The Household Book of Poetry

SONNETS.

WITH how sad steps, O Moon, thou climb'st the skies,

How silently, and with how wan a face! What! may it be, that even in heavenly place That busy archer his sharp arrows tries? Sure, if that long-with-love-acquainted eyes

Can judge of love, thou feel'st a lover's case; I read it in thy looks; thy languished grace, To me that feel the like, thy state descries.

Then even of fellowship, O Moon, tell me: Is constant love deemed there but want of wit? Are beauties there as proud as here they be? Do they above love to be loved, and yet Those lovers scorn whom that love doth possess? Do they call virtue there ungratefulness?

SIR PHILIP SIDNEY.

I give Thee Eternity.

How many paltry, foolish, painted things,
That now in coaches trouble every street,

Shall be forgotten, whom no poet sings,

Ere they be well wrapped in their windingsheet,

Where I to thee eternity shall give

When nothing else remaineth of these days, And queens hereafter shall be glad to live

Upon the alms of thy superfluous praise; Virgins and matrons reading these, my rhymes, Shall be so much delighted with thy story, That they shall grieve they lived not in these times, To have seen thee, their sex's only glory: So shalt thou fly above the vulgar throng, Still to survive in my immortal song.

Sonnet.

MICHAEL DRAYTON.

I KNOW that all beneath the moon decays;
And what by mortals in this world is brought,
In time's great periods shall return to nought;
That fairest states have fatal nights and days.
I know that all the muses' heavenly lays,

With toil of sprite which are so dearly bought, As idle sounds, of few or none are sought; That there is nothing lighter than vain praise.

I know frail beauty's like the purple flower To which one morn oft birth and death affords, That love a jarring is of mind's accords.

245

If it be true that any beauteous thing
Raises the pure and just desire of man
From earth to God, the eternal fount of all,
Such I believe my love; for as in her
So fair, in whom I all besides forget,
I view the gentle work of her Creator,
I have no care for any other thing,
Whilst thus I love. Nor is it marvellous,
Since the effect is not of my own power,
If the soul doth, by nature tempted forth,
Enamored through the eyes,

Repose upon the eyes which it resembleth,
And through them riseth to the Primal Love,
As to its end, and honors in admiring;

For who adores the Maker needs must love His work.

Translation of J. E. TAYLOR.

MICHEL ANGELO. (Italian.)

To Vittoria Colonna.

YES! hope may with my strong desire keep pace, And I be undeluded, unbetrayed;

For if of our affections none find grace

In sight of heaven, then wherefore hath God made The world which we inhabit? Better plea Love cannot have, than that in loving thee Glory to that Eternal Peace is paid, Who such divinity to thee imparts As hallows and makes pure all gentle hearts. His hope is treacherous only whose love dies With beauty, which is varying every hour: But in chaste hearts, uninfluenced by the power Of outward change, there blooms a deathless flower, That breathes on earth the air of paradise.

MICHEL ANGELO. (Italian.) Translation of WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

I NEVER gave a lock of hair away

To a man, dearest, except this to thee,
Which now upon my fingers thoughtfully
I ring out to the full brown length, and say,
"Take it!" My day of youth went yesterday;

My hair no longer bounds to my foot's glee,
Nor plant I it from rose or myrtle-tree,
As girls do, any more. It only may
Now shade on two pale cheeks the mark of tears,
Taught drooping from the head that hangs
aside

Through sorrow's trick. I thought the funeral
shears

Would take this first, but love is justified,— Take it thou,-finding pure, from all those years, The kiss my mother left there when she died.

SAY over again, and yet once over again,

That thou dost love me. Though the word re-
peated
Should seem

treat it,

Cry: "Speak once more-thou lovest!" Who can fear

Too many stars, though each in heaven shall roll

Too many flowers, though each shall crown the
year?

Say thou dost love me, love me, love me- -toll
The silver iterance!-only minding, dear,
To love me also in silence, with thy soul.

IF I leave all for thee, wilt thou exchange
And be all to me? Shall I never miss
Home-talk and blessing, and the common kiss
That comes to each in turn, nor count it strange,
When I look up, to drop on a new range

Of walls and floors- - another home than this?
Nay, wilt thou fill that place by me which is
Filled by dead eyes too tender to know change?
That's hardest. If to conquer Love has tried,

To conquer Grief tries more, as all things prove;
For grief indeed is love and grief beside.

Alas, I have grieved so, I am hard to love.
Yet love me-wilt thou? Open thine heart wide
And fold within the wet wings of thy dove.

FIRST time he kissed me, he but only kissed
The fingers of this hand wherewith I write;
And, ever since, it grew more clean and white,
Slow to world-greetings, quick with its "O list!"
When the angels speak. A ring of amethyst
I could not wear here, plainer to my sight,
Than that first kiss. The second passed in
height

The first, and sought the forehead, and half missed,
Half falling on the hair. Oh, beyond meed!

That was the chrism of love, which love's own
crown,

With sanctifying sweetness, did precede.
The third upon my lips was folded down

a cuckoo-song," as thou dost In perfect, purple state; since when, indeed,

Remember, never to the hill or plain,

Valley and wood, without her cuckoo-strain,

Comes the fresh Spring in all her green completed.

Beloved, I, amid the darkness greeted

By a doubtful spirit-voice, in that doubt's pain

I have been proud, and said, "My love, my

own!"

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways:

I love thee to the depth, and breadth, and height My soul can reach, when feeling, out of sight, For the ends of being and ideal grace.

A LECTURE UPON THE SHADOW.

