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 touched it? Have you marked but the fall of the snow
Before the soil hath smutched it ? Have you felt the wool of the beaver ?
Or swan's down ever ? Or have smelt o' the bud of 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 !
IN THE PERSON OF WOMANKIND.
MEN, if you love us, play no more
The fools or tyrants with your friends,
To make us still sing o'er and o'er
Our own false praises, for your ends :
We have both wits and fancies too,
And if we must, let's sing of you.
Nor do we doubt, but that we can,
If we would search with care and pain,
Find some one good, in some one man ;
So going thorough all your strain,
We shall at last, of parcels make
One good enough for a song's sake.
And as a cunning painter takes
In any curious piece you see,
More pleasure while the thing he makes,
Than when ’tis made; why, so will we.
And having pleased our art, we'll try
To make a new, and hang that by.
MY PICTURE, LEFT IN SCOTLAND.
I NOW think, Love is rather deaf than blind,
For else it could not be,
That she,
Whom I adore so much, should so slight me,
And cast my suit behind :
I'm sure my language to her was as sweet,
And every close did meet
In sentence of as subtle feet,
As hath the youngest he,
That sits in shadow of Apollo's tree.
Oh! but my conscious fears,
That fly my thoughts between,
Tell me that she hath seen
My hundreds of gray hairs,
Told seven and forty years,
Read so much waste, as she cannot embrace
My mountain belly, and my rocky face,
And all these, through her eyes, have stopt her ears.
TO THE MEMORY OF MY BELOVED MASTER,
To draw no envy, SHAKESPEARE, on thy name,
Am I thus ample to thy book and fame;
While I confess thy writings to be such,
As neither man, nor Muse, can praise too much.
'Tis true, and all men's suffrage. But these ways
Were not the paths I meant unto thy praise ;
For silliest ignorance on these may light,
Which, when it sounds at best, but echoes right;
Or blind affection, which doth ne'er advance
The truth, but gropes, and urgeth all by chance ;
Or crafty malice might pretend this praise,
And think to ruin, where it seemed to raise.
These are, as some infamous bawd or whore,
Should praise a matron; what could hurt her more?
But thou art proof against them, and, indeed,
Above the ill fortune of them, or the need.
I therefore will begin : Soul of the age !
The applause ! delight ! the wonder of our stage !
My SHAKESPEARE rise ! I will not lodge thee by
Chaucer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie
A little further off, to make thee room :
Thou art a monument without a tomb,
And art alive still, while thy book doth live,
And we have wits to read and praise to give.
That I not mix thee so, my brain excuses,
I mean with great, but disproportioned Muses :
For if I thought my judgment were of years,
I should commit thee surely with thy peers,
And tell how far thou didst our Lily outshine,
Or sporting Kyd, or Marlow's mighty line.
And though thou hadst small Latin and less Greek,
From thence to honour thee, I will not seek
For names : but call forth thundering Æschylus,
Euripides, and Sophocles to us.
Pacuvius, Accius, him of Cordoua dead,
To live again, to hear thy buskin tread,
And shake a stage : or when thy socks were on,
Leave thee alone for the comparison
Of all, that insolent Greece, or haughty Rome
Sent forth, or since did from their ashes come.
Triumph, my Britain, thou hast one to show,
To whom all scenes of Europe homage owe.
He was not of an age, but for all time !
And all the Muses still were in their prime,
When, like Apollo, he came forth to warm
Our ears, or like a Mercury to charm !
Nature herself was proud of his designs,
And joyed to wear the dressing of his lines !
Which were so richly spun, and woven so fit,
As, since, she will vouchsafe no other wit.
The merry Greek, tart Aristophanes,
Neat Terence, witty Plautus, now not please ;
But antiquated and deserted lie,
As they were not of nature's family.
Yet must I not give nature all ; thy art,
My gentle Shakespeare, must enjoy a part.
For though the poet's matter nature be,
His art doth give the fashion : and, that he
Who casts to write a living line, must sweat,
(Such as thine are) and strike the second heat
Upon the Muses' anvil ; turn the same,
And himself with it, that he thinks to fame;
Or for the laurel, he may gain a scorn ;
For a good poet's made, as well as born.
And such wert thou ! Look how the father's face
Lives in his issue, even so the race
Of Shakespeare's mind and manners brightly shines
In his well turnéd, and true filéd lines;
In each of which he seeins to shake a lance,
As brandished at the eyes of ignorance.
Sweet Swan of Avon ! what a sight it were
To see thee in our water yet appear,
And make those flights upon the banks of Thames,
That so did take Eliza, and our James !
But stay, I see thee in the hemisphere
Advanced, and made a constellation there !
Shine forth, thou Star of poets, and with rage,
Or influence, chide, or cheer the drooping stage,
Which, since thy flight from hence, hath mourned like
night,
And despairs day, but for thy volume's light.
EPITAPH ON THE COUNTESS OF PEMBROKE.
UNDERNEATH this sable herse
Lies the subject of all verse,
SIDNEY'S sister, PEMBROKE'S mother :
Death ! ere thou hast slain another,
Learned and fair, and good as she,
Time shall throw a dart at thee.
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 subjects 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 honour's laws.
But who could less expect from you,
In whom alone Love lives agen?
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 loyalty's 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 offering 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.
To the immortal memory and friendship of that noble pair,
Sir Lucius Cary and Sir H. Morison.
THE STROPHE, OR TURN.
BRAVE infant of Saguntum, clear
Thy coming forth in that great year,
When the prodigious Hannibal did crown
His rage, with razing your immortal town.
Thou looking then about,
Ere thou wert half got out,
Wise child, didst hastily return,
And mad'st thy mother's womb thine urn.
How summ'd a circle didst thou leave mankind
Of deepest lore, could we the centre find !
THE ANTISTROPHE, OR COUNTER-TURN.
Did wiser nature draw thee back,
From out the horror of that sack;
Where shame, faith, honour, and regard of right,
Lay trampled on? the deeds of death and night
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