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, Where blaze those lights, fairest of earthly things, My ambitious thoughts, confinèd in her face, For She, that can my heart imparadise, All my life's sweet consists in her alone; S. Daniel. AND yet I cannot reprehend the flight 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. And therefore, Delia, 'tis to me no blot 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, 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! And weep your last while wantonly she sings: Arise, my Thoughts, beyond the highest star! 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 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! And tell the ravisher of my soul I perish for her love: Then burst with sighing in her sight, and ne'er return again. All that I sang still to her praise did tend; 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! Yet follow thy fair sun, unhappy shadow ! Follow her, whose light thy light depriveth! 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. |