Part 15 (1/2)

Summer is come, for every spray now springs: The hart hath hung his old head on the pale; The buck in brake his winter coat he flings; The fishes flete with new repaired scale.

The adder all her slough away she slings; The swift swallow pursueth the flies smale; The busy bee her honey now she mings; Winter is worn that was the flowers' bale.

And thus I see among these pleasant things Each care decays, and yet my sorrow springs.

HENRY HOWARD, EARL OF SURREY.

With how sad steps, O Moon, thou climb'st the skies!

How silently, and with how wan a face!

What, may it be that e'en in heavenly place That busy archer his sharp arrows tries!

Sure, if that long-with-love-acquainted eyes Can judge of love, thou feelst a lover's case, I read it in thy looks; thy languish'd grace, To me, that feel the like, thy state descries.

Then, e'en of fellows.h.i.+p, O Moon, tell me, Is constant love deem'd there but want of wit?

Are beauties there as proud as here they be?

Do they above love to be loved, and yet Those lovers scorn whom that love doth possess?

Do they call virtue there, ungratefulness?

SIR PHILLIP SIDNEY, Astrophel and Stella, x.x.xi.

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so: For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow Die not, poor Death; nor yet canst thou kill me.

From Rest and Sleep, which but thy picture be, Much pleasure, then from thee much more must flow; And soonest our best men with thee do go-- Rest of their bones and souls' delivery!

Thou'rt slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men, And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell; And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well And better than thy stroke. Why swell'st thou then?

One short sleep past, we wake eternally, And Death shall be no more: Death, thou shalt die!

JOHN DONNE.

Cyriack, this three-years-day these eyes, though clear To outward view of blemish or of spot, Bereft of light, their seeing have forgot; Not to their idle orbs doth sight appear Of sun, or moon, or star, throughout the year, Or man, or woman. Yet I argue not Against Heav'ns hand or will, nor bate one jot Or heart or hope; but still bear up, and steer Right onward. What supports me, dost thou ask?

--The conscience, friend, to have lost them overpli'd In liberty's defence, my n.o.ble task, Of which all Europe rings from side to side.

This thought might lead me through this world's vain mask, Content, though blind, had I no better guide.

MILTON.

Earth has not anything to show more fair: Dull would he be of soul who could pa.s.s by A sight so touching in its majesty: This City now doth like a garment wear The beauty of the morning; silent, bare, s.h.i.+ps, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie Open unto the fields, and to the sky; All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.

Never did sun more beautifully steep In his first splendour valley, rock, or hill; Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!

The river glideth at his own sweet will: Dear G.o.d! the very houses seem asleep; And all that mighty heart is lying still!

WORDSWORTH, Upon Westminster Bridge.

Go from me. Yet I feel that I shall stand Henceforward in thy shadow. Nevermore Alone upon the threshold of my door Of individual life shall I command The uses of my soul, nor lift my hand Serenely in the suns.h.i.+ne as before, Without the sense of that which I forbore-- Thy touch upon the palm. The widest land Doom takes to part us, leaves thy heart in mine With pulses that beat double. What I do And what I dream include thee, as the wine Must taste of its own grapes. And when I sue G.o.d for myself, He hears that name of thine, And sees within my eyes the tears of two.

E. B. BROWNING, Sonnets from the Portuguese.

Of Adam's first wife, Lilith, it is told (The witch he loved before the gift of Eve), That, ere the snake's, her sweet tongue could deceive, And her enchanted hair was the first gold.

And still she sits, young while the earth is old, And, subtly of herself contemplative, Draws men to watch the bright web she can weave, Till heart and body and life are in its hold.

The rose and poppy are her flowers: for where Is he not found, O Lilith! whom shed scent And soft-shed kisses and soft sleep shall snare?

Lo! as that youth's eyes burned at thine, so went Thy spell through him, and left his straight neck bent, And round his heart one strangling golden hair.

D. G. ROSSETTI, Body's Beauty.

I met a traveler from an antique land, Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand, Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command Tell that its sculptor well those pa.s.sions read Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things, The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed; And on the pedestal these words appear: ”My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!”

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Sh.e.l.lEY, Ozymandias.

Here the rime scheme is peculiarly irregular, and the result is hardly a sonnet at all. Sh.e.l.ley's ma.n.u.script shows that the poem cost him a great deal of trouble.

_English Sonnet_. Out of the 'irregularities' and experiments of the early English sonneteers there rapidly developed a new form based on an entirely different principle of division, a series of three quatrains _abab_, _cdcd_, _efef_, followed by a couplet _gg_. This looser structure, simpler in music and in arrangement of subject matter, soon became a favorite, was used by Surrey and by Sidney, and was adopted by Shakespeare for his hundred and fifty-four sonnets[64]--hence it is sometimes called the Shakespearian sonnet. ”With this key,” said Wordsworth,

Shakespeare unlocked his heart.

But a sonnet in the stricter sense this 14-line stanza of course is not; for it does not aim to possess the balance, contrast, and functional organization of the Italian stanza. It has qualities of its own, however, which give it its own distinction; and, moreover, it is frankly what many sonnets of the stricter form, without the justification of a difficult and definitely organic structure, are: simply a poem of fourteen lines. For many of Wordsworth's and most of Mrs. Browning's sonnets, though they have the rime-scheme of the Italian, have the simple thought arrangement of the English sonnet.

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[64] Two of these are irregular, the 99th, with fifteen

lines (_ababacdcdefefgg_) and the 126th with twelve