Elizabethan Sonnet-Cycles | Page 9

pen.?And therefore grieve not if thy beauties die?Though time do spoil thee of the fairest veil?That ever yet covered mortality,?And must instar the needle and the rail.?That grace which doth more than inwoman thee,?Lives in my lines and must eternal be.
XLIII
Most fair and lovely maid, look from the shore,?See thy Leander striving in these waves,?Poor soul quite spent, whose force can do no more.?Now send forth hope, for now calm pity saves,?And waft him to thee with those lovely eyes,?A happy convoy to a holy land.?Now show thy power, and where thy virtue lies;?To save thine own, stretch out the fairest hand.?Stretch out the fairest hand, a pledge of peace,?That hand that darts so right and never misses;?I shall forget old wrongs, my griefs shall cease;?And that which gave me wounds, I'll give it kisses.?Once let the ocean of my care find shore,?That thou be pleased, and I may sigh no more.
XLIV
Read in my face a volume of despairs,?The wailing Iliads of my tragic woe;?Drawn with my blood, and painted with my cares,?Wrought by her hand that I have honoured so.?Who whilst I burn, she sings at my soul's wrack,?Looking aloft from turret of her pride;?There my soul's tyrant joys her in the sack?Of her own seat, whereof I made her guide.?There do these smokes that from affliction rise,?Serve as an incense to a cruel dame;?A sacrifice thrice-grateful to her eyes,?Because their power serves to exact the same.?Thus ruins she to satisfy her will,?The temple where her name was honoured still.
XLV
My Delia hath the waters of mine eyes,?The ready handmaids on her grace t'attend,?That never fail to ebb, but ever rise;?For to their flow she never grants an end.?The ocean never did attend more duly?Upon his sovereign's course, the night's pale queen,?Nor paid the impost of his waves more truly,?Than mine unto her cruelty hath been.?Yet nought the rock of that hard heart can move,?Where beat these tears with zeal, and fury drives;?And yet, I'd rather languish in her love,?Than I would joy the fairest she that lives.?And if I find such pleasure to complain,?What should I do then if I should obtain?
XLVI
How long shall I in mine affliction mourn,?A burden to myself, distressed in mind;?When shall my interdicted hopes return?From out despair wherein they live confined??When shall her troubled brow charged with disdain?Reveal the treasure which her smiles impart??When shall my faith the happiness attain,?To break the ice that hath congealed her heart??Unto herself, herself my love doth summon,?(If love in her hath any power to move)?And let her tell me, as she is a woman,?Whether my faith hath not deserved her love??I know her heart cannot but judge with me,?Although her eyes my adversaries be.
XLVII
Beauty, sweet love, is like the morning dew,?Whose short refresh upon the tender green?Cheers for a time but till the sun doth show,?And straight 'tis gone as it had never been.?Soon doth it fade that makes the fairest flourish,?Short is the glory of the blushing rose,?The hue which thou so carefully dost nourish,?Yet which at length thou must be forced to lose.?When thou, surcharged with burden of thy years,?Shalt bend thy wrinkles homeward to the earth,?And that in beauty's lease expired appears?The date of age, the kalends of our death,--?But ah! no more, this must not be foretold,?For women grieve to think they must be old.
XLVIII
I must not grieve my love, whose eyes would read?Lines of delight, whereon her youth might smile;?Flowers have a time before they come to seed,?And she is young, and now must sport the while.?Ah sport, sweet maid, in season of these years,?And learn to gather flowers before they wither.?And where the sweetest blossoms first appears,?Let love and youth conduct thy pleasures thither.?Lighten forth smiles to clear the clouded air,?And calm the tempest which my sighs do raise;?Pity and smiles do best become the fair,?Pity and smiles shall yield thee lasting praise.?Make me to say, when all my griefs are gone,?Happy the heart that sighed for such a one!
XLIX
_At the Author's going into Italy_
Ah whither, poor forsaken, wilt thou go,?To go from sorrow and thine own distress,?When every place presents like face of woe,?And no remove can make thy sorrows less!?Yet go, forsaken! Leave these woods, these plains,?Leave her and all, and all for her that leaves?Thee and thy love forlorn, and both disdains,?And of both wrongful deems and ill conceives.?Seek out some place, and see if any place?Can give the least release unto thy grief;?Convey thee from the thought of thy disgrace,?Steal from thyself and be thy cares' own thief.?But yet what comforts shall I hereby gain??Bearing the wound, I needs must feel the pain.
L
_This Sonnet was made at the Author's being in Italy_
Drawn with th'attractive virtue of her eyes,?My touched heart turns it to that happy coast,?My joyful north, where all my fortune lies,?The level of my hopes