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The Lady Mary

COUNTESS OF PEMBROKE

Wonder of these, glory of other times,

O thou whom envy ev’n is forced t’admire!

Great Patroness of these my humble rhymes,

Which thou from out thy greatness dost inspire!

Since only thou has deigned to raise them higher,

Vouchsafe now to accept them as thine own,

Begotten by thy hand and my desire,

Wherein my zeal and thy great might is shown.

And seeing this unto the world is known,

O leave not still to grace thy work in me;

Let not the quickening seed be overthrown

Of that which may be born to honor thee,

Whereof the travail I may challenge mine,

But yet the glory, Madam, must be thine!

To Delia

I

Unto the boundless ocean of thy beauty

Runs this poor river, charged with streams of zeal,

Returning thee the tribute of my duty,

Which here my love, my youth, my plaints reveal.

Here I unclasp the book of my charged soul,

Where I have cast th’ accounts of all my care;

Here have I summed my sighs. Here I enrol

How they were spent for thee.

Look, what they are.

Look on the dear expenses of my youth,

And see how just I reckon with thine eyes.

Examine well thy beauty with my truth,

And cross my cares ere greater sums arise.

Read it, sweet maid, though it be done but slightly;

Who can show all his love, doth love but lightly.

II

Go, wailing verse, the infants of my love,

Minerva-like, brought forth without a mother;

Present the image of the cares I prove,

Witness your father’s grief exceeds all other.

Sigh out a story of her cruel deeds,

With interrupted accents of despair;

A monument that whosoever reads,

 May justly praise and blame my loveless Fair;

Say her disdain hath drièd up my blood,

And starvèd you, in succours still denying;

Press to her eyes, importune me some good,

Waken her sleeping pity with your crying:

Knock at her hard heart, beg till you have moved her,

And tell th’unkind how dearly I have loved her.

III

If so it hap this offspring of my care,

These fatal anthems, lamentable songs,

Come to their view, who like afflicted are;

Let them yet sigh their own, and moan my wrongs.

But untouched hearts with unaffected eye,

Approach not to behold my soul’s distress;

Clear-sighted you soon note what is awry,

Whilst blinded souls mine errors never guess.

You blinded souls, whom youth and error lead;

You outcast eaglets dazzled with your sun,

Do you, and none but you, my sorrows read;

You best can judge the wrongs that she hath done,

That she hath done, the motive of my pain,

Who whilst I love doth kill me with disdain.

IV

These plaintive verse, the posts of my desire,

Which haste for succour to her slow regard,

Bear not report of any slender fire,

Forging a grief to win a fame’s reward.

Nor are my passions limned for outward hue,

For that no colours can depaint my sorrows;

Delia herself, and all the world may view

Best in my face where cares have tilled deep furrows.

No bays I seek to deck my mourning brow,

O clear-eyed rector of the holy hill!

My humble accents bear the olive bough

Of intercession but to move her will.

These lines I use t’unburden mine own heart;

My love affects no fame nor ’steems of art.

V

Whilst youth and error led my wandering mind,

And set my thoughts in heedless ways to range,

All unawares a goddess chaste I find,

Diana-like, to work my sudden change.

For her, no sooner had mine eye bewrayed,

But with disdain to see me in that place,

With fairest hand the sweet unkindest maid

Casts water-cold disdain upon my face.

Which turned my sport into a hart’s despair,

Which still is chased, while I have any breath,

By mine own thoughts set on me by my Fair.

My thoughts like hounds pursue me to my death;

Those that I fostered of mine own accord,

Are made by her to murder thus their lord.

VI

Fair is my love, and cruel as she’s fair;

Her brow shades frowns although her eyes are sunny;

Her smiles are lightning though her pride despair;

 And her disdains are gall, her favours honey;

A modest maid, decked with a blush of honour,

Whose feet do tread green paths of youth and love;

The wonder of all eyes that look upon her,

Sacred on earth, designed a saint above.

Chastity and beauty, which were deadly foes,

Live reconcilèd friends within her brow;

And had she pity to conjoin with those,

Then who had heard the plaints I utter now?

O had she not been fair and thus unkind,

My Muse had slept and none had known my mind!

VII

For had she not been fair and thus unkind,

Then had no finger pointed at my lightness;

The world had never known what I do find,

And clouds obscure had shaded still her brightness.

