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In my lips to have his biding,
There those roses for to kiss,
Which do breathe a sugared bliss,
Opening rubies, pearls dividing.

*

Think, think of those dallyings,
When with dove-like murmurings,
With glad moaning, passèd anguish,
We change eyes, and heart for heart,
Each to other do depart,

Joying till joy makes us languish.

O my thought, my thoughts surcease,
Thy delights my woes increase,

My life melts with too much thinking;
Think no more, but die in me,

Till thou shalt revived be,

At her lips my nectar drinking.

[From the collection of Miscellaneous Poems first published in the Arcadia of 1595, under the heading of Certain Sonnets of Sir Philip Sidney never before printed.]

PHILOMELA.

The nightingale, as soon as April bringeth

Unto her rested sense a perfect waking,

While late bare earth, proud of new clothing, springeth,

Sings out her woes, a thorne her song-book making,
And mournfully bewailing,

Her throat in tunes expresseth

What grief her breast oppresseth

For Tereus' force on her chaste will prevailing.

O Philomela fair, O take some gladness,

That here is juster cause of plaintful sadness:
Thine earth now springs, mine fadeth ;

Thy thorn without, my thorn my heart invadeth.

A DIRGE.

Ring out your bells, let mourning shews be spread; For Love is dead:

All Love is dead, infected

With plague of deep disdain :

Worth, as nought worth, rejected, And Faith fair scorn doth gain. From so ungrateful fancy,

From such a female frenzy,

From them that use men thus,

Good Lord, deliver us!

Weep, neighbours, weep; do you not hear it said

That Love is dead?

His death-bed, peacock's folly;

His winding-sheet is shame ;

His will, false-seeming wholly;

His sole executor, blame.

From so ungrateful fancy,

From such a female frenzy,

From them that use men thus,

Good Lord, deliver us!

Let dirge be sung, and trentals rightly read,

For Love is dead;

Sir Wrong his tomb ordaineth

My mistress' marble heart;

Which epitaph containeth,

'Her eyes were once his dart.'

From so ungrateful fancy,

From such a female frenzy,

From them that use men thus,

Good Lord, deliver us!

Alas, I lie rage hath this error bred;

Love is not dead;

Love is not dead, but sleepeth
In her unmatched mind,

Where she his counsel keepeth,
Till due deserts she find.

Therefore from so vile fancy,
To call such wit a frenzy,
Who Love can temper thus,
Good Lord, deliver us!

I.

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 should 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.

2.

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 ill becometh him to slide,

Who seeketh heaven, and comes of heavenly breath.
Then farewell, world; thy uttermost I see:
Eternal Love, maintain thy life in me!

FROM THE 'ARCADIA.'

Dorus to Pamela.

My sheep are thoughts, which I both guide and serve;

Their pasture is fair hills of fruitless love,

On barren sweets they feed, and feeding starve.

I wail their lot, but will not other prove;

My sheephook is wan hope, which all upholds ;

My weeds Desire, cut out in endless folds;

What wool my sheep shall bear, whilst thus they live, In you it is, you must the judgment give.

Night.

O Night, the ease of care, the pledge of pleasure,
Desire's best mean, harvest of hearts affected,
The seat of peace, the throne which is erected
Of human life to be the quiet measure;
Be victor still of Phoebus' golden treasure,

Who hath our sight with too much sight infected;
Whose light is cause we have our lives neglected,
Turning all Nature's course to self displeasure.
These stately stars in their now shining faces,
With sinless sleep, and silence wisdom's mother,
Witness his wrong which by thy help is easèd:
Thou art, therefore, of these our desert places
The sure refuge; by thee and by no other
My soul is blest, sense joy'd, and fortune raised.

FULKE GREVILLE,

LORD BROOKE.

[FULKE GREVILLE, LORD BROOKE, born 1554, was the school-fellow and friend of Sidney. He held two important offices under Elizabeth's government, that of Secretary to the Principality of Wales (1583), and that of Treasurer of Marine Causes (1597). He seems to have spent the early years of James' reign in retirement, returning to Court about 1614, in which year he was made Chancellor of the Exchequer and Privy Councillor. In 1620 he was created Baron Brooke of Beauchamp's Court, and died in 1628 from the effects of a wound given him by a servant. The only works published in his lifetime were an elegiac poem on Sidney in Phoenix Nest (1593), a poem in Bodenham's Belvedere (1600), three poems in England's Helicon, and the Tragedy of Mu tapha in 1609. An edition of his works, excluding the Poems of Monarchy and Religion (published 1670) appeared in 1633. In 1870 his complete works, prose and verse, were edited in the Fuller Worthies Library by the Rev. A. B. Grosart.]

The poems of Lord Brooke, written for the most part in his youth and familar exercise with Sir Philip Sidney,' according to the title page of the 1633 editions, have a real and permanent value, though they can never hope to appeal to any other than a limited and so to speak professional audience. They are the work of a man of great thinking power, and of singular nobility and uprightness of character. The sheer power of mind shewn in these strange plays and treatises and so-called sonnets is undeniable. Every now and then it leads their author to a genuine success, to a fine chorus, a speech of weird and concentrated passion as impressive as a speech of Ford's, though even less human, a shorter poem of real and fanciful beauty. But generally we find this inborn power struggling with a medium of expression so cumbrous and intricate and stumbling, that neither thought nor fancy can find their way through it. Words are taxed beyond what they can bear; all thoughts, whether great or trivial, are tortured into the same over-laboured dress; there is no ease, no flow, no joy. More than this; not only is the manner far removed from the true manner of poetry, but in

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