English Poems: The Elizabethan age and the Puritan period (1550-1660)

Which their fond nephews make their chief affairs,
Would hate themselves, that had begot such heirs."

"Sole heir of virtue and of beauty both,
Whence cometh it," Antinoüs replies,
"That your imperious virtue is so loath
To grant your beauty her chief exercise?

Or from what spring doth your opinion rise

That dancing is a frenzy and a rage,

First known and used in this new-fangled age?

"Dancing, bright lady, then began to be

When the first seeds whereof the world did spring-
The fire, air, earth, and water-did agree
By Love's persuasion, Nature's mighty king,
To leave their first disordered combating,
And in a dance such measure to observe
As all the world their motion should preserve.

"Since when, they still are carried in a round,
And, changing, come one in another's place;
Yet do they neither mingle nor confound,
But every one doth keep the bounded space
Wherein the dance doth bid it turn or trace.
This wondrous miracle did Love devise,
For dancing is Love's proper exercise."

FROM

NOSCE TEIPSUM

Are they not senseless, then, that think the soul
Naught but a fine perfection of the sense,
Or of the forms which fancy doth enroll
A quick resulting and a consequence?

What is it, then, that doth the sense accuse

1596.

Both of false judgments and fond appetites?

Which makes us do what sense doth most refuse?

Which oft in torment of the sense delights?

Sense thinks the planets' spheres not much asunder:
What tells us, then, their distance is so far?
Sense thinks the lightning born before the thunder:
What tells us, then, they both together are?

When men seem crows, far off upon a tower,

Sense saith, "They are crows!" What makes us think

them men?

When we, in agues, think all sweet things sour,

What makes us know our tongue's false judgments then?

What power was that whereby Medea saw

And well approved and praised the better course,

When her rebellious sense did so withdraw

Her feeble powers as she pursued the worse?

Did sense persuade Ulysses not to hear

The mermaid's songs, which so his men did please

As they were all persuaded, through the ear,

To quit the ship and leap into the seas.

Could any power of sense the Roman move

To burn his own right hand, with courage stout?

Could sense make Marius sit unbound and prove
The cruel lancing of the knotty gout?

Doubtless in man there is a nature found

Beside the senses and above them far;

Though "most men being in sensual pleasures drowned,

It seems their souls but in their senses are."

If we had naught but sense, then only they

Should have sound minds which have their senses sound;

But wisdom grows when senses do decay,

And folly most in quickest sense is found.

If we had naught but sense, each living wight

Which we call brute would be more sharp than we,

As having sense's apprehensive might

In a more clear and excellent degree.

But they do want that quick discoursing power
Which doth, in us, the erring sense correct;
Therefore the bee did suck the painted flower,

And birds of grapes the cunning shadow pecked.

Sense outsides knows; the soul through all things sees;
Sense circumstance, she doth the substance, view;
Sense sees the bark, but she the life, of trees;
Sense hears the sounds, but she the concords true.

But why do I the soul and sense divide,

When sense is but a power which she extends,

Which, being in divers parts diversified,

The divers forms of objects apprehends?

This power spreads outward; but the root doth grow
In th' inward soul, which only doth perceive,
For the eyes and ears no more their objects know
Than glasses know what faces they receive.

For if we chance to fix our thoughts elsewhere,
Although our eyes be ope we do not see;
And if one power did not both see and hear,
Our sights and sounds would always double be.

Then is the soul a nature which contains

The power of sense within a greater power; Which doth employ and use the senses' pains,

But sits and rules within her private bower.

O ignorant poor man! what dost thou bear

Locked up within the casket of thy breast! What jewels and what riches hast thou there,

What heavenly treasure in so weak a chest!

Look in thy soul, and thou shalt beauties find

Like those which drowned Narcissus in the flood;

Honour and pleasure both are in thy mind,

And all that in the world is counted good.

Think of her worth, and think that God did mean
This worthy mind should worthy things embrace :
Blot not her beauties with thy thoughts unclean,
Nor her dishonour with thy passions base.

Kill not her quick'ning power with surfeitings;
Mar not her sense with sensualities;

Cast not her serious wit on idle things;
Make not her free will slave to vanities.

And when thou thinkest of her eternity,

Think not that death against her nature is: Think it a birth; and when thou goest to die, Sing like a swan, as if thou went'st to bliss!

And if thou, like a child, didst fear before,

Being in the dark, when thou didst nothing see,
Now have I brought thee torch-light, fear no more;
Now, when thou diest, thou canst not hoodwinked be.

1599.

ANONYMOUS

CRABBED AGE AND YOUTH

Crabbed Age and Youth cannot live together:
Youth is full of pleasance, Age is full of care;
Youth like summer morn, Age like winter weather;
Youth like summer brave, Age like winter bare.
Youth is full of sport, Age's breath is short;

Youth is nimble, Age is lame;

Youth is hot and bold, Age is weak and cold;
Youth is wild, and Age is tame.

Age, I do abhor thee; Youth, I do adore thee.

O, my love, my love is young!

Age, I do defy thee! O, sweet shepherd, hie thee,

For methinks thou stay'st too long.

ΤΟ

I SAW MY LADY WEEP

I saw my lady weep,

And Sorrow proud to be advanced so

In those fair eyes where all perfections keep.

Her face was full of woe;

But such a woe, believe me, as wins more hearts
That Mirth can do with her enticing parts.

Sorrow was there made fair,

And passion wise; tears, a delightful thing;
Silence, beyond all speech, a wisdom rare;
She made her sighs to sing,

And all things with so sweet a sadness move
As made my heart at once both grieve and love.

O fairer than aught else

The world can show, leave off in time to grieve!
Enough, enough! your joyful look excels;

Tears kill the heart, believe.

O strive not to be excellent in woe,

Which only breeds your beauty's overthrow.

1600.

THE UNKNOWN SHEPHERD'S COMPLAINT

My flocks feed not, my ewes breed not,
My rams speed not, all is amiss;
Love is denying, faith is defying,
Hearts reneying, causer of this.
All my merry jigs are quite forgot;
All my lady's love is lost, God wot;

Where her faith was firmly fixt in love,
There a nay is placed without remove.

One silly cross wrought all my loss:

O frowning Fortune, cursèd fickle dame!
For now I see, inconstancy

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