Then had no censor’s eye these lines surveyed,

Nor graver brows have judged my Muse so vain;

No sun my blush and error had bewrayed,

Nor yet the world had heard of such disdain.

Then had I walked with bold erected face;

No downcast look had signified my miss;

But my degraded hopes with such disgrace

Did force me groan out griefs and utter this.

For being full, should I not then have spoken,

My sense oppressed had failed and heart had broken.

VIII

Thou, poor heart, sacrificed unto the fairest,

Hast sent the incense of thy sighs to heaven;

And still against her frowns fresh vows repairest,

And made thy passions with her beauty even.

And you, mine eyes, the agents of my heart,

Told the dumb message of my hidden grief;

And oft, with careful tunes, with silent art,

Did treat the cruel Fair to yield relief.

And you, my verse, the advocates of love,

Have followed hard the process of my case:

And urged that title which doth plainly prove

My faith should win, if justice might have place.

Yet though I see that nought we do can move,

«Tis not disdain must make me cease to love.

IX

If this be love, to draw a weary breath,

To paint on floods till the shore cry to th’air;

With downward looks still reading on the earth.

These sad memorials of my love’s despair;

If this be love, to war against my soul,

Lie down to wail, rise up to sigh and grieve,

The never-resting stone of care to roll,

Still to complain my griefs, whilst none relieve;

If this be love, to clothe me with dark thoughts,

Haunting untrodden paths to wail apart,

My pleasures horror, music tragic notes,

Tears in mine eyes and sorrow at my heart;

If this be love, to live a living death,

Then do I love, and draw this weary breath.

X

Then do I love and draw this weary breath

For her, the cruel Fair, within whose brow

I written find the sentence of my death

In unkind letters wrote she cares not how.

Thou power that rul’st the confines of the night,

Laughter-loving goddess, worldly pleasures’ queen,

Intenerate that heart that sets so light

The truest love that ever yet was seen;

And cause her leave to triumph in this wise

Upon the prostrate spoil of that poor heart

That serves, a trophy to her conquering eyes,

And must their glory to the world impart;

Once let her know sh’hath done enough to prove me,

And let her pity if she cannot love me!

XI

Tears, vows and prayers gain the hardest hearts,

Tears, vows and prayers have I spent in vain;

Tears cannot soften flint nor vows convert;

Prayers prevail not with a quaint disdain.

 I lose my tears where I have lost my love,

I vow my faith where faith is not regarded,

 I pray in vain a merciless to move;

So rare a faith ought better be rewarded.

Yet though I cannot win her will with tears,

Though my soul’s idol scorneth all my vows,

Though all my prayers be to so deaf ears,

No favour though the cruel Fair allows,

Yet will I weep, vow, pray to cruel she;

Flint, frost, disdain, wears, melts and yields, we see.

XII

My spotless love hovers with purest wings

About the temple of the proudest frame,

Where blaze those lights, fairest of earthly things;

Which clear our clouded world with brightest flame.

M’ambitious thoughts, confinèd in her face,

Affect no honour but what she can give;

My hopes do rest in limits of her grace;

I weigh no comfort unless she relieve.

For she that can my heart imparadise,

Holds in her fairest hand what dearest is.

My fortune’s wheel’s the circle of her eyes,

Whose rolling grace deign once a turn of bliss.

All my life’s sweet consists in her alone,

So much I love the most unloving one.

XIII

Behold what hap Pygmalion had to frame

And carve his proper grief upon a stone!

My heavy fortune is much like the same;

I work on flint and that’s the cause I moan.

For hapless lo, even with mine own desires

I figured on the table of my heart

The fairest form that the world’s eye admires,

And so did perish by my proper art.

And still I toil to change the marble breast

Of her whose sweetest grace I do adore,

Yet cannot find her breathe unto my rest.

Hard is her heart, and woe is me therefore.

O happy he that joyed his stone and art!

Unhappy I, to love a stony heart!

XIV

Those snary locks are those same nets, my dear,

Wherewith my liberty thou didst surprise

Love was the flame that firèd me so near,

The dart transpiercing were those crystal eyes.

Strong is the net, and fervent is the flame;

Deep is the wound my sighs can well report.

Yet I do love, adore, and praise the same,

That holds, that burns, that wounds in this sort;

And list not seek to break, to quench, to heal,

The bond, the flame, the wound that festereth 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!

