| |
I
FAIR is my Love and cruel as she’s fair; | |
| Her brow-shades frown, although her eyes are sunny, | |
| Her smiles are lightning, though her pride despair, | |
| And her disdains are gall, her favours honey: | |
| A modest maid, deck’d with a blush of honour, | 5 |
| Whose feet do tread green paths of youth and love; | |
| The wonder of all eyes that look upon her, | |
| Sacred on earth, design’d a Saint above. | |
| Chastity and Beauty, which were deadly foes, | |
| Live reconcilèd friends within her brow; | 10 |
| And had she Pity to conjoin with those, | |
| Then who had heard the plaints I utter now? | |
| For had she not been fair, and thus unkind, | |
| My Muse had slept, and none had known my mind. | |
| |
II
My spotless love hovers with purest wings, | 15 |
| About the temple of the proudest frame, | |
| Where blaze those lights, fairest of earthly things, | |
| Which clear our clouded world with brightest flame. | |
| My ambitious thoughts, confinèd in her face | |
| Affect no honour but what she can give; | 20 |
| My hopes do rest in limits of her grace; | |
| I weigh no comforts unless she relieve. | |
| For she, that can my heart imparadise, | |
| Holds in her fairest hand what dearest is; | |
| My Fortune’s wheel’s the circle of her eyes, | 25 |
| Whose rolling grace deign once a turn of bliss. | |
| All my life’s sweet consists in her alone; | |
| So much I love the most Unloving one. | |
| |
III
And yet I cannot reprehend the flight | |
| Or blame th’ attempt presuming so to soar; | 30 |
| The mounting venture for a high delight | |
| Did make the honour of the fall the more. | |
| For who gets wealth, that puts not from the shore? | |
| Danger hath honour, great designs their fame; | |
| Glory doth follow, courage goes before; | 35 |
| And though th’ event oft answers not the same— | |
| Suffice that high attempts have never shame. | |
| The mean observer, whom base safety keeps, | |
| Lives without honour, dies without a name, | |
| And in eternal darkness ever sleeps.— | 40 |
| And therefore, Delia, ’tis to me no blot | |
| To have attempted, tho’ attain’d thee not. | |
| |
IV
When men shall find thy flow’r, thy glory, pass, | |
| And thou with careful brow, sitting alone, | |
| Receivèd hast this message from thy glass, | 45 |
| That tells the truth and says that All is gone; | |
| Fresh shalt thou see in me the wounds thou mad’st, | |
| Though spent thy flame, in me the heat remaining: | |
| I that have loved thee thus before thou fad’st— | |
| My faith shall wax, when thou art in thy waning. | 50 |
| The world shall find this miracle in me, | |
| That fire can burn when all the matter’s spent: | |
| Then what my faith hath been thyself shalt see, | |
| And that thou was unkind thou may’st repent.— | |
| Thou may’st repent that thou hast scorn’d my tears, | 55 |
| When Winter snows upon thy sable hairs. | |
| |
V
Beauty, sweet Love, is like the morning dew, | |
| Whose short refresh upon the tender green | |
| Cheers for a time, but till the sun doth show, | |
| And straight ’tis gone as it had never been. | 60 |
| Soon doth it fade that makes the fairest flourish, | |
| Short is the glory of the blushing rose; | |
| The hue which thou so carefully dost nourish, | |
| Yet which at length thou must be forced to lose. | |
| When thou, surcharged with burthen of thy years, | 65 |
| Shalt bend thy wrinkles homeward to the earth; | |
| And that, in Beauty’s Lease expired, appears | |
| The Date of Age, the Calends of our Death— | |
| But ah, no more!—this must not be foretold, | |
| For women grieve to think they must be old. | 70 |
| |
VI
I must not grieve my Love, whose eyes would read | |
| Lines of delight, whereon her youth might smile; | |
| Flowers have time before they come to seed, | |
| And she is young, and now must sport the while. | |
| And sport, Sweet Maid, in season of these years, | 75 |
| And learn to gather flowers before they wither; | |
| And where the sweetest blossom first appears, | |
| Let Love and Youth conduct thy pleasures thither. | |
| Lighten forth smiles to clear the clouded air, | |
| And calm the tempest which my sighs do raise; | 80 |
| Pity and smiles do best become the fair; | |
| Pity and smiles must only yield thee praise. | |
| Make me to say when all my griefs are gone, | |
| Happy the heart that sighed for such a one! | |
| |
VII
Let others sing of Knights and Paladines | 85 |
| In agèd accents and untimely words, | |
| Paint shadows in imaginary lines, | |
| Which well the reach of their high wit records: | |
| But I must sing of thee, and those fair eyes | |
| Authentic shall my verse in time to come; | 90 |
| When yet th’ unborn shall say, Lo, where she lies! | |
| Whose beauty made him speak, that else was dumb! | |
| These are the arcs, the trophies I erect, | |
| That fortify thy name against old age; | |
| And these thy sacred virtues must protect | 95 |
| Against the Dark, and Time’s consuming rage. | |
| Though th’ error of my youth in them appear, | |
| Suffice, they show I lived, and loved thee dear. | |
| |
