OUR LOVE SHALL LIVE. Clambering roses peep into her chamber, Ah! will the rose-bough see her lying lonely, When the petals fall and fierce bloom is on the leaves? 241 Happy, happy time, when the gray star twinkles And the gold sun wakes and weds her in the blue. Then when my darling tempts the early breezes, She the only star that dies not with the dark! Powerless to speak all the ardor of my passion, Will the autumn garners see her still ungath- I catch her little hand as we listen to the lark. ered, When the fickle swallows forsake the weeping Shall the birds in vain then valentine their sweeteaves? Comes a sudden question—should a strange hand pluck her! Oh! what an anguish smites me at the thought! Should some idle lordling bribe her mind with jewels! Can such beauty ever thus be bought? hearts? Season after season tell a fruitless tale? Waits she the garlands of spring for her dower ? Sometimes the huntsmen, prancing down the val- Till the April woodland has built her bridal ley, Eye the village lasses, full of sprightly mirth; Would she were older and could read my worth! Are there not sweet maidens, if she still deny Show the bridal heavens but one bright star? So I rhyme and reason till she darts before me bower? Then come, merry April, with all thy birds and beauties! With thy crescent brows and thy flowery, showery glee; With thy budding leafage and fresh green pastures; And may thy lustrous crescent grow a honeymoon Come, merry month of the cuckoo and the violet! Through the milky meadows from flower to flower Lo! the nest is ready, let me not languish longer! she flies, Bring her to my arms on the first May night. Sunning her sweet palms to shade her dazzled eyelids From the golden love that looks too eager in her eyes. When at dawn she wakens, and her fair face Out on the weather through the window panes, In her long night gown, sweet as boughs of May, GEORGE MEREDITH. Our Love shall Live. ONE day I wrote her name upon the strand; But came the tide and made my pains his prey. And eke my name be wiped out likewise. To die in dust, but you shall live by fame; I spoke with heart, and heat, and force, We parted. Sweetly gleamed the stars, So fresh they rose in shadowed swells; Sonnets. THAT thou art blamed shall not be thy defect, A crow that flies in heaven's sweetest air. Thy worth the greater, being wooed of time; For canker vice the sweetest buds doth love, And thou present'st a pure unstained prime. If some suspect of ill masked not thy show, owe. So are you to my thoughts, as food to life, Or as sweet-seasoned showers are to the ground; And for the peace of you I hold such strife As 'twixt a miser and his wealth is found; Now proud as an enjoyer, and anon Doubting the filching age will steal his treasure; Now counting best to be with you alone, Then bettered that the world may see my pleas ure; Sometime all full with feasting on your sight, And by and by clean starved for a look; Possessing or pursuing no delight, Save what is had or must from you be took. Thus do I pine and suffer day by day; Or gluttoning on all, or all away. SONNETS. FAREWELL! thou art too dear for my possessing, And so my patent back again is swerving. Thyself thou gav'st, thy own worth then not knowing, Or me, to whom thou gav'st it, else mistaking; Thus have I had thee, as a dream doth flatter: SOME say thy fault is youth, some wantonness; Some say thy grace is youth and gentle sport: Both grace and faults are loved of more and less; Thou mak'st faults graces that to thee resort. As on the finger of a throned queen The basest jewel will be well esteemed, So are those errors that in thee are seen, To truths translated, and for true things deemed. How many lambs might the stern wolf betray, If like a lamb he could his looks translate! How many gazers might'st thou lead away, If thou wouldst use the strength of all thy state! But do not so; I love thee in such sort As thou being mine, mine is thy good report. How like a winter hath my absence been From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year! What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen, What old December's bareness everywhere! And yet this time removed was summer's time; The teeming autumn, big with rich increase, Bearing the wanton burden of the prime, Like widowed wombs after their lords' decease; Yet this abundant issue seemed to me But hope of orphans, and unfathered fruit; For summer and his pleasures wait on thee, And, thou away, the very birds are mute; Or, if they sing, 'tis with so dull a cheer, That leaves look pale, dreading the winter's near. FROM you have I been absent in the spring, 243 When proud-pied April, dressed in all his trim, Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing, That heavy Saturn laughed and leaped with him. Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell Of different flowers in odor and in hue, Could make me any summer's story tell, Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew; Nor did I wonder at the lily's white, Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose; Drawn after you-you pattern of all those. THE forward violet thus did I chide : Sweet thief, whence didst thou steal thy sweet that smells, If not from my love's breath? the purple pride Which on thy soft cheek for complexion dwells, In my love's veins thou hast too grossly dyed. The lily I condemned for thy hand, And buds of marjoram had stolen thy hair; The roses fearfully on thorns did stand, One blushing shame, another white despair; A third, nor red nor white, had stolen of both, And to this robbery had annexed thy breath; But for his theft, in pride of all his growth A vengeful canker eat him up to death. More flowers I noted, yet I none could see, But sweet in color it had stolen from thee. WHEN in the chronicle of wasted time I see descriptions of the fairest wights, Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow, I see their antique pen would have expressed Of this our time, all you prefiguring; 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. Nor mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul Supposed as forfeit to a confined doom. Since, spite of him, I'll live in this poor rhyme, While he insults o'er dull and speechless tribes: And thou in this shalt find thy monument, When tyrants' crests and tombs of brass are spent. LET me not to the marriage of true minds Or bends with the remover to remove. Oh no! it is an ever-fixed mark, That looks on tempests, and is never shaken; It is the star to every wandering bark, Sonnets. COME sleep, O sleep! the certain knot of peace, The indifferent judge between the high and low! And if these things, as being thine by right, Move not thy heavy grace, thou shalt in me, Livelier than elsewhere, Stella's image see. In martial sports I had my cunning tried, Whose worth's unknown, although his height be When Cupid having me, his slave, descried taken. Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle's compass come; If this be error, and upon me proved, OH! never say that I was false of heart, As easy might I from myself depart, As from my soul, which in thy breast doth lie. That is my home of love; if I have ranged, Like him that travels, I return again— Just to the time, not with the time exchanged; So that myself bring water for my stain. Never believe, though in my nature reigned All frailties that besiege all kinds of blood, To leave for nothing all thy sum of good; WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. In Mars's livery, prancing in the press, "What now, Sir Fool?" said he, "I would no less; Look here, I say.”— I looked, and Stella spied, Who, hard by, made a window send forth light; My heart then quaked; then dazzled were mine eyes; One hand forgot to rule, the other to fight; Nor trumpet's sound I heard, nor friendly cries. My foe came on and beat the air for me, Till that her blush taught me my shame to see. O HAPPY Thames that didst my Stella bear; While those fair planets on thy streams did shine; The boat for joy could not to dance forbear; While wanton winds, with beauties so divine Ravished, staid not till in her golden hair They did themselves, oh sweetest prison! twine; And fain those Eol's youth there would their stay Have made, but forced by nature still to fly, First did with puffing kiss those locks display. She so dishevelled, blushed: from window I, With sight thereof, cried out, oh fair disgrace! Let honor's self to thee grant highest place. |