A. H. Bullen

“ Such hope men had to lay the highest things
On thy wise youth, to be transported thence.
Whence to sharp wars, sweet Honour did thee call,
Thy country's love, religion, and thy friends:
Of worthy men, the marks, the lives and ends;
And her defence, for whom we labour all.
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These didst thou vanquish shame and tedious age,
Grief, sorrow, sickness and base fortune's might.
Thy rising day saw never woeful night,
But passed with praise from off this worldly stage.
Back to the camp, by thee that day was brought
First, thine own death; and after, thy long fame ”

“ Here in this world, they do much knowledge read,
And are the Casements, which admit most light.
They are her farthest-reaching instrument;
Yet they no beams unto their objects send:
But all the rays are from their objects sent;
And in the Eyes, with pointed angles end.
If th'objects be far off, the rays do meet
In a sharp point, and so things seem but small;
If they be near, their rays do spread and fleet,
And make broad points, that things seem great withal.
Lastly. Nine things to Sight requirèd are.
The Power to see! the Light! the Visible thing!
Being not too small! too thin! too nigh! ”

“ O no, Daiphantus! Women are not so
'Tis but their shadows, pictures merely painted!
Then turn poor lover! "O heaven! not to my woe!
Then to Vitullia!" With that word, he fainted.
Yet she that wounds, did heal. Like her, no heaven.
Odds in a man, a woman can make even!
"O my Vitullia! Let me write that down!
O sweet Vitullia! Nature made thee sweet!
O kind Vitullia! Truth hath the surest ground!
I'll weep or laugh, so that our hearts may meet!"
Love is not always merry, nor still weeping:
A drop of each, Love's joys are sweets in sleeping. ”

“ There is no sound so harsh that she doth scorn;
Nor any time, wherein she will forbear
The airy pavement with her feet to wear;
And yet her hearing sense is nothing quick,
For after time she endeth every trick." 46.
"And thou, sweet Music, Dancing's only life,
The ear's sole happiness, the Air's best speech,
Loadstone of fellowship, Charming rod of strife,
The soft mind's Paradise, the sick mind's Leech,
With thine own tongue, thou trees and stones canst teach,
That when the Air doth dance her finest measure.
Then art thou born, the gods' and men's sweet pleasure." ”

“ Now silent night drew on; when all things sleepe,
Saue theeves, and cares; and now stil mid-night came:
When sad Cassandra did naught els but weepe;
Oft calling on her Agamemnons name.
But seeing that the dead did not replie,
Thus she begins to mourne, lament, and crie.
Oh cruell Fortune (mother of despaire,)
Well art thou christen'd with a cruell name:
Since thou regardest not the wise, or faire,
But do'st bestow thy riches (to thy shame)
On fooles and lowly swaines, that care not for thee:
And yet I weepe, and yet thou do'st abhorre me. ”

“ If then, by death, the Soul were quenchèd quite,
She could not thus against her nature run!
Since every senseless thing, by Nature's light,
Doth preservation seek! destruction shun!
Nor could the world's best spirits so much err,
(If Death took all!) that they should all agree,
Before this life, their Honour to prefer!
For what is praise, to things that nothing be?
Again, if by the body's prop, She stand?
If on the body's life, her life depend? ”

“ If e'er I smile, her beauty is the sphere!
All that I do, is that I may admire her!
All that I wish, is that I still desire her!"
But peace, Daiphantus! Music is only sweet,
When without discord. A consort makes a heaven.
The ear is ravished when true voices meet.
Odds, but in music, never makes things even.
In voices' difference breeds a pleasant ditty,
In Love, a difference brings a scornful pity.
Whose was the tongue, Eurialæ defended?
Whose was the wit, Urania did praise?
Whose were the lips, Artesia's voice commended? ”

“ And thou, my Soul! which turn'st thy curious eye,
To view the beams of thine own form divine;
Know, that thou canst know nothing perfectly,
While thou are clouded with this flesh of mine.
Take heed of overweening! and compare
Thy peacock's feet, with thy gay peacock's train;
Study the best and highest things that are;
But of thyself, an humble thought retain!
Cast down thyself! and only strive to raise
The glory of thy Maker's sacred name!
Use all thy powers, that Blessed Power to praise,
Which gives thee power to Be, and Use the same. ”

