網頁圖片
PDF
ePub 版

Whilst I alone did call upon thy aid,
My verse alone had all thy gentle grace;
But now my gracious numbers are decay'd,
And my sick muse doth give another place.
I grant, sweet love! thy lovely argument
Deserves the travail of a worthier pen;
Yet what of thee thy poet doth invent,
He robs thee off, and pays it thee again;
He lends thee virtue, and he stole that word
From thy behaviour. Beauty doth he give,
And found it in thy cheek. He can afford
No praise to thee, but what in thee doth live.
Then thank him not for that which he doth say,
Since what he owes to thee, thyself dost pay.

SUN-SET.

LXXIII

(That time of year thou may'st in me behold,
When yellow leaves, or none, or few do hang
Upon those boughs, which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin'd quires, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou seest the twilights of such day,
As after sun-set fadeth in the west;

Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals all up in rest.
In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire,
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire,
Consum'd by that which it was nourish'd by.

'Tis thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong
To love that well, which thou must leave ere long.)

Thy glass will show thee how thy beauties wear;
Thy dial how thy precious minutes waste;
The vacant leaves thy mind's imprint will bear,
And of this book this learning may'st thou taste.
The wrinkles, which thy glass will show,
Of mouthed graves will give the memory :
Thou by the dial's shady stealth may'st know
Time's thievish progress to eternity.

Look what thy memory cannot contain,

Commit to these waste blacks and thou shalt find
Those children nurs'd, deliver'd from thy brain,
To take a new acquaintance of thy mind.

These offices, so oft as thou wilt look,
Shall profit thee, and much enrich thy book.

A MONUMENT TO FAME.

Not mine own fears, nor the prophetick soul
Of the wide world, dreaming on things to come,
Can yet the lease of my true love control,
Suppos'd as forfeit to a confin'd doom.

The mortal moon hath her eclipse endur'd,
And the sad augurs mock their own presage:
Incertainties now crown themselves assur'd,
And peace proclaims olives of endless age.
Now with the drops of this most balmy time,
My love looks fresh, and death to me subscribes ;
Since spite of him I'll live in this poor rhyme,
While he insults o'er dull and speechless tribes.
And thou in this shalt find thy monument,

When tyrants' crests and tombs of brass are spent.
What's in the brain, that ink may character,
Which hath not figur'd to thee my true spirit?
What's now to speak, what now to register,
That may express my love, or thy dear merit?
Nothing, sweet love! but yet like prayers divine,
I must each day say o'er the very same;
Counting no old thing old, thou mine, I thine,
E'en as when first I hallow'd thy fair name.
So that eternal love, in love's fresh case,
Weighs not the dust and injuries of age,
Nor gives to necessary wrinkles place,
But makes antiquity for aye his page:

Finding the first conceit of love there bred,
Where time and outward form would show it dead

PERJURY.

Love is too young to know what conscience is,
Yet who knows not conscience is born of love?
Then, gentle cheater, urge not my amiss,
Lest guilty of my faults thy sweet self prove.
For thou betraying me, I do betray

My nobler part to my gross body's treason;
My soul doth tell my body that he may
Triumph in love; flesh stays no farther reason
But rising at thy name doth point out thee,
0 VOL. IX.

As his triumphant prize: proud of this pride,
He is contented thy poor drudge to be,
To stand in thy affairs, fall by thy side.

No want of conscience, hold it, that I call
Her love, for whose dear love I rise and fall.

In loving thee, thou know'st I am forsworn,
But thou art twice forsworn, to me love swearing;
In act thy bed-vow broke, and new faith torn,
In vowing new hate after new love bearing.
But why of two oaths' breach do I accuse thee,
When I break twenty? I am perjur'd most ;
For all my vows are oaths but to misuse thee;
And all my honest faith in thee is lost.

For 1 have sworn deep oaths of thy deep kindness;
Oaths of thy love, thy truth, thy constancy;
And to enlighten thee, gave eyes to blindness;
Or made them swear against the thing they see.
For I have sworn thee fair: more perjur'd I,
To swear against the truth so foul a lie.

THE TALE OF CEPHALUS AND PROCRIS.

Beneath Hymettus' hill, well cloth'd with flowers,
A holy well her soft springs gently pours:

Where stands a copse, in which the wood-nymphs shrove, (No wood) it rather seems a slender grove.

