The Sonnets and Other Poems (7 page)

Whereat amazed, as one that unaware
Hath dropped a precious jewel in the
flood
⁸²⁴
,
Or
stonished
⁸²⁵
as night-wand’rers often are,
Their light blown out in some mistrustful wood,
      Even so
confounded
⁸²⁷
in the dark she lay,
      Having lost the
fair discovery of her way
⁸²⁸
.

And now she beats her heart, whereat it groans,
That all the
neighbour
⁸³⁰
caves, as seeming troubled,
Make verbal repetition of
⁸³¹
her moans:
Passion
⁸³²
on passion
deeply
is redoubled,
      ‘Ay me!’ she cries and twenty times, ‘Woe, woe!’
      And twenty echoes twenty times cry so.

She, marking them, begins a wailing note
And sings
extemporally
⁸³⁶
a woeful ditty:
How love makes young men
thrall
⁸³⁷
and old men
dote
,
How love is wise in folly, foolish-witty.
      Her
heavy
⁸³⁹
anthem
still concludes in woe,
      And still the choir of echoes answer so.

Her song was tedious and outwore the night,
For lovers’ hours are long, though seeming short:
If pleased themselves, others, they think, delight
In suchlike circumstance, with suchlike sport:
      Their
copious
⁸⁴⁵
stories, oftentimes begun,
      End without audience and are never done.

For who hath she to spend the night
withal
⁸⁴⁷
But idle sounds resembling
parasites
⁸⁴⁸
,
Like shrill-tongued
tapsters
⁸⁴⁹
answering every call,
Soothing the
humour
⁸⁵⁰
of
fantastic wits
?
      She says ‘ ’Tis so’. They answer all ‘ ’Tis so’,
      And would say after her, if she said ‘No’.

Lo, here the gentle lark, weary of rest,
From his
moist cabinet
⁸⁵⁴
mounts up on high
And wakes the morning, from whose silver breast
The sun ariseth in his majesty,
      Who doth the world so gloriously behold
      That cedar tops and hills seem burnished gold.

Venus salutes him with this fair good-morrow,
‘O thou
clear
⁸⁶⁰
god and patron of all light,
From whom each lamp and shining star doth borrow
The beauteous
influence
⁸⁶²
that makes him bright,
      There lives
a son
⁸⁶³
that sucked an earthly mother
     
May
⁸⁶⁴
lend thee light, as thou dost lend to other.’

This said, she hasteth to a
myrtle
⁸⁶⁵
grove,
Musing the morning is so much
o’erworn
⁸⁶⁶
,
And yet she hears no tidings of her love.
She
hearkens
⁸⁶⁸
for his hounds and for his horn:
      Anon she hears them chant it lustily,
      And all in haste she
coasteth
⁸⁷⁰
to the
cry
.

And as she runs, the bushes in the way
Some catch her by the neck, some kiss her face,
Some twined about her thigh to make her stay.
She wildly breaketh from their strict embrace
      Like a
milch doe
⁸⁷⁵
, whose swelling
dugs
do ache,
      Hasting to feed her fawn hid in some
brake
⁸⁷⁶
.

By this she hears the hounds
are at a bay
⁸⁷⁷
,
Whereat she starts, like one that spies an adder
Wreathed up in fatal
folds
⁸⁷⁹
just in his way,
The fear whereof doth make him shake and shudder:
      Even so the timorous yelping of the hounds
     
Appals
⁸⁸²
her senses and her spirit
confounds
.

For now she knows it is no gentle
chase
⁸⁸³
,
But the blunt boar, rough bear, or lion proud,
Because the cry remaineth in one place,
Where fearfully the dogs exclaim aloud:
      Finding their enemy to be so
curst
⁸⁸⁷
,
      They all
strain court’sy
⁸⁸⁸
who shall
cope
him first.

This
dismal
⁸⁸⁹
cry rings sadly in her ear,
Through which it enters to
surprise
⁸⁹⁰
her heart,
Who, overcome by doubt and bloodless fear,
With cold-pale weakness numbs each feeling part:
      Like soldiers, when their captain once doth yield,
      They
basely fly
⁸⁹⁴
and dare not
stay the field
.

