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Anon permit the basest clouds to ride
With ugly rack on his celestial face,

And from the forlorn world his visage hide,
Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace:
Even so my sun one early morn did shine
With all-triumphant splendor on my brow;
But out, alack! he was but one hour mine;
The region cloud hath masked him from me now.
Yet him for this my love no whit disdaineth;

Suns of the world may stain, when heaven's sun staineth.

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LX.

LIKE as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,

So do our minutes hasten to their end;

Each changing place with that which goes before
In sequent toil all forwards do contend.

Nativity, once in the main of light,

Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crowned,
Crooked eclipses 'gainst his glory fight,

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And Time that gave doth now his gift confound.
Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth
And delves the parallels in beauty's brow,
Feeds on the rarities of nature's truth,

And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow:
And yet to times in hope my verse shall stand,
Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand.

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LXXI.

No longer mourn for me when I am dead
Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell
Give warning to the world that I am fled

From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell;

Nay, if
you read this line, remember not
The hand that writ it; for I love you so

That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot,
If thinking on me then should make you woe.
if, I say, you look upon this verse
When I perhaps compounded am with clay,
Do not so much as my poor name rehearse,
But let your love even with my life decay,
Lest the wise world should look into your moan,
And mock you with me after I am gone.

CVI.

WHEN in the chronicle of wasted time
I see descriptions of the fairest wights,
And beauty making beautiful old rime
In praise of ladies dead and lovely knights,
Then, in the blazon of sweet beauty's best,
Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow,
I see their antique pen would have expressed
Even such a beauty as you master now.
So all their praises are but prophecies
Of this our time, all you prefiguring;

And, for they looked but with divining eyes,
They had not skill enough your worth to sing:
For we, which now behold these present days,
Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise.

CXVI.

LET me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove:

O, no! it is an ever-fixèd mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

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It is the star to every wandering bark,

Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken; Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle's compass come;

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error and upon me proved,

I never writ nor no man ever loved.

CXXX.

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;

If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun ;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.

I have seen roses damasked red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;

And in some perfumes is there more delight

Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.

I love to hear her speak, yet well I know

That music hath a far more pleasing sound;

I grant I never saw a goddess go,

My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground;
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare

As

any she belied with false compare.

RICHARD BARNFIELD, Poems: In
Divers Humors, 1598.

SONNET:

IN PRAISE OF MUSIC AND POETRY.

IF music and sweet poetry agree,

As they must needs, the sister and the brother,
Then must the love be great 'twixt thee and me,
Because thou lov'st the one and I the other.

ΙΟ

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ΙΟ

Dowland to thee is dear, whose heavenly touch

Upon the lute doth ravish human sense;
Spenser to me, whose deep conceit is such,
As passing all conceit, needs no defence.
Thou lov'st to hear the sweet melodious sound
That Phoebus' lute, the queen of music, makes;
And I in deep delight am chiefly drowned
Whenas himself to singing he betakes:

One god is god of both, as poets feign,

One knight loves both, and both in thee remain.

AN ODE.

As it fell upon a day,

In the merry month of May,
Sitting in a pleasant shade,

Which a grove of myrtles made,

Beasts did leap and birds did sing,

Trees did grow and plants did spring:
Everything did banish moan,
Save the nightingale alone.
She, poor bird, as all forlorn,
Leaned her breast up-till a thorn,
And there sung the dolefulst ditty,
That to hear it was great pity.
'Fie, fie, fie!' now would she cry;
'Teru, teru!' by-and-by;

That to hear her so complain
Scarce I could from tears refrain:
For her griefs so lively shown
Made me think upon mine own.
Ah, thought I, thou mourn'st in vain,
None takes pity on thy pain.

Senseless trees, they cannot hear thee;
Ruthless bears, they will not cheer thee;