The brood of Folly without father bred! How little you bestead,
Or fill the fixéd mind with all your toys! Dwell in some idle brain,
And fancies fond with gaudy shapes possess, As thick and numberless
As the gay motes that people the sunbeams,Or likest hovering dreams,
The fickle pensioners of Morpheus' train. But hail, thou goddess, sage and holy ! Hail, divinest Melancholy!
Whose saintly visage is too bright
To hit the sense of human sight,
And therefore, to our weaker view,
O'erlaid with black, staid wisdom's hue,
Black, but such as in esteem
He met her, and in secret shades
Of woody Ida's inmost grove,
While yet there was no fear of Jove.
Come, pensive nun, devout and pure,
Sober, steadfast, and demure,
All in a robe of darkest grain
Flowing with majestic train,
And sable stole of cyprus lawn
Over thy decent shoulders drawn !
Come, but keep thy wonted state,
With even step, and musing gait,
And looks commercing with the skies,
Thy rapt soul sitting in thine eyes;
There held in holy passion still,
Forget thyself to marble, till
With a sad, leaden, downward cast
Thou fix them on the earth as fast;
And join with thee calm Peace, and Quiet, –
Spare Fast, that oft with gods doth diet,
And hears the Muses in a ring
Aye round about Jove's altar sing.
And add to these retired Leisure,
That in trim gardens takes his pleasure;
But first and chiefest, with thee bring
Him that yon soars on golden wing,
Guiding the fiery-wheeled throne,
The cherub Contemplation;
And the mute Silence hist along,
'Less Philomel will deign a song
In her sweetest, saddest plight,
Smoothing the rugged brow of Night,
While Cynthia checks her dragon yoke
Gently o'er the accustomed oak.
Sweet bird, that shun'st the noise of folly,
Most musical, most melancholy!
Thee, chantress, oft, the woods among,
I woo, to hear thy even-song:
And, missing thee, I walk unseen
On the dry, smooth-shaven green,
To behold the wandering moon
Riding near her highest noon,
Like one that had been led astray
Through the heaven's wide pathless way;
And oft, as if her head she bowed,
Stooping through a fleecy cloud.
Oft, on a plat of rising ground,
I hear the far-off curfew sound
Over some wide-watered shore,
Swinging slow with sullen roar ;
Or if the air will not permit,
Some still removéd place will fit,
Where glowing embers through the room
Teach light to counterfeit a gloom,
Far from all resort of mirth,
Save the cricket on the hearth,
Or the bellman's drowsy charm,
To bless the doors from nightly harm;
Or let my lamp at midnight hour
Be seen in some high lonely tower,
Where I may oft out-watch the Bear
With thrice-great Hermes, or unsphere
The spirit of Plato, to unfold
What worlds or what vast regions hold
The immortal mind that hath forsook
Her mansion in this fleshly nook;
And of those demons that are found
In fire, air, flood, or under ground,
Whose power hath a true consent
With planet or with element.
Sometime let gorgeous Tragedy
In sceptred pall come sweeping by,
Presenting Thebes, or Pelops' line,
Or the tale of Troy divine,
Or what (though rare) of later age
Ennobled hath the buskined stage.
But, O sad virgin, that thy power
Might raise Museus from his bower!
Or bid the soul of Orpheus sing
Such notes as, warbled to the string,
Drew iron tears down Pluto's cheek,
And made hell grant what love did seek!
Or call up him that left half told
The story of Cambuscan bold, -
Of Camball, and of Algarsife,
And who had Canace to wife,
That owned the virtuous ring and glass,
And of the wondrous horse of brass,
On which the Tartar king did ride!
And, if aught else great bards beside
In sage and solemn tunes have sung,
Of tourneys and of trophies hung,
Of forests, and enchantments drear,
Where more is meant than meets the ear.
Thus, Night, oft see me in thy pale career, Till civil-suited Morn appear,
Not tricked and frounced, as she was wont
With the Attic boy to hunt,
But kerchiefed in a comely cloud,
While rocking winds are piping loud,
Or ushered with a shower still
When the gust hath blown his fill,
Ending on the rustling leaves,
With minute drops from off the eaves.
And when the sun begins to fling
His flaring beams, me, goddess, bring
To archéd walks of twilight groves,
And shadows brown, that Sylvan loves,
Of pine, or monumental oak,
Where the rude axe with heavéd stroke
Was never heard the Nymphs to daunt,
Or fright them from their hallowed haunt.
There in close covert by some brook,
Where no profaner eye may look,
Hide me from day's garish eye,
Peace, Love the cherubim, that join
Their spread wings o'er Devotion's shrine,
That's hallowed ground-where, mourned and Prayers sound in vain, and temples shine,
The lips repose our love has kissed;
But where's their memory's mansion? Is't Yon churchyard's bowers?
No in ourselves their souls exist,
Where they are not, The heart alone can make divine
To incantations dost thou trust,
And pompous rites in domes august!
Its roof star-pictured Nature's ceiling,
Where trancing the rapt spirit's feeling,
And God himself to man revealing,
The harmonious spheres
Make music, though unheard their pealing By mortal ears.
Fair stars are not your beings pure?
Can sin, can death, your worlds obscure?
Else why so swell the thoughts at your
Aspect above?
Ye must be heavens that make us suro
Of heavenly love!
And in your harmony sublime
I read the doom of distant time;
That man's regenerate soul from crime
Shall yet be drawn,
And reason on his mortal clime
Immortal dawn.
Benign restorer of the soul!
Who ever fliest to bring relief, When first we feel the rude control Of Love or Pity, Joy or Grief.
The sage's and the poet's theme,
In every clime, in every age, Thou charm'st in Fancy's idle dream, In Keason's philosophic page.
That very law which moulds a tear,
And bids it trickle from its source,
That law preserves the earth a sphere,
And guides the planets in their course.
O THAT the chemist's magic art
Could crystallize this sacred treasure!
Long should it glitter near my heart,
A secret source of pensive pleasure.
The little brilliant, ere it fell,
Its lustre caught from Chloe's eye; Then, trembling, left its coral cell, The spring of Sensibility!
Sweet drop of pure and pearly light!
In thee the rays of Virtue shine, More calmly clear, more mildly bright, Than any gem that gilds the mine.
FROM BYRD'S "SONGS AND SONNETS," 1588.
IF women could be fair and never fond,
Or that their beauty might continue still, I would not marvel though they made men bond, By service long to purchase their good-will; But when I see how frail these creatures arc, I laugh that men forget themselves so far.
To mark what choice they make, and how they change,
How, leaving best, the worst they choose out still,
And how, like haggards, wild about they range,
Scorning the reason to follow after will;
Who would not shake such buzzards from the fist,
And let them fly, fair fools, what way they list?
Yet for our sport we fawn and flatter both,
To pass the time when nothing else can please, And train them on to yield, by subtle oath,
The sweet content that gives such humor ease; And then we say, when we their follies try, To play with fools, O, what a fool was I !
DRINK TO ME ONLY WITH THINE EYES.
FROM "THE FOREST."
DRINK to me only with thine eyes,
And I will pledge with mine; Or leave a kiss but in the cup,
And I'll not look for wine.
The thirst that from the soul doth rise
Doth ask a drink divine;
But might I of Jove's nectar sup,
I would not change for thine.
I sent thee late a rosy wreath,
Not so much honoring thee
As giving it a hope that there
It could not withered be;
But thou thercon didst only breathe
And sent'st it back to me;
Since when it grows, and smells, I swear,
Not of itself but thee!
PHILOSTRATUS (Greek). Translation of BEN JONSON,
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