To A Gentlewoman For A Friend
No marvell if the Sunne's bright eye
Shower downe hott flames; that qualitie
Still waytes on light; but when wee see
Those sparkling balles of ebony
Distil such heat, the gazer straight
Stands so amazed at the sight
As when the lightning makes a breach
Through pitchie clouds: can lightning reach
The marrowe hurting not the skynne?
Your eyes to me the same have byn;
Can jett invite the loving strawe
With secrett fire? so those can draw,
And can, where ere they glance a dart,
Make stubble of the strongest hart.
Oft when I looke I may descry
A little face peep through your eye;
Sure 'tis the boy, who wisely chose
His throne among such rayes as those,
Which, if his quiver chance to fail,
May serve for darts to kill withal:
If to such powerful shafts I yeild,
If with so many wounds I bleed,
Think me noe coward, though I lye
Thus prostrate with your charming eye:
Did I say but your eye? I sweare
Death's in your beauty everywhere.
Your waxen hands when I recall,
Your lily breasts, their melting vale,
Your damaske cheeks, your lilly skynne,
Your corral lipp and dainty chynne,
Your shining locks and amber breath,
All pleasing instruments of death,
Your eye may spare itselfe: mine owne
When all your parts are duly knowne
From any part may fetch a dart
To wound itselfe. Kill not my hart,
By saying that I will dispise
The parentage from which you rise:
I know it well, and likewise knowe
That I my myselfe my breath doe owe
To Woolsey's roofe, and can it bee
I should disdayne your pedigree?
Or is your Sire a butcher found?
The fitter you to make a wound;
Wound mee againe and more and more,
So you againe will mee restore,
But if resemblance tell the father
I think hee was an Angell rather.
poem by William Strode
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Sir Thomas Wortley's Sonnet Answered
[THE SONNET.
I.
No more
Thou little winged archer, now no more
As heretofore,
Thou maist pretend within my breast to bide,
No more,
Since cruell Death of dearest LYNDAMORE
Hath me depriv'd,
I bid adieu to love, and all the world beside.
II.
Go, go;
Lay by thy quiver and unbend thy bow
Poore sillie foe,
Thou spend'st thy shafts but at my breast in vain,
Since Death
My heart hath with a fatall icie deart
Already slain,
Thou canst not ever hope to warme her wound,
Or wound it o're againe.]
THE ANSWER.
I.
Againe,
Thou witty cruell wanton, now againe,
Through ev'ry veine,
Hurle all your lightning, and strike ev'ry dart,
Againe,
Before I feele this pleasing, pleasing paine.
I have no heart,
Nor can I live but sweetly murder'd with
So deare, so deare a smart.
II.
Then flye,
And kindle all your torches at her eye,
To make me dye
Her martyr, and put on my roabe of flame:
So I,
Advanced on my blazing wings on high,
In death became
Inthroan'd a starre, and ornament unto
Her glorious, glorious name.
poem by Richard Lovelace
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On Sir Thomas Savill Dying Of The Small Pox
Take, greedy death, a body here entomd
That by a thousand stroakes was made one wound,
Where all thy shafts were stuck with fatall ayme
Untill a quiver this thy marke became,
Had Cæsar fifty wounds to let in thee
Because a troop of men might seeme to bee
Comprised in that great Spirit, this had more
Whose deaths were equalld with the fruitfull store
Of hopefull vertues, though each wound did reach
The very heart, yet none could make a breach
Into his soule, a soule more fully drest
With vertuous gemmes than was his body prest
With hatefull spotts, and therefore every scarr
When death itselfe is dead shall be a starre.
poem by William Strode
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Sonnet VII
Fayre eyes, the myrrour of my mazed hart,
what wondrous vertue is contaynd in you
the which both lyfe and death forth fro[m] you dart
into the obiect of your mighty view?
For when ye mildly looke with louely hew,
then is my soule with life and loue inspired:
but when ye lowre, or looke on me askew
then doe I die, as one with lightning fyred.
