The Flower of the Mind: a choice among the best poems

Introduction

Partial collections of English poems, decided by a common subject or bounded by narrow dates and periods of literary history, are made at very short intervals, and the makers are safe from the reproach of proposing their own personal taste as a guide for the reading of others. But a general Anthology gathered from the whole of English literature — the whole from Chaucer to Wordsworth — by a gatherer intent upon nothing except the quality of poetry, is a more rare enter prise. It is hardly to be made without tempting the suspicion — nay, hardly without seeming to hazard the confession — of some measure of self confidence. Nor can even the desire to enter upon that labour be a frequent one — the desire of the heart of one for whom poetry is verit ably 'the complementary life' to set up a pale for inclusion and exclusion, to add honours, to multiply homage, to cherish, to restore, to protest, to proclaim, to depose ; and to gain the consent of a multitude of readers to all those acts.

Many years, then— some part of a century— may easily pass between the publication of one general anthology and the making of another. The enterprise would be a sorry one if it were really arbitrary, and if an anthologist should give effect to passionate preferences without authority. An anthology that shall have any VI Introduction value must be made on the responsibility of one but on the authority of many. There is no caprice ; the mind of the maker has been formed for decision by the wisdom of many instructors. It is the very study of criticism, and the grateful and profitable study, that gives the justification to work done upon the strongest personal impulse, and done, finally, in the mental solitude that cannot be escaped at the last. In another order, moral education would be best crowned if it proved to have quick and profound control over the first impulses ; its finished work would be to set the soul in a state of law, delivered from the delays of self -distrust ; not action only, but the desires would be in an old security, and a wish would come to light already justified.

This would be the second — if it were not the only— liberty. Even so an intellectual education might assuredly confer freedom upon first and solitary thoughts, and confidence and composure upon the sallies of impetuous courage. In a word, it should make a studious anthologist quite sure about genius. And all who have bestowed, or helped in bestowing, the liberating education have given their student the authority to be free. Personal and singular the choice in such a book must be, not without right. Claiming and disclaiming so much, the gatherers may follow one another to harvest, and glean in the same fields in different seasons, for the re petition of the work can never be altogether a repetition. The general consent of criticism does not stand still ; and moreover, a mere accident Introduction has until now left a poet of genius of the past here and there to neglect or obscurity.

This is not very likely to befall again ; the time has come when there is little or nothing left to discover or rediscover in the sixteenth century or the seven teenth ; we know that there does not lurk another Crashaw contemned, or another Henry Vaughan disregarded, or another George Herbert misplaced. There is now something like finality of knowledge at least; and therefore not a little error in the past is ready to be repaired. This is the result of time. Of the slow actions and reactions of critical taste there might be something to say, but nothing important. No loyal anthologist perhaps will consent to acknowledge these tides ; he will hardly do his work well unless he believe it to be stable and perfect ; nor, by the way, will he judge worthily in the name of others unless he be resolved to judge intrepidly for himself.

Inasmuch as even the best of all poems are the best upon innumerable degrees, the size of most anthologies has gone far to decide what degrees are to be gathered in and what left without. The best might make a very small volume, and be indeed the best, or a very large volume, and be still indeed the best. But my labour has been to do somewhat differently — to gather nothing that did not overpass a certain boundary-line of genius. Gray's Elegy, for instance, would rightly be placed at the head of everything below that mark. It is, in fact, so near to the "work of genius as to be most directly, closely, and immediately rebuked by genius ; it meets genius at close quarters and Introduction almost deserves that Shakespeare himself should defeat it. Mediocrity said its own true word in the Elegy : ' Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air.' But greatness had said its own word also in a sonnet : ' The summer flower is to the summer sweet Though to itself it only live and die.' The reproof here is too sure ; not always does it touch so quick, but it is not seldom manifest, and it makes exclusion a simple task.

Inclusion, on the other hand, cannot be so completely fulfilled. The impossibility of taking in poems of great length, however purely lyrical, is a mechanical barrier, even on the plan of the present volume ; in the case of Spenser's Prothalamion, the un manageably autobiographical and local passage makes it inappropriate ; some exquisite things of Landor's are lyrics in blank verse, and the necessary rule against blank verse shuts them out. No extracts have been made from any poem, but in a very few instances a stanza or a passage has been dropped out. No poem has been put in for the sake of a single perfectly fine passage ; it would be too much to say that no poem has been put in for the sake of two splendid passages or so. The Scottish ballad poetry is represented by examples that are to my mind finer than anything left out ; still, it is but represented ; and as the song of this multitude of unknown poets overflows by its quantity a collection of lyrics of genius, so does Introduction severally the song of Wordsworth, Crashaw, and Shelley.