XV

If that a loyal heart and faith unfeigned,

If a sweet languish with a chaste desire,

If hunger-starven thoughts so long retained,

Fed but with smoke, and cherished but with fire;

And if a brow with care’s charàcters painted

Bewray my love with broken words half spoken

To her which sits in my thoughts’ temple sainted,

And lays to view my vulture-gnawn heart open;

If I have done due homage to her eyes,

And had my sighs still tending on her name,

If on her love my life and honour lies,

And she, th’unkindest maid, still scorns the same;

Let this suffice, that all the world may see

The fault is hers, though mine the hurt must be.

XVI

Happy in sleep, waking content to languish,

Embracing clouds by night, in daytime mourn,

My joys but shadows, touch of truth my anguish,

Griefs ever springing, comforts never born;

And still expecting when she will relent,

Grown hoarse with crying, «mercy, mercy give,

«So many vows and prayers having spent

That weary of my life I loathe to live;

And yet the hydra of my cares renews

Still new-born sorrows of her fresh disdain;

And still my hope the summer winds pursues,

Finding no end nor period of my pain;

This is my state, my griefs do touch so nearly,

And thus I live because I love her dearly.

XVII

Why should I sing in verse? Why should I frame

These sad neglected notes for her dear sake?

Why should I offer up unto her name,

The sweetest sacrifice my youth can make?

Why should I strive to make her live for ever,

That never deigns to give me joy to live?

Why should m’afflicted Muse so much endeavour

Such honour unto cruelty to give?

If her defects have purchased her this fame,

What should her virtues do, her smiles, her love?

If this her worst, how should her best inflame?

What passions would her milder favours move?

Favours, I think, would sense quite overcome;

And that makes happy lovers ever dumb.

XVIII

Since the first look that led me to this error,

To this thoughts’ maze to my confusion tending,

Still have I lived in grief, in hope, in terror,

The circle of my sorrows never ending;

 Yet cannot leave her love that holds me hateful;

Her eyes exact it, though her heart disdains    me.

See what reward he hath that serves th’ungrateful?

So true and loyal love no favour gains me.

Still must I whet my young desires abated,

Upon the flint of such a heart rebelling;

And all in vain; her pride is so innated,

She yields no place at all for pity’s dwelling.

Oft have I told her that my soul did love her,

And that with tears; yet all this will not move her.

XIX

Restore thy tresses to the golden ore,

Yield Cytherea’s son those arks of love;

Bequeath the heavens the stars that I adore,

And to the orient do thy pearls remove;

Yield thy hands’ pride unto the ivory white;

T’Arabian odours give thy breathing sweet;

Restore thy blush unto Aurora bright;

To Thetis give the honour of thy feet.

Let Venus have the graces she resigned,

And thy sweet voice give back unto the spheres;

But yet restore thy fierce and cruel mind

To Hyrcan tigers and to ruthless bears;

Yield to the marble thy hard heart again;

So shalt thou cease to plague, and I to pain.

XX

What it is to breathe and live without life;

How to be pale with anguish, red with fear,

T’have peace abroad, and nought within but strife:

Wish to be present, and yet shun t’appear;

How to be bold far off, and bashful near;

How to think much, and have no words to speak;

To crave redress, yet hold affliction dear;

To have affection strong, a body weak,

Never to find, yet evermore to seek;

And seek that which I dare not hope to find;

T’affect this life and yet this life disleek,

Grateful t’another, to myself unkind:

This cruel knowledge of these contraries,

Delia, my heart hath learned out of those eyes.

XXI

If beauty thus be clouded with a frown,

That pity shines no comfort to my bliss,

And vapours of disdain so overgrown,

That my life’s light wholly indarkened is,

Why should I more molest the world with cries,

The air with sighs, the earth below with tears,

Since I live hateful to those ruthful eyes,

Vexing with untuned moan her dainty ears!

If I have loved her dearer than my breath,

My breath that calls the heaven to witness it! —

And still hold her most dear until my death,

And if that all this cannot move one whit,

Yet sure she cannot but must think apart

She doth me wrong to grieve so true a heart.

XXII

Come Time, the anchor hold of my desire,

My last resort whereto my hopes appeal;

Cause once the date of her disdain t’exspire,

Make her the sentence of her wrath repeal.

Rob her fair brow, break in on beauty, steal

Power from those eyes which pity cannot spare;

Deal with those dainty cheeks, as she doth deal

With this poor heart consumèd with despair.