Thus stands she in a trembling
ecstasy
⁸⁹⁵
,
Till, cheering up her senses all dismayed,
She tells them ’tis a causeless fantasy
And childish error that they are afraid,
     
Bids
⁸⁹⁹
them leave quaking, bids them fear no more —
      And with that word she spied the hunted boar,

Whose
frothy
⁹⁰¹
mouth, bepainted all with red,
Like milk and blood being mingled both together,
A second fear through all her
sinews
⁹⁰³
spread,
Which madly hurries her she knows not whither.
      This way runs and now she will no further,
      But back retires to
rate
⁹⁰⁶
the boar for
murther
.

A thousand
spleens
⁹⁰⁷
bear her a thousand ways,
She treads the path that she untreads again.
Her more than haste is
mated
⁹⁰⁹
with delays,
Like the proceedings of a drunken brain,
      Full of
respects
⁹¹¹
, yet
naught at all respecting
,
     
In hand
⁹¹²
with all things, naught at all effecting.

Here kennelled in a brake she finds a hound
And asks the weary
caitiff
⁹¹⁴
for his master,
And there another licking of his wound,
Gainst venomed sores the only
sovereign plaster
⁹¹⁶
.
      And here she meets another, sadly scowling,
      To whom she speaks and he replies with howling.

When he hath ceased his
ill-resounding
⁹¹⁹
noise,
Another
flap-mouthed
⁹²⁰
mourner, black and grim,
Against the
welkin
⁹²¹
volleys out his voice
.
Another and another answer him,
     
Clapping
⁹²³
their proud tails to the ground below,
      Shaking their scratched ears, bleeding as they go.

Look, how the world’s poor people are amazed
At apparitions, signs and
prodigies
⁹²⁶
,
Whereon with fearful eyes they long have gazed,
Infusing
⁹²⁸
them with
dreadful
prophecies:
      So she at these sad signs draws
up
⁹²⁹
her breath
      And, sighing it again,
exclaims on
⁹³⁰
death.

‘
Hard-favoured
⁹³¹
tyrant, ugly, meagre, lean,
Hateful
divorce
⁹³²
of love’ — thus chides she Death —
‘Grim-grinning ghost,
earth’s worm
⁹³³
, what dost thou mean
To stifle beauty and to steal his breath,
      Who when he lived, his breath and beauty set
      Gloss on the rose, smell to the violet?

‘If he be dead — O no, it cannot be,
Seeing his beauty, thou shouldst strike at it!
O yes, it may! Thou hast
no eyes
⁹³⁹
to see,
But hatefully at random dost thou hit:
      Thy
mark
⁹⁴¹
is feeble age, but thy false
dart
      Mistakes that aim and
cleaves
⁹⁴²
an infant’s heart.

‘Hadst thou but bid beware, then
he had
⁹⁴³
spoke,
And, hearing him, thy power had lost his power —
The destinies will curse thee for this stroke —
They bid thee crop a weed, thou pluck’st a flower:
      Love’s
golden arrow
⁹⁴⁷
at him should have
fled
,
      And not death’s
ebon
⁹⁴⁸
dart to strike him dead.

‘Dost thou drink tears, that thou provok’st such weeping?
What may a
heavy
⁹⁵⁰
groan advantage thee?
Why hast thou cast into eternal sleeping
Those eyes that taught all other eyes to see?
      Now nature cares not for thy
mortal vigour
⁹⁵³
,
      Since her best work is ruined with thy
rigour
⁹⁵⁴
.’

Here overcome as one full of despair,
She
vailed
⁹⁵⁶
her eyelids
who
like
sluices
stopped
The
crystal tide
⁹⁵⁷
that from her two cheeks fair
In the sweet channel of her bosom dropped,
      But through the floodgates breaks the silver rain
      And with his strong
course
⁹⁶⁰
opens them again.

O, how her eyes and tears did
lend and borrow
⁹⁶¹
:
Her eye seen in the tears, tears in her eye,
Both
crystals
⁹⁶³
, where they viewed each other’s sorrow,
Sorrow that friendly sighs sought still to dry,
      But like a stormy day, now wind, now rain,
      Sighs dry her cheeks, tears make them wet again.

Variable
⁹⁶⁷
passions
throng
her constant woe
As striving who should best
become
⁹⁶⁸
her grief:
All
entertained
⁹⁶⁹
, each passion
labours so
That every present sorrow seemeth chief,
      But none is best. Then join they all together
      Like many clouds
consulting for
⁹⁷²
foul weather.

