Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles | Page 5

lap and sleep,
Until the weeping read, and reading
weep.
I
Oh pleasing thoughts, apprentices of love,
Fore-runners of desire,
sweet mithridates
The poison of my sorrows to remove,
With
whom my hopes and fear full oft debates!
Enrich yourselves and me
by your self riches,
Which are the thoughts you spend on heaven-bred
beauty, Rouse you my muse beyond our poets' pitches,
And, working
wonders, yet say all is duty!
Use you no eaglets' eyes, nor phoenix'
feathers,
To tower the heaven from whence heaven's wonder sallies.
For why? Your sun sings sweetly to her weathers,
Making a spring of
winter in the valleys.
Show to the world though poor and scant my
skill is
How sweet thoughts be, that are but thought on Phillis!
II
You sacred sea-nymphs pleasantly disporting
Amidst this wat'ry
world, where now I sail;
If ever love, or lovers sad reporting,
Had
power sweet tears from your fair eyes to hail;
And you, more
gentle-hearted than the rest,
Under the northern noon-stead sweetly
streaming,
Lend those moist riches of your crystal crest,
To quench
the flames from my heart's Ætna streaming;
And thou, kind Triton, in
thy trumpet relish
The ruthful accents of my discontent,
That midst
this travel desolate and hellish,
Some gentle wind that listens my
lament
May prattle in the north in Phillis' ears:
"Where Phillis
wants, Damon consumes in tears."
III
In fancy's world an Atlas have I been,
Where yet the chaos of my

ceaseless care
Is by her eyes unpitied and unseen,
In whom all gifts
but pity planted are;
For mercy though still cries my moan-clad muse,

And every paper that she sends to beauty,
In tract of sable tears
brings woeful news,
Of my true heart-kind thoughts, and loyal duty.

But ah the strings of her hard heart are strained
Beyond the
harmony of my desires;
And though the happy heavens themselves
have pained,
To tame her heart whose will so far aspires,
Yet she
who claims the title of world's wonder,
Thinks all deserts too base to
bring her under.
IV
Long hath my sufferance laboured to enforce
One pearl of pity from
her pretty eyes,
Whilst I with restless rivers of remorse,
Have
bathed the banks where my fair Phillis lies.
The moaning lines which
weeping I have written,
And writing read unto my ruthful sheep,

And reading sent with tears that never fitten,
To my love's queen, that
hath my heart in keep,
Have made my lambkins lay them down and
sigh;
But Phillis sits, and reads, and calls them trifles.
Oh heavens,
why climb not happy lines so high,
To rent that ruthless heart that all
hearts rifles!
None writes with truer faith, or greater love,
Yet out,
alas! I have no power to move.
V
Ah pale and dying infant of the spring,
How rightly now do I
resemble thee!
That selfsame hand that thee from stalk did wring,

Hath rent my breast and robbed my heart from me.
Yet shalt thou live.
For why? Thy native vigour
Shall thrive by woeful dew-drops of my
dolor;
And from the wounds I bear through fancy's rigour,
My
streaming blood shall yield the crimson color.
The ravished sighs that
ceaseless take their issue
From out the furnace of my heart inflamed,

To yield you lasting springs shall never miss you;
So by my plaints
and pains, you shall be famed.
Let my heart's heat and cold, thy

crimson nourish,
And by my sorrows let thy beauty flourish.
VI
It is not death which wretched men call dying,
But that is very death
which I endure,
When my coy-looking nymph, her grace envying,

By fatal frowns my domage doth procure.
It is not life which we for
life approve,
But that is life when on her wool-soft paps
I seal sweet
kisses which do batten love,
And doubling them do treble my good
haps.
'Tis neither love the son, nor love the mother,
Which lovers
praise and pray to; but that love is
Which she in eye and I in heart do
smother.
Then muse not though I glory in my miss,
Since she who
holds my heart and me in durance,
Hath life, death, love and all in her
procurance.
VII
How languisheth the primrose of love's garden!
How trill her tears, th'
elixir of my senses!
Ambitious sickness, what doth thee so harden?

Oh spare, and plague thou me for her offences!
Ah roses, love's fair
roses, do not languish;
Blush through the milk-white veil that holds
you covered. If heat or cold may mitigate your anguish,
I'll burn, I'll
freeze, but you shall be recovered.
Good God, would beauty mark
now she is crased,
How but one shower of sickness makes her tender,

Her judgments then to mark my woes amazed,
To mercy should
opinion's fort surrender!
And I,--oh would I might, or would she
meant it!
Should hery[A] love, who now in heart lament it.
[Footnote A: _hery_, praise.]
VIII
No stars her eyes to clear the wandering night,
But shining suns of
true divinity,
That make the soul conceive her perfect light!
No
wanton beauties of humanity
Her pretty brows, but beams that clear

the sight
Of him that seeks the true philosophy!
No coral is her lip,
no rose her fair,
But even that crimson that adorns the sun.
No
nymph is she, but mistress of the air,
By