This heart made now the pròspective of care

By loving her, the cruelst fair that lives,

The cruelst fair that sees I pine for her,

And never mercy to thy merit gives.

Let her not still triumph over the prize

Of mine affections taken by her eyes.

XXIII

Time, cruel Time, come and subdue that brow

Which conquers all but thee, and thee too stays,

As if she were exempt from scythe or bow,

From love or years unsubject to decays.

Or art thou grown in league with those fair eyes,

That they may help thee to consume our days?

Or dost thou spare her for her cruelties,

Being merciless like thee that no man weighs?

And yet thou seest thy power she disobeys,

Cares not for thee, but lets thee waste in vain,

And prodigal of hours and years betrays

Beauty and youth t’opinion and disdain.

Yet spare her, Time; let her exempted be;

She may become more kind to thee or me.

XXIV

These sorrowing sighs, the smoke of mine annoy,

These tears, which heat of sacred flame distils,

Are those due tributes that my faith doth pay

Unto the tyrant whose unkindness kills.

I sacrifice my youth and blooming years

At her proud feet, and she respects not it;

My flower, untimely’s withered with my tears,

By winter woes for spring of youth unfit.

She thinks a look may recompense my care,

And so with looks prolongs my long-looked ease;

As short that bliss, so is the comfort rare;

Yet must that bliss my hungry thoughts appease.

Thus she returns my hopes so fruitless ever;

Once let her love indeed, or eye me never!

XXV

False hope prolongs my ever certain grief,

Traitor to me, and faithful to my love.

A thousand times it promised me relief,

Yet never any true effect I prove.

Oft when I find in her no truth at all,

I banish her, and blame her treachery;

Yet soon again I must her back recall,

As one that dies without her company.

Thus often, as I chase my hope from me,

Straightway she hastes her unto Delia’s eyes;

Fed with some pleasing look, there shall she be,

And so sent back. And thus my fortune lies;

Looks feed my hope, hope fosters me in vain;

Hopes are unsure when certain is my pain.

XXVI

Look in my griefs, and blame me not to mourn,

From care to care that leads a life so bad;

Th’orphan of fortune, born to be her scorn,

Whose clouded brow doth make my days so sad.

Long are their nights whose cares do never sleep,

Loathsome their days who never sun yet joyed;

The impression of her eyes do pierce so deep,

That thus I live both day and night annoyed.

Yet since the sweetest root yields fruit so sour,

Her praise from my complaint I may not part;

I love th’effect, the cause being of this power;

I’ll praise her face and blame her flinty heart,

Whilst we both make the world admire at us,

Her for disdain, and me for loving thus.

XXVII

Reignin my thoughts, fair hand, sweet eye, rare voice!

Possess me whole, my heart’s triumvirate!

Yet heavy heart, to make so hard a choice

Of such as spoil thy poor afflicted state!

For whilst they strive which shall be lord of all,

All my poor life by them is trodden down;

They all erect their trophies on my fall,

And yield me nought that gives them their renown.

When back I look, I sigh my freedom past,

And wail the state wherein I present stand,

And see my fortune ever like to last,

Finding me reined with such a heavy hand.

What can I do but yield? and yield I do;

And serve all three, and yet they spoil me too!

XXVIII

Alluding to the sparrow pursued by a hawk, that flew into the bosom of Zenocrates

Whilst by thy eyes pursued, my poor heart flew

Into the sacred refuge of thy breast;

Thy rigour in that sanctuary slew

That which thy succ’ring mercy should have blest.

No privilege of faith could it protect,

Faith being with blood and five years witness signed,

Wherein no show gave cause of least suspect,

For well thou saw’st my love and how I pined.

Yet no mild comfort would thy brow reveal,

No lightning looks which falling hopes erect;

What boots to laws of succour to appeal?

Ladies and tyrants never laws respect.

Then there I die from whence my life should come,

And by that hand whom such deeds ill become.

XXIX

Still in the trace of one perplexèd thought,

 My ceaseless cares continually run on,

Seeking in vain what I have ever sought,

One in my love, and her hard heart still one.

I who did never joy in other sun,

And have no stars but those that must fulfil

The work of rigour, fatally begun

Upon this heart whom cruelty will kill,

 Injurious Delia! — yet, I love thee still,

And will whilst I shall draw this breath of mine;

I’ll tell the world that I deserved but ill,

And blame myself, t’excuse that heart of thine;

See then who sins the greater of us twain,

 I in my love, or thou in thy disdain.