But since that lyfe is more then death desyred,
looke euer louely, as becomes you best,
that your bright beams of my weak eies admyred,
may kindle liuing fire within my brest.
Such life should be the honor of your light,
such death the sad ensample of your might.
poem by Edmund Spenser
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Keepe On Your Maske (Version for his Mistress)
Keepe on your maske and hide your eye
For in beholding you I dye.
Your fatall beauty Gorgon-like
Dead with astonishment doth strike.
Your piercing eyes that now I see
Are worse than Basilisks to me.
Shut from mine eyes those hills of snow,
Their melting vally do not shew:
Those azure paths lead to despaire,
O vex me not, forbear, forbear;
For while I thus in torments dwell
The sight of Heaven is worse than Hell.
In those faire cheeks two pits doe lye
To bury those slaine by your eye:
So this at length doth comfort me
That fairely buried I shall be:
My grave with Roses, Lillies, spread,
Methinks tis life for to be dead:
Come then and kill me with your eye,
For if you let me live I dye.
When I perceive your lips againe
Recover those your eyes have slaine,
With kisses that (like balsome pure)
Deep wounds as soone as made doe cure,
Methinks tis sicknesse to be sound,
And there's no health to such a wound.
When in your bosome I behold
Two hills of snow yet never cold,
Which lovers, whom your beauty kills,
Revive by climing those your hills,
Methinks there's life in such a death
That gives a hope of sweeter breath:
Then since one death prevails not where
So many antidotes are nere,
And your bright eyes doe but in vaine
Kill those who live as fast as slaine;
That I no more such death survive
Your way's to bury me alive
In place unknown, and so that I
Being dead may live and living dye.
poem by William Strode
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Sonnet 48: Soul's Joy, Bend Not
Soul's joy, bend not those morning stars from me,
Where Virtue is made strong by Beauty's might,
Where Love is chasteness, Pain doth learn delight,
And Humbleness grows one with Majesty.
Whatever may ensue, oh let me be
Copartner of the riches of that sight:
Let not mine eyes be hell-driv'n from that light:
Oh look, oh shine, oh let me die and see.
For though I oft myself of them bemoan,
That though my heart their beamy darts be gone,
Whose cureless wounds ev'n now most freshly bleed:
Yet since my death-wound is already got,
Dear killer, spare not thy sweet cruel shot:
A kind of grace it is to kill with speed.
poem by Philip Sidney
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To His Mistresse
In your sterne beauty I can see
Whatere in Aetna wonders bee;
If coales out of the topp doe flye
Hott flames doe gush out of your eye;
If frost lye on the ground belowe
Your breast is white and cold as snowe:
The sparkes that sett my hart on fire
Refuse to melt your owne desire:
The frost that byndes your chilly breast
With double fire hath mee opprest:
Both heate and cold a league have made,
And leaving you they mee invade:
The hearth its proper flame withstands
When ice itselfe heates others hands.
poem by William Strode
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Sonnet 139: O, call not me to justify the wrong
O, call not me to justify the wrong
That thy unkindness lays upon my heart
Wound me not with thine eye but with thy tongue;
Use power with power, and slay me not by art.
Tell me thou lov'st elsewhere, but in my sight,
Dear heart forbear to glance thine eye aside;
What need'st thou wound with cunning when thy might
Is more than my o'erpressed defence can bide?
Let me excuse thee: "Ah, my love well knows,
Her pretty looks have been mine enemies,
And therefore from my face she turns my foes,
That they elsewhere might dart their injuries."
Yet do not so; but since I am near slain,
Kill me outright with looks and rid my pain.
poem by William Shakespeare
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Sonnet XX: Fly, Fly, My Friends
Fly, fly, my friends, I have my death wound; fly!
See there that boy, that murthering boy I say,
Who like a thief, hid in dark bush doth lie,
Till bloody bullet get him wrongful prey.
