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.
Behold, whiles she before the altar stands,
Hearing the holy priest that to her speaks,
And blesses her with his two happy hands,
How the red roses flush up in her cheeks,
And the pure snow with goodly vermeil stain
Like crimson dyed in grain;
That even the angels, which continually
About the sacred altar do remain,
Forget their service and about her fly,
Oft peeping in her face, that seems more fair
The more on it they stare:
But her sad eyes, still fastened on the ground,
Are governéd with goodly modesty,
That suffers not one look to glance away,
Which may let in a little thought unsound.
Why blush ye, love, to give to me your hand
The pledge of all our band?
Sing, ye sweet angels, Alleluia sing,
That all the woods may answer and your echo ring!
ye, high heavens, the temple of the gods,
In which a thousand torches flaming bright
Do burn, that to us, wretched earthly clods,
In dreadful darkness lend desired light;
And all ye powers which in the same remain,
More than we men can feign,
Pour out your blessing on us plenteously,
And happy influence upon us rain,
That we may raise a large posterity,
Which from the earth, which may they long possess With lasting happiness,
Up to your haughty palaces may mount,
And, for the guerdon of their glorious merit,
May heavenly tabernacles there inherit,
Of blessed saints for to increase the count!
So let us rest, sweet love, in hope of this,
And cease till then our timely joys to sing,
The woods no more us answer, nor our echo ring.
Sweet is the rose, but grows upon a brere;
Sweet is the juniper, but sharp his bough;
Sweet is the eglantine, but pricketh near;
Sweet is the firbloom, but his branches rough;
Sweet is the cyprus, but his rind is tough;
Sweet is the nut, but bitter is his pill;
Sweet is the broom flower, but yet sour enough;
And sweet is moly, but his root is ill;
So, every sweet, with sour is tempered still,
That maketh it be coveted the more:
For easy things that may be got at will
Most sorts of men do set but little store.
Why then should I account of little pain,
That endless pleasure shall unto me gain?
FROM THE RUINS OF TIME.
[Verulam bewails the ruin of her glories.]
I was that city,' which the garland wore
Of Britain's pride, delivered unto me
By Roman victors, which it won of yore,
Though nought at all but ruins now I be,
And lie in mine own ashes as ye see:
Verlame I was; what boots it what I was,
Since now I am but woods and wasteful grass?
Oh vain world's glory, and unstedfast state
Of all that lives on face of sinful earth !
Which, from their first until their utmost date,
Taste no one hour of happiness or mirth,
But like as, at the ingate of their birth,
They crying creep out of their mother's womb,
So, wailing, back go to their woeful tomb.
Why then doth flesh, a bubble glass of breath,
Hunt after honour and advancement vain,
And rear a trophy for devouring death,
With so great labour and long lasting pain,
As if his days for ever should remain?
Sith all, that in this world is great or gay,
Doth as a vapour vanish and decay.
1 Near St. Albans in Hertfordshire.-See Tacit. Annal. xiv. 33. Camden's Britannia (Gibson), Col. 296 and 305. For the glory of Verulam, "When (well near) in her pride Troynovant she scorned," see Drayton's Polyolbion, Song xvi. Troynovant is the British name of London. But the greatest of Verulam's glories is Spenser's contemporary, Francis Bacon.
Look back who list unto the former ages,
And call to count what is of them become;
Where be those learned wits and antique sages,
Which of all wisdom knew the perfect sum?
Where those great warriors which did overcome
The world with conquest of their might and main,
And made one meer1 of th' earth and of their reign?
What now is of the Assyrian Lioness,
Of whom no footing now on earth appears?
What of the Persian Bear's outrageousness,
Whose memory is quite worn out with years?
Who of the Grecian Libbard now ought hears,
That overran the East with greedy power,
And left his whelps their kingdoms to devour?3
And where is that same great Seven-headed beast,'
That made all nations vassals of her pride,
To fall before her feet at her behest,
And in the neck of all the world did ride?
Where doth she all that wondrous wealth now hide?
With her own weight down-presséd now she lies,
And by her heaps her hugeness testifies.
O Rome! thy ruin I lament and rue,
And, in thy fall, my fatal overthrow,
That whilome was, whilst Heavens with equal" view
Deigned to behold me, and their gifts bestow,
The picture of thy pride in pompous show;
And of the whole world, as thou wast the Empress,
So I of this small northern world was Princess.