It has been necessary, in con sidering traditional songs of evidently mingled authorship, to reject some one invaluable stanza or burden — the original and ancient surviving matter of a spoilt song — because it was necessary to reject the sequel that has cumbered it since some sentimentalist took it for his own. An ex ample, which makes the heart ache, is that burden of keen and remote poetry : ' 0 the broom, the bonnie, bonnie broom, The broom of Cowdenknowes ! ' Perhaps some hand will gather all such precious fragments as these together one day, freed from what is alien in the work of the restorer. It is in explicable that a generation resolved to forbid the restoration of ancient buildings should approve the eighteenth century restoration of ancient poems ; nay, the architectural ' restorer ' is immeasurably the more respectful.

In order to give us again the ancient fragments, it is happily not necessary to break up the composite songs which, since the time of Burns, have gained a national love. Let them be, but let the old verses be also ; and let them have, for those who desire it, the solitariness of their state of ruin. Even in the cases— and they are not few — where Burns is proved to have given beauty and music to the ancient fragment itself, his wor,k upon the old stanza is immeasur ably finer than his work in his own new stanzas following, and it would be less than impiety to part the two. X Introduction I have obeyed a profound conviction which I have reason to hope will be more commended in the future than perhaps it can be now, in leaving aside a multitude of composite songs —anachronisms, and worse than mere anachron isms, as I think them to be, for they patch wild feeling with sentiment of the sentimentalist.

There are some exceptions. The one fine stanza of a song which both Sir Walter Scott and Burns restored is given with the restorations of both, those restorations being severally beautiful ; and the burden, ' Hame, hame, hame,' is printed with the Jacobite song that carries it ; this song seems so mingled and various in date and origin that no apology is needed for placing it amongst the bundle of Scottish ballads of days before the Jacobites. Sir Patrick Spens is treated here as an ancient song. It is to be noted that the modern, or com paratively modern, additions to old songs fidl of quantitative metre—' Hame, hame, hame,' is one of these— full of long notes, rests, and interlinear pauses, are almost always written in anapæsts. The later writer has slipped away from the fine, various, and subtle metre of the older.

Assuredly the popularity of the metre which, for want of a term suiting the English rules of verse, must be called anapæstic, has done more than any other thing to vulgarise the national sense of rhythm and to silence the finer rhythms. Anapæsts came quite suddenly into English poetry and brought coarseness, glibness, volubility, dapper and fatuous effects. A master may use it well, but as a popular measure it has been disastrous. I Introduction would be bound to find the modern stanzas in an old song by this very habit of anapæsts and this very misunderstanding of the long words and interlinear pauses of the older stanzas. This, for instance, is the old metre : ' Hame, hame, hame ! 0 hame fain wad I be ! ' and this the lamentable anapæstic line (from the same song) : ' Yet the sun through the mirk seems to promise to me .' It has been difficult to refuse myself the delight of including A Divine Love of Carew, but it seemed too bold to leave out four stanzas of a poem of seven, and the last four are of the poorest argument.

This passage at least shall speak for the first three : ' Thou didst appear A glorious mystery, so dark, so clear. As Nature did intend All should confess, but none might comprehend.' From Christ's Victory in Heaven of Giles Fletcher (out of reach for its length) it is a happiness to extract here at least the passage upon ' Justice,' who looks ' as the eagle that hath so oft compared Her eye with heaven's ' ; from Marlowe's poem, also unmanageable, that in which Love ran to the priestess ' And laid his childish head upon her breast Introduction with that which tells how Night, ' deep-drenched in misty Acheron, Heaved up her head, and half the world upon Breathed darkness forth ' ; from Robert Greene two lines of a lovely passage : ' Cupid abroad was lated in the night, His wings were wet with ranging in the rain ' ; from Ben Jonson's Hue and Cry (not throughout fine) the stanza : ' Beauties, have ye seen a toy, Called Love, a little boy, Almost naked, wanton, blind ; Cruel now, and then as kind ?

