Elizabethan Sonnet-Cycles | Page 6

my soul did love her,?And that with tears; yet all this will not move her.
XIX
Restore thy tresses to the golden ore,?Yield Cytherea's son those arks of love;?Bequeath the heavens the stars that I adore,?And to the orient do thy pearls remove;?Yield thy hands' pride unto the ivory white;?T'Arabian odours give thy breathing sweet;?Restore thy blush unto Aurora bright;?To Thetis give the honour of thy feet.?Let Venus have the graces she resigned,?And thy sweet voice give back unto the spheres;?But yet restore thy fierce and cruel mind?To Hyrcan tigers and to ruthless bears;?Yield to the marble thy hard heart again;?So shalt thou cease to plague, and I to pain.
XX
What it is to breathe and live without life;?How to be pale with anguish, red with fear,?T'have peace abroad, and nought within but strife:?Wish to be present, and yet shun t'appear;?How to be bold far off, and bashful near;?How to think much, and have no words to speak;?To crave redress, yet hold affliction dear;?To have affection strong, a body weak,?Never to find, yet evermore to seek;?And seek that which I dare not hope to find;?T'affect this life and yet this life disleek,?Grateful t'another, to myself unkind:?This cruel knowledge of these contraries,?Delia, my heart hath learned out of those eyes.
XXI
If beauty thus be clouded with a frown,?That pity shines no comfort to my bliss,?And vapours of disdain so overgrown,?That my life's light wholly indarkened is,?Why should I more molest the world with cries,?The air with sighs, the earth below with tears,?Since I live hateful to those ruthful eyes,?Vexing with untuned moan her dainty ears!?If I have loved her dearer than my breath,?My breath that calls the heaven to witness it!--?And still hold her most dear until my death,?And if that all this cannot move one whit,?Yet sure she cannot but must think apart?She doth me wrong to grieve so true a heart.
XXII
Come Time, the anchor hold of my desire,?My last resort whereto my hopes appeal;?Cause once the date of her disdain t'exspire,?Make her the sentence of her wrath repeal.?Rob her fair brow, break in on beauty, steal?Power from those eyes which pity cannot spare;?Deal with those dainty cheeks, as she doth deal?With this poor heart consum��d with despair.?This heart made now the pr��spective of care?By loving her, the cruelst fair that lives,?The cruelst fair that sees I pine for her,?And never mercy to thy merit gives.?Let her not still triumph over the prize?Of mine affections taken by her eyes.
XXIII
Time, cruel Time, come and subdue that brow?Which conquers all but thee, and thee too stays,?As if she were exempt from scythe or bow,?From love or years unsubject to decays.?Or art thou grown in league with those fair eyes,?That they may help thee to consume our days??Or dost thou spare her for her cruelties,?Being merciless like thee that no man weighs??And yet thou seest thy power she disobeys,?Cares not for thee, but lets thee waste in vain,?And prodigal of hours and years betrays?Beauty and youth t'opinion and disdain.?Yet spare her, Time; let her exempted be;?She may become more kind to thee or me.
XXIV
These sorrowing sighs, the smoke of mine annoy,?These tears, which heat of sacred flame distils,?Are those due tributes that my faith doth pay?Unto the tyrant whose unkindness kills.?I sacrifice my youth and blooming years?At her proud feet, and she respects not it;?My flower, untimely's withered with my tears,?By winter woes for spring of youth unfit.?She thinks a look may recompense my care,?And so with looks prolongs my long-looked ease;?As short that bliss, so is the comfort rare;?Yet must that bliss my hungry thoughts appease.?Thus she returns my hopes so fruitless ever;?Once let her love indeed, or eye me never!
XXV
False hope prolongs my ever certain grief,?Traitor to me, and faithful to my love.?A thousand times it promised me relief,?Yet never any true effect I prove.?Oft when I find in her no truth at all,?I banish her, and blame her treachery;?Yet soon again I must her back recall,?As one that dies without her company.?Thus often, as I chase my hope from me,?Straightway she hastes her unto Delia's eyes;?Fed with some pleasing look, there shall she be,?And so sent back. And thus my fortune lies;?Looks feed my hope, hope fosters me in vain;?Hopes are unsure when certain is my pain.
XXVI
Look in my griefs, and blame me not to mourn,?From care to care that leads a life so bad;?Th'orphan of fortune, born to be her scorn,?Whose clouded brow doth make my days so sad.?Long are their nights whose cares do never sleep,?Loathsome their days who never sun yet joyed;?The impression of her eyes do pierce so deep,?That thus I live both day and night annoyed.?Yet since the sweetest root yields fruit so sour,?Her praise from my complaint I may not part;?I love th'effect, the cause being of this power;?I'll praise her face and blame her flinty heart,?Whilst we