The clock strikes eleven. Faust. Oh Faustus! Now hast thou but one bare hour to live. Stand still, ye ever-moving spheres of heaven, A year, a month, a week, a natural day, * * * * The stars move still,-time runs-the clock will strike. Oh, I'll leap up to heaven!-Who pulls me down? And see a threatening arm-an angry brow! Whose influence hath allotted death and hell, The watch strikes. Oh! half the hour is past: 'twill all be past anon. Impose some end to my incessant pain: years, A hundred thousand and at last be saved: No end is limited to damnéd souls. Why wert thou not a creature wanting soul, Or, why is this immortal that thou hast? Oh! Pythagoras,-Metempsychosis !-were that true, This soul should fly from me, and I be changed Into some brutish beast. All beasts are happy, for when they die, Their souls are soon dissolved in element! Now, Faustus, curse thyself-curse Lucifer, THE PASSIONATE SHEPHERD TO HIS LOVE. 79 The clock strikes twelve. It strikes it strikes! now body turn to air. Oh, soul, be changed into small water drops, Chorus. * Cut is the branch that might have grown full straight, That sometime grew within this learned man: Whose deepness doth entice such forward wits THE PASSIONATE SHEPHERD TO HIS LOVE. Come live with me, and be my love, Where we will sit upon the rocks, And I will make thee beds of roses, A gown made of the finest wool, A belt of straw and ivy-buds, Thy silver dishes, for thy meat, The shepherd swains shall dance and sing ANSWER TO THE ABOVE BY SIR WALTER RALEIGH.2 If all the world and love were young, But time drives flocks from field to fold, The flowers do fade, and wanton fields Thy gowns, thy shoes, thy beds of roses, Thy belt of straw and ivy-buds, What should we talk of dainties, then, But could youth last, and love still breed, 1 Parts of the second and third stanzas of this song are quoted in the Merry Wives of Windsor, Act iii. Sc. 1. 2 Printed in England's Helicon, 1600, with the signature Ignoto, and in some copies with the initials W. R. Izaak Walton assigns it to Raleigh, and interpolates the sixth verse, supposed to be his own composition. THE SOUL'S ERRAND. 81 THE SOUL'S ERRAND. THIS poem first appeared in print in Davison's Poetical Rhapsody, second edition, 1608. It has, however, been traced in manuscript to 1593. The contemporaries of Raleigh ascribed it to him, manuscript copies bear his name, and there seems no reason to doubt that it was his composition. Go, soul, the body's guest, Upon a thankless errand! The truth shall be thy warrant. Go, tell the Court-it glows And shines like rotten wood; Go, tell the Church-it shows What's good, and doth no good. If Church and Court reply, Tell potentates-they live Not loved unless they give, Tell men of high condition That rule affairs of state- Their practice-only hate. And if they once reply, Tell them that brave it most, They beg for more by spending Who, in their greatest cost, Seek nothing but commending. And if they make reply, Then give them all the lie. Tell zeal-it lacks devotion; Tell Love-it is but lust; Tell Flesh-it is but dust. E Tell Age-it daily wasteth; Tell Wit-how much it wrangles Herself in over-wiseness. And when they do reply, Tell Physic-of her boldness; Tell Law-it is contention. And as they do reply, So give them still the lie. Tell Fortune-of her blindness; Tell Friendship of unkindness; And if they will reply, Then give them all the lie. Tell Arts-they have no soundness, But vary by esteeming ; Tell Schools-they want profoundness, And stand too much on seeming. If Arts and Schools reply, Give Arts and Schools the lie. Tell Faith-its fled the City; Tell-how the Country erreth; So when thou hast, as I Commanded thee, done blabbing, Although to give the lie Deserves no less than stabbing, et stab at thee who will, No stab the soul can kill. |