If he be amongst ye, say ; He is Venus' run-away ' ; from Francis Davison : ' Her angry eyes are great with tears ' ; from George Wither : ' I can go rest On her sweet breast That is the pride of Cynthia's train ' ; from Cowley : ' Return, return, gay planet of mine east ' ! The poems in which these are cannot make part of the volume, but the citation of the fragments is a relieving act of love. At the very beginning, Skelton's song to ' Mistress Margery Wentworth ' had almost taken a place ; but its charm is hardly fine enough. If it is necessary to answer the inevitable Introduction question in regard to Byron, let me say that in another Anthology, a secondary Anthology, the one in which Gray's Elegy would have an honourable place, some more of Byron's lyrics would certainly be found ; and except this there is no apology.

If the last stanza of the 'Dying Gladiator ' passage, or the last stanza on the cas cade rainbow at Terni, ' Love watching madness with unalterable mien,' had been separate poems instead of parts of Childe Harold, they would have been amongst the poems that are here collected in no spirit of arrogance, or of caprice, of diffidence or doubt. The volume closes some time before the middle of the century and the death of Wordsworth. A. M CONTENTS PACE ANONYMOUS. THE FIRST CAROL 1 SIR WALTER RALEIGH (1552-1618). VERSES BEFORE DEATH 1 EDMUND SPENSER (1553- 1 599). EASTER .2 FRESH SPRING 2 LIKE AS A SHIP 3 EPITHALAMION ....... 3 JOHN LYLY (i554?-i6o6). THE SPRING 17 SIR PHILIP SIDNEY (1554-1586). TRUE LOVE 18 THE MOON 18 KISS ......... 19 SWEET JUDGE 19 SLEEP 20 WAT'RED WAS MY WINE 20 THOMAS LODGE (1556-1625).

ROSALTND'S MADRIGAL ...... 21 ROSALINE 22 THE SOLITARY SHEPHERD'S SONG .... 24 ANONYMOUS. I SAW MY LADY WEEP 24 GEORGE PEELE (1558?- 1 597). FAREWELL TO ARMS Contents PAGE ROBERT GREENE (i56o?-i592). FAWNIA 26 SEPHESTIA'S SONG TO HER CHILD .... 27 CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE (1562-1593). THE PASSIONATE SHEPHERD TO HIS LOVE 28 SAMUEL DANIEL (1 562-1619). SLEEP 29 MY SPOTLESS LOVE 30 MICHAEL DRAYTON (i 563-1 631). SINCE THERE'S NO HELP 30 JOSHUA SYLVESTER (1563-1618). WERE I AS BASE 31 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (1564-1616). POOR SOUL, THE CENTRE OF MY SINFUL EARTH . 32 O ME ! WHAT EYES HATH LOVE PUT IN MY HEAD 32 SHALL I COMPARE THEE TO A SUMMER'S DAY? . 33 WHEN IN THE CHRONICLE OF WASTED TIME . 33 THAT TIME OF YEAR THOU MAY'ST IN ME BEHOLD 34 HOW LIKE A WINTER HATH MY ABSENCE BEEN . 34 BEING YOUR SLAVE, "WHAT SHOULD I DO BUT TEND 35 WHEN IN DISGRACE WITH FORTUNE AND MEN'S EYES 35 THEY THAT HAVE POWER TO HURT, AND 'WILL DO 36 FAREWELL !

THOU ART TOO DEAR FOR MY POSSESSING 37 WHEN TO THE SESSIONS OF SWEET SILENT THOUGHT 37 DID NOT THE HEAVENLY RHETORIC OF THINE EYE 38 THE FORWARD VIOLET THUS DID I CHIDE . . 38 O LEST THE WORLD SHOULD TASK YOU TO RECITE . 39 LET ME NOT TO THE MARRIAGE OF TRUE MINDS . 39 HOW OFT, WHEN THOU, MY MUSIC, MUSIC PLAY'ST 40 FULL MANY A GLORIOUS MORNING HAVE I SEEN . 40 THE EXPENSE OF SPIRIT IN A WASTE OF SHAME . 41 FANCY 41 FAIRIES 42 COME AWAY Contents PAOE FULL FATHOM FIVE 43 DIRGE ........ 44 SONG 44 SONG 45 ANONYMOUS. TOM O' BEDLAM 45 THOMAS CAMPION (circa 1567-1620). KIND ARE HER ANSWERS ..... 46 LAURA 47 HER SACRED BOWER 48 FOLLOW 49 WHEN THOU MUST HOME 50 WESTERN WIND 50 FOLLOW YOUR SAINT 51 CHERRY-RIPE 52 THOMAS NASH (i 567-1601 ?). SPRING 53 JOHN DONNE (1573-1631). THIS HAPPY DREAM 53 DEATH 54 HYMN TO GOD THE FATHER ..... 55 THE FUNERAL 56 RICHARD BARNEELELD (1574? ?).

