A Celebration of Charis: I. His Excuse for Loving
Let it not your wonder move,
Less your laughter, that I love.
Though I now write fifty years,
I have had, and have, my peers;
Poets, though divine, are men,
Some have lov'd as old again.
And it is not always face,
Clothes, or fortune, gives the grace;
Or the feature, or the youth.
But the language and the truth,
With the ardour and the passion,
Gives the lover weight and fashion.
If you then will read the story,
First prepare you to be sorry
That you never knew till now
Either whom to love or how;
But be glad, as soon with me,
When you know that this is she
Of whose beauty it was sung;
She shall make the old man young,
Keep the middle age at stay,
And let nothing high decay,
Till she be the reason why
All the world for love may die.
A Celebration of Charis: IV. Her Triumph
See the chariot at hand here of Love,
Wherein my lady rideth!
Each that draws is a swan or a dove,
And well the car Love guideth.
As she goes, all hearts do duty
Unto her beauty;
And enamour'd, do wish, so they might
But enjoy such a sight,
That they still were to run by her side,
Through swords, through seas, whither she would ride.
Do but look on her eyes, they do light
All that Love's world compriseth!
Do but look on her hair, it is bright
As Love's star when it riseth!
Do but mark, her forehead's smoother
Than words that soothe her;
And from her arched brows, such a grace
Sheds itself through the face
As alone there triumphs to the life
All the gain, all the good, of the elements' strife.
Have you seen but a bright lily grow,
Before rude hands have touch'd it?
Ha' you mark'd but the fall o' the snow
Before the soil hath smutch'd it?
Ha' you felt the wool o' the beaver?
Or swan's down ever?
Or have smelt o' the bud o' the briar?
Or the nard in the fire?
Or have tasted the bag of the bee?
Oh so white! Oh so soft! Oh so sweet is she!
Cynthia's Revels: Queen and huntress, chaste and fair
Queen and huntress, chaste and fair,
Now the sun is laid to sleep,
Seated in thy silver chair
State in wonted manner keep:
Hesperus entreats thy light,
Goddess excellently bright.
Earth, let not thy envious shade
Dare itself to interpose;
Cynthia's shining orb was made
Heaven to clear when day did close:
Bless us then with wished sight,
Goddess excellently bright.
Lay thy bow of pearl apart
And thy crystal-shining quiver;
Give unto the flying hart
Space to breathe, how short soever:
Thou that mak'st a day of night,
Goddess excellently bright.
An Elegy
Though beauty be the mark of praise,
And yours of whom I sing be such
As not the world can praise too much,
Yet ’tis your virtue now I raise.
A virtue, like allay, so gone
Throughout your form, as, though that move
And draw and conquer all men’s love,
This sùbjects you to love of one.
Wherein you triumph yet; because
’Tis of yourself, and that you use
The noblest freedom, not to choose
Against or faith or honor’s laws.
But who should less expect from you,
In whom alone Love lives again?
By whom he is restored to men,
And kept, and bred, and brought up true.
His falling temples you have reared,
The withered garlands ta’en away;
His altars kept from the decay
That envy wished, and nature feared;
And on them burn so chaste a flame,
With so much loyalties’ expense,
As Love, t’ acquit such excellence,
Is gone himself into your name.
And you are he; the deity
To whom all lovers are designed
That would their better objects find;
Among which faithful troop am I.
Who, as an offspring at your shrine,
Have sung this hymn, and here entreat
One spark of your diviner heat
To light upon a love of mine.
Which, if it kindle not, but scant
Appear, and that to shortest view,
Yet give me leave t’ adore in you
What I in her am grieved to want.
Epitaph on Elizabeth, L. H.
Wouldst thou hear what man can say
In a little? Reader, stay.
Underneath this stone doth lie
As much beauty as could die;
Which in life did harbour give
To more virtue than doth live.
If at all she had a fault,
Leave it buried in this vault.
One name was Elizabeth,
Th' other let it sleep with death:
Fitter, where it died to tell,
Than that it liv'd at all. Farewell.
