For ever, by adversitie are wrought

Sonnet. The greatest workes of admiration.

Restore thy tresses to the golden ore, And all the faire examples of renowne

Yeeld Cithereas sonne those arkes of love; Out of distresse and miserie are growne.

Bequeath the heavens the starres that I adore,

And to th' orient do thy pearles remove. Mutius the fire, the tortures Regulus,

Yeeld thy hands pride unto th' ivory white, Did make the miracles of faith and zeale,

T' Arabian odors give thy breathing sweete; Exile renown'd, and grac'd Rutilius;

Restore thy blush unto Aurora bright, Imprisonment and poyson did reveale

To Thetis give the honour of thy feete. The worth of Socrates; Fabritius

Let Venus have thy graces, her resign'd, Povertie did grace that common-weale

And thy sweet voice give back unto the More then all Syllaes riches got with strife;

spheares. And Catoes death did vie with Caesars life

But yet restore thy fierce and cruell mind, Not to b' unhappy is unhappynesse;

To Hyrcan tygres, and to ruthles beares.

Yeeld to the marble thy hard hart againe;
And misery not t' have knowne miserie:

So shalt thou cease to plague, and I to paine.
For the best way unto discretion, is
The way that Leades us by adversitie
And men are better shew'd what is amisse,
By th' expert finger of calamitie
Then they can be with all that fortune brings,

Sonnet.
Who never shewes them the true face of things.

Care-charmer Sleepe, sonne of the sable Night, How could we know that thou could'st have Brother to Death, in silent darknes borne:

indur'd,

Relieve my languish, and restore the light,
With a reposed cheere, wrong and disgrace; With darke forgetting of my care returne.
And with a heart and countenance assur'd And let the day be time enough to mourne
Have lookt sterne Death and horror in the face! The shipwracke of my ill adventred youth
How should we know thy soule had beene Let waking eyes suftice to waile their scorne,

secur'd

Without the torment of the nights untruth, In honest counsels and in way unbase!

Cease dreames, th' images of day desires, Hadst thou not stood to shew us what thou To modell forth the passions of the morrow.

wert,

Never let rising sunne approve you liers, By thy affliction, that discri'd thy heart.

To adde more griefe to aggravate my sorrow.

Still let me sleepe, imbracing clouds in vaine,
It is not but the tempest that doth show And never wake to feele the dayes disdaine.
The sea-mans cunning; but the field that tries
The captaines courage: and we come to know
Best what men are, in their worst jeoperdies:
For lo, how many have we seene to grow
To high renowne from lowest miseries,

A Pastoral.
Out of the hands of death, and many a one
T' have beene undone, had they not beene undone. O happy golden age,

Not for that rivers ranne
He that indures for what his conscience knowes With streames of milke, and hunny dropt from
Not to be ill, doth from a patience hie

trees,
Looke onely on the cause whereto he owes Not that the earth did gage
Those sufferings, not on his miserie:

Unto the husband - man
The more h'endures, the more his glory growes, Her voluntary fruites, free without fees :
Which never growes from imbecillitie:

Not for no cold did freeze,
Onely the best compos'd and worthiest harts Nor any cloud beguile,
God sets to act the hardest and constant'st Th' eternall flowring spring

parts.

Wherein liv'd every thing,
And whereon th' heavens perpetually did smile,
Not for no ship had brought
From forraine shores, or warres or wares ill

sought.

But onely for that name,

But thou fierce lord of Nature and of Love, That idle name of wind:

The quallifier of kings, That idoll of deceit, that empty sound

What doest thou here with us Callid Honor, which became

That are below thy power shut from above? The tyran of the minde:

Goe and from us remove, And so torments our nature without ground, Trouble the mighties sleepe, Was not yet vainly found:

Let us neglected, base, Nor yet sad griefes imparts

Live still without thy grace, Amidst the sweet delights

And th’use of th' ancient happy ages keepe; Of joyfull amorous wights.

Let's love, this life of ours Nor were his hard lawes knowne to free-borne Can make no truce with time that all dehearts.

vours. But golden lawes like these

Let's love, the sun doth set, and rise againe, Which Nature wrote. That's lawfull which But when as our short light doth please!

