Part 14 (1/2)

For loving well, with pain I'm rent....

Nor can I yet repent, My heart o'erflowed with deadly pleasantness.

Now wait I from no less A foe than dealt me my first blow, my last.

And were I slain full fast, 'Twould seem a sort of mercy to my mind....

My ode, I shall i' the field Stand firm; to perish flinching were a shame, In fact, myself I blame For such laments; my portion is so sweet.

Tears, sighs, and death I greet.

O reader that of death the servant art, Earth can no weal, to match my woes, impart.

His poems are full of scenes and comparisons from Nature; for the sympathy for her which goes with this modern and sentimental tone is a deep one:

In that sweet season of my age's prime Which saw the sprout and, as it were, green blade Of the wild pa.s.sion....

Changed me From living man into green laurel whose Array by winter's cold no leaf can lose.

(Ode 1.)

Love is that by which

My darknesses were made as bright As clearest noonday light. (Ode 4.)

Elsewhere it is the light of heaven breaking in his heart, and springtime which brings the flowers.

In Sonnet 44 he plays with impossibilities, like the Greek and Roman poets:

Ah me! the sea will have no waves, the snow Will warm and darken, fish on Alps will dwell, And suns droop yonder, where from common cell

The springs of Tigris and Euphrates flow, Or ever I shall here have truce or peace Or love....

and uses the same comparisons, Sestina 7:

So many creatures throng not ocean's wave, So many, above the circle of the moon, Of stars were never yet beheld by night; So many birds reside not in the groves; So many herbs hath neither field nor sh.o.r.e, But my heart's thoughts outnumber them each eve.

Many of his poems witness to the truth that the love-pa.s.sion is the best interpreter of Nature, especially in its woes. The woes of love are his constant theme, and far more eloquently expressed than its bliss:

So fair I have not seen the sun arise, When heaven was clearest of all cloudy stain-- The welkin-bow I have not after rain Seen varied with so many s.h.i.+fting dyes, But that her aspect in more splendid guise Upon the day when I took up Love's chain Diversely glowed, for nothing mortal vies Therewith.... (Sonnet 112.)

From each fair eyelid's tranquil firmament So brightly s.h.i.+ne my stars untreacherous, That none, whose love thoughts are magnanimous, Would from aught else choose warmth or guidance lent.

Oh, 'tis miraculous, when on the gra.s.s She sits, a very flower, or when she lays Upon its greenness down her bosom white.

(Sonnet 127.)

Oh blithe and happy flowers, oh favoured sod, That by my lady in pa.s.sive mood are pressed, Lawn, which her sweet words hear'st and treasurest, Faint traces, where her shapely foot hath trod, Smooth boughs, green leaves, which now raw juices load, Pale darling violets, and woods which rest In shadow, till that sun's beam you attest, From which hath all your pride and grandeur flowed; Oh land delightsome, oh thou river pure Which bathest her fair face and brilliant eyes And winn'st a virtue from their living light, I envy you each clear and comely guise In which she moves. (Sonnet 129.)

These recall Nais in Theocritus:

When she crept or trembling footsteps laid, Green bright and soft she made Wood, water, earth, and stone; yea, with conceit The gra.s.ses freshened 'neath her palms and feet.

And her fair eyes the fields around her dressed With flowers, and the winds and storms she stilled With utterance unskilled As from a tongue that seeketh yet the breast, (Sonnet 25.)

As oft as yon white foot on fresh green sod Comelily sets the gentle step, a dower Of grace, that opens and revives each flower, Seems by the delicate palm to be bestowed.

(Sonnet 132.)

I seem to hear her, hearing airs and sprays, And leaves, and plaintive bird notes, and the brook That steals and murmurs through the sedges green.

Such pleasure in lone silence and the maze Of eerie shadowy woods I never took, Though too much tow'r'd my sun they intervene.

(Sonnet 143.)

and like Goethe's: