Samuel Daniel

Love is a sickness full of woes, All remedies refusing; A plant that with most cutting grows, Most barren with best using. Why so? More we enjoy it, more it dies; If not enjoyed, it sighting cries, Heigh ho! Love is a torment of the mind, A tempest everlasting; And Jove hath made it of a kind Not well, not full, nor fasting. Why so? More we enjoy it, more it dies; If not enjoyed, it sighing cries, Heigh ho!

Fair is my love, and cruel as she's fair: Her brow shades frowns 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, 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 reconciled friends within her brow; 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.

Unhappy pen and ill accepted papers, That intimate in vain my chaste desires, My chaste desires, the ever burning tapers, Enkindled by her eyes’ celestial fires. Celestial fires and unrespecting powers, That deign not view the glory of your might, In humble lines the work of careful hours, The sacrifice I offer to her sight. But since she scorns her own, this rests for me, I’ll moan my self, and hide the wrong I have: And so content me that her frowns should be To my infant style the cradle, and the grave. What though my self no honor get thereby, Each bird sings t’herself, and so will I.

Read in my face a volume of despairs, The wailing Iliads of my tragic woe, Drawn with my blood and printed with my cares Wrought by her hand, that I have honor'd so. Who, whilst I burn, she sings at my soul's wrack, Looking aloft from turret of her pride; There my soul's tyrant joys her in the sack Of her own seat, whereof I made her guide. There do these smokes that from affliction rise, Serve as an incense to a cruel Dame; A sacrifice thrice grateful to her eyes, Because their power serve to exact the same. *** Thus ruins she, to satisfy her will, *** The Temple where her name was honor'd still.

Let others sing of knights and paladins In aged accents and untimely words; Paint shadows in imaginary lines Which well the reach of their high wits records: But I must sing of thee, and those fair eyes Authentic shall my verse in time to come, When yet th' unborn shall say, “Lo where she lies Whose beauty made him speak that else was dumb.” These are the arks, the trophies I erect, That fortify thy name against old age; And these thy sacred virtues must protect Against the dark, and time's consuming rage. Though th' error of my youth they shall discover, Suffice they show I liv'd and was thy lover.

Care-charmer Sleep, son of the sable Night, Brother to Death, in silent darkness born: Relieve my languish, and restore the light, With dark forgetting of my cares, return; And let the day be time enough to mourn The shipwreck of my ill-adventur'd youth: Let waking eyes suffice to wail their scorn, Without the torment of the night's untruth. Cease dreams, th' imagery of our day-desires, To model forth the passions of the morrow; Never let rising sun approve you liars, To add more grief to aggravate my sorrow. Still let me sleep, embracing clouds in vain; And never wake to feel the day's disdain.

When men shall find thy flower, thy glory pass, And thou, with careful brow sitting alone, Receivèd hast this message from thy glass, That tells thee truth, and says that all is gone, Fresh shalt thou see in me the wounds thou madest, Though spent thy flame, in me the heat remaining, I that have loved thee thus before thou fadest, My faith shall wax, when thou art in thy waning. 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 shall see, And that thou wast unkind thou mayst repent. Thou mayst repent that thou hast scorned my tears, When Winter snows upon thy golden hairs.

But love whilst that thou mayst be loved again, Now whilst thy May hath filled thy lap with flowers, Now whilst thy beauty bears without a stain, Now use the summer smiles, ere winter lowers. And whilst thou spread’st unto the rising sun The fairest flower that ever saw the light, Now joy thy time before thy sweet be done, And, Delia, think thy morning must have night, And that thy brightness sets at length to west, When thou wilt close up that which now thou shew’st; And think the same becomes thy fading best Which then shall most inveil and shadow most. Men do not weigh the stalk for what it was, When once they find her flower, her glory, pass.

When men shall find thy flower, thy glory, pass, And thou with careful brow sitting alone Received hast this message from thy glass, That tells thee truth and says that all is gone: Fresh shalt thou see in me the wounds thou madest, Though spent thy flame, in me the heat remaining; I that have lov'd thee thus before thou fadest, My faith shall wax when thou art in thy waning. 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 shall see, And that thou wast unkind thou mayst repent. Thou mayst repent that thou hast scorn'd my tears, When winter snows upon thy golden hairs.

But love whilst that thou mayst be loved again, Now whilst thy May hath filed thy lap with flowers, Now whilst thy beauty bears without a stain, Now use the summer smiles, ere winter lowers. And whilst thou spread’st unto the rising sun The fairest flower that ever saw the light, Now joy thy time before thy sweet be done, And, Delia, think thy morning must have night, And that thy brightness sets at length to west, When thou wilt close up that which now thou shew’st; And think the same becomes they fading best Which then shall most inveil and shadow most. Men do not weigh the stalk for what it was, When once they find her flower, her glory, pass.