1247 Love poems

Stella is sick, and in that sick-bed lies Sweetness, that breathes and pants as oft as she; And grace, sick too, such fine conclusions tries That sickness brags itself best graced to be. Beauty is sick, but sick in so fair guise That in that paleness beauty’s white we see; And joy, which is inseparate from these eyes, Stella now learns (strange case!) to weep in thee. Love moves thy pain, and like a faithful page, As thy looks stir, runs up and down, to make All folks prest at thy will thy pain to assuage; Nature with care sweats for her darling’s sake, Knowing worlds pass, ere she enough can find Of such heaven stuff, to clothe so heavenly mind.

Where be the roses gone, which sweetened so our eyes? Where those red cheeks, which oft with fair increase did frame The height of honor in the kindly badge of shame? Who hath the crimson weeds stolen from my morning skies? How doth the color vade of those vermilion dyes, Which Nature's self did make, and self engrained the same! I would know by what right this paleness overcame That hue, whose force my heart still unto thraldom ties? Galen's adoptive sons, who by a beaten way Their judgements hackney on, the fault on sickness lay; But feeling proof makes me say they mistake it far: It is but love, which makes his paper perfect white To write therein more fresh the story of delight, Whiles beauty's reddest ink Venus for him doth stir.

Stella, since thou so right a princess art Of all the powers which life bestows on me, There ere by them aught undertaken be They first resort unto that sovereign part; Sweet, for a while give respite to my heart, Which pants as though it still should leap to thee, And on my thoughts give thy lieutenancy To this great cause, which needs both use and art, And as a queen, who from her presence sends Whom she employs, dismiss from thee my wit, Till it have wrought what thy own will attends. On servants’ shame oft master’s blame doth sit. Oh let not fools in me thy works reprove, And scorning say, “See what it is to love.”

Alas, have I not pain enough, my friend, Upon whose breast a fiercer gripe doth tire Than did on him who first stale down the fire, While Love on me doth all his quiver spend, But with your rhubarb words you must contend To grieve me worse, in saying that Desire Doth plunge my well-formed soul even in the mire Of sinful thoughts, which do in ruin end? If that be sin which doth the manners frame, Well stayed with truth in word and faith of deed, Ready of wit, and fearing naught but shame; If that be sin which in fixed hearts doth breed A loathing of all loose unchastity, Then love is sin, and let me sinful be.

You that do search for every purling spring Which from the ribs of old Parnassus flows, And every flower, not sweet perhaps, which grows Near thereabouts, into your poesy wring; Ye that do dictionary's method bring Into your rimes, running in rattling rows; You that poor Petrarch's long-deceased woes With new-born sighs and denizen'd wit do sing: You take wrong ways; those far-fet helps be such As do bewray a want of inward touch, And sure, at length stol'n goods do come to light. But if, both for your love and skill, your name You seek to nurse at fullest breasts of Fame, Stella behold, and then begin to endite.

Not at first sight, nor with a dribbèd shot, Love gave the wound which while I breathe will bleed: But known worth did in mine of time proceed, Till by degrees it had full conquest got. I saw, and liked; I liked, but lovèd not; I loved, but straight did not what love decreed: At length to love’s decrees I, forced, agreed, Yet with repining at so partial lot. Now even that footstep of lost liberty Is gone, and now like slave-born Muscovite I call it praise to suffer tyranny; And now employ the remnant of my wit To make myself believe that all is well, While with a feeling skill I paint my hell.

Your words my friend (right healthful caustics) blame My young mind marred, whom Love doth windlass so, That mine own writings like bad servants show My wits, quick in vain thoughts, in virtue lame, That Plato I read for nought, but if he tame Such coltish gyres, that to my birth I owe Nobler desires, least else that friendly foe, Great expectation, wear a train of shame. For since mad March great promise made of me, If now the May of my years much decline, What can be hoped my harvest time will be? Sure you say well, your wisdom’s golden mine Dig deep with learning’s spade, now tell me this, Hath this world ought so fair as Stella is?

The curious wits, seeing dull pensiveness Bewray itself in my long-settl'd eyes, Whence those same fumes of melancholy rise, With idle pains and missing aim do guess. Some, that know how my spring I did address, Deem that my Muse some fruit of knowledge plies; Others, because the prince my service tries, Think that I think state errors to redress; But harder judges judge ambition's ragei Scourge of itself, still climbing slipp'ry placei Holds my young brain captiv'd in golden cage. O fool or over-wise! alas, the race Of all my thoughts hath neither stop nor start But only Stella's eyes and Stella's heart.

The wisest scholar of the wight most wise By Phoebus’ doom, with sugared sentence says That Virtue, if it once met with our eyes, Strange flames of love it in our souls would raise; But, for that man with pain this truth descries, While he each thing in sense’s balance weighs, And so nor will nor can behold those skies Which inward sun to heroic mind displays, Virtue of late, with virtuous care to stir Love of herself, takes Stella’s shape, that she To mortal eyes might sweetly shine in her. It is most true, for since I her did see, Virtue’s great beauty in that face I prove, And find th’effect, for I do burn in love.

Let dainty wits cry on the sisters nine, That, bravely mask'd, their fancies may be told; Or, Pindar's apes, flaunt they in phrases fine, Enam'ling with pied flowers their thoughts of gold. Or else let them in statelier glory shine, Ennobling newfound tropes with problems old; Or with strange similes enrich each line, Of herbs or beasts which Ind or Afric hold. For me, in sooth, no Muse but one I know; Phrases and problems from my reach do grow, And strange things cost too dear for my poor sprites. How then? even thus: in Stella's face I read What love and beauty be; then all my deed But copying is, what in her Nature writes.