HAPPY, ye leaves! when as those lilly hands,
Which hold my life in their dead-doing might,
Shall handle you, and hold in loves soft bands,
Lyke captives trembling at the victors sight.
And happy lines! on which, with starry light,
Those lamping eyes will deigne sometimes to look,
And reade the sorrowes of my dying spright,
Written with teares in harts close-bleeding book.
And happy rymes! bath'd in the sacred brooke
Of Helicon, whence she derived is;
When ye behold that Angels blessed looke,
My soules long-lacked food, my heavens blis;
Leaves, lines, and rymes, seeke her to please alone,
Whom if ye please, I care for other none!
Vide REMARKS, pp. 95, 102.
Unquiet thought! whom at the first I bred
Of th' inward bale of my love-pined hart;
And sithens have with sighes and sorrowes fed,
Till greater than my wombe thou woxen art:
Breake forth at length out of th' inner part,
In which thou lurkest lyke to vipers brood;
And seeke some succour both to ease my smart,
And also to sustayne thy selfe with food.
But, if in presence of that fayrest Proud
Thou chance to come, fall lowly at her feet;
And, with meek humblesse and afflicted mood,
Pardon for thee, and grace for me, intreat:
Which if she graunt, then live, and my love cherish: If not, die soone; and I with thee will perish.
1 Sithens, since that time.
The soverayne beauty which I doo admyre,
Witnesse the world how worthy to be prayzed !
The light wherof hath kindled heavenly fyre
In my fraile spirit, by her from basenesse raysed;
That being now with her huge brightnesse dazed,1
Base thing I can no more endure to view :
But, looking still on her, 'I stand amazed
At wondrous sight of so celestiall hew.
So when my toung would speak her praises dew,
It stopped is with thoughts astonishment;
And, when my pen would write her titles true,
It ravisht is with fancies wonderment:
Yet in my hart I then both speak and write
The wonder that my wit cannot endite,
New yeare, forth looking out of Ianus gate,
Doth seeme to promise hope of new delight:
And, bidding th' old adieu, his passed date
Bids all old thoughts to die in dumpish' spright:
And, calling forth out of sad Winters night
Fresh Love, that long hath slept in cheerlesse bower,
Wils him awake, and soone about him dight
His wanton wings and darts of deadly power.
For lusty Spring now in his timely howre
Is ready to come forth, him to receive;
And warns the Earth with divers-colord flowre
To decke hir selfe, and her faire mantle weave.
Then you, faire flowre! in whom fresh youth doth raine, Prepare your selfe new love to entertaine.
Rudely thou wrongest my deare harts desire,
In finding fault with her too portly pride:
The thing which I doo most in her admire,
Is of the world unworthy most envide:
For in those lofty lookes is close implide,
Scorn of base things, and sdeigne of foul dishonor;
Thretning rash eies which gaze on her so wide,
That loosely they ne dare to looke upon her.
Such pride is praise; such portlinesse is honor;
That boldned innocence beares in hir eies;
And her faire countenance, like a goodly banner,
Spreds in defiaunce of all enemies.
Was never in this world ought worthy tride,
Without some spark of such self-pleasing pride.
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