my sinful earth, that thee array,*
Poor soul, the centre of Fooled by those rebel Why dost thou pine within, and suffer dearth, Painting thy outward walls so costly gay? Why so large cost, having so short a lease, Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend? Shall worms, inheritors of this excess, Eat up thy charge? Is this thy body's end? Then, soul, live thou upon thy servant's loss, And let that pine to aggravate thy store; Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross; Within be fed, without be rich no more:
So shalt thou feed on death, that feeds on men, And, death once dead, there's no more dying then.
My love is as a fever, longing still
For that which longer nurseth the disease; Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill, The uncertain sickly appetite to please. My reason, the physician to my love, Angry that his prescriptions are not kept, Hath left me, and I desperate now approve, Desire is death, which physic did except. Past cure I am, now reason is past care,t And frantic-mad with evermore unrest;
My thoughts and my discourse as madmen's are,
At random from the truth vainly expressed;
For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright, Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.
The quarto reads:
Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth,
My sinful earth these rebel powers that thee array. The line as it stands in the text was supplied by Malone. † Past cure, past care-an old proverb.
O me! what eyes hath love put in my head, Which have no correspondence with true sight? Or, if they have, where is my judgment fled, That censures* falsely what they see aright? If that be fair whereon my false eyes dote, What means the world to say it is not so? If it be not, then love doth well denote Love's eye is not so true as all men's: no, How can it? O, how can Love's eye be true, That is so vexed with watching and with tears? No marvel then though I mistake my view; The sun itself sees not, till heaven clears.
O cunning Love! with tears thou keep'st me blind, Lest eyes well-seeing thy foul faults should find.
Canst thou, O cruel! say I love thee not, When I, against myself, with thee partake?+ Do I not think on thee, when I forgot Am of myself, all tyrant, for thy sake? Who hateth thee that I do call my friend? On whom frown'st thou that I do fawn upon? Nay, if thou lower'st on me, do I not spend Revenge upon myself with present moan? What merit do I in myself respect, That is so proud thy service to despise, When all my best doth worship thy defect, Commanded by the motion of thine eyes?
But, love, hate on, for now I know thy mind; Those that can see thou lov'st, and I am blind.
O, from what power hast thou this powerful might, With insufficiency my heart to sway?
Take part with thee against myself.
To make me give the lie to my true sight, And swear that brightness doth not grace the day? Whence hast thou this becoming of things ill, That in the very refuse of thy deeds
There is such strength and warrantise of skill, That in my mind, thy worst all best exceeds? Who taught thee how to make me love thee more, The more I hear and see just cause of hate? O, though I love what others do abhor, With others thou shouldst not abhor my state: If thy unworthiness raised love in me, More worthy I to be beloved of thee.
Love is too young to know what conscience is; Yet who knows not, conscience is born of love? Then, gentle cheater, urge not my amiss, Lest guilty of my faults thy sweet self prove. For thou betraying me, I do betray
My nobler part to my gross body's treason; My soul doth tell my body that he may Triumph in love; flesh stays no farther reason; But rising at thy name, doth point out thee As his triumphant prize. Proud of this pride, He is contented thy poor drudge to be, To stand in thy affairs, fall by thy side.
No want of conscience hold it that I call Her-love, for whose dear love I rise and fall.
In loving thee thou know'st I am forsworn, But thou art twice forsworn, to me love swearing; In act thy bed-vow broke, and new faith torn, In vowing new hate after new love bearing. But why of two oaths' breach do I accuse thee, When I break twenty? I am perjured most; For all my vows are oaths but to misuse thee, And all my honest faith in thee is lost:
For I have sworn deep oaths of thy deep kindness, Oaths of thy love, thy truth, thy constancy; And, to enlighten thee, gave eyes to blindness, Or made them swear against the thing they see; For I have sworn thee fair; more perjured I, To swear, against the truth, so foul a lie!
Cupid laid by his brand, and fell asleep: A maid of Dian's this advantage found, And his love-kindling fire did quickly steep In a cold valley-fountain of that ground; Which borrowed from this holy fire of love A dateless lively heat, still to endure,
And grew a seething bath, which yet men prove Against strange maladies a sovereign cure. But at my mistress' eye love's brand new-fired, The boy for trial needs would touch my breast; I sick withal, the help of bath desired, And thither hied, a sad distempered guest,
But found no cure; the bath for my help lies Where Cupid got new fire; my mistress' eyes. 154
The little love-god lying once asleep,
Laid by his side his heart-inflaming brand,
Whilst many nymphs that vowed chaste life to keep, Came tripping by; but in her maiden hand
The fairest votary took up that fire
Which many legions of true hearts had warmed;
And so the general of hot desire
Was sleeping, by a virgin hand disarmed. This brand she quenchèd in a cool well by, Which from love's fire took heat perpetual, Growing a bath and healthy remedy
For men diseased; but I, my mistress' thrall, Came there for cure, and this by that I prove, Love's fire heats water, water cools not love.
A LOVER'S COMPLAINT.
FROM off a hill, whose concave womb reworded*
A plaintful story from a sistering vale, My spirits to attend this double voice accorded, And down I laid† to list the sad-tuned tale : Ere long espied a fickle maid full pale, Tearing of papers, breaking rings a-twain, Storming her world with sorrow's wind and rain.‡
Upon her head a platted hive of straw, Which fortified her visage from the sun, Whereon the thought might think sometime it saw The carcass of a beauty spent and done. Time had not scythèd all that youth begun,
Nor youth all quit; but, spite of heaven's fell rage, Some beauty peeped through lattice of seared age.
Oft did she heave her napkin to her eyne, Which on it had conceited characters, § Laundering the silken figures in the brine That seasoned woe had pelleted in tears, And often reading what contents it bears; As often shrieking undistinguished woe, In clamours of all size, both high and low, Sometimes her levelled eyes their carriage ride,|| As they did battery to the spheres intend; Sometime diverted their poor balls are tied To the orbed earth; sometimes they do extend Their view right on; anon their gazes lend To every place at once, and no where fixed, The mind and sight distractedly commixed.
+ Altered in the modern editions to 'lay.' The reading is, ' And down I laid myself,' &c.
We cannot call her winds and waters, sighs and tears.
Antony and Cleopatra, i. 2. In allusion to a piece of ordnance.
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