THE NIGHTINGALE 57 BEN JONSON (i 574-1637). CHARIS' TRIUMPH 58 JEALOUSY 59 EPITAPH ON ELIZABETH L. H 59 HYMN TO DIANA 60 ON MY FIRST DAUGHTER 60 ECHO'S LAMENT FOR NARCISSUS .... 61 AN EPITAPH ON SALATHIEL PAVY, A CHILD OF QUEEN ELIZABETH'S CHAPEL .... 61 b Contents PAGE JOHN FLETCHER (i 579-1625). INVOCATION TO SLEEP, FROM VALENTINIAN . . 62 TO BACCHUS ........ 63 JOHN WEBSTER ( '-1625). SONG FROM THE DUCHESS OF MALFI ... 63 SONG FROM THE DEVIL'S LAW-CASE ... 64 LN EARTH, DIRGE FROM VITTORIA COROMBONA . 64 WILLIAM DRUMMOND OF HAWTHORNDEN (1585-1649). SONG ......... 65 SLEEP, SILENCE' CHILD ...... 66 TO THE NIGHTINGALE 67 MADRIGAL I . . . . . . . .67 MADRIGAL II 68 BEAUMONT and FLETCHER (i 586- 1616)— ( 1579- 1625). I DIED TRUE 68 FRANCIS BEAUMONT (1586-1616). ON THE TOMBS IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY 69 SIR FRANCIS KYNASTON (1587-1642).

TO CYNTHIA, ON CONCEALMENT OF HER BEAUTY . 69 NATHANIEL FIELD (1587-1638). MATIN SONG 71 GEORGE WITHER (i 588-1667) SLEEP, BABY, SLEEP ! 71 THOMAS CAREW (1589-1639). SONG , 74 TO MY INCONSTANT MISTRESS .... 75 AN HYMENEAL DIALOGUE .... 75 INGRATEFUL BEAUTY THREATENED ... Contents PAGE THOMAS DEKKER ( 1638 ?). LULLABY 77 SWEET CONTENT ....... 77 THOMAS HEYWOOD ( 1649?). GOOD-MORROW ....... 78 ROBERT HERRICK (i 591-1674?). TO DIANEME 79 TO MEADOWS 79 TO BLOSSOMS 80 TO DAFFODILS 81 TO VIOLETS 82 TO PRIMROSES 82 TO DAISIES, NOT TO SHUT SO SOON ... 83 TO THE VIRGINS, TO MAKE MUCH OF TIME . . S4 DRESS 84 IN SILKS 85 CORINNA'S GOING A-MAYING ..... 85 GRACE FOR A CHILD 86 BEN JONSON 88 GEORGE HERBERT (1593-1632). HOLY BAPTISM 89 VIRTUE 89 UNKINDNESS . 90 LOVE 91 THE PULLEY 91 THE COLLAR 92 LIFE ......... 93 MISERY 94 JAMES SHIRLEY (1596-1666).

EQUALITY 97 ANONYMOUS (circa 1603). LULLABY 98 SIR WILLIAM DAVENANT (1605-1668). MORNING XX Contents PAGE EDMUND WALLER (1605- 1 68 7). THE ROSE 99 THOMAS RANDOLPH (1606- 1634?). HIS MISTRESS 100 CHARLES BEST ( ?). A SONNET OF THE MOON ..... 101 JOHN MILTON (1608-1674). HYMN ON CHRIST'S NATIVITY .... 101 L' ALLEGRO 109 IL PENSEROSO 113 LYCIDAS 119 ON HIS BLINDNESS ...... 125 ON HIS DECEASED WIFE ..... 126 ON SHAKESPEARE ...... 126 SONG ON MAY MORNING ..... 127 INVOCATION TO SABRINA, FROM COMUS . . 127 INVOCATION TO ECHO, FROM COMUS . . . 128 THE ATTENDANT SPIRIT, FROM COMUS . . . 129 JAMES GRAHAM, Marquis of Montrose (1612-1650). THE VIGIL OF DEATH ...... 130 RICHARD CRASHAW (16 15?- 1652). ON A PRAYER-BOOK SENT TO MRS. M. R. . . 131 TO THE MORNING ....... 135 LOVE'S HOROSCOPE ...... 137 ON MR. G. HERBERT'S

