Collected Works of Michael Drayton

by Michael Drayton

Let what I praise be still made good by you;

  Be you most worthy whilst I am most true!

  IDEA, V

  Nothing but “No!” and “I!”[A] and “I!” and “No!”

  “How falls it out so strangely?” you reply.

  I tell ye, Fair, I’ll not be answered so,

  With this affirming “No!” denying “I!”

  I say “I love!” You slightly answer “I!”

  I say “You love!” You pule me out a “No!”

  I say “I die!” You echo me with “I!”

  “Save me!” I cry; you sigh me out a “No!”

  Must woe and I have naught but “No!” and “I!”?

  No “I!” am I, if I no more can have.

  Answer no more; with silence make reply,

  And let me take myself what I do crave;

  Let “No!” and “I!” with I and you be so,

  Then answer “No!” and “I!” and “I!” and “No!”

  [Footnote A: The “I” of course equals “aye.”]

  IDEA, VI

  How many paltry, foolish, painted things,

  That now in coaches trouble every street,

  Shall be forgotten, whom no poet sings,

  Ere they be well wrapped in their winding sheet!

  Where I to thee eternity shall give,

  When nothing else remaineth of these days,

  And queens hereafter shall be glad to live

  Upon the alms of thy superfluous praise;

  Virgins and matrons reading these my rhymes,

  Shall be so much delighted with thy story,

  That they shall grieve they lived not in these times,

  To have seen thee, their sex’s only glory.

  So shalt thou fly above the vulgar throng,

  Still to survive in my immortal song.

  IDEA, VII

  Love, in a humour, played the prodigal,

  And bade my senses to a solemn feast;

  Yet more to grace the company withal,

  Invites my heart to be the chiefest guest.

  No other drink would serve this glutton’s turn,

  But precious tears distilling from mine eyne,

  Which with my sighs this epicure doth burn,

  Quaffing carouses in this costly wine;

  Where, in his cups, o’ercome with foul excess,

  Straightways he plays a swaggering ruffian’s part,

  And at the banquet in his drunkenness,

  Slew his dear friend, my kind and truest heart.

  A gentle warning, friends, thus may you see,

  What ’tis to keep a drunkard company!

  IDEA, VIII

  There’s nothing grieves me but that age should haste,

  That in my days I may not see thee old;

  That where those two clear sparkling eyes are placed,

  Only two loopholes that I might behold;

  That lovely archèd ivory-polished brow

  Defaced with wrinkles, that I might but see;

  Thy dainty hair, so curled and crispèd now,

  Like grizzled moss upon some agèd tree;

  Thy cheek now flush with roses, sunk and lean;

  Thy lips, with age as any wafer thin!

  Thy pearly teeth out of thy head so clean,

  That when thou feed’st thy nose shall touch thy chin!

  These lines that now thou scornst, which should delight thee,

  Then would I make thee read but to despite thee.

  IDEA, IX

  As other men, so I myself do muse

  Why in this sort I wrest invention so,

  And why these giddy metaphors I use,

  Leaving the path the greater part do go.

  I will resolve you. I’m a lunatic;

  And ever this in madmen you shall find,

  What they last thought of when the brain grew sick,

  In most distraction they keep that in mind.

  Thus talking idly in this bedlam fit,

  Reason and I, you must conceive, are twain;

  ’Tis nine years now since first I lost my wit.

  Bear with me then though troubled be my brain.

  With diet and correction men distraught,

  Not too far past, may to their wits be brought.

  IDEA, X

  To nothing fitter can I thee compare

  Than to the son of some rich penny-father,

  Who having now brought on his end with care,

  Leaves to his son all he had heaped together.

  This new rich novice, lavish of his chest,

  To one man gives, doth on another spend;

  Then here he riots; yet amongst the rest,

  Haps to lend some to one true honest friend.

  Thy gifts thou in obscurity dost waste:

  False friends, thy kindness born but to deceive thee;

  Thy love that is on the unworthy placed;

  Time hath thy beauty which with age will leave thee.

  Only that little which to me was lent,

  I give thee back when all the rest is spent.

  IDEA, XI

  You’re not alone when you are still alone;

  O God! from you that I could private be!

  Since you one were, I never since was one;

  Since you in me, myself since out of me.

  Transported from myself into your being,

  Though either distant, present yet to either;

  Senseless with too much joy, each other seeing;

  And only absent when we are together.

  Give me my self, and take your self again!

  Devise some means but how I may forsake you!

  So much is mine that doth with you remain,

  That taking what is mine, with me I take you.

  You do bewitch me! O that I could fly

  From my self you, or from your own self I!

  TO THE SOUL

  IDEA, XII

  That learned Father which so firmly proves

  The soul of man immortal and divine,

  And doth the several offices define

  Anima. Gives her that name, as she the body moves.

