A Defence of Poesie and Poems Part 7

POEM: THE SMOKES OF MELANCHOLY

I.

Who hath e'er felt the change of love, And known those pangs that losers prove, May paint my face without seeing me, And write the state how my fancies be, The loathsome buds grown on Sorrow's tree.

But who by hearsay speaks, and hath not fully felt What kind of fires they be in which those spirits melt, Shall guess, and fail, what doth displease, Feeling my pulse, miss my disease.

II.

O no! O no! trial only shows The bitter juice of forsaken woes; Where former bliss, present evils do stain; Nay, former bliss adds to present pain, While remembrance doth both states contain.

Come, learners, then to me, the model of mishap, Ingulphed in despair, slid down from Fortune's lap; And, as you like my double lot, Tread in my steps, or follow not.

III.

For me, alas! I am full resolved Those bands, alas! shall not be dissolved; Nor break my word, though reward come late; Nor fail my faith in my failing fate; Nor change in change, though change change my state:

But always own myself, with eagle-eyed Truth, to fly Up to the sun, although the sun my wings do fry; For if those flames burn my desire, Yet shall I die in Phoenix' fire.

POEM: ODE

When, to my deadly pleasure, When to my lively torment, Lady, mine eyes remained Joined, alas! to your beams.

With violence of heavenly Beauty, tied to virtue; Reason abashed retired; Gladly my senses yielded.

Gladly my senses yielding, Thus to betray my heart's fort, Left me devoid of all life.

They to the beamy suns went, Where, by the death of all deaths, Find to what harm they hastened.

Like to the silly Sylvan, Burned by the light he best liked, When with a fire he first met.

Yet, yet, a life to their death, Lady you have reserved; Lady the life of all love.

For though my sense be from me, And I be dead, who want sense, Yet do we both live in you.

Turned anew, by your means, Unto the flower that aye turns, As you, alas! my sun bends.

Thus do I fall to rise thus; Thus do I die to live thus; Changed to a change, I change not.

Thus may I not be from you; Thus be my senses on you; Thus what I think is of you; Thus what I seek is in you; All what I am, it is you.

POEM: VERSES

To the tune of a Neapolitan song, which beginneth, "No, no, no, no."

No, no, no, no, I cannot hate my foe, Although with cruel fire, First thrown on my desire, She sacks my rendered sprite; For so fair a flame embraces All the places, Where that heat of all heats springeth, That it bringeth To my dying heart some pleasure, Since his treasure Burneth bright in fairest light. No, no, no, no.

No, no, no, no, I cannot hate my foe, Although with cruel fire, First thrown on my desire, She sacks my rendered sprite; Since our lives be not immortal, But to mortal Fetters tied, do wait the hour Of death's power, They have no cause to be sorry Who with glory End the way, where all men stay. No, no, no, no.

No, no, no, no, I cannot hate my foe, Although with cruel fire, First thrown on my desire, She sacks my rendered sprite; No man doubts, whom beauty killeth, Fair death feeleth, And in whom fair death proceedeth, Glory breedeth: So that I, in her beams dying, Glory trying, Though in pain, cannot complain. No, no, no, no.

POEM: SONG

To the tune of a Neapolitan Villanel.

All my sense thy sweetness gained; Thy fair hair my heart enchained; My poor reason thy words moved, So that thee, like heaven, I loved.

Fa, la, la, leridan, dan, dan, dan, deridan: Dan, dan, dan, deridan, deridan, dei: While to my mind the outside stood, For messenger of inward good.

Nor thy sweetness sour is deemed; Thy hair not worth a hair esteemed; Reason hath thy words removed, Finding that but words they proved.

Fa, la, la, leridan, dan, dan, dan, deridan, Dan, dan, dan, deridan, deridan, dei: For no fair sign can credit win, If that the substance fail within.

No more in thy sweetness glory, For thy knitting hair be sorry; Use thy words but to bewail thee That no more thy beams avail thee; Dan, dan, Dan, dan, Lay not thy colours more to view, Without the picture be found true.

Woe to me, alas, she weepeth!

Fool! in me what folly creepeth?

Was I to blaspheme enraged, Where my soul I have engaged?

Dan, dan, Dan, dan, And wretched I must yield to this; The fault I blame her chasteness is.

Sweetness! sweetly pardon folly; Tie me, hair, your captive wholly: Words! O words of heavenly knowledge!

Know, my words their faults acknowledge; Dan, dan, Dan, dan, And all my life I will confess, The less I love, I live the less.

POEM: TRANSLATION

From "La Diana de Monte-Mayor," in Spanish: where Sireno, a shepherd, whose mistress Diana had utterly forsaken him, pulling out a little of her hair, wrapped about with green silk, to the hair he thus bewailed himself.

What changes here, O hair, I see, since I saw you!

How ill fits you this green to wear, For hope, the colour due!