BOOK 138 WISHES TO HIS SUPPOSED MISTRESS

. . . 139 QUEM VIDISTIS PASTORES, ETC 144 music's duel 149 THE FLAMING HEART 154 ABRAHAM COWLEY (161S-1667). ON THE DEATH OF MR. CRASHAW . . . 157 HYMN TO THE LIGHT 159 RICHARD LOVELACE (1618-1658). TO LUCASTA ON GOING TO THE WARS . . . 163 TO AMARANTHA Contents PAGE LUCASTA 165 TO ALTHEA, FROM PRISON 166 A GUILTLESS LADY IMPRISONED : AFTER PENANCED 167 THE ROSE 168 ANDREW MARVELL (1620-1678). A HORATIAN ODE UPON CROMWELL'S RETURN FROM IRELAND ....... . 169 THE PICTURE OF T. C. IN A PROSPECT OF FLOWERS 173 THE NYMPH COMPLAINING OF DEATH OF HER FAWN 174 THE DEFINITION OF LOVE ..... 178 THE GARDEN 179 HENRY VAUGHAN (i 621-169 5). THE DAWNING . . . . . .182 CHILDHOOD 183 CORRUPTION 185 THE NIGHT 186 THE ECLIPSE 188 THE RETREAT 188 THE WORLD OF LIGHT 189 SCOTTISH BALLADS. HELEN OF KIRCONNELL 191 THE WIFE OF USHER'S WELL 192 THE DOWIE DENS OF YARROW .... 194 SWEET WILLIAM AND MAY MARGARET . . .197 SIR PATRICK SPENS 199 HAME, HAME, HAME 203 BORDER BALLAD.

A LYKE-WAKE DIRGE 204 JOHN DRYDEN (1631-1700). ode ......... 205 APHRA BEHN (1640- 1 689). song, from abdelazar 209 JOSEPH ADDISON (1672-1719). HYMN Contents PAGE ALEXANDER POPE (1688- 1744). ELEGY 210 WILLIAM COWPER (1 731- 1800). LINES ON RECEIVING HIS MOTHER'S PICTURE . 213 ANNA LAETITIA BARBAULD (1743-1825). life 217 WILLIAM BLAKE (1757-1828). THE LAND OF DREAMS ...... 217 THE PIPER 218 HOLY THURSDAY 219 THE TIGER 220 TO THE MUSES ....... 221 LOVE'S SECRET 221 ROBERT BURNS (1759-1796). TO A MOUSE . . 222 THE FAREWELL 224 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH (1770- 1 850). WHY ART THOU SILENT? ..... 225 THOUGHTS OF A BRITON ON THE SUBJUGATION OF SWITZERLAND ....... 226 IT IS A BEAUTEOUS EVENING, CALM AND FREE . 226 ON THE EXTINCTION OF THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC 227 O FRIEND ! I KNOW NOT 227 SURPRISED BY JOY 228 TO TOUSSAINT L'OUVERTURE 228 WITH SHIPS THE SEA WAS SPRINKLED . . . 229 THE WORLD 229 UPON WESTMINSTER BRIDGE, SEPT. 3, 1802 . . 230 WHEN I HAVE BORNE IN MEMORY . . . 230 THREE YEARS SHE GREW ..... 231 THE DAFFODILS ....... 232 THE SOLITARY REAPER 233 ELEGIAC STANZAS 234 TO H. C. 237 'TIS SAID THAT SOME HAVE DIED FOR LOVE . .