  Amor. Then is she love, embracing charity.

  Animus. Moving a will in us, it is the mind;

  Mens. Retaining knowledge, still the same in kind.

  Memoria. As intellectual, it is memory.

  Ratio. In judging, reason only is her name.

  Sensus. In speedy apprehension, it is sense.

  Conscientia. In right and wrong they call her conscience;

  Spiritus. The spirit, when it to God-ward doth inflame:

  These of the soul the several functions be,

  Which my heart lightened by thy love doth see.

  TO THE SHADOW

  IDEA, XIII

  Letters and lines we see are soon defaced

  Metals do waste and fret with canker’s rust,

  The diamond shall once consume to dust,

  And freshest colours with foul stains disgraced;

  Paper and ink can paint but naked words,

  To write with blood of force offends the sight;

  And if with tears, I find them all too light,

  And sighs and signs a silly hope affords.

  O sweetest shadow, how thou serv’st my turn!

  Which still shalt be as long as there is sun,

  Nor whilst the world is never shall be done;

  Whilst moon shall shine or any fire shall burn,

  That everything whence shadow doth proceed,

  May in his shadow my love’s story read.

  IDEA, XIV

  If he, from heaven that filched that living fire,

  Condemned by Jove to endless torment be,

  I greatly marvel how you still go free

  That far beyond Prometheus did aspire.

  The fire he stole, although of heavenly kind,

  Which from above he craftily did take,

  Of lifeless clods us living men to make

 
He did bestow in temper of the mind.

  But you broke into heaven’s immortal store,

  Where virtue, honour, wit, and beauty lay;

  Which taking thence, you have escaped away,

  Yet stand as free as e’er you did before.

  Yet old Prometheus punished for his rape;

  Thus poor thieves suffer when the greater ‘scape.

  HIS REMEDY FOR LOVE

  IDEA, XV

  Since to obtain thee nothing me will stead,

  I have a med’cine that shall cure my love.

  The powder of her heart dried, when she’s dead,

  That gold nor honour ne’er had power to move;

  Mixed with her tears that ne’er her true love crost,

  Nor at fifteen ne’er longed to be a bride;

  Boiled with her sighs, in giving up the ghost,

  That for her late deceasèd husband died;

  Into the same then let a woman breathe,

  That being chid did never word reply;

  With one thrice married’s prayers, that did bequeath

  A legacy to stale virginity.

  If this receipt have not the power to win me,

  Little I’ll say, but think the devil’s in me!

  AN ALLUSION TO THE PHOENIX

  IDEA, XVI

  ‘Mongst all the creatures in this spacious round

  Of the birds’ kind, the phoenix is alone,

  Which best by you of living things is known;

  None like to that, none like to you is found!

  Your beauty is the hot and splend’rous sun;

  The precious spices be your chaste desire,

  Which being kindled by that heavenly fire,

  Your life, so like the phoenix’s begun.

  Yourself thus burnèd in that sacred flame,

  With so rare sweetness all the heavens perfuming;

  Again increasing as you are consuming,

  Only by dying born the very same.

  And winged by fame you to the stars ascend;

  So you of time shall live beyond the end.

  TO TIME

  IDEA, XVII

  Stay, speedy time! Behold, before thou pass

  From age to age, what thou hast sought to see,

  One in whom all the excellencies be,

  In whom heaven looks itself as in a glass.

  Time, look thou too in this translucent glass,

  And thy youth past in this pure mirror see!

  As the world’s beauty in his infancy,

  What it was then, and thou before it was.

  Pass on and to posterity tell this —

  Yet see thou tell but truly what hath been.

  Say to our nephews that thou once hast seen

  In perfect human shape all heavenly bliss;

  And bid them mourn, nay more, despair with thee,

  That she is gone, her like again to see.

  TO THE CELESTIAL NUMBERS

  IDEA, XVIII

  To this our world, to learning, and to heaven,

  Three nines there are, to every one a nine;

  One number of the earth, the other both divine;

  One woman now makes three odd numbers even.

  Nine orders first of angels be in heaven;

  Nine muses do with learning still frequent:

  These with the gods are ever resident.

  Nine worthy women to the world were given.

  My worthy one to these nine worthies addeth;

  And my fair Muse, one Muse unto the nine.

  And my good angel, in my soul divine! —

  With one more order these nine orders gladdeth.

  My Muse, my worthy, and my angel then

  Makes every one of these three nines a ten.

  TO HUMOUR

  IDEA, XIX

  You cannot love, my pretty heart, and why?

  There was a time you told me that you would,

  But how again you will the same deny.

  If it might please you, would to God you could!

  What, will you hate? Nay, that you will not neither;

  Nor love, nor hate! How then? What will you do?