To tell the beauty of my buildings fair,
Adorned with purest gold and precious stone;
To tell my riches and endowments rare,
That by my foes are now all spent and gone;
To tell my forces, matchable to none,
Were but lost labour, that few would believe,
And with rehearsing would me more aggrieve.
High towers, fair temples, goodly theatres,
Strong walls, rich porches, princely palaces,
Large streets, brave houses, sacred sepulchres,
Sure gates, sweet gardens, stately galleries,
Wrought with fair pillars and fine imageries;
All those, oh pity, now are turned to dust,
And overgrown with black oblivion's rust!
3 The wars of Alexander's successors. Compare Lindsay's "Monarchy." Compare also Fletcher's imitation of this passage in the Purple Island, Canto VII. 5 Kind, propitious; in the sense of aequus, Lat.
FULKE GREVILLE, LORD BROOKE.
THIS poet, descended from the ancient family of the Grevilles, was born at Alcaster in Warwickshire. He was a court favourite during the reigns of Elizabeth, James, and Charles I., and in the epitaph on his monument he is designated as "servant to Queen Elizabeth, counsellor to King James, and friend to Sir Philip Sidney."
His poetry is remarkable for its depth of thought and masculine strength of expression. Southey calls him the most difficult of all our poets. In reference to his two tragedies, Lamb says, 'He is nine parts of Machiavel and Tacitus for one of Sophocles or Seneca." And again; "Whether we look into his plays, or his most passionate love-poems, we shall find all frozen and made rigid with intellect." Southey says of Lord Brooke, "No writer of this, or any other country, appears to have reflected more deeply on momentous subjects.
His chief works are, "A Treatise on Humane Learning;" "An Inquisition upon Fame and Honour;" "A Treatise of Wars; "A Treatise of Monarchy;" "A Treatise of Religion;"_with_plays and smaller poems. His writings are understood to represent the opinions of his friend Sidney.
FROM THE "TREATISE ON HUMANE LEARNING."
Knowledge's next organ is imagination;
A glass, wherein the object of our sense
Ought to respect true height, or declination,
For understanding's clear intelligence:
But this power also hath her variation,
Fixéd in some, in some with difference;
In all, so shadowed with self-application,
As makes her pictures still too foul or fair;
Not like the life in lineament or air.
This power, besides, always cannot receive
What sense reports, but what th' affections please
To admit; and, as those princes that do leave
Their state in trust to men corrupt with ease,
False in their faith, or but to faction friend,
The truth of things can scarcely comprehend;
So must th' imagination from the sense
Be misinformed, while our affections cast
False shapes and forms on their intelligence,
And to keep out true intromission thence,
Abstracts the imagination or distastes
With images pre-occupately plac'd.
FULKE GREVILLE, LORD BROOKE.
Hence our desires, fears, hopes, love, hate, and sorrow,
In fancy make us hear, feel, see impressions,
Such as out of our sense they do not borrow;
And are the efficient cause, the true progression
Of sleeping visions, idle phantasms waking,
Life, dreams, and knowledge, apparitions making.
CONSTITUTIONAL LIMITATION OF DESPOTISM.
Crowns, therefore keep your oaths of coronation,
Succession frees no tyranny from those ;
Faith is the balance of power's reputation;
That circle broken, where can man repose?
Since sceptre pledges, which should be sincere,
By one false act grow bankrupt every where.
Make not men's conscience, wealth, and liberty,
Servile, without book, to unbounded will;
Procrustes like he racks humanity,
That in power's own mould casts their good will;
And slaves men must be by the sway of time,
When tyranny continues thus sublime.3
Yet above all these, tyrants must have care
To cherish these assemblies of estate
Which in great monarchies true glasses are,
To show men's grief, excesses to abate,
Brave moulds for laws, a medium that in one
Joins with content a people to the throne.*
REALITY OF A TRUE RELIGION.
For sure in all kinds of hypocrisy
No bodies yet are found of constant being;
No uniform, no stable mystery,
No inward nature, but an outward seeming;
No solid truth, no virtue, holiness,
But types of these, which time makes more or less.
1 These stanzas form a specimen of the abstruse thinking that pervades Lord Brooke's poetry.
The Athenian robber, killed by Theseus; his guests were either cut down to the longitude of the bed he provided for them, or racked to the proper dimensions.— Ovid, Heroid ii. v. 69. Met. VII. 43. Haughty.
4 It is not difficult to see what side Lord Brooke would have embraced had he lived to see the civil war, and been young enough to take part in it.
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