Follow still, since so thy fates ordained!

The sun must have his shade,

Till both at once do fade,—

The sun still proved, the shadow still disdainèd.

T. Campion.