A sleep I had more than poor words can say ;
For, clos'd in arms, methought I did thee keep,
A sorry wretch plung'd in misfortunes deep.
Am I not wak'd, when light doth lyes bewray?
O that that night had ever still been black !
O that that day had never yet begun!
And you, mine eyes, would ye no time saw sun!
To have your sun in such a zodiac:
Lo, what is good of life is but a dream,
When sorrow is a never-ebbing stream.
So grievous is my pain, so painful life,
That oft I find me in the arms of death;
But, breath half gone, that tyrant called Death,
Who others kills, restoreth me to life:
For while I think how woe shall end with life,
And that I quiet peace shall 'joy by death,
That thought ev'n doth o'erpow'r the pains of death,
And call me home again to loathed life:
Thus doth mine evil transcend both life and death,
While no death is so bad as is my life,
Nor no life such which doth not end by death,
And Protean changes turn my death and life :
O happy those who in their birth find death,
Sith but to languish heaven affordeth life.
I CURSE the night, yet do from day me hide,
The Pandionian birds I tire with moans;
The echoes even are wearied with my groans,
Since absence did me from my bliss divide.
Each dream, each toy, my reason doth affright;
And when remembrance reads the curious scroll
Of past contentments caused by her sight,
Then bitter anguish doth invade my soul,
While thus I live eclipsed of her light.
O me! what better am I than the mole?
Or those whose zenith is the only pole,
Whose hemisphere is hid with so long night?
Save that in earth he rests, they hope for sun;
I pine, and find mine endless night begun.
POOR turtle, thou bemoans
The loss of thy dear love,
And I for mine send forth these smoaking groans.
Unhappy widow'd dove!
While all about do sing,
I at the root, thou on the branch above,
Even weary with our moans the gaudy spring; Yet these our plaints we do not spend in vain, Sith sighing zephyrs answer us again.
As, in a dusky and tempestuous night,
A star is wont to spread her locks of gold,
And while her pleasant rays abroad are roll'd,
Some spiteful cloud doth rob us of her sight:
Fair soul, in this black age so shin'd thou bright,
And made all eyes with wonder thee behold;
Till ugly death, depriving us of light,
In his grim misty arms thee did enfold.
Who more shall vaunt true beauty here to see?
What hope doth more in any heart remain,
That such perfections shall his reason rein,
If beauty, with thee born, too died with thee?
World, 'plain no more of Love, nor count his harms;
With his pale trophies Death has hung his arms.
I FEAR not henceforth death,
Sith after this departure yet I breathe.
Let rocks, and seas, and wind,
Their highest treasons shew;
Let sky and earth combin'd
Strive (if they can) to end my life and woe;
Sith grief cannot, me nothing can o'erthrow;
Or, if that aught can cause my fatal lot,
It will be when I hear I am forgot.
TRITONS, which bounding dive
Through Neptune's liquid plain,
When as ye shall arrive
With tilting tides where silver Ora plays,
And to your king his wat'ry tribute pays,
Tell how I dying live,
And burn in midst of all the coldest main.
THE SHADOW OF THE JUDGMENT.
ABOVE those boundless bounds, where stars do move,
The ceiling of the crystal round above,
And rainbow-sparkling arch of diamond clear,
Which crowns the azure of each undersphere,
In a rich mansion, radiant with light,
To which the sun is scarce a taper bright,
Which, though a body, yet so pure is fram'd,
That almost spiritual it may be nam'd,
Where bliss aboundeth, and a lasting May,
All pleasures heightening, flourisheth for aye,
The King of Ages dwells. About his throne,
Like to those beams day's golden lamp hath on,
Angelic splendours glance, more swift than aught
Reveal'd to sense, nay, than the winged thought,
His will to practise here do seraphim
Burn with immortal love; there cherubim,
With other noble people of the light,
As eaglets in the sun, delight their sight;
Heaven's ancient denizens, pure active powers,
Which, freed of death, that cloister high embowers,
Ethereal princes, ever-conquering bands,
Blest subjects, acting what their king commands;
Sweet choristers, by whose melodious strains
Skies dance, and earth untir'd their brawl sustains.
Mixed among whose sacred legions dear,
The spotless souls of humanes do appear,
Divesting bodies which did cares divest,
And there live happy in eternal rest.
Hither, surcharg'd with grief, fraught with annoy, (Sad spectacle into that place of joy!) Her hair disorder'd, dangling o'er her face, Which had of pallid violets the grace; The crimson mantle, wont her to adorn, Cast loose about, and in large pieces torn ; Sighs breathing forth, and from her heavy eyne, Along her cheeks distilling crystal brine, Which downward to her ivory breast was driven, And had bedew'd the milky-way of heaven, Came Piety: at her left hand near by, A wailing woman bare her company, Whose tender babes her snowy neck did clip,
And now hang on her pap, now by her lip:
Flames glanc'd her head above, which once did glow,
But late look pale, a poor and ruthful show!
She, sobbing, shrunk the throne of God before,
And thus began her case to him deplore:
Forlorn, wretch'd, desolate! to whom should I
My refuge have, below or in the sky,
But unto thee? See, all-beholding King,
That servant, no, that darling thou didst bring
On earth, lost man to save from hell's abime,
And raise unto those regions above time;
Who made thy name so truly be implor'd,
And by the reverend soul so long ador'd,
Her banish'd now see from these lower bounds;
Behold her garments' shreds, her body's wounds:
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