Here shall I bring you two the most entire And constant lovers that were ever seen, From out the greatest sufferings of annoy That Fortune could inflict, to their full joy: Wherein no wild, no rude, no antic sport, But tender passions, motions soft and grave, The still spectators must expect to have.
For these are only Cynthia's recreatives Made unto Phœbus, and are feminine; And therefore must be gentle like to her, Whose sweet affections mildly move and stir. And here, with this white wand will I effect As much as with my flaming torch of love: And with the power thereof, affections move In these fair nymphs and shepherds round about.
Stay, Hymen, stay, you shall not have the day
Of this great glory, as you make account:
We will herein, as we were ever wont,
Oppose you in the matches you address,
And undermine them with disturbances.
Now, do thy worst, base Envy, thou canst do, Thou shalt not disappoint my purposes.
Then will I, Hymen, in despite of thee,
I will make parents cross desires of love
With those respects of wealth, as shall dissolve
The strongest knots of kindest faithfulness.
Hence, greedy Avarice, I know thou art
A hag that dost bewitch the minds of men :
Yet shalt thou have no share at all herein.
Then will I, Hymen, do thou what thou canst,
I will steal closely into linked hearts;
And shake their veins with cold distrustfulness;
And ever keep them waking in their fears,
With spir'ts, which their imagination rears.
Disquiet Jealousy, vile Fury, thou
That art the ugly monster of the mind,
Avaunt, begone, thou shalt have nought to do
In this fair work of ours, nor ever more
Canst enter there, where honour keeps the door.
And therefore, hideous furies, get you hence,
This place is sacred to integrity,
And clean desires; your sight most loathsome is Unto so well dispos'd a company.
Therefore be gone, I charge you by my power, We must have nothing in Arcadia, sour.
Hymen, thou canst not chase us so away,
For look, how long as thou mak'st marriages,
So long will we produce encumbrances;
And we will in the same disguise as thou,
Mix us amongst the shepherds, that we may
Effect our work the better, being unknown;
For ills show other faces than their own.
And with the thought of actions past
Are recreated still:
When pleasure leaves a touch at last To show that it was ill
That doth opinion only cause,
That's out of custom bred; Which makes us many other laws, Than ever Nature did. No widows wail for our delights, Our sports are without blood; The world we see by warlike wights Receives more hurt than good.
But yet the state of things require
These motions of unrest,
And these great spirits of high desire
Seem born to turn them best:
To purge the mischiefs, that increase,
And all good order mar:
For oft we see a wicked peace,
To be well chang'd for war.
Well, well, Ulysses, then I see
I shall not have thee here;
· And therefore I will come to thee, And take my fortune there.
I must be won that cannot win,
Yet lost were I not won;
For beauty hath created been
T' undo or be undone.
PRESENTED TO HER MAJESTY AND Her Ladies, by the UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD IN CHRIST'S CHURCH, IN auGUST, 1605.
QUEEN'S MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY.
THAT which their zeal, whose only zeal was bent
To show the best they could that might delight
Your royal mind, did lately represent,
Renown'd empress, to your princely sight:
Is now the offering of their humbleness,
Here consecrated to your glorious name;
Whose happy presence did vouchsafe to bless
So poor presentments, and to grace the same.
And though it be in th' humblest rank of words,
And in the lowest region of our speech,
Yet is it in that kind, as best accords
With rural passions, which use not to reach
Beyond the groves, and woods, where they were bred:
And best become a eloistral exercise,
Where men shut out retir'd, and sequester'd
From public fashion, seem to sympathise
With innocent and plain simplicity:
And living here under the awful hand
Of discipline and strict observancy,
Learn but our weaknesses to understand.
And therefore dare not enterprise to show
In lower style the hidden mysteries,
And arts of thrones, which none that are below
The sphere of action, and the exercise
Of power, can truly show; thongh men may sra
Conceit above the pitch where it should stand,
And form more monstrous figures than contain
A possibility, and go beyond
The nature of those managements so far,
As oft their common decency they mar:
Whereby the populace (in which such skill
Is needless) may be brought to apprehend
Notions, that may turn all to a taste of ill
Whatever power shall do, or might intend:
And think all cunning, all proceeding one,
And nothing simple, and sincerely done:
Yet th' eye of practice, looking down from high
Upon such over-reaching vanity,
Sees how from errour to errour it doth float,
As from an unknown ocean into a gulf:
And how though th' wolf would counterfeit the go,
Yet every chink bewrays him for a wolf.
And therefore in the view of state t' have show'
A counterfeit of state, had been to light
A candle to the Sun, and so bestow'd
Our pains to bring our dimness unto sight.
For majesty and power can nothing see
Without itself, that can sight-worthy be.
And therefore durst not we but on the ground,
From whence our humble argument hath birth,
Erect our scene, and thereon are we found,
And if we fall, we fall but on the earth,
From whence we pluck'd the flow'rs that here we
Which if at their first opening they did please,
It was enough, they serve but for a spring,
The first scent is the best in things as these:
A music of this nature on the ground,
Is ever wont to vanish with the sound.
But yet your royal goodness may saise new,
Grace but the Muses, they will honour you.
Chi non fa, non falla.
VISION OF THE TWELVE GODDESSES.
DESERT, Reward, and Gratitude,
The graces of society,
Do here with hand in hand conclude
The blessed chain of amity:
For we deserve, we give, we thank,
Thanks, gifts, deserts, thus join in rank.
We yield the splendent rays of light,
Unto these blessings that descend:
The grace whereof with more delight,
The well disposing doth commend;
Whilst gratitude, rewards, deserts,
Please, win, draw on, and couple hearts.
