Sonnets, and Sonnets on English Dramatic Poets (1590-1650) | Page 8

this marble: darkness, none knows how,?And stars impenetrable of midnight, may.?So looms the likeness of thy soul, John Ford.
VII
JOHN WEBSTER
Thunder: the flesh quails, and the soul bows down.?Night: east, west, south, and northward, very night.?Star upon struggling star strives into sight,?Star after shuddering star the deep storms drown.?The very throne of night, her very crown,?A man lays hand on, and usurps her right.?Song from the highest of heaven's imperious height?Shoots, as a fire to smite some towering town.?Rage, anguish, harrowing fear, heart-crazing crime,?Make monstrous all the murderous face of Time?Shown in the spheral orbit of a glass?Revolving. Earth cries out from all her graves.?Frail, on frail rafts, across wide-wallowing waves,?Shapes here and there of child and mother pass.
VIII
THOMAS DECKER
Out of the depths of darkling life where sin?Laughs piteously that sorrow should not know?Her own ill name, nor woe be counted woe;?Where hate and craft and lust make drearier din?Than sounds through dreams that grief holds revel in;?What charm of joy-bells ringing, streams that flow,?Winds that blow healing in each note they blow,?Is this that the outer darkness hears begin?
O sweetest heart of all thy time save one,?Star seen for love's sake nearest to the sun,?Hung lamplike o'er a dense and doleful city,?Not Shakespeare's very spirit, howe'er more great,?Than thine toward man was more compassionate,?Nor gave Christ praise from lips more sweet with pity.
IX
THOMAS MIDDLETON
A wild moon riding high from cloud to cloud,?That sees and sees not, glimmering far beneath,?Hell's children revel along the shuddering heath?With dirge-like mirth and raiment like a shroud:?A worse fair face than witchcraft's, passion-proud,?With brows blood-flecked behind their bridal wreath?And lips that bade the assassin's sword find sheath?Deep in the heart whereto love's heart was vowed:?A game of close contentious crafts and creeds?Played till white England bring black Spain to shame:?A son's bright sword and brighter soul, whose deeds?High conscience lights for mother's love and fame:?Pure gipsy flowers, and poisonous courtly weeds:?Such tokens and such trophies crown thy name.
X
THOMAS HEYWOOD
Tom, if they loved thee best who called thee Tom,?What else may all men call thee, seeing thus bright?Even yet the laughing and the weeping light?That still thy kind old eyes are kindled from??Small care was thine to assail and overcome?Time and his child Oblivion: yet of right?Thy name has part with names of lordlier might?For English love and homely sense of home,?Whose fragrance keeps thy small sweet bayleaf young?And gives it place aloft among thy peers?Whence many a wreath once higher strong Time has hurled: And this thy praise is sweet on Shakespeare's tongue--?"O good old man, how well in thee appears?The constant service of the antique world!"
XI
GEORGE CHAPMAN
High priest of Homer, not elect in vain,?Deep trumpets blow before thee, shawms behind?Mix music with the rolling wheels that wind?Slow through the labouring triumph of thy train:?Fierce history, molten in thy forging brain,?Takes form and fire and fashion from thy mind,?Tormented and transmuted out of kind:?But howsoe'er thou shift thy strenuous strain,?Like Tailor[1] smooth, like Fisher[2] swollen, and now?Grim Yarrington[3] scarce bloodier marked than thou,?Then bluff as Mayne's[4] or broad-mouthed Barry's[5] glee; Proud still with hoar predominance of brow?And beard like foam swept off the broad blown sea,?Where'er thou go, men's reverence goes with thee.
[1] Author of The Hog hath lost his Pearl.
[2] Author of Fuimus Troes, or the True Trojans.
[3] Author of Two Tragedies in One.
[4] Author of The City Match.
[5] Author of Ram-Alley, or Merry Tricks.
XII
JOHN MARSTON
The bitterness of death and bitterer scorn?Breathes from the broad-leafed aloe-plant whence thou?Wast fain to gather for thy bended brow?A chaplet by no gentler forehead worn.?Grief deep as hell, wrath hardly to be borne,?Ploughed up thy soul till round the furrowing plough?The strange black soil foamed, as a black beaked prow?Bids night-black waves foam where its track has torn.?Too faint the phrase for thee that only saith?Scorn bitterer than the bitterness of death?Pervades the sullen splendour of thy soul,?Where hate and pain make war on force and fraud?And all the strengths of tyrants; whence unflawed?It keeps this noble heart of hatred whole.
XIII
JOHN DAY
Day was a full-blown flower in heaven, alive?With murmuring joy of bees and birds aswarm,?When in the skies of song yet flushed and warm?With music where all passion seems to strive?For utterance, all things bright and fierce to drive?Struggling along the splendour of the storm,?Day for an hour put off his fiery form,?And golden murmurs from a golden hive?Across the strong bright summer wind were heard,?And laughter soft as smiles from girls at play?And loud from lips of boys brow-bound with May?Our mightiest age let fall its gentlest word,?When Song, in semblance of a sweet small bird,?Lit fluttering on the light swift hand of Day.
XIV
JAMES SHIRLEY
The dusk of day's decline was hard on dark?When evening trembled round thy glowworm lamp?That shone across her shades and dewy damp?A small clear beacon whose benignant spark?Was gracious yet for loiterers'