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If either you would change your cruel heart; Or; cruel still; time did your beauties stain: If from my soul this love would once depart; Or for my love some love I might obtain; Then might I hope a change; or ease of mind; By your good help; or in myself; to find。
But since my thoughts in thinking still are spent。 With reason's strife; by senses overthrown; You fairer still; and still more cruel bent; I loving still a love that loveth none: I yield and strive; I kiss and curse the pain; Thought; reason; sense; time; You; and I; maintain。
POEM: A FAREWELL
Oft have I mused; but now at length I find Why those that die; men say; they do depart: Depart: a word so gentle to my mind; Weakly did seem to paint Death's ugly dart。
But now the stars; with their strange course; do bind Me one to leave; with whom I leave my heart; I hear a cry of spirits faint and blind; That parting thus; my chiefest part I part。
Part of my life; the loathed part to me; Lives to impart my weary clay some breath; But that good part wherein all comforts be; Now dead; doth show departure is a death:
Yea; worse than death; death parts both woe and joy; From joy I part; still living in annoy。
* * *
Finding those beams; which I must ever love; To mar my mind; and with my hurt to please; I deemed it best; some absence for to prove; If farther place might further me to ease。
My eyes thence drawn; where lived all their light; Blinded forthwith in dark despair did lie; Like to the mole; with want of guiding sight; Deep plunged in earth; deprived of the sky。
In absence blind; and wearied with that woe; To greater woes; by presence; I return; Even as the fly; which to the flame doth go; Pleased with the light; that his small corse doth burn:
Fair choice I have; either to live or die A blinded mole; or else a burned fly。
POEM: THE SEVEN WONDERS OF ENGLAND
I。
Near Wilton sweet; huge heaps of stones are found; But so confused; that neither any eye Can count them just; nor Reason reason try; What force brought them to so unlikely ground。
To stranger weights my mind's waste soil is bound; Of passion…hills; reaching to Reason's sky; From Fancy's earth; passing all number's bound; Passing all guess; whence into me should fly So mazed a mass; or; if in me it grows; A simple soul should breed so mixed woes。
II。
The Bruertons have a lake; which; when the sun Approaching warms; not else; dead logs up sends From hideous depth; which tribute; when it ends; Sore sign it is the lord's last thread is spun。
My lake is Sense; whose still streams never run But when my sun her shining twins there bends; Then from his depth with force in her begun; Long drowned hopes to watery eyes it lends; But when that fails my dead hopes up to take; Their master is fair warned his will to make。
III。
We have a fish; by strangers much admired; Which caught; to cruel search yields his chief part: With gall cut out; closed up again by art; Yet lives until his life be new required。
A stranger fish myself; not yet expired; Tho'; rapt with Beauty's hook; I did impart Myself unto th' anatomy desired; Instead of gall; leaving to her my heart: Yet live with thoughts closed up; 'till that she will; By conquest's right; instead of searching; kill。
IV。
Peak hath a cave; whose narrow entries find Large rooms within where drops distil amain: Till knit with cold; though there unknown remain; Deck that poor place with alabaster lined。
Mine eyes the strait; the roomy cave; my mind; Whose cloudy thoughts let fall an inward rain Of sorrow's drops; till colder reason bind Their running fall into a constant vein Of truth; far more than alabaster pure; Which; though despised; yet still doth truth endure。
V。
A field there is; where; if a stake oe prest Deep in the earth; what hath in earth receipt; Is changed to stone in hardness; cold; and weight; The wood above doth soon consuming rest。
The earth her ears; the stake is my request; Of which; how much may pierce to that sweet seat; To honour turned; doth dwell in honour's nest; Keeping that form; though void of wonted heat; But all the rest; which fear durst not apply; Failing themselves; with withered conscience die。
VI。
Of ships by shipwreck cast on Albion's coast; Which rotting on the rocks; their death to die: From wooden bones and blood of pitch doth fly A bird; which gets more life than ship had lost。
My ship; Desire; with wind of Lust long tost; Brake on fair cliffs of constant Chastity; Where plagued for rash attempt; gives up his ghost; So deep in seas of virtue; beauties lie: But of this death flies up the purest love; Which seeming less; yet nobler life doth move。
VII。
These wonders England breeds; the last remains … A lady; in despite of Nature; chaste; On whom all love; in whom no love is placed; Where Fairness yields to Wisdom's shortest reins。
A humble pride; a scorn that favour stains; A woman's mould; but like an angel graced; An angel's mind; but in a woman cased; A heaven on earth; or earth that heaven contains: Now thus this wonder to myself I frame; She is the cause that all the rest I am。
* * *
Thou blind man's mark; thou fool's self…chosen snare; Fond fancy's scum; and dregs of scattered thought: Band of all evils; cradle of causeless care; Thou web of will; whose end is never wrought:
Desire! Desire! I have too dearly bought; With price of mangled mind; thy worthless ware; Too long; too long; asleep thou hast me brought Who shouldst my mind to higher things prepare;
But yet in vain thou hast my ruin sought; In vain thou mad'st me to vain things aspire; In vain thou kindlest all thy smoky fire: For Virtue hath this better lesson taught; Within myself to seek my only hire; Desiring nought but how to kill Desire。
POEM: FROM EARTH TO HEAVEN
Leave me; O love! which reachest but to dust; And thou; my mind; aspire to higher things: Grow rich in that which never taketh rust; Whatever fades; but fading pleasure brings。
Draw in thy beams; and humble all thy might To that sweet yoke where lasting freedoms be; Which breaks the clouds; and opens forth the light That doth both shine; and give us sight to see。
O take fast hold! let that light be thy guide; In this small course which birth draws out to death; And think how evil becometh him to slide; Who seeketh heaven; and comes from heavenly breath。 Then farewell; world; thy uttermost I see; Eternal Love; maintain thy life in me。
SPLENDIDIS LONGUM VALEDICO NUGIS
Footnote:
{1} Edward Wotton; elder brother of Sir Henry Wotton。 He was knighted by Elizabeth in 1592; and made Comptroller of her Household。 Observe the playfulness in Sidney's opening and close of a treatise written throughout in plain; manly English without Euphuism; and strictly reasoned。
{2} Here the introduction ends; and the argument begins with its Part 1。 Poetry the first Light…giver。
{3} A fable from the 〃Hetamythium〃 of Laurentius Abstemius; Professor of Belles Lettres at Urbino; and Librarian to Duke Guido Ubaldo under the Pontificate of Alexander VI。 (1492…1503)。
{4} Pliny says (〃Nat。 Hist。;〃 lib。 xi。; cap。 62) that the young vipers; impatient to be born; break through