247

I love thee to the level of every day's

Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.

I love thee freely as men strive for right; I love thee purely, as they turn from praise. I love thee with the passion put to use

In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith. I love thee with a love I seemed to lose

With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears, of all my life!—and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death.

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.

To One who would make a Confession.

OH! leave the past to bury its own dead.

The past is naught to us, the present all.

A Lecture upon the Shadow.
STAND still, and I will read to thee
A lecture, Love, in love's philosophy.
These three hours that we have spent
Walking here, two shadows went

Along with us, which we ourselves produced:
But, now the sun is just above our head,
We do those shadows tread,

And to brave clearness all things are reduced.
So whilst our infant loves did grow,
Disguises did and shadows flow
From us and from our cares; but now it is not so.

That love hath not attained the high'st degree,
Which is still diligent lest others see;
Except our loves at this noon stay,

What need of last year's leaves to strew Love's bed? We shall new shadows make the other way.
What need of ghost to grace a festival?
I would not, if I could, those days recall,
Those days not ours. For us the feast is spread,
The lamps are lit, and music plays withal.
Then let us love and leave the rest unsaid.
This island is our home. Around it roar
Great gulfs and oceans, channels, straits, and seas.
What matter in what wreck we reached the shore,
So we both reached it? We can mock at these.
Oh! leave the past, if past indeed there be;
I would not know it; I would know but thee.
WILFRED SCAWEN BLUnt.

As the first were made to blind

Others, these which come behind

Will work upon ourselves, and blind our eyes,
If our loves faint, and westwardly decline,
To me thou falsely thine,

And I to thee mine actions shall disguise.
The morning shadows wear away,
But these grow longer all the day;
But, oh! love's day is short, if love decay.

Love is a growing or full constant light,
And his short minute, after noon, is night.

JOHN DONNE.

To One Excusing his Poverty.

AH! love, impute it not to me a sin
That my poor soul thus beggared comes to thee.
My soul a pilgrim was, in search of thine,
And met these accidents by land and sea.
The world was hard, and took its usury,
Its toll for each new night in each new inn;
And every road had robber bands to fee;
And all, even kindness, must be paid in coin.
Behold my scrip is empty, my heart bare.

I give thee nothing who my all would give.
My pilgrimage is finished, and I fare

Bare to my death, unless with thee I live.
Ah! give, love, and forgive that I am poor.
Ah! take me to thy arms and ask no more.
WILFRED SCAWEN BLUNT.

Phillida and Corydon.

In the merrie moneth of Maye,
In a morne by break of daye,
With a troupe of damsells playing,
Forth I yode forsooth a-maying;

Where anon by a wood side,
Whenas Maye was in his pride,
I espied all alone
Phillida and Corydon.

Much adoe there was, God wot;
He wold love, and she wold not.
She sayd never man was trewe;
He sayes none was false to you.

DISCOURSE WITH CUPID.

Tell Me, my Heart.

WHEN Delia on the plain appears,
Awed by a thousand tender fears,
I would approach, but dare not move:
Tell me, my heart, if this be love?

Whene'er she speaks, my ravished ear
No other voice but hers can hear,
No other wit but hers approve :
Tell me, my heart, if this be love?

If she some other youth commend,
Though I was once his fondest friend,
His instant enemy I prove:
Tell me, my heart, if this be love?

When she is absent, I no more
Delight in all that pleased before,
The clearest spring, the shadiest grove:
Tell me, my heart, if this be love?

When, fond of power, of beauty vain,
Her nets she spread for every swain,
I strove to hate, but vainly strove:
Tell me, my heart, if this be love?

LORD LYTTELTON.

Discourse with Cupid.

NOBLEST Charis, you that are
Both my fortune and my star!
And do govern more my blood,
Than the various moon the flood!

Hear what late discourse of you
Love and I have had; and true.
'Mongst my muses finding me,
Where he chanced your name to see
Set, and to this softer strain:
"Sure," said he, "if I have brain,
This here sung can be no other
By description, but my mother!
So hath Homer praised her hair;
So Anacreon drawn the air
Of her face, and made to rise,
Just about her sparkling eyes,
Both her brows, bent like my bow.
By her looks I do her know,

Which you call my shafts. And see!
Such my mother's blushes be,
As the bath your verse discloses
In her cheeks of milk and roses;
Such as oft I wanton in.

249

And above her even chin,
Have you placed the bank of kisses
Where, you say, men gather blisses,
Ripened with a breath more sweet,
Than when flowers and west winds meet.
Nay, her white and polished neck,
With the lace that doth it deck,
Is my mother's! hearts of slain
Lovers, made into a chain!
And between each rising breast
Lies the valley called my nest,
Where I sit and proyne my wings
After flight; and put new strings
To my shafts! Her very name,
With my mother's is the same."
"I confess all," I replied,

And the glass hangs by her side,
And the girdle 'bout her waist,
All is Venus; save unchaste.
But, alas! thou seest the least
Of her good, who is the best

Of her sex; but couldst thou, Love,
Call to mind the forms that strove
For the apple, and those three
Make in one, the same were she.
For this beauty still doth hide
Something more than thou hast spied.
Outward grace weak Love beguiles:
She is Venus when she smiles,

But she's Juno when she walks,
And Minerva when she talks."

To Celia.

BEN JONSON.

DRINK to me only with thine eyes,
And I will pledge with mine;
Or leave a kiss but in the cup,

And I'll not look for wine.

The thirst that from the soul doth rise Doth ask a drink divine;

But might I of Jove's nectar sup,

I would not change for thine.

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