Had ye once seen these, her celestial treasures, Then would ye wonder, and her praises sing, Open the temple gates unto my love; With trembling steps, and humble reverence, When so ye come unto those holy places Bring her up to th' high altar, that she may The choristers the joyous anthem sing, That all the woods may answer, and their echo ring. SPENSER. TO THE MOON. WITH how sad steps, O moon, thou climb'st the skies! How silently, and with how wan a face! What! may it be, that e'en in heavenly place That busy archer his sharp arrow tries? Sure if that long-with-love-acquainted eyes Then, even of fellowship, O moon, tell me, Those lovers scorn, whom that love doth possess? SIDNEY. EPITHALAMION. COME, come, dear Night! Love's mart of kisses, The fruitful summer of his blisses; come, Bound up in sheaves of sacred fire. Come, Night, and lay thy velvet hand No need have we of factious day, Her beauty's day can never cease. Rise, youths! Love's rite claims more than banquets, rise! Now the bright marigolds that deck the skies, To his flowers here, ope when he shuts his eye, Rise, youths! Love's rite claims more than banquets, rise ! CHAPMAN. TIME GOES BY TURNS. THE lopped tree in time may grow again, Most naked plants renew both fruit and flower; The sorriest wight may find release of pain, The driest soil suck in some moistening shower: Time goes by turns, and chances change by course, From foul to fair, from better hap to worse. The sea of Fortune doth not ever flow, She draws her favours to the lowest ebb; Her tides have equal times to come and go; Her loom doth weave the fine and coarsest web: No joy so great but runneth to an end, Not always fall of leaf, nor every spring, The roughest storm a calm may soon allay Thus with succeeding turns God tempereth all, A chance may win that by mischance was lost; That net that holds no great, takes little fish; In some things all, in all things none are crossed; Few all they need, but none have all they wish. Unmingled joys here to no man befall; Who least, hath some; who most, hath never all. SOUTHWELL. THE SOUL'S ERRAND. Go, Soul, the body's guest, Upon a thankless errand: Fear not to touch the best, Go, tell the court it glows, And shines like rotten wood, Tell zeal it lacks devotion, Tell love it is but lust, And wish them not reply, Tell Fortune of her blindness, Tell justice of delay; And if they will reply, Then give them all the lie. Tell arts they have no soundness, Tell schools they want profoundness, If arts and schools reply, Give arts and schools the lie. Tell faith it's fled the city, Tell how the country erreth, How manhood shakes off pity, So when thou hast, as I Commanded thee, done blabbing: Although to give the lie Deserves no less than stabbing; Yet stab at thee who will, No stab the soul can kill. SOUTHWELL. |