So tyrant he no fitter place could spy,
Nor so fair level in so secret stay,
As that sweet black which veils the heav'nly eye:
There himself with his shot he close doth lay.
Poor passenger, pass now thereby I did,
And stayed pleas'd with the prospect of the place,
While that black hue from me the bad guest hid:
But straight I saw motions of lightning grace,
And then descried the glist'ring of his dart:
But ere I could fly hence, it pierc'd my heart.
poem by Philip Sidney
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To Chloe, Courting Her For His Friend
I.
Chloe, behold! againe I bowe:
Againe possest, againe I woe;
From my heat hath taken fire
Damas, noble youth, and fries,
Gazing with one of mine eyes,
Damas, halfe of me expires:
Chloe, behold! Our fate's the same.
Or make me cinders too, or quench his flame
II.
I'd not be King, unlesse there sate
Lesse lords that shar'd with me in state
Who, by their cheaper coronets, know,
What glories from my diadem flow:
Its use and rate values the gem:
Pearles in their shells have no esteem;
And, I being sun within thy sphere,
'Tis my chiefe beauty thinner lights shine there.
III.
The Us'rer heaps unto his store
By seeing others praise it more;
Who not for gaine or want doth covet,
But, 'cause another loves, doth love it:
Thus gluttons cloy'd afresh invite
Their gusts from some new appetite;
And after cloth remov'd, and meate,
Fall too againe by seeing others eate.
poem by Richard Lovelace
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Tell A Lie
Tell a lie against a liar
As it will put him on the pyre
And add to it some good butter
This will make him a good food of the fire.
Thousand lies can not make a truth
But the truth can die a gruesome death
So I must have to tell a lie to save the truth
Lies are like salt and pepper to the wound
And lies can bread fast without any ground
The inflicted wound of the truth getting sour
And the life of the truth becomes too bitter
So it is better to tell a lie against a lie
Though I know it will not make a truth but makes the lie die
The lie can not go scot-free and be allowed freely to multiply.
So the liar must be checkmated by a lie and stunned his growth
As it will strangulate him and he will be out of breath to death.
poem by Abdul Wahab
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On Gray Eyes
Looke how the russet morne exceeds the night,
How sleekest Jett yields to the di'monds light,
So farr the glory of the gray-bright eye
Out-vyes the black in lovely majesty.
A morning mantl'd with a fleece of gray
Laughs from her brow and shewes a spotlesse day:
This di'mond-like doth not his lustre owe
To borrowed helpe, as black thinges cast a show,
It needs noe day besides itselfe, and can
Make a Cimmeria seeme meridian:
Light sees, tis seen, tis that whereby wee see
When darknesse in the opticke facultie
Is but a single element: then tell
Is not that eye the best wherein doth dwell
More plenteous light? that organ is divine,
And more than eye that is all chrystalline,
All rich of sight: oh that perspicuous glasse
That lets in light, and lets a light forth passe
Tis Lustre's thoroughfare where rayes doe thronge,
A burning glasse that fires the lookers-on.
Black eies sett off coarse beauties which they grace
But as a beard smutch'd on a swarthy face.
Why should the seat of life be dull'd with shade,
Or that be darke for which the day was made?
The learned Pallas, who had witt to choose,
And power to take, did other eyes refuse,
And wore the gray: each country painter blotts
His goddesse eyeballs with two smutty spotts.
Corruption layes on blacke; give me the eye
Whose lustre dazles paynt and poetrie,
That's day unto itselfe; which like the sun
Seemes all one flame. They that his beames will shun
Here dye like flyes: when eyes of every kind
Faint at the sun, at these the sun growes blind,
And skipps behind a cloud, that all may say
The Eye of all the world loves to be gray.
poem by William Strode
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Astrophel and Stella: XX
Fly, fly, my friends, I have my death wound, fly!
See there that boy, that murd'ring boy, I say,
Who, like a thief, hid in dark bush doth lie
Till bloody bullet get him wrongful prey.