For worth, and power, and due respect,
Deserves, bestows, returns with grace: The meed, reward, the kind affect;
That give the world a cheerful face, And turning in this course of right,* Make virtue move with true delight.
TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THE LADY MARY, COUNTESS And makes thee dear to him from whence they
Lo! here the labour which she did impose,
Whose influence did predominate my Muse,
The star of wonder my desires first chose,
To guide their travels in the course I use:
She, whose clear brightness had the power t' infuse
Strength to my thoughts, from whence these mo-
tions came,
Call'd up my spirits from out their low repose,
To sing of state, and tragic notes to frame.
I who (contented with an humble song)
Made music to myself that pleas'd me best,
And only told of Delia, and her wrong,
And prais'd her eyes, and plain'd mine own unrest:
(A text from whence my Muse had not digress'd)
Madam, had not thy well-grac'd Antony
(Who all alone having remained long)
Requir'd his Cleopatra's company.
Who if she here do so appear in act,
That he can scarce discern her for his queen,
Finding how much she of herself hath lack'd,
And miss'd that grace wherein she should be seen,
Her worth obscur'd, her spirit embased clean;
Yet lightning thou by thy sweet cheerfulness
My dark defects, which from her powers detract,
He may her guess by some resemblances.
And I hereafter in another kind,
More suiting to the nature of my vein,
May peradventure raise my humble mind
To other music in this higher strain;
Since I perceive the world and thou dost deign
To countenance my song, and cherish me,
I must so work posterity may find,
My love to verse, my gratitude to thee.
In them must rest thy venerable name,
So long as Sion's God remaineth honoured;
And till confusion hath all zeal bereaven,
And murther'd faith, and temples ruined.
By this (great lady) thou must then be known,
When Wilton lies low levell'd with the ground:
And this is that which thou may'st call thine own,
Which sacrilegious time cannot confound.
Here thou surviv'st thyself, here thou art found
Of late succeeding ages, fresh in fame :
This monument cannot be overthrown,
Where, in eternal brass, remains thy name.
O that the ocean did not bound our style
Within these strict and narrow limits so;
But that the melody of our sweet isle
Might now be heard to Tyber, Arne, and Po:
That they might know how far Thames doth out-go
The music of declined Italy;
And list'ning to our songs another while,
Might learn of thee their notes to purify.
O why may not some after-coming hand
Unlock these limits, open our confines,
And break asunder this imprisoning band,
T' enlarge our spirits, and publish our designs;
Planting our roses on the Apenines?
And to teach Rheyne, the Loyre, and Rhodanus,
Our accents, and the wonders of our land,
That they might all admire and honour us.
Whereby great Sidney and our Spencer might,
With those po singers being equalled,
Enchant the world with such a sweet delight,
That their eternal songs (for ever read)
May show what great Eliza's reign hath bred.
What music in the kingdom of her peace
Hath now been made to her, and by her might,
Whereby her glorious fame shall never cease.
But if that Fortune doth deny us this,
Then Neptune lock up with thy ocean key
This treasure to ourselves, and let them miss
Of so sweet riches: as unworthy they
To taste the great delights that we enjoy.
And let our harmony, so pleasing grown,
Content ourselves, whose errour ever is
Strange notes to like, and disesteem our own.
But, whither do my vows transport me now,
Without the compass of my course enjoin'd?
Alas! what honour can a voice so low
As this of mine expect hereby to find?
But, madam, this doth animate my mind,
That yet I shall be read among the rest,
And though I do not to perfection grow,
Yet something shall I be, though not the best.
And all the luxury that Shame would have ac
The scene is broken down,
And all uncover'd lies,
The purple actors known
Scarce men, whom men despise.
The complots of the wise,
Prove imperfections smok'd:
And all what wonder gave
To pleasure-gazing eyes,
Lies scatter'd, dash'd, all broke.
Thus much beguiled have
Poor unconsiderate wights,
These momentary pleasures, fugitive delights.
OPINION, how dost thou molest
Th' affected mind of restless man?
Who following thee never can,
Nor ever shall attain to rest,
Forgetting what thou say'st is best;
Yet lo! that best he finds far wide
Of what thou promised'st before:
For in the same he look'd for more,
Which proves but small, when once 't is try'd.
Then something else thou find'st beside,
To draw him still from thought to thought:
When in the end all proves but nought.
Further from rest he finds him then,
Than at the first when he began.
O malecontent, seducing guest,
Contriver of our greatest woes,
Which born of wind, and fed with shows, Dost nurse thyself in thine unrest, Judging ungotten things the best,
Or what thou in conceit design'st,
And all things in the world dost deem
Not as they are, but as they seem:
Which shows their state thou ill defin'st:
And liv'st to come, in present pin'st.
For what thou hast, thou still dost lack:
O mind's tormentor, body's rack,
Vain promiser of that sweet rest
Which never any yet possess❜d.
If we unto ambition tend,
Then dost thou draw our weakness on,
With vain imagination
Of that which never hath an end.
Or if that lust we apprehend,
How doth that pleasant plague infest?
O what strange forms of luxury,
Thou straight dost cast t' entice us by?
And tell'st us that is ever best,
Which we have never yet possess'd,
And that more pleasure rests beside,
In something that we have not try'd :
And when the same likewise is had,
Then all is one, and all is bad.
This Antony can say is true,
And Cleopatra knows 't is so,
By th' experience of their woe.
She can say, she never knew
But that lust found pleasures new,
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