Page images
PDF
EPUB

THE BEAUTY OF BEAUTIES

WHEN in the chronicle of wasted time

I see descriptions of the fairest wights,
And beauty making beautiful old rhyme
In praise of ladies dead and lovely knights;

Then, in the blazon of sweet beauty's best,
Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow,
I see their antique pen would have express'd
Even such a beauty as you master now.

So all their praises are but prophecies
Of this our time, all you prefiguring;
And, for they look'd but with divining eyes,
They had not skill enough your worth to sing :

For we, which now behold these present days,

Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise.

Σ

AMOR CONTRA MUNDUM

NOT mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul

Of the wide world dreaming on things to

come

Can yet the lease of my true love control,
Supposed as forfeit to a confined doom.

The mortal moon hath her eclipse endured,
And the sad augurs mock their own presage ;
Incertainties now crown themselves assured,
And peace proclaims olives of endless age.

Now with the drops of this most balmy time
My love looks fresh, and Death to me subscribes,
Since, spite of him, I'll live in this poor rhyme,
While he insults o'er dull and speechless tribes :

And thou in this shalt find thy monument,

When tyrants' crests and tombs of brass are

spent.

THE EVER NEW

WHAT'S in the brain that ink may character Which hath not figured to thee my true

spirit?

What's new to speak, what new to register,
That may express my love or thy dear merit?

Nothing, sweet boy; but yet, like prayers divine,
I must each day say o'er the very same,
Counting no old thing old, thou mine, I thine,
Even as when first I hallow'd thy fair name.

So that eternal love in love's fresh case
Weighs not the dust and injury of age,
Nor gives to necessary wrinkles place,
But makes antiquity for aye his page,

Finding the first conceit of love there bred Where time and outward form would show it

dead.

PROTESTATION

O,NEVER say that I was false of heart,

Though absence seem'd my flame to

qualify.

As easy might I from myself depart

As from my soul, which in thy breast doth lie:

That is my home of love: if I have ranged,
Like him that travels I return again,

Just to the time, not with the time exchanged,
So that myself bring water for my stain.

Never believe, though in my nature reign'd
All frailties that besiege all kinds of blood,
That it could so preposterously be stain'd,
To leave for nothing all thy sum of good;

For nothing this wide universe I call,
Save thou, my rose; in it thou art my all.

AN APOLOGY

ALAS, 'tis true I have gone here and there

And made myself a motley to the view,

Gored mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most

dear;

Made old offences of affections new ;

Most true it is that I have look'd on truth
Askance and strangely: but, by all above,
These blenches gave my heart another youth,
And worse essays proved thee my best of love.

Now all is done, have what shall have no end :
Mine appetite I never more will grind
On newer proof, to try an older friend,

A god in love, to whom I am confined :

:

Then give me welcome, next my heaven the best,

Even to thy pure and most most loving breast.

« PreviousContinue »