So tyrant he no fitter place could spy,
Nor so fair level in so secret stay,
As that sweet black which veils the heav'nly eye;
There himself with his shot he close doth lay.
Poor passenger, pass now thereby I did,
And stay'd, pleas'd with the prospect of the place,
While that black hue from me the bad guest hid;
But straight I saw motions of lightning grace
And then descried the glist'ring of his dart:
But ere I could fly thence it pierc'd my heart.
poem by Philip Sidney
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The Recommendation
These houres, and that which hovers o’re my End,
Into thy hands, and hart, lord, I commend.
Take Both to Thine Account, that I and mine
In that Hour, and in these, may be all thine.
That as I dedicate my devoutest Breath
To make a kind of Life for my lord’s Death,
So from his living, and life-giving Death,
My dying Life may draw a new, and never fleeting Breath.
poem by Richard Crashaw
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Sonnet XIV: Those Amber Locks
Those amber locks are those same nets, my dear,
Wherewith my liberty thou didst surprise;
Love was the flame that fired me so near;
The dart transpiercing were those crystal eyes.
Stong is the net, and fervent is the flame;
Deep is the wound, my sighs do well report;
Yet do I love, adore, and praise the same,
That holds, that burns, that wounds me in this sort.
And list not seek to break, to quench, to heal,
The bond, the flame, the wound which fest'reth so;
By knife, by liquor, or by salve to deal;
So much I please to perish in my woe.
Yet lest long travails be above my strength,
Good Delia loose, quench, heal me now at length.
poem by Samuel Daniel
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Lucasta's World
I.
Cold as the breath of winds that blow
To silver shot descending snow,
Lucasta sigh't; when she did close
The world in frosty chaines!
And then a frowne to rubies frose
The blood boyl'd in our veines:
Yet cooled not the heat her sphere
Of beauties first had kindled there.
II.
Then mov'd, and with a suddaine flame
Impatient to melt all againe,
Straight from her eyes she lightning hurl'd,
And earth in ashes mournes;
The sun his blaze denies the world,
And in her luster burnes:
Yet warmed not the hearts, her nice
Disdaine had first congeal'd to ice.
III.
And now her teares nor griev'd desire
Can quench this raging, pleasing fire;
Fate but one way allowes; behold
Her smiles' divinity!
They fann'd this heat, and thaw'd that cold,
So fram'd up a new sky.
Thus earth, from flames and ice repreev'd,
E're since hath in her sun-shine liv'd.
poem by Richard Lovelace
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Lucasta's World Epode
I.
Cold as the breath of winds that blow
To silver shot descending snow,
Lucasta sigh't; when she did close
The world in frosty chaines!
And then a frowne to rubies frose
The blood boyl'd in our veines:
Yet cooled not the heat her sphere
Of beauties first had kindled there.
II.
Then mov'd, and with a suddaine flame
Impatient to melt all againe,
Straight from her eyes she lightning hurl'd,
And earth in ashes mournes;
The sun his blaze denies the world,
And in her luster burnes:
Yet warmed not the hearts, her nice
Disdaine had first congeal'd to ice.
III.
And now her teares nor griev'd desire
Can quench this raging, pleasing fire;
Fate but one way allowes; behold
Her smiles' divinity!
They fann'd this heat, and thaw'd that cold,
So fram'd up a new sky.
Thus earth, from flames and ice repreev'd,
E're since hath in her sun-shine liv'd.
poem by Richard Lovelace
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In reality, it si more fruitful to wound than to kill. While the dead man lies still, counting only one man less, the wounded man is a progressive drain upon his side.
quote by B.H. Liddell Hart
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Rime 34
Love, do you know why your fair mother gave you
These arrows to your hands, and bound your eyes?
That you may shoot the first wound and break
The heart of this or any faithful lover;
And tied the blindfold, so you cannot see
The dreadful cruelty you have inflicted
So that it will not let you suffer pity,
Or even moderate your impious furor.
