And, having none, yet I will keep
A heart to weep for thee.
Bid me despair, and I'll despair
Under that cypress-tree;
Or bid me die, and I will dare
E'en death to die for thee.
Thou art my life, my love, my heart,
The very eyes of me,
And hast command of every part,
To live and die for thee.
MEMENTO MORI
SWEET day, so cool, so calm, so bright-
The bridal of the earth and sky-
The dew shall weep thy fall to-night,
For thou must die.
Sweet rose, whose hue, angry and brave,
Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye,
Thy root is ever in its grave,
Sweet spring, full of sweet days and roses,
A box where sweets compacted lie,
My music shows ye have your closes,
Only a sweet and virtuous soul
Like seasoned timber never gives,
But, though the whole world turn to coal,
Then chiefly lives.
THE KING OF KINGS
THE glories of our blood and state
Are shadows, not substantial things:
There is no armour against fate:
Death lays his icy hand on kings:
Sceptre and crown
Must tumble down,
And in the dust be equal made
With the poor crooked scythe and spade.
Some men with swords may reap the field,
And plant fresh laurels when they kill,
But their strong nerves at last must yield,
They tame but one another still.
Early or late
And must give up their murmuring breath When they, pale captives, creep to death.
The garlands wither on their brow
Then boast no more your mighty deeds! Upon Death's purple altar now
See where the victor-victim bleeds!
All heads must come
To the cold tomb :
Only the actions of the just
Smell sweet, and blossom in their dust.
YET Once more, O ye laurels, and once more, Ye myrtles brown, with ivy never sere,
I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude,
And with forced fingers rude
Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year.
Bitter constraint, and sad occasion dear,
Compels me to disturb your season due :
For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime,
Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer :
Who would not sing for Lycidas? he knew
Himself to sing and build the lofty rhyme.
He must not float upon his watery bier
Unwept, and welter to the parching wind
Without the meed of some melodious tear.
Begin, then, sisters of the sacred well,
That from beneath the seat of Jove doth
spring;
Begin, and somewhat loudly sweep the string;
Hence with denial vain, and coy excuse :
So may some gentle Muse
With lucky words favour my destined urn,
And, as he passes, turn
And bid fair peace be to my sable shroud!
For we were nursed upon the selfsame hill,
Fed the same flock by fountain, shade, and rill.
Together both, ere the high lawns appeared
Under the opening eyelids of the morn,
We drove afield, and both together heard
What time the grey-fly winds her sultry horn
Battening our flocks with the fresh dews of night,
Oft till the star that rose at evening bright
Towards heaven's descent had sloped his wester-
ing wheel.
Meanwhile the rural ditties were not mute,
Tempered to the oaten flute;
Rough satyrs danced, and fauns with cloven heel
From the glad sound would not be absent long;
And old Damotas loved to hear our song.
But O the heavy change, now thou art gone,
Now thou art gone, and never must return!
Thee, Shepherd, thee the woods, and desert caves
With wild thyme and the gadding vine o'ergrown,
And all their echoes, mourn.
The willows and the hazel copses green
Shall now no more be seen
Fanning their joyous leaves to thy soft lays.
As killing as the canker to the rose,
Or taint-worm to the weanling herds that graze,
Or frost to flowers that their gay wardrobe wear
When first the white-thorn blows,
Such, Lycidas, thy loss to Shepherd's ear.
Where were ye, Nymphs, when the remorseless deep
Closed o'er the head of your loved Lycidas?
For neither were ye playing on the steep
Where your old bards, the famous Druids, lie,
Nor on the shaggy top of Mona high,
yet where Deva spreads her wizard stream: Ay me! I fondly dream
'Had ye been there,'
have done?
What could the Muse herself that Orpheus bore,
The Muse herself, for her enchanting son
Whom universal nature did lament,
When by the rout that made the hideous roar
His gory visage down the stream was sent,
Down the swift Hebrus to the Lesbian shore?
Alas what boots it with incessant care
To tend the homely slighted shepherd's trade,
And strictly meditate the thankless Muse?
Were it not better done, as others use,
To sport with Amaryllis in the shade
Or with the tangles of Neæra's hair?
Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise
(That last infirmity of noble mind)
To scorn delights and live laborious days;
But the fair guerdon when we hope to find,
And think to burst out into sudden blaze,
Comes the blind Fury with the abhorrèd shears,
And slits the thin-spun life. 'But not the
Phoebus replied, and touched my trembling ears :
'Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil,
Nor in the glistering foil
Set off to the world nor in broad rumour lies,
But lives and spreads aloft by those pure eyes
And perfect witness of all-judging Jove;
As he pronounces lastly on each deed,
Of so much fame in heaven expect thy meed.'
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