XXX

Oft do I marvel whether Delia’s eyes

 Are eyes, or else two radiant stars that shine;

 For how could nature ever thus devise

 Of earth, on earth, a substance so divine?

 Stars, sure, they are, whose motions rule desires,

 And calm and tempest follow their aspects;

 Their sweet appearing still such power inspires,

 That makes the world admire so strange effects.

Yet whether fixed or wandering stars are they,

Whose influence rules the orb of my poor heart;

Fixed, sure, they are, but wandering make me stray

In endless errors whence I cannot part.

Stars, then, not eyes, move you with milder view

Your sweet aspect on him that honours you!

XXXI

The star of my mishap imposed this pain

To spend the April of my years in grief;

Finding my fortune ever in the wane,

With still fresh cares, supplied with no relief.

Yet thee I blame not, though for thee ’tis done;

But these weak wings presuming to aspire,

Which now are melted by thine eyes’ bright sun

That makes me fall from off my high desire;

And in my fall I cry for help with speed,

No pitying eye looks back upon my fears;

No succour find I now when most I need:

My heats must drown in th’ocean of my tears,

Which still must bear the title of my wrong,

Caused by those cruel beams that were so strong.

XXXII

And yet I cannot reprehend the flight,

Or blame th’attempt, presuming so to soar;

The mounting venture for a high delight

Did make the honour of the fall the more.

For who gets wealth, that puts not from the shore?

Danger hath honours, great designs their fame,

Glory doth follow, courage goes before;

And though th’event oft answers not the same,

Suffice that high attempts have never shame.

The mean observer whom base safety keeps,

Lives without honour, dies without a name,

And in eternal darkness ever sleeps.

And therefore, Delia, ’tis to me no blot

To have attempted though attained thee not.

XXXIII

Raising my hopes on hills of high desire,

Thinking to scale the heaven of her heart,

My slender means presumed too high a part,

Her thunder of disdain forced me retire,

And threw me down to pain in all this fire,

Where lo, I languish in so heavy smart

Because th’attempt was far above my art;

Her pride brooked not poor souls should come so nigh her.

Yet, I protest, my high desiring will

Was not to dispossess her of her right;

Her sovereignty should have remainèd still;

I only sought the bliss to have her sight.

Her sight, contented thus to see me spill,

Framed my desires fit for her eyes to kill.

XXXIV

Why dost thou, Delia, credit so thy glass,

Gazing thy beauty deigned thee by the skies,

And dost not rather look on him, alas!

Whose state best shows the force of murdering eyes?

The broken tops of lofty trees declare

The fury of a mercy-wanting storm;

And of what force thy wounding graces are

Upon myself, you best may find the form.

Then leave thy glass, and gaze thyself on me;

That mirror shows what power is in thy face;

To view your form too much may danger be,

Narcissus changed t’a flower in such a case.

And you are changed, but not t’a hyacinth;

I fear your eye hath turned your heart to flint.

XXXV

I once may see when years shall wreck my wrong,

And golden hairs shall change to silver wire,

And those bright rays that kindle all this fire,

Shall fail in force, their working not so strong,

Then beauty, now the burden of my song,

Whose glorious blaze the world doth so admire,

Must yield up all to tyrant Time’s desire;

Then fade those flowers that decked her pride so long.

When if she grieve to gaze her in her glass,

Which then presents her whiter-withered hue,

Go you, my verse, go tell her what she was,

For what she was, she best shall find in you. Y

our fiery heat lets not her glory pass,

But phœnix-like shall make her live anew.

XXXVI

Look, Delia, how w’esteem the half-blown rose,

The image of thy blush, and summer’s honour,

Whilst yet her tender bud doth undisclose

That full of beauty time bestows upon her.

No sooner spreads her glory in the air,

But straight her wide-blown pomp comes to decline;

She then is scorned that late adorned the fair;

So fade the roses of those cheeks of thine.

No April can revive thy withered flowers,

Whose springing grace adorns thy glory now;

Swift speedy time, feathered with flying hours,

Dissolves the beauty of the fairest brow.

Then do not thou such treasure waste in vain,

But love now whilst thou mayst be loved again.

XXXVII

But love whilst that thou mayst be loved again,

Now whilst thy May hath filled thy lap with flowers,

Now whilst thy beauty bears without a stain,