Comes once to set, it makes eternall night. Then amongst flowres and springs

Making delightfull sport,
Sate lovers without conflict, without flame,
And nymphs and shepheards sings
Mixing in wanton sort
Whisp'rings with songs, then kisses with the

An Ode.
same
Which from affection came:

Now each creature joyes the other, The naked virgin then

Passing happy dayes and howers, Her roses fresh reveales

One bird reports unto another,
Which now her vaile conceales,

In the fall of silver showers,
The tender apples in her bosome seene, Whilst the earth (our common mother)
And oft in rivers cleere

Hath her bosome deckt with flowers.
The lovers with their loves consorting were, Whilst the gratest torch of heaven,
Honor, thou first didst close

With bright rayes warmes Floras lap, The spring of all delight:

Making nights and dayes both even, Denying water to the amorous thirst;

Chearing plants with fresher sap: Thou taught'st faire eyes to lose

My field of Howers quite bereven, The glory of their light,

Wants refresh of better hap. Restrain 'd from men, and on themselves re- Eccho, daughter of the aire,

verst.

(Babling guest of rocks and hils,) Thou in a lawne didst first

Knows the name of my fierce faire, Those golden haires incase,

And sounds the accents of my ils. Late spred unto the wind;

Each thing pitties my dispaire, Thou mad'st loose grace unkind,

Whilst that she her lover kils. Gav'st bridle to their words, arts to their pace. Whilst that she (O cruell mayd) O Honour it is thou

Doth me and my love despise, That mak’st that stealth, which love doth free My lives forish is decayed

allow.

That depended on her eyes : It is thy worke that brings

But her will must be obeyed, Our griefes, and torinents thus :

And well he ends for love who dies.

D r a y t o n.

Michael Drayton ward 1563 zu Harfull in Warwickshire geboren, zeichnete sich schon früh durch seine Fähigkeiten aus und studirte, nachdem er einige Jahre hindurch Page eines vornehmen Mannes gewesen, zu Oxford. Später trat er in die Armee und bekleidete lange Zeit daselbst einen höheren Posten. 1621 erhielt er die Würde eines Hofdichters (poet laureat). Er starb 1631 und wurde in der Westminsterabtei begraben, wo ihm die Gräfin von Dorset ein Denkmal errichten liess.

Drayton hinterliess sehr viele poetische Werke, zwei derselben haben sich jedoch nur im Andenken der Nachwelt erhalten: Nymphidia or the Court of the Faeries und the Polyolbion. Das Erstere ist eine Nachahmung und gewissermaassen Fortbildung von Shakspeare's Sommernachtstraum, doch keinesweges ohne selbstständigen Werth; das Letztere dagegen eine poetische Topographie von England mit eingemischten Episoden und Beschreibungen: wichtiger für den Alterthumsforscher als für den Freund englischer Dichtkunst. Unter seinen kleineren Poesieen zeichnen sich besonders seine Ideas, womit er Sonnette in freierer Form bezeichnete, vortheilhaft aus. War. mes Gefühl, Lebendigkeit, Phantasie und glückliche, wenn auch nicht immer streng correcte, Behandlung der Sprache und der Form characterisiren seine poetischen Leistungen überhaupt.

Ideas.

As Love and I late harbour'd in one inne Since there's no help, come, let us kisse and part, With proverbs thus each other entertaine : Nay, I have done, you get no more of me;

In love there is no lucke, thus I begin; And I am glad, yea, glad with all my heart,

Faire words make fooles; replieth he againe; That thus so cleanly I myselfe can free;

Who spares to speake, doth spare to speed, Shake hands for ever, cancell all our vowes;

(quoth I); And when we meet at any time againe,

As well (saith he) too forward, as too slow: Be it not seen in either of our browes

Fortune assists the boldest, I reply; That we one jot of former love retaine.

