Sir Walter Ralegh

As you came from the holy land of Walsinghame Met you not with my true love By the way as you came? How shall I know your true love That have met many one As I went to the holy land That have come, that have gone? She is neither white nor brown But as the heavens fair There is none hath a form so divine In the earth or the air. Such an one did I meet, good Sir, Such an Angelic face, Who like a queen, like a nymph, did appear By her gait, by her grace. She hath left me here all alone, All alone as unknown, Who sometimes did me lead with her self, And me loved as her own. What’s the cause that she leaves you alone And a new way doth take; Who loved you once as her own And her joy did you make? I have loved her all my youth, But now old, as you see, Love likes not the falling fruit From the withered tree. Know that love is a careless child And forgets promise past, He is blind, he is deaf when he list And in faith never fast. His desire is a dureless content And a trustless joy He is won with a world of despair And is lost with a toy. Of womenkind such indeed is the love Or the word Love abused Under which many childish desires And conceits are excused. But true Love is a durable fire In the mind ever burning; Never sick, never old, never dead, From itself never turning.

Methought I saw the grave where Laura lay, Within that temple where the vestal flame Was wont to burn; and, passing by that way, To see that buried dust of living fame, Whose tomb fair Love, and fairer Virtue kept: All suddenly I saw the Fairy Queen; At whose approach the soul of Petrarch wept, And, from thenceforth, those Graces were not seen: For they this queen attended; in whose stead Oblivion laid him down on Laura’s hearse: Hereat the hardest stones were seen to bleed, And groans of buried ghosts the heavens did pierce: Where Homer’s spright did tremble all for grief, And cursed the access of that celestial thief!

Prais’d be Diana’s fair and harmless light; Prais’d be the dews wherewith she moists the ground; Prais’d be her beams, the glory of the night; Prais’d be her power by which all powers abound. Prais’d be her nymphs with whom she decks the woods, Prais’d be her knights in whom true honour lives; Prais’d be that force by which she moves the floods; Let that Diana shine which all these gives. In heaven queen she is among the spheres; In aye she mistress-like makes all things pure; Eternity in her oft change she bears; She beauty is; by her the fair endure. Time wears her not: she doth his chariot guide; Mortality below her orb is plac’d; By her the virtue of the stars down slide; In her is virtue’s perfect image cast. A knowledge pure it is her worth to know: With Circes let them dwell that think not so.

[Supposed to be written by one at the point of death] Give me my scallop shell of quiet, My staff of faith to walk upon, My scrip of joy, immortal diet, My bottle of salvation, My gown of glory, hope’s true gage, And thus I’ll take my pilgrimage. Blood must be my body’s balmer, No other balm will there be given, Whilst my soul, like a white palmer, Travels to the land of heaven; Over the silver mountains, Where spring the nectar fountains; And there I’ll kiss The bowl of bliss, And drink my eternal fill On every milken hill. My soul will be a-dry before, But after it will ne’er thirst more; And by the happy blissful way More peaceful pilgrims I shall see, That have shook off their gowns of clay, And go apparelled fresh like me. I’ll bring them first To slake their thirst, And then to taste those nectar suckets, At the clear wells Where sweetness dwells, Drawn up by saints in crystal buckets. And when our bottles and all we Are fill’d with immortality, Then the holy paths we’ll travel, Strew’d with rubies thick as gravel, Ceilings of diamonds, sapphire floors, High walls of coral, and pearl bowers. From thence to heaven’s bribeless hall Where no corrupted voices brawl, No conscience molten into gold, Nor forg’d accusers bought and sold, No cause deferr’d, nor vain-spent journey, For there Christ is the king’s attorney, Who pleads for all without degrees, And he hath angels, but no fees. When the grand twelve million jury Of our sins and sinful fury, ’Gainst our souls black verdicts give, Christ pleads his death, and then we live. Be thou my speaker, taintless pleader, Unblotted lawyer, true proceeder, Thou movest salvation even for alms, Not with a bribed lawyer’s palms. And this is my eternal plea To him that made heaven, earth, and sea, Seeing my flesh must die so soon, And want a head to dine next noon, Just at the stroke when my veins start and spread, Set on my soul an everlasting head. Then am I ready, like a palmer fit, To tread those blest paths which before I writ.

Before the sixth day of the next new year, Strange wonders in this kingdom shall appear: Four kings shall be assembled in this isle, Where they shall keep great tumult for awhile. Many men then shall have an end of crosses, And many likewise shall sustain great losses; Many that now full joyful are and glad, Shall at that time be sorrowful and sad; Full many a Christian's heart shall quake for fear, The dreadful sound of trump when he shall hear. Dead bones shall then be tumbled up and down, In every city and in every town. By day or night this tumult shall not cease, Until an herald shall proclaim a peace; An herald strong, the like was never born, Whose very beard is flesh and mouth is horn.