By
this
⁹⁷³
, far off she hears some huntsman
hollo
.
A nurse’s song ne’er pleased her babe so well:
The dire
imagination
⁹⁷⁵
she did follow
This sound of hope doth labour to expel,
      For now reviving joy bids her rejoice
      And flatters her it is Adonis’ voice.

Whereat her tears began to turn their tide,
Being prisoned in her eye like pearls in glass,
Yet sometimes falls an
orient
⁹⁸¹
drop beside,
Which her cheek melts, as scorning it should pass
      To wash the
foul
⁹⁸³
face of the
sluttish
ground,
      Who is but drunken when she seemeth drowned.

O
hard-believing
⁹⁸⁵
love, how strange it seems
Not to believe and yet too credulous!
Thy
weal
⁹⁸⁷
and woe are both of them extremes,
Despair and hope makes thee ridiculous:
      The one doth flatter thee in thoughts unlikely,
      In likely thoughts the other kills thee quickly.

Now she unweaves the web that she hath
wrought
⁹⁹¹
:
Adonis lives and Death is not to blame.
It was not she that
called him all to naught
⁹⁹³
,
Now she adds honours to his hateful name:
      She
clepes
⁹⁹⁵
him king of graves and grave for kings,
     
Imperious supreme
⁹⁹⁶
of all mortal things.

‘No, no,’ quoth she, ‘sweet Death, I did but jest,
Yet pardon me I felt a kind of fear
Whenas
⁹⁹⁹
I met the boar, that bloody beast,
Which knows no pity, but is
still severe
¹⁰⁰⁰
:
      Then, gentle
shadow
¹⁰⁰¹
— truth I must confess —
      I
railed on
¹⁰⁰²
thee, fearing my love’s decease.

‘ ’Tis not my fault, the boar provoked my tongue:
Be
wreaked
¹⁰⁰⁴
on him, invisible commander,
’Tis he, foul creature, that hath done thee wrong —
I did but
act
¹⁰⁰⁶
, he’s author of thy slander.
      Grief hath two tongues and never woman yet
      Could rule them both without ten women’s wit.’

Thus hoping that Adonis is alive,
Her rash
suspect
¹⁰¹⁰
she doth
extenuate
,
And that his beauty may the better thrive,
With death she humbly doth
insinuate
¹⁰¹²
,
      Tells him of
trophies
¹⁰¹³
, statues, tombs and stories,
      His victories, his triumphs and his glories.

‘O
Jove
¹⁰¹⁵
,’ quoth she, ‘how much a fool was I
To be of such a weak and silly mind
To wail his death who lives and must not die
Till
mutual overthrow of mortal kind
¹⁰¹⁸
!
      For he being dead, with him is beauty slain,
      And, beauty dead, black chaos comes again.

‘Fie, fie,
fond
¹⁰²¹
love, thou art as full of fear
As one with treasure laden,
hemmed with
¹⁰²²
thieves:
Trifles, unwitnessèd with eye or ear,
Thy coward heart
with false bethinking
¹⁰²⁴
grieves.’
      Even at this word she hears a merry horn,
      Whereat she leaps that was
but late
¹⁰²⁶
forlorn.

As falcons to the
lure
¹⁰²⁷
, away she flies,
The grass stoops not she treads on it so light,
And in her haste
unfortunately
¹⁰²⁹
spies
The foul boar’s conquest on her fair delight,
      Which seen, her eyes, are murdered with the view,
      Like stars ashamed of day, themselves withdrew,

Or as the snail, whose tender horns being hit,
Shrinks backward in his shelly cave with pain,
And there, all smothered up, in shade doth sit,
Long after fearing to creep forth again:
      So at his bloody view her eyes are fled
      Into the deep dark
cabins
¹⁰³⁸
of her head,

Where they resign their
office
¹⁰³⁹
and their light
To the
disposing
¹⁰⁴⁰
of her troubled brain,
Who bids them
still
¹⁰⁴¹
consort with ugly night
And never wound the heart with looks again,
     
Who
¹⁰⁴³
, like a king
perplexèd
in his throne,
      By their
suggestion
¹⁰⁴⁴
gives a deadly groan,