  What, will you keep a mean then betwixt either?

  Or will you love me, and yet hate me too?

  Yet serves not this! What next, what other shift?

  You will, and will not; what a coil is here!

  I see your craft, now I perceive your drift,

  And all this while I was mistaken there.

  Your love and hate is this, I now do prove you:

  You love in hate, by hate to make me love you.

  IDEA, XX

  An evil spirit, your beauty, haunts me still,

  Wherewith, alas, I have been long possessed!

  Which ceaseth not to tempt me to each ill,

  Nor give me once but one poor minute’s rest.

  In me it speaks whether I sleep or wake;

  And when by means to drive it out I try,

  With greater torments then it me doth take,

  And tortures me in most extremity.

  Before my face it lays down my despairs,

  And hastes me on unto a sudden death;

  Now tempting me to drown myself in tears,

  And then in sighing to give up my breath.

  Thus am I still provoked to every evil,

  By this good wicked spirit, sweet angel-devil.

  IDEA, XXI

  A witless gallant a young wench that wooed —

  Yet his dull spirit her not one jot could move —

  Intreated me as e’er I wished his good,

  To write him but one sonnet to his love.

  When I as fast as e’er my pen could trot,

  Poured out what first from quick invention came,

  Nor never stood one word thereof to blot;

  Much like his wit that was to use the same.

  But with my verses he his mistress won,

  Who doated on the dolt beyond all measure.

  But see, for you to heaven for phrase I run,

  And ransack all Apollo’s golden treasure!

  Yet by my troth, this fool his love obtains,

  And I lose you for all my wit and pains!

  TO FOLLY

  IDEA, XXII

  With fools and children good discretion bears;

  Then, honest people, bear with love and me,

  Nor older yet nor wiser made by years,

  Amongst the rest of fools and children be.

  Love, still a baby, plays with gauds and toys,

  And like a wanton sports with every feather,

  And idiots still are running after boys;

  Then fools and children fitt’st to go together.

  He still as young as when he first was born,

  Nor wiser I than when as young as he;

  You that behold us, laugh us not to scorn;

  Give nature thanks you are not such as we!

  Yet fools and children sometimes tell in play;

  Some wise in show, more fools indeed than they.

  IDEA, XXIII

  Love, banished heaven, in earth was held in scorn,

  Wand’ring abroad in need and beggary;

  And wanting friends, though of a goddess born,

  Yet craved the alms of such as passèd by.

  I, like a man devout and charitable,

  Clothèd the naked, lodged this wandering guest;

  With sighs and tears still furnishing his table

  With what might make the miserable blest.

  But this ungrateful for my good desert,

  Enticed my thoughts against me to conspire,

  Who gave consent to steal away my heart,

  And set my breast, his lodging, on a fire.

  Well, well, my friends, when beggars grow thus bold,

  No marvel then though charity grow cold.

  IDEA, XXIV

  I hear some say, “This man is not in love!”

  “Who! can he love? a likely thing!”
they say.

  “Read but his verse, and it will easily prove!”

  O, judge not rashly, gentle Sir, I pray!

  Because I loosely trifle in this sort,

  As one that fain his sorrows would beguile,

  You now suppose me all this time in sport,

  And please yourself with this conceit the while.

  Ye shallow cens’rers! sometimes, see ye not,

  In greatest perils some men pleasant be,

  Where fame by death is only to be got,

  They resolute! So stands the case with me.

  Where other men in depth of passion cry,

  I laugh at fortune, as in jest to die.

  IDEA, XXV

  O, why should nature niggardly restrain

  That foreign nations relish not our tongue?

  Else should my lines glide on the waves of Rhine,

  And crown the Pyren’s with my living song.

  But bounded thus, to Scotland get you forth!

  Thence take you wing unto the Orcades!

  There let my verse get glory in the north,

  Making my sighs to thaw the frozen seas.

  And let the bards within that Irish isle,

  To whom my Muse with fiery wings shall pass,

  Call back the stiff-necked rebels from exile,

  And mollify the slaughtering gallowglass;

  And when my flowing numbers they rehearse,

  Let wolves and bears be charmèd with my verse.

  TO DESPAIR

  IDEA, XXVI

  I ever love where never hope appears,

  Yet hope draws on my never-hoping care,

  And my life’s hope would die but for despair;

  My never certain joy breeds ever certain fears.

  Uncertain dread gives wings unto my hope;

  Yet my hope’s wings are laden so with fear

  As they cannot ascend to my hope’s sphere,

  Though fear gives them more than a heavenly scope.

  Yet this large room is bounded with despair,

  So my love is still fettered with vain hope,

  And liberty deprives him of his scope,

  And thus am I imprisoned in the air.