Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke (1554–1628)

SILENCE augmenteth griefe, writing encreaseth rage,

Staid are my thoughts, which loved and lost, the wonder of our age,

Yet quickened now with fire, though dead with frost ere now,

Enraged I write I know not what: dead, quick, I know not how.

Hard hearted mindes relent, and Rigor’s tears abound,

And Envy strangely rues his end, in whom no fault she found;

Knowledge his light hath lost, Valor hath slaine her knight:

Sidney is dead, dead is my friend, dead is the world’s delight.

Place pensive wailes his fall, whose presence was her pride,

Time crieth out, my ebbe is come, his life was my spring-tide;

Fame mournes in that she lost, the ground of her reports,

Each living wight laments his lacke, and all in sundry sorts.

He was—wo worth that word—to each well thinking minde,

A spotless friend, a matchless man, whose vertue ever shined,

Declaring in his thoughts, his life, and that he writ,

Highest conceits, longest foresights, and deepest works of wit.

He onely like himselfe, was second unto none,

Where death—though life—we rue, and wrong, and all in vaine do mone,

Their losse, not him waile they, that fill the world with cries,

Death slue not him, but he made death his ladder to the skies.

Now sinke of sorrow I, who live, the more the wrong,

Who wishing Death, whom death denies, whose thread is all too long,

Who tied to wretched life, who look for no relief,

Must spend my ever-dying days in never-ending grief.

Heart’s ease and onely I, like paraleles run on,

Whose equall length, keepe equall bredth and never meete in one,

Yet for not wronging him, my thoughts, my sorrowes’ cell,

Shall not run out, though leake they will, for liking him so well.

Farewel to you my hopes, my wonted waking dreames,

Farewel sometime enjoyèd joy eclipsèd are thy beams,

Farewel selfe-pleasing thoughts, which quietness brings forth,

And farewel friendship’s sacred league uniting minds of worth.

And farewel mery heart, the gift of guiltless mindes,

And all sports, which for live’s restore, varietie assignes,

Let all that sweet is voide? in me no mirth may dwell,

Philip the cause of all this woe, my life’s content, farewel.

Now rime, the source of rage, which art no kin to skill,

And endless griefe which deads my life, yet knows not now to kill,

Go seeke that haples tombe, which if ye hap to finde,

Salute the stones, that keep the lines, that held so good a minde.