“ Urania! Artesia! so!—"
Heart rent in sunder, with these words of woe.
"But soft, here comes! Who comes? and not calls out
Of rape and murder, love and villainy?
Stay, wretched man! Who runs? doth never doubt
It is thy soul! thy Saint! thy deity!
Then call the birds to ring a mourning Knell,
For mad Daiphantus, who doth love so well!
"O sing a song, parted in parcels three,
I'll bear the burden still of all your grief;
Who is all Woe, can tune his misery
To discontents; but not to his relief.
O kiss her! kiss her! And yet do not do so!
They bring some joy, but with short joys, long woe! ”

“ Had not the Poets sung the famous Wars of them of old?
Nor yet Ulysses (who, for ten years space on seas was rolled,
By sundry sorts of men; and who at last went down to Hell
As yet alive; and from the Cyclops' den escapèd well)
Had got such lasting fame: and drowned should lie in silence deep
Swineherd Eumæus, and Philætus who had to keep
A herd of neat; Laertes eke himself had been unknown—
If far and wide their names, great Homer's verses had not blown.
Immortal fame to mortal men, the Muses nine do give:
But dead men's wealth is spent and quite consumed of them that live. ”

“ She made him mad, whose sight had him revived;
Now speaks he plainly! Storms past, the air is glide.
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"Why was I made, to bear such woe and grief?
Why was I born, but in Love to be nourished?
Why then for Love (Love, of all virtues chief) ,
And I not pitied, though I be not cherished?
What! did my eyes offend in virtue seeing?
O no! True Virtue is the lover's being!
"Beauty and Virtue are the twins of life;
Love is the mother which them forth doth bring.
Wit with discretion ends the lover's strife.
Patience with silence is a glorious thing. ”

“ Mar not her Sense with sensualities!
Cast not her serious Wit on idle things!
Make not her free Will slave to vanities!
And when thou thinkest of her Eternity;
Think not that Death against her nature is;
Think it a Birth! and, when thou goest to die,
Sing like a swan, as if thou wentst to bliss!
And if thou, like a child, didst fear before,
Being in the dark, when thou didst nothing see;
Now I have brought thee Torch-light, fear no more.
Now, when thou diest; thou canst not hoodwinked be. ”

“ I curse these idle rhymes,
Which do their Maker's follies vain set forth;
Alteri inserviens meipsum conficio.
Yet bless I them again, as many times,
For that in them, I blaze Alcilia's worth.
Meanwhile, I fare, as doth the torch by night,
Which wastes itself in giving others light.
LXI.
Enough of this! For all is nought regarded!
And She, not once, with my complaints is moved.
Die, hapless love! since thou art not rewarded;
Yet ere thou die, to witness that I loved!
Report my truth! and tell the Fair unkind,
That "She hath lost, what none but She shall find!
LXII.
Lovers, lament! ”

“ CYCLOPS.
Nicias, there is no other remedy for Love,
With ointing, or with sprinkling on, that ever I could prove,
Beside the Muses nine! This pleasant medicine of the mind
Grows among men; and seems but light, yet very hard to find:
As well I wote you know; who are in physic such a Leech,
And of the Muses so beloved. The cause of this my speech
A Cyclops is, who lived here with us right wealthily;
That ancient Polyphem, when first he loved Galate
(When, with a bristled beard, his chin and cheeks first clothed were) :
He loved her not with roses, apples, or with curlèd hair ”

“ Who first went forth, Daiphantus most did ease.
They gone, Daiphantus to his standish highs!
Thinks, in his writs Vitullia's beauties were:
But what he wrote, his Muse not justifies,
Bids him take time! "Love badly writes in fear!
Her worthy praise, if he would truly write,
Her kisses' nectar must the same indite."
"Art, and sweet Nature! Let your influence drop
From me like rain! Yes, yes, in golden showers!
(Whose end is Virtue, let him never stop!) ”

“ While some few things, we, through the Sense, do strain;
That our short race of life is at an end,
Ere we, the Principles of Skill attain:
Or GOD (which to vain ends, hath nothing done)
In vain, this Appetite and Power hath given;
Or else our knowledge, which is here begun,
Hereafter must be perfected in heaven.
GOD never gave a Power to one whole Kind;
But most of that Kind did use the same!
Most eyes have perfect sight! though some be blind;
Most legs can nimbly run! though some be lame. ”

“ One with the other!
Yet so, that Art may show
Nature her mother:
The thick-brained audience lively to awake,
Till with shrill claps the Theatre do shake.
Sing Hymns to Bacchus then, with hands upreared!
Offer to Jove, who most is to be feared!
From him the Muse we have.
From him proceedeth
More than we dare to crave.
'Tis he that feedeth
Them, whom the World would starve. Then let the lyre
Sound! whilst his altars endless flames expire. To his Rival.
Er loved I most,
By thee that's lost,
Though she were won with leisure;
She was my gain:
But to my pain,
Thou spoilest me of my treasure ”

