17th Century

Silence augmenteth grief, writing increaseth rage,
Staled are my thoughts, which loved and lost the wonder of our age;
Yet quickened now with fire, though dead with frost ere now,
Enraged I write I know not what; dead, quick, I know not how.

Hard-hearted minds relent and rigor's tears abound,
And envy strangely rues his end, in whom no fault was found.
Knowledge her light hath lost, valor hath slain her knight,
Sidney is dead, dead is my friend, dead is the world's delight.

Within this sober frame expect
Work of no foreign architect;
That unto caves the quarries drew,
And forests did to pastures hew;
Who of his great design in pain
Did for a model vault his brain;
Whose columns should so high be rais’ d
To arch the brows that on them gaz’ d.

1

Indeed I must confess,
When souls mix ’ tis an happiness,
But not complete till bodies too do join,
And both our wholes into one whole combine;
But half of heaven the souls in glory taste
Till by love in heaven at last
Their bodies too are placed.

2

Love, thou are absolute sole lord
Of life and death. To prove the word,
We’ ll now appeal to none of all
Those thy old soldiers, great and tall,
Ripe men of martyrdom, that could reach down
With strong arms their triumphant crown;
Such as could with lusty breath
Speak loud into the face of death
Their great Lord’ s glorious name; to none
Of those whose spacious bosoms spread a throne
For love at large to fill; spare blood and sweat,
And see him take a private seat,
Making his mansion in the mild

See here an easy feast that knows no wound,
That under hunger’ s teeth will needs be sound;
A subtle harvest of unbounded bread,
What would ye more? Here food itself is fed.

Could not once blinding me, cruel, suffice?
When first I look’ d on thee, I lost mine eyes.

Know you fair, on what you look;
Divinest love lies in this book,
Expecting fire from your eyes,
To kindle this his sacrifice.
When your hands untie these strings,
Think you’ have an angel by th’ wings.
One that gladly will be nigh,
To wait upon each morning sigh.
To flutter in the balmy air
Of your well-perfumed prayer.
These white plumes of his he’ ll lend you,
Which every day to heaven will send you,
To take acquaintance of the sphere,
And all the smooth-fac’ d kindred there.

Come and let us live my Deare,
Let us love and never feare,
What the sowrest Fathers say:
Brightest Sol that dies to day
Lives againe as blithe to morrow,
But if we darke sons of sorrow
Set; o then, how long a Night
Shuts the Eyes of our short light!
Then let amorous kisses dwell
On our lips, begin and tell
A Thousand, and a Hundred, score
An Hundred, and a Thousand more,
Till another Thousand smother
That, and that wipe of another.
Thus at last when we have numbred

Go, smiling souls, your new-built cages break,
In heaven you’ ll learn to sing, ere here to speak,
Nor let the milky fonts that bathe your thirst
Be your delay;
The place that calls you hence is, at the worst,
Milk all the way.

Two went to pray? O rather say
One went to brag, th’ other to pray:

One stands up close and treads on high,
Where th’ other dares not send his eye.

One nearer to God’ s altar trod,
The other to the altar’ s God.