DESCRIPTION AND PRAISE OF HIS LOVE,
GERALDINE.
FROM Tuskane came my ladies worthy race;
Faire Florence was sometime her auncient seate;
The western yle, whose plesant shore doth face
Wild Cambers cliffs, did gyve her lively heate:
Fostred she was with milke of Irish brest;
Her sire an erle; her dame of princes blood:
From tender yeres in Britain she doth rest
With kinges childe, where she tasteth costly food.
Honsdon did first present her to mine eyn;
Bright is her hewe, and Geraldine she hight:
Hampton me taught to wishe her first for mine:
And Windsor, alas! doth chase me from her sight.
Her beauty of kind, her vertues from above:
Happy is he that can obtaine her love!
A COMPLAINT BY NIGHT OF THE LOVER NOT
BELOVED.
ALAS! So all things now doe holde their peace,
Heaven and earth disturbed in no thing;
The beastes, the ayer, the birdes their song do cease, The nightès chare the starres about doth bring;
Calme is the sea, the waves worke lesse and lesse :
So am not I, whom love, alas! doth wring,
Bringing before my face the great encrease
Of my desires, whereat I wepe and sing,
In joy and wo, as in a doubtful case :
For my swete thoughtes sometime do pleasure bring;
But by and by the cause of my disease
Gives me a pang that inwardly doth sting,
When that I thinke what grief it is againe,
To live and lack the thing should rid my paine.
A VOW TO LOVE FAITHFULLY, HOWSOEVER HE
BE REWARDED.
SET me whereas the sunne doth parche the grene,
Or where his beames do not dissolve the yse;
In temperate heate where he is felt and sene;
In presence prest of people mad or wise:
Set me in low, or yet in high degree;
In longest night, or in the shortest daye;
In clearest skie, or where cloudes thickest be;
In lusty youth, or when my heeres are graye:
Set me in heaven, in earth, or els in hell;
In hyll or dale, or in the foming flood;
Thrall, or at large, alive whereso I dwell,
Sicke or in health, in evil fame or good,
Hers will I be,—and only with this thought
Content my self, although my chaunce be nought.
A PRAISE OF HIS LOVE, WHEREIN HE REPROVETH THEM THAT COMPARE THEIR LADIES WITH HIS.
GEVE place, ye lovers, here before,
That spent your bostes and bragges in vain ;
My ladies bewty passeth more
The best of yours, I dare well sayen,
Than doth the sun the candle light,
Or brightest day the darkest night.
And therto hath a troth as just
As had Penelope the faire;
For what she sayth, ye may it trust
As by it writing sealled were:
And virtues hath she many moe
Than I with pen have skill to showe.
I could reherse, if that I would,
The whole effect of Nature's plaint,
When she had lost the perfite mould,
The like to whom she could not paint;
With wringyng hands how did she cry,
And what she said, I know it, I.
I knowe she swore with raging minde,
Her kingdome onely set apart,
There was no losse, by lawe of kinde,
That could have gone so nere her hart:
And this was chefely all her paine,
She could not make the like againe.
Sith Nature thus gave her the praise
To be the chefest worke she wrought;
In faith, me thinke, some better wayes
On your behalfe might well be sought,
Than to compare (as you have done)
To matche the candle withe the sunne.
DESCRIPTION OF THE RESTLESS ESTATE OF A LOVER.
WHEN youth had led me halfe the race
That Cupid's scourge had made me runne;
I looked back to mete the place
From whence my weary course begunne.
And then I saw how my desyre
Misguiding me had led the waye :
Mine eyne, too greedy of their hyre,
Had made me lose a better prey.
For when in sighes I spent the day,
And could not cloake my grief with game,
The boyling smoke did still bewray
The present heat of secret flame.
And when salt teares have bayned * my breast,
Where Love his pleasant traynes hath sowne,
Her beauty hath the fruites opprest,
Ere that the buddes were spronge and blowne.
And when myne eyne dyd still pursue
The flying chase of their request;
Their greedy looks dyd oft renew
The hydden wound within my brest.
When every loke these cheekes might stayne,
From dedly pale to glowing red,
By outward signes appeared playne
To her for helpe my hart was fled.
But all too late Love learneth me
To paynt all kynd of colours new,
To blynd their eyes that else should see
My speckled chekes with Cupid's hew.
And now the covert brest I clame
That worshipt Cupid secretly,
And nourished his secret flame
From whence no blaising sparkes do flie.
FROM PIECES BY UNCERTAIN AUTHORS,
ANNEXED To the COLLECTION OF POEMS BY SURREY AND WYATT.
GEVE place, you ladies, and be gone,
Boast not your selves at all,
For here at hande approacheth one
Whose face will stayn ye all.
*Commonly ascribed to Sir Thomas Wyatt.
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