For, if you saw one of my dreadful wounds,
You would not be a god, but a wild beast,
Or it might make you tender, or less fierce
I would not wish you to come face to face
With the rays of my sun; my wound would seem,
Next to his greatness, small and even light.
poem by Gaspara Stampa
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On The Yong Baronett Portman Dying Of An Impostume In's Head
Is Death so cunning now that all her blowe
Aymes at the heade? Doth now her wary Bowe
Make surer worke than heertofore? The steele
Slew warlike heroes onely in the heele.
New found out slights, when men themselves begin
To be theyr proper Fates by new found sinne.
Tis cowardize to make a wound so sure;
No Art in killing where no Art can cure.
Was it for hate of learning that she smote
This upper shoppe where all the Muses wrought?
Learning shall crosse her drift, and duly trie
All wayes and meanes of immortalitie.
Because her heade was crusht, doth shee desire
Our equall shame? In vayne she doth aspire.
No: noe: Wee know where ere shee make a breach
Her poysened Sting onely the Heele can reach.
Looke on the Soule of man, the very Heart;
The Head itselfe is but a lower parte:
Yet hath shee straynde her utmost tyranny,
And done her worst in that she came so high.
Had she reservde this stroke for haughty men,
For politique Contrivers; justly then
The Punishment were matcht with the offence:
But when Humility and Innocence
So indiscreetly in the Heade are hitt,
Death hath done Murther, and shall die for itt:
Thinke it no Favour showne because the Braine
Is voyde of sence, and therefore free from payne.
Thinke it noe kindness when so stealingly
He rather seemde to jest away than die,
And like that Innocent, the Widdows childe
Cryde out, My head, my head: and so it dyde.
Thinke it was rather double cruelty,
Slaughter intended on his Name, that Hee
Whose thoughts were nothing taynted, nothing vayne,
Might seeme to hide Corruption in his brayne.
How easy might this Blott bee wipte away
If any Pen his worth could open lay?
For which those Harlott-prayses, which wee reare
In common dust, as much too slender are
As great for others. Boasting Elegies
Must here bee dumbe. Desert that overweighs
All our Reward stoppes all our Prayse: lest wee
Might seeme to give alike to Them and Thee:
Wherfore an humble Verse, and such a strayne
As mine will hide the truth while others fayne.
poem by William Strode
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Coridon to his Phillis
Alas my hart, mine eye hath wrongèd thee,
Presumptious eye, to gaze on Phillis face:
Whose heavenly eye no mortall man may see
But he must die, or purchase Phillis grace.
Poor Coridon, the Nimph whose eye doth moove thee,
Dooth love to draw, but is not drawne to love thee.
Her beautie, Nature's pride, and sheepheards praise,
Her eye, the heavenly Planet of my life:
Her matchlesse wit and grace, her fame displaies,
As if that love had made her for his wife.
Onely, her eyes shoote fierie darts to kill,
Yet is her hart as cold as Caucase hill.
My wings too weake to flye against the Sunne,
Mine eyes unable to sustaine her light,
My hart doth yeeld that I am quite undone,
Thus hath faire Phillis slaine me with her sight.
My bud is blasted, withred is my leafe
And all my corne is rotted in the sheafe.
Phillis, the golden fetter of my minde,
My fancie's Idoll, and my vitall power:
Goddesse of Nimphs, and honour of thy kinde,
This Age's Phoenix, Beautie's richest bower.
Poore Coridon for love of thee must die:
Thy beautie's thrall and conquest of thine eye.
Leave Coridon to plough the barren field,
Thy buds of hope are blasted with disgrace:
For Phillis' lookes no harty love doo yeeld,
Nor can she love, for all her lovely face.
Die Coridon, the spoile of Phillis' eye:
She cannot love, and therefore thou must die.
Finis.
poem by Sir Edward Dyer
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