YKE as the Culver, on the bared bough,
Sits mourning for the absence of her mate;
And, in her songs, sends many a wishful vow
For his returne that seemes to linger late:
So I alone, now left disconsolate,
Mourne to my selfe the absence of my Love;
And, wandring here and there all desolate,
Seek with my playnts to match that mournful Dove:
Ne joy of ought, that under heaven doth hove,
Can comfort me, but her owne joyous sight:
Whose sweet aspect both God and man can move,
In her unspotted pleasauns to delight.
Dark is my day, whyles her fayre light I mis,
And dead my life that wants such lively blis.
SONNETS WRITTEN BY SPENSER,
COLLECTED FROM THE ORIGINAL PUBLICATIONS
To the right worshipfull, my singular good frend,
M. Gabriell Harvey, Doctor of the Lawes.
HARVEY, the happy above happiest men
I read; that, sitting like a Looker-on
Of this worldes stage, doest note with critique pen
The sharpe dislikes of each condition:
And, as one carelesse of suspition,
Ne fawnest for the favour of the great;
Ne fearest foolish reprehension
Of faulty men, which daunger to thee threat:
But freely doest, of what thee list, entreat,
Like a great lord of peerelesse liberty ;
Lifting the Good up to high Honours seat,
And the Evill damning evermore to dy:
For Life, and Death, is in thy doomeful writing!
So thy renowme lives ever by endighting.
Dublin, this xviij. of July, 1586.
Your devoted friend, during life,
WHOSO wil seeke, by right deserts, t' attaine
Unto the type of true Nobility;
And not by painted shewes, and titles vaine,
Derived farre from famous Auncestrie :
Behold them both in their right visnomy
Here truly pourtray'd, as they ought to be,
And striving both for termes of dignitie,
To be advanced highest in degree.
And, when thou doost with equall insight see
The ods twixt both, of both the deem aright,
And chuse the better of them both to thee;
But thanks to him, that it deserves, behight;
To Nenna first, that first this worke created,
And next to Jones, that truely it translated.
Upon the Historie of George Castriot, alias Scanderbeg, king of the Epirots, translated into English.
HEREFORE doth vaine Antiquitie so vaunt Her ancient monuments of mightie peeres, And old heröes, which their world did daunt With their great deedes and fild their childrens eares? Who, rapt with wonder of their famous praise,
Admire their statues, their colossoes great :
Their rich triumphall arcks which they did raise,
Their huge pyramids, which do heaven threat.
Lo! one, whom Later Age hath brought to light,
Matchable to the greatest of those great;
Great both by name, and great in power
and might,
And meriting a meere triumphant seate.
The scourge of Turkes, and plague of infidels,
Thy acts, O Scanderbeg, this volume tels.
* Prefixed to "Nennio, or A Treatise of Nobility," &c.
THE antique Babel, Empresse of the East,
Upreard her buildinges to the threatned skie:
And second Babell, Tyrant of the West,
Her ayry towers upraised much more high.
But, with the weight of their own surquedry,
They both are fallen, that all the earth did feare,
And buried now in their own ashes ly;
Yet shewing, by their heapes, how great they were.
But in their place doth now a third appeare,
Fayre Venice, flower of the last worlds delight;
And next to them in beauty draweth neare,
But farre exceedes in policie of right.
Yet not so fayre her buildinges to behold
As Lewkenors stile that hath her beautie told.
* Prefixed to "The Commonwealth and Government of Venice," &c.
AN ELEGIE UPON THE DEATH OF THE NOBLE AND
VERTUOUS DOUGLAS HOWARD, DAUGHTER AND HEIRE OF HENRY LORD HOWARD, VISCOUNT BYNDON, AND WIFE OF ARTHUR GORGES, ESQUIER.
DEDICATED TO THE RIGHT HONORABLE THE LADIE
HELENA, MARQUESSE OF NORTHAMPTON.
|