Contents PAGE THE PET LAMB 240 STEPPING WESTWARD 243 THE CHILDLESS FATHER 244 ODE ON INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY . . 245 SIR WALTER SCOTT (1771-1832). PROUD MAISIE 252 A WEARY LOT IS THINE 252 THE MAID OF NEIDPATH 253 SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE (1772- 1 834). KUBLA KHAN 254 YOUTH AND AGE 256 THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER . . . 258 WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR (1775-1864). ROSE AYLMER 281 EPITAPH 282 CHILD OF A DAY 282 THOMAS CAMPBELL (1767-1844). HOHENLINDEN 282 EARL MARCH 283 CHARLES LAMB (1775-1835). HESTER 284 ALLAN CUNNINGHAM (1784-1842). A WET SHEET AND A FLOWING SEA . . . 285 GEORGE NOEL GORDON, LORD BYRON (1788-1823). THE ISLES OF GREECE 286 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY (1792-1822). HELLAS 290 WILD WITH WEEPING 291 TO THE NIGHT . 291 TO A SKYLARK 293 TO THE MOON 297 THE QUESTION Contents PAGE THE WANING MOON ...... 298 ODE TO THE WEST WIND ..... 299 RARELY, RARELY COMEST THOU .... 301 THE INVITATION, TO JANE 303 THE RECOLLECTION ...... 305 ODE TO HEAVEN 308 LIFE OF LIFE ....... 310 AUTUMN 311 STANZAS WRITTEN IN DEJECTION NEAR NAPLES . 312 DIRGE FOR THE YEAR ...... 313 A WIDOW BIRD ....... 314 THE TWO SPIRITS ....... 314 JOHN KEATS (1795-1821).

LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI .... 316 ON FIRST LOOKING INTO CHAPMAN'S HOMER . 318 TO SLEEP 319 THE GENTLE SOUTH ...... 319 LAST SONNET ....... 320 ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE ..... 320 ODE ON A GRECIAN URN 323 ODE TO AUTUMN ....... 325 ODE TO PSYCHE ....... 326 ODE TO MELANCHOLY ...... 328 HARTLEY COLERIDGE (1796- 1 849). SHE IS NOT FAIR ....... 329 NOTES A 1 ANONYMOUS I3TH CENTURY THE FIRST CAROL Summer is y-comen in ! Loud sing cuckoo ! Groweth seed and bloweth mead, And springeth the wood new. Sing cuckoo ! cuckoo ! Ewe bleateth after lamb, Loweth cow after calf ; Bullock starteth, buck verteth ; Merry sing cuckoo ! Cuckoo ! cuckoo ! Nor cease thou ever now, Sing cuckoo now 1 Sing cuckoo 1 SIR WALTER RALEIGH 1552-1618 VERSES BEFORE DEATH Even such is time, that takes in trust Our youth, our joys, our all we have, And pays us but with earth and dust ; Who, in the dark and silent grave, When we have wandered all our ways, Shuts up the story of our days ; But from this earth, this grave, this dust, My God shall raise me up, I trust !

EDMUND SPENSER 1553-1599 EASTER Most glorious Lord of life ! that on this day Didst make thy triumph over death and sin And, having harrowed hell, didst bring away Captivity then captive, us to win : This glorious day, dear Lord, with joy begin, And grant that we, for whom thou diddest die, Being with thy dear blood clean washed from sin, May live for ever in felicity ! And that thy love we weighing worthily, May likewise love thee for the same again ; And for thy sake, that all like dear didst buy, With love may one another entertain. So let us love, dear Love, like as we ought ; Love is the lesson which the Lord us taught. FRESH SPRING Fresh Spring, the herald of love's mighty king, In whose coat-armour richly are displayed All sorts of flowers, the which on earth do spring In goodly colours gloriously arrayed : Go to my love, where she is careless laid, Yet in her winter bower not well awake ; Tell her the joyous time will not be stayed, Unless she do him by the forelock take ; Bid her therefore herself soon ready make, To wait on Love amongst his lovely crew ; Where every one that misseth there her make Shall be by him amerced with penance due.