The humble shrubs and bushes hide the grass;

Here laurel, rosemary, here myrtle was:

Here grew thick box, and tam'risk, that excels,
And made a mere confusion of sweet smells.

The triffoly, the pine; and on this heath

Stands many a plant that feels cold Zephyr's breath.
Here the young Cephalus, tir'd in the chace,
Us'd his repose and rest alone t' embrace;
And where he sat, these words he would repeat,
"Come, air, sweet air, come cool my mighty heat!
"Come, gentle air, I never will forsake thee,
"I'll hug thee thus, and in thy bosom take thee."
Some double duteous tell-tale hapt to hear this,
And to his jealous wife doth straightway bear this,
Which Procris hearing, and withal the name
Of air, sweet air, which he did öft proclaim,
She stands confounded, and amaz'd with grief,
By giving this fond tale too sound belief;

And looks, as do the trees by winter nipt,

Whom frost and cold of fruit and leaves had stript.
She bends like corveil, when too rank it grows,
Or when the ripe fruits clog the quince tree boughs:
But when she comes t' herself, she tears

Her garments, eyes, her cheeks, and hairs;
And then she starts, and to her feet applies her,
Then to the wood (stark wood) in rage she hies her.
Approaching somewhat near, her servants they
By her appointment in a valley stay;

'While she alone, with creeping paces, steals,
To take the strumpet, whom her lord conceals.
What mean'st thou Procris, in these groves to hide thee?
What rage of love doth to this madness guide thee?
Thou hop'st the air he calls, in all her bravery,

Will straight approach, and thou shalt see their knavery.
And now again it irks her to be there,

For such a killing sight her heart will tear.

No truce can with her troubled thoughts dispense,
She would not now be there, nor yet be thence.
Behold the place her jealous mind foretels,
Here do they use to meet, and no where else:
The grass is laid, and see their true impression;
Even here they lay! aye, here was their transgression.
A body's print she saw, it was his seat,

Which makes her faint heart 'gainst her ribs to beat.
Phoebus the lofty eastern hill had scal'd

And all moist vapours from the earth exhal'd;
Now in his noon-tide point he shineth bright;
It was the middle hour, 'twixt noon and night.
Behold young Cephalus draws to the place,
And with the fountain water sprinks his face.
Procris is hid, upon the grass he lies,

And come, sweet Zephyr, come, sweet air, he cries.
She sees her error now from where she stood,

Her mind returns to her, and her fresh blood;

Among the shrubs and briers she moves and rustles,
And the injurious boughs away she justles;
Intending, as he lay there to repose him,
Nimbly to run, and in her arms inclose him.
He quickly cast his eye upon the bush,
Thinking therein some savage beast did rush;
His bow he bends, and a keen shaft he draws;
Unhappy man, what dost thou ? stay, and pause ;

It is no brute beast thou would'st 'reave of life;
O! man unhappy! thou hast slain thy wife!
O heaven! she cries, O help me! I am slain;
Still doth thy arrow in my wound remain.
Yet tho' by timeless fate my bones here lie,
It glads me most, that I no cuck-quean die.
Her breath (thus in the arms she most affected)
She breathes into the air (before suspected)
The whilst he lifts her body from the ground,
And with his tears doth wash her bleeding wound!

CUPID'S TREACHERY.

Cupid laid by his brand, and fell asleep;
A maid of Dian's this advantage found,
And his love-kindling fire did quickly steep
In a cold valley-fountain of that ground;
Which borrow'd from his holy fire of love,
A dateless lively heat still to endure,

And grew a seething bath, which yet men prove
Against strange maladies a sovereign cure.
But at my mistress' eyes love's brand new fired,
The boy for trial needs would touch my breast;
I sick withall the help of bath desired,
And thither hied a sad distemper'd guest:

But found no cure, the bath for my help lies,
When Cupid got new fire, my mistress' eyes.

The little love-god lying once asleep,

Laid by his side his heart and flaming brand,
Whilst many nymphs that vow'd chaste life to keep,
Came tripping by ; but in her maiden hand,

The fairest votary took up that fire,

Which many legions of true hearts had warm'd:

And so the general of hot desire

Was, sleeping, by a virgin hand disarm'd.
This brand she quenched in a cool well by,
Which from love's fire took heat perpetual,
Growing a bath and healthful remedy
For men diseas'd; but I, my mistress' thrall,
Came there for cure, and this by that I prove,
Love's fire heats water, water cools not love.

« 上一頁繼續 »