A hasty man (quoth he) ne'er wanted woe: Now at the last gaspe of Love's latest breath,

Labour is light, where love (quoth I) doth pay; When his pulse failing, passion speechlesse lies, (Saith he) Light burthens heavy, if far borne: When Faith is kneeling by his bed of death,

(Quoth I) The maine lost, cast the by away; And Innocence is closing up his eyes,

Y' have spun a faire thred, he replies in scorne Now if thou would'st, when all have given

And having thus awhile each other thwarted,

Fooles as we met, so fooles again we parted. From death to life thou might'st yet recover.

him over,

To Himselfe and the Harpe.

And why not I, as hee
That's greatest, if as free,

(In sundry strains that strive
Since there so many be)

Th' old Lyrick kind revive ?

I will,

Love banish'd heaven, in earth was held in

scorne,
Wand'ring abroad in need and beggery;
And wanting friends, though of a goddesse borne,
Yet cray'd the almes of such as passed by:
I like a man devout and charitable,
Cloth'd the naked , lodg'd this wand'ring guest,
With sighes and teares still furnishing his table,
With what might make the miserable blest;
But this ungratefull, for my good desert,
Intıc'd my thoughts against me to conspire,
Who gave consent to steale away my heart,
And set my breast, his lodging, on a fire.
Well, well, my friends, when beggers grow

thus bold
No marvell then though charity grow cold.

yea, and I

may;
Who shall oppose my way?

For what is he alone,
That of himselfe can say,

Hee's heire of Helicon?

Apollo, and the Nine,
Forbid no man their shrine,

That commeth with hands pure
Else they be so divine.

They will himn not indure.

William Shakspeare, der grösste dramatische Dichter der neueren Zeit, ward am 23. April 1564 zu Stratford-on-Avon geboren, wo sein Vater als Wollhändler lebte und er bestimmt wurde, dessen Geschäft fortzusetzen. Bereits 1582 vermählte er sich mit Anna Hathaway, verliess aber in Folge von Wilddieberei 1586 seine Heimath und seine Familie und wandte sich nach London, wo er Schauspieler wurde und zuerst 1593 mit einer eigenen dramatischen Production auttrat und zwanzig Jahre hindurch durch seine Bühnenstücke den höchsten Beifall seiner Nation erwarb. 1603 wurde er Mitdirector des Globe - Theaters und trat nun von der Bühne als Schauspieler ab; 1613 zog er sich nach seiner Vaterstadt zurück, um den Rest seiner Tage in ländlicher Abgeschiedenheit hinzubringen. Leider starb er schon in der vollen Kraft seiner Jahre an seinem zwei und funfzigsten Geburtstage 1616 zu Stratford.

Shakspeare ausführlich und nach allen Seiten hin zu charakterisiren, gestattet theils der beschränkte Raum nicht, theils ist dies in Deutschland so oft und von so grossen Meistern geschehen, dass wir doch nur längst Gesagtes wiederholen könnten. Hinsichtlich seines Einflusses auf clie dramatische Poesie der Engländer überhaupt, verweisen wir auf das, was wir in der Einleitung darüber bemerkten. Das Treffendste, was je in wenigen Worten über ihn gesagt wurde, hat ein nicht minder grosser Geist, Goethe, ausgesprochen. (S. Wilhelm Meister's Lehrjahre 3. B. 11. Cap.) Möge es hier folgen.

„Sie (Shakspeare's Dramen) scheinen ein Werk eines himmlischen Genius zu sein, der sich den Menschen nähert, um sie mit sich selbst auf die gelindeste Weise bekannt zu machen. Eэ sind keine Gedichte. Man glaubt vor den aufgeschlagenen, ungeheuern Büchern des Schicksals zu stehen, in denen der Sturmwind des bewegtesten Lebens saust und sie mit Gewalt rasch hin und wieder blättert.“

„Es scheint, als wenn er (Shakspeare) uns alle Räthsel offenbarte, ohne dass man doch sagen kann: hier oder da ist das Wort der Auflösung. Seine Menschen scheinen natürliche Menschen zu sein und sie sind es doch nicht. Diese geheimnissvollen und zusainmengesetztesten Geschöpfe der Natur handeln vor uns in seinen Stücken als wenn sie Uhren wären, deren Zifferblatt und Gehäuse