“ We, this decree, would praise, as right and wise!
But we (that measure times, by First and Last)
The sight of things successively do take;
When GOD, on all at once, His view doth cast;
And of all times, doth but one instant make.
All in Himself, as in a glass, He sees,
And from Him, by Him, through Him, all things be;
His sight is not discursive, by degrees;
But seeing the whole, each single part doth see.
He looks on Adam, as a root, or well,
And on his heirs, as branches, and as streams;
He sees all men as one man! though they dwell
In sundry cities, and in sundry realms. ”

“ It must have Teeth like a Satyr, Eyes like a critic; and yet may your Tongue speak false Latin, like your panders and bawds of poetry. Your Genius and Species should march in battle array with our politicians: yet your Genius ought to live with an honest soul indeed.
It should be like the never-too-well-read Arcadia, where the Prose and Verse, Matter and Words, are like his [Sidney's] Mistress's eyes! one still excelling another, and without corrival! or to come home to the vulgar's element, like friendly Shake-speare's Tragedies, where the Comedian rides, when the Tragedian stands on tiptoe. ”

“ Then Daphnis in his turn sweetly began to sing:
Daphnis.
"And me, not long ago, fair Daphne whistly eyed
As I drove by; and said, I was a paragon:
Nor then indeed to her I churlishly replied;
But, looking on the ground, my way still held I on.
Sweet is a cow-calf's voice, and sweet her breath doth smell;
A bull calf, and a cow, do low full pleasantly.
'Tis sweet in summer by a spring abroad to dwell!
Acorns become the oak; apples, the apple-tree;
And calves, the kine; and kine, the Neatherd much set out."
Thus sung these youths. The Goatherd thus did end the doubt:
Goatherd. ”

“ But if I seem as yet too rough and savage unto thee,
Great store of oaken wood I have, and never-quenchèd fire;
And I can well endure my soul to burn with thy desire,
With this my only eye, than which I nothing think more trim:
Now woe is me, my mother bore me not with fins to swim!
That I might dive to thee; that I thy dainty hand might kiss,
If lips thou wouldst not let. Then would I lilies bring iwis,
And tender poppy-toe that bears a top like rattles red,
And these in summer time: but others are in winter bred,
So that I cannot bring them all at once. ”

“ Still resting whole, when blows, the air divide,
Abiding pure, when th'air is most corrupted;
Throughout the air, her beams dispersing wide;
And, when the air is tost, not interrupted!
So doth the piercing Soul, the Body fill,
Being all in all, and all in part diffused?
Indivisible! incorruptible still!
Not forced! encountered! troubled! or confused!
And as the Sun above, the light doth bring,
Though we behold it in the air below;
So from th' Eternal Light, the Soul doth spring,
Though in the body, She her powers do show.
How the Soul doth exercise her powers in the Body. ”

“ Thou art my Loue, and I must be thy thrall.
Oh lend thine yuorie fore-head for Loues Booke,
Thine eyes for candles to behold the same;
That when dim-sighted ones therein shall looke
They may discerne that proud disdainefull Dame;
Yet claspe that Booke, and shut that Cazement light;
Lest th'one obscurde, the other shine too bright.
Sell thy sweet breath to th'daintie Musk-ball-makers;
Yet sell it so as thou mayst soone redeeme it:
Let others of thy beauty be pertakers;
Els none but Daphnis will so well esteeme it:
For what is Beauty except it be well knowne? ”

“ It is your special praise, that you are bent,
And sadly set your Princely mind thereto:
Which makes You in each thing so excellent.
Hence is it, that You came so soon to be
A Man-at-arms in every point aright,
The fairest flower of noble Chivalry,
And of Saint George his Band the bravest Knight.
And hence it is, that all your youthful train
In activeness and grace You do excel,
When You do Courtly dancings entertain:
Then Dancing's praise may be presented well
To You, whose action adds more praise thereto
Than all the Muses, with their pens can do. ”

“ Did only praise thy virtues in my thought;
As one that seld the rising sun hath sought:
With words and tears now wail thy timeless fate.
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Drawn was thy race aright from princely line,
Nor less than such (by gifts that Nature gave,
The common mother that all creatures have)
Doth virtue show, and princely lineage shine.
A King gave thee thy name; a kingly mind
That GOD thee gave: who found it now too dear
For this base world; and hath resumed it near,
To sit in skies, and 'sort with powers divine. ”