XX.

CONTINUATION OF THE LOST

POEM, CYNTHIA ;

NOW FIRST PUBLISHED FROM THE HATFIELD Mss.1 (1604-1618?)

I.

F Cynthia be a Queen, a princess, and

supreme,

Keep these among the rest, or say it

a dream;

was

For those that like, expound, and those that loathe,

express

Meanings according as their minds are moved more or less.

For writing what thou art, or showing what thou were,

Adds to the one disdain, to the other but despair. Thy mind of neither needs, in both seeing it exceeds.

II.

My body in the walls captived

Feels not the wounds of spiteful envy;

But my thralled mind, of liberty deprived, Fast fettered in her ancient memory,

Doth nought behold but sorrow's dying face: Such prison erst was so delightful,

As it desired no other dwelling place: But time's effects and destinies despiteful

Hatfield MSS., vol. cxliv., fol. 238, sqq. Walter's own hand."

"In Sir

Have changed both my keeper and my fare. Love's fire and beauty's light I then had store;

But now, close kept, as captives wonted are, That food, that heat, that light, I find no more. Despair bolts up my doors; and I alone Speak to dead walls; but those hear not my moan.

III.

THE 21ST AND LAST BOOK OF THE

OCEAN, TO CYNTHIA.

UFFICETH it to you, my joys interred, In simple words that I my woes complain;

You that then died when first my fancy erred,

Joys under dust that never live again?

If to the living were my muse addressed,
Or did my mind her own spirit still inhold,
Were not my living passion so repressed

As to the dead the dead did these unfold,

Some sweeter words, some more becoming verse Should witness my mishap in higher kind; But my love's wounds, my fancy in the hearse, The idea but resting of a wasted mind,

The blossoms fallen, the sap gone from the tree, The broken monuments of my great desires,--From these so lost what may the affections be? What heat in cinders of extinguished fires?

Lost in the mud of those high-flowing streams, Which through more fairer fields their courses

bend,

Slain with self-thoughts, amazed in fearful dreams,
Woes without date, discomforts without end:

From fruit[less] trees I gather withered leaves,
And glean the broken ears with miser's hand,
Who sometime did enjoy the weighty sheaves;
I seek fair flowers amid the brinish sand.

All in the shade, even in the fair sun days,
Under those healthless trees I sit alone,
Where joyful birds sing neither lovely lays,
Nor Philomen recounts her direful moan.

No feeding flocks, no shepherd's company,
That might renew my dolorous conceit,
While happy then, while love and fantasy
Confined my thoughts on that fair flock to wait;

No pleasing streams fast to the ocean wending,
The messengers sometimes of my great woe;
But all on earth, as from the cold storms bending,
Shrink from my thoughts in high heavens or below.

Oh, hopeful love, my object and invention,
Oh, true desire, the spur of my conceit,
Oh, worthiest spirit, my mind's impulsion,
Oh, eyes transpersant, my affection's bait;

Oh, princely form, my fancy's adamant,
Divine conceit, my pains' acceptance,

Oh, all in one! oh, heaven on earth transparent!
The seat of joys and love's abundance!

D

Out of that mass of miracles, my muse
Gathered those flowers, to her pure senses
pleasing;

Out of her eyes, the store of joys, did choose
Equal delights, my sorrow's counterpoising.
Her regal looks my vigorous sighs suppressed;
Small drops of joys sweetened great worlds of
woes;

One gladsome day a thousand cares redressed ;-
Whom love defends, what fortune overthrows?
When she did well, what did there else amiss?
When she did ill, what empires would have
pleased?

No other power effecting woe or bliss,

She gave, she took, she wounded, she appeased. The honour of her love love still devising, Wounding my mind with contrary conceit, Transferred itself sometime to her aspiring, Sometime the trumpet of her thought's retreat. To seek new worlds for gold, for praise, for glory, To try desire, to try love severed far,

When I was gone, she sent her memory,

More strong than were ten thousand ships of war; To call me back, to leave great honour's thought, To leave my friends, my fortune, my attempt; To leave the purpose I so long had sought,

And hold both cares and comforts in contempt. Such heat in ice, such fire in frost remained,

Such trust in doubt, such comfort in despair, Which, like the gentle lamb, though lately weaned,

Plays with the dug, though finds no comfort there.

But as a body, violently slain,

Retaineth warmth although the spirit be gone, And by a power in nature moves again

Till it be laid below the fatal stone;

Or as the earth, even in cold winter days,
Left for a time by her life-giving sun,
Doth by the power remaining of his rays
Produce some green, though not as it hath done;
Or as a wheel, forced by the falling stream,
Although the course be turned some other way,
Doth for a time go round upon the beam,

Till, wanting strength to move, it stands at stay; So my forsaken heart, my withered mind,— Widow of all the joys it once possessed,

My hopes clean out of sight with forced wind,
To kingdoms strange, to lands far-off addressed,
Alone, forsaken, friendless, on the shore

With many wounds, with death's cold pangs embraced,

Writes in the dust, as one that could no more, Whom love, and time, and fortune, had defaced; Of things so great, so long, so manifold,

With means so weak, the soul even then depicting The weal, the woe, the passages of old,

And worlds of thoughts described by one last sighing.

As if, when after Phœbus is descended,

And leaves a light much like the past day's dawning,

And, every toil and labour wholly ended,

Each living creature draweth to his resting,