William Smith

“ Be gracious to perplexèd Corin's lines;
You that do feel love's proud authority,
Help me to sing my sighs and sad designs.
Chloris, requite not faithful love with scorn,
But as thou oughtest have commiseration;
I have enough anatomised and torn
My heart, thereof to make a pure oblation.
Likewise consider how thy Corin prizeth
Thy parts above each absolute perfection,
How he of every precious thing deviseth
To make thee sovereign. Grant me then affection!
Else thus I prize thee: Chloris is alone
More hard than gold or pearl or precious stone. ”

“ My sighs shall tell to her my sad designs,
My painful pen shall ever sue for grace
To help my heart, which languishing now pines;
And I will triumph still amidst my woe
Till mercy shall my sorrows overflow.
XXX
The raging sea within his limits lies
And with an ebb his flowing doth discharge;
The rivers when beyond their bounds they rise,
Themselves do empty in the ocean large;
But my love's sea which never limit keepeth,
Which never ebbs but always ever floweth,
In liquid salt unto my Chloris weepeth,
Yet frustrate are the tears which he bestoweth. ”

“ All day sad sighing Corin you shall see,
All night he spends in tears and exclamation.
Thus still I live although I take no rest,
But living look as one that is a-dying;
Thus my sad soul with care and grief oppressed,
Seems as a ghost to Styx and Lethe flying. ”

“ Why should my Chloris then be so unkind?
That neither tears, nor sighs, nor streaming blood,
Can unto mercy move her cruel mood.
V
You fawns and silvans, when my Chloris brings
Her flocks to water in your pleasant plains,
Solicit her to pity Corin's strings,
The smart whereof for her he still sustains.
For she is ruthless of my woeful song;
My oaten reed she not delights to hear.
O Chloris, Chloris! Corin thou dost wrong,
Who loves thee better than his own heart dear. ”

“ The youth looks with a beautiful humility upward toward the greater but "dear and most entire beloved" poet. His own sonnets, he says, are "of my study the budding springs"; they are but "young-hatched orphan things." He nowhere boasts that they will give immortal renown to the scornful beauty, but modestly promises that if her cruel disdain does not ruin him, the time shall come when he "more large" her "praises forth shall pen." Chloris had once been favourable, as sonnet forty-eight distinctly shows, but the cycle does not bring any happy conclusion to the story. ”

“ And Chloris if these weeping truce-men may
One spark of pity from thine eyes obtain,
In recompense of their sad heavy lay,
Poor Corin shall thy faithful friend remain;
And what I say I ever will approve,
No joy may be comparèd to thy love! ”

“ My soul from thrall and languish to exempt.
O what is't not poor I would undertake,
If labour could my peace with Chloris make!
XVIII
My love, I cannot thy rare beauties place
Under those forms which many writers use:
Some like to stones compare their mistress' face;
Some in the name of flowers do love abuse;
Some makes their love a goldsmith's shop to be,
Where orient pearls and precious stones abound ”

“ Then all too late my death thou wilt repent,
When murther's guilt thy conscience shall torment.
XXV
Who doth not know that love is triumphant,
Sitting upon the throne of majesty?
The gods themselves his cruel darts do daunt,
And he, blind boy, smiles at their misery.
Love made great Jove ofttimes transform his shape ”

“ But Chloris fair my orisons concludes
With fearful frowns, presagers of my pain.
Thus do I spend the weary wand'ring day,
Oppressèd with a chaos of heart's grief;
Thus I consume the obscure night away,
Neglecting sleep which brings all cares relief;
Thus do I pass my ling'ring life in woe ”

“ Three nymphs more fairer than those beautys three
Which did appear to Paris on mount Ide.
Coming more near, my goddess I there see;
For she the field-nymphs oftentimes doth haunt,
To hunt with them the fierce and savage boar;
And having sported virelays they chaunt,
Whilst I unhappy helpless cares deplore. ”

“ WILLIAM SMITH
The sub-title of Chloris arouses an expectation that is gratified in the pastoral modishness of the sonnets. Corin sits under the "lofty pines, co-partners of his woe," with oaten reed at his lips, and calls on sylvans, lambkins and all Parnassans to testify to the beauty and cruelty of Chloris. The attitude is a self-conscious one, yet the poem reveals little of the personality of the author beyond the facts of his youthfulness and of his devotion to "the most excellent and learned Shepheard, Colin Cloute." ”