Make haste therefore, sweet love, whilst it is prime, For none can call again the passed time. LIKE AS A SHIP Like as a ship, that through the ocean wide, By conduct of some star doth make her way, When, as a storm hath dimmed her trusty guide, Out of her course doth wander far astray ! So I, whose star, that wont with her bright ray Me to direct, with clouds is overcast, Do wander now, in darkness and dismay, Through hidden perils round about me placed ; Yet hope I well that, when this storm is past, My Helice, the loadstar of my life, Will shine again, and look on me at last, With lovely light to clear my cloudy grief : Till then I wander, careful, comfortless, In secret sorrow and sad pensiveness. EPITHALAMION Ye learned sisters, which have oftentimes Been to me aiding, others to adorn, Whom ye thought worthy of your graceful rhymes, That even the greatest did not greatly scorn To hear their names sung in your simple lays, But joyed in their praise ; And when ye list your own mishaps to mourn, Which death, or love, or fortune's wreck did raise, Your string could soon to sadder tenor turn, And teach the woods and waters to lament Your doleful dreariment : Now lay those sorrowful complaints aside ; And, having all your heads with garlands crowned.

Help me mine own love's praises to resound ; Ne let the same of any be envied : So Orpheus did for his own bride ! So I unto myself alone will sing ; The woods shall to me answer, and my echo ring. Early, before the world's light-giving lamp His golden beam upon the hills doth spread, Having dispersed the night's uncheerful damp. Do ye awake ; and, with fresh lusty-head, Go to the bower of my beloved love, My truest turtle dove ; Bid her awake ; for Hymen is awake, And long since ready forth his mask to move, With his bright tead that flames with many a flake, And many a bachelor to wait on him, In their fresh garments trim. Bid her awake therefore, and soon her dight, For lo 1 the wished day is come at last, That shall, for all the pains and sorrows past, Pay to her usury of long delight : And, whilst she doth her dight, Do ye to her of joy and solace sing, That all the woods may answer, and your echo ring.

Bring with you all the Nymphs that you can hear Both of the rivers and the forests green, And of the sea that neighbours to her near : All with gay garlands goodly well beseen. And let them also with them bring in hand Another gay garland, For my fair love, of lilies and of roses, Bound truelove wise, with a blue silk riband. And let them make great store of bridal posies, And let them eke bring store of other flowers, To deck the bridal bowers. And let the ground whereas her foot shall tread, For fear the stones her tender foot should wrong, Be strewed with fragrant flowers all along, And diapred like the discoloured mead. Which done, do at her chamber door await, For she will waken straight ; The whiles do ye this song unto her sing, The woods shall to you answer, and your echo ring. Ye Nymphs of Mulla, which with careful heed The silver scaly trouts do tend full well, And greedy pikes which use therein to feed (Those trouts and pikes all others do excel) ; And ye likewise, which keep the rushy lake, Where none do fishes take ; Bind up the locks the which hang scattered light, And in his waters, which your mirror make, Behold your faces as the crystal bright, That when you come whereas my love doth lie, No blemish she may spy.

And eke, ye lightfoot maids, which keep the door, That on the hoary mountain used to tower ; And the wild wolves, which seek them to devour, With your steel darts do chase from coming near Be also present here, To help to deck her, and to help to sing, That all the woods may answer, and your echo ring. Wake now, my love, awake ! for it is time : The Rosy Morn long since left Tithon's bed, All ready to her silver coach to climb ; And Phœbus 'gins to show his glorious head. Hark ! how the cheerful birds do chant their lays And carol of love's praise. The merry Lark her matins sings aloft ; The Thrush replies ; the Mavis descant plays : The Ouzel shrills ; the Ruddock warbles soft ; So goodly all agree, with sweet consent, To this day's merriment. Ah ! my dear love, why do ye sleep thus long, When meeter were that ye should now awake, T' await the coming of your joyous make, And hearken to the birds' love-learned song, The dewy leaves among ?

For they of joy and pleasance to you sing, That all the woods them answer, and their echo ring. My love is now awake out of her dreams, And her fair eyes, like stars that dimmed were With darksome cloud, now show their goodly beams More bright than Hesperus his head doth rear. Come now, ye damsels, daughters of delight, Help quickly her to dight ! But first come, ye fair hours, which were begot, In Jove's sweet paradise, of Day and Night ; Which do the seasons of the year allot, And all, that ever in this world is fair, Do make and still repair : And ye three handmaids of the Cyprian Queen, The which do still adorn her beauty's pride, Help to adorn my beautifullest bride : And, as ye her array, still throw between Some graces to be seen ; And, as ye use to Venus, to her sing, The whiles the woods shall answer, and your echo ring, Now is my love all ready forth to come : Let all the virgins therefore well await : And ye, fresh boys, that tend upon her groom, Prepare yourselves, for he is coming straight.