If all the world and love were young, And truth in every Shepherd’s tongue, These pretty pleasures might me move, To live with thee, and be thy love. Time drives the flocks from field to fold, When Rivers rage and Rocks grow cold, And Philomel becometh dumb, The rest complains of cares to come. The flowers do fade, and wanton fields, To wayward winter reckoning yields, A honey tongue, a heart of gall, Is fancy’s spring, but sorrow’s fall. Thy gowns, thy shoes, thy beds of Roses, Thy cap, thy kirtle, and thy posies Soon break, soon wither, soon forgotten: In folly ripe, in reason rotten. Thy belt of straw and Ivy buds, The Coral clasps and amber studs, All these in me no means can move To come to thee and be thy love. But could youth last, and love still breed, Had joys no date, nor age no need, Then these delights my mind might move To live with thee, and be thy love.

Nature, that washed her hands in milk, And had forgot to dry them, Instead of earth took snow and silk, At love’s request to try them, If she a mistress could compose To please love’s fancy out of those. Her eyes he would should be of light, A violet breath, and lips of jelly; Her hair not black, nor overbright, And of the softest down her belly; As for her inside he’d have it Only of wantonness and wit. At love’s entreaty such a one Nature made, but with her beauty She hath framed a heart of stone; So as love, by ill destiny, Must die for her whom nature gave him, Because her darling would not save him. But time (which nature doth despise, And rudely gives her love the lie, Makes hope a fool, and sorrow wise) His hands do neither wash nor dry; But being made of steel and rust, Turns snow and silk and milk to dust. The light, the belly, lips, and breath, He dims, discolors, and destroys; With those he feeds but fills not death, Which sometimes were the food of joys. Yea, time doth dull each lively wit, And dries all wantonness with it. Oh, cruel time! which takes in trust Our youth, our joys, and all we have, And pays us but with age and dust; Who in the dark and silent grave When we have wandered all our ways Shuts up the story of our days.

Go, soul, the body’s guest, Upon a thankless errand; Fear not to touch the best; The truth shall be thy warrant. Go, since I needs must die, And give the world the lie. Say to the court, it glows And shines like rotten wood; Say to the church, it shows What’s good, and doth no good. If church and court reply, Then give them both the lie. Tell potentates, they live Acting by others’ action; Not loved unless they give, Not strong but by a faction. If potentates reply, Give potentates the lie. Tell men of high condition, That manage the estate, Their purpose is ambition, Their practice only hate. And if they once reply, Then give them all the lie. Tell them that brave it most, They beg for more by spending, Who, in their greatest cost, Seek nothing but commending. And if they make reply, Then give them all the lie. Tell zeal it wants devotion; Tell love it is but lust; Tell time it is but motion; Tell flesh it is but dust. And wish them not reply, For thou must give the lie. Tell age it daily wasteth; Tell honor how it alters; Tell beauty how she blasteth; Tell favor how it falters. And as they shall reply, Give every one the lie. Tell wit how much it wrangles In tickle points of niceness; Tell wisdom she entangles Herself in overwiseness. And when they do reply, Straight give them both the lie. Tell physic of her boldness; Tell skill it is pretension; Tell charity of coldness; Tell law it is contention. And as they do reply, So give them still the lie. Tell fortune of her blindness; Tell nature of decay; Tell friendship of unkindness; Tell justice of delay. And if they will reply, Then give them all the lie. Tell arts they have no soundness, But vary by esteeming; Tell schools they want profoundness, And stand too much on seeming. If arts and schools reply, Give arts and schools the lie. Tell faith it’s fled the city; Tell how the country erreth; Tell manhood shakes off pity; Tell virtue least preferreth. And if they do reply, Spare not to give the lie. So when thou hast, as I Commanded thee, done blabbing— Although to give the lie Deserves no less than stabbing— Stab at thee he that will, No stab the soul can kill.

If Cynthia be a queen, a princess, and supreme, Keep these among the rest, or say it was a dream, For those that like, expound, and those that loathe express Meanings according as their minds are moved more or less; For writing what thou art, or showing what thou were, Adds to the one disdain, to the other but despair, Thy mind of neither needs, in both seeing it exceeds.

Fortune hath taken thee away, my love, My life’s soul and my soul’s heaven above; Fortune hath taken thee away, my princess; My only light and my true fancy’s mistress. Fortune hath taken all away from me, Fortune hath taken all by taking thee. Dead to all joy, I only live to woe, So fortune now becomes my mortal foe. In vain you eyes, you eyes do waste your tears, In vain you sighs do smoke forth my despairs, In vain you search the earth and heaven above, In vain you search, for fortune rules in love. Thus now I leave my love in fortune’s hands, Thus now I leave my love in fortune’s bands, And only love the sorrows due to me; Sorrow henceforth it shall my princess be. I joy in this, that fortune conquers kings; Fortune that rules on earth and earthly things Hath taken my love in spite of Cupid’s might; So blind a dame did never Cupid right. With wisdom’s eyes had but blind Cupid seen, Then had my love my love for ever been; But love farewell; though fortune conquer thee, No fortune base shall ever alter me.