Classic Poem

Scarce had the morning star hid from the light
Heaven's crimson canopy with stars bespangled,
But I began to rue th'unhappy sight
Of that fair boy that had my heart entangled;
Cursing the time, the place, the sense, the sin;
I came, I saw, I viewed, I slipped in.

If it be sin to love a sweet-faced boy
(Whose amber locks trussed up in golden trammels
Dangle adown his lovely cheeks with joy,
When pearl and flowers his fair hair enamels)
If it be sin to love a lovely lad,
Oh then sin I, for whom my soul is sad.

His ivory-white and alabaster skin
Is stained throughout with rare vermilion red,
Whose twinkling starry lights do never blin
To shine on lovely Venus, beauty's bed;
But as the lily and the blushing rose,
So white and red on him in order grows.

Upon a time the nymphs bestirred themselves
To try who could his beauty soonest win;
But he accounted them but all as elves,
Except it were the fair Queen Gwendolen:
Her he embraced, of her he was beloved,
With plaints he proved, and with tears he moved.

But her an old man had been suitor to,
That in his age began to dote again.
Her would he often pray, and often woo,
When through old age enfeebled was his brain.
But she before had loved a lusty youth
That now was dead, the cause of all her ruth.

And thus it happened. Death and Cupid met
Upon a time at swilling Bacchus' house,
Where dainty cates upon the board were set
And goblets full of wine to drink carouse:
Where Love and Death did love the liquor so
That out they fall and to the fray they go.

And having both their quivers at their back
Filled full of arrows; th'one of fatal steel,
The other all of gold; Death's shaft was black,
But Love's was yellow: Fortune turned her wheel;
And from Death's quiver fell a fatal shaft,
That under Cupid by the wind was waft.

And at the same time by ill hap there fell
Another arrow out of Cupid's quiver;
The which was carried by the wind at will,
And under Death the amorous shaft did shiver.
They being parted, Love took up Death's dart,
And Death took up Love's arrow, for his part.

Thus as they wandered both about the world,
At last Death met with one of feeble age;
Wherewith he drew a shaft and at him hurled
The unknown arrow, with a furious rage,
Thinking to strike him dead with Death's black dart,
But he (alas) with Love did wound his heart.

This was the doting fool, this was the man
That loved fair Gwendolena Queen of Beauty.
She cannot shake him off, do what she can,
For he hath vowed to her his soul's last duty,
Making him trim upon the holy-days,
And crowns his love with garlands made of bays.

Now doth he stroke his beard, and now (again)
He wipes the drivel from his filthy chin;
Now offers he a kiss; but high disdain
Will not permit her heart to pity him:
Her heart more hard than adamant or steel,
Her heart more changeable than Fortune's wheel.

But leave we him in love (up to the ears)
And tell how Love behaved himself abroad;
Who seeing one that mourned still in tears
(A young man groaning under love's great load)
Thinking to ease his burden, rid his pains:
For men have grief as long as life remains.

Alas the while, that unawares he drew
The fatal shaft that Death had dropped before;
By which deceit great harm did then issue,
Staining his face with blood and filthy gore.
His face, that was to Gwendolen more dear
Than love of lords, of any lordly peer.

This was that fair and beautiful young man
Whom Gwendolena so lamented for;
This is that love whom she doth curse and ban,
Because she doth that dismal chance abhor;
And if it were not for his mother's sake,
Even Ganymede himself she would forsake.

Oh would she would forsake my Ganymede,
Whose sugared love is full of sweet delight,
Upon whose forehead you may plainly read
Love's pleasure, graved in ivory tablets bright;
In whose fair eye-balls you may clearly see
Base love still stained with foul indignity.

Oh would to God he would but pity me,
That love him more than any mortal wight:
Then he and I with love would soon agree,
That now cannot abide his suitors' sight.
O would to God (so I might have my fee)
My lips were honey, and thy mouth a bee.

Then shouldst thou suck my sweet and my fair flower
That now is ripe and full of honey-berries;
Then would I lead thee to my pleasant bower
Filled full of grapes, of mulberries, and cherries;
Then shouldst thou be my wasp or else my bee,
I would thy hive, and thou my honey be.

I would put amber bracelets on thy wrests,
Crownets of pearl about thy naked arms;
And when thou sit'st at swilling Bacchus' feasts,
My lips with charms should save thee from all harms;
And when in sleep thou took'st thy chiefest pleasure,
Mine eyes should gaze upon thine eye-lids' treasure.

And every morn by dawning of the day,
When Phoebus riseth with a blushing face,
Silvanus' chapel-clerks shall chaunt a lay,
And play thee hunts-up in thy resting place;
My cote thy chamber, my bosom thy bed,
Shall be appointed for thy sleepy head.

And when it pleaseth thee to walk abroad
(Abroad into the fields to take fresh air),
The meads with Flora's treasure should be strowed
(The mantled meadows and the fields so fair),
And by a silver well, with golden sands,
I'll sit me down, and wash thine ivory hands.

And in the sweltering heat of summer time,
I would make cabinets for thee, my love:
Sweet-smelling arbours made of eglantine
Should be thy shrine, and I would be thy dove.
Cool cabinets of fresh green laurel boughs
Should shadow us, o'er-set with thick-set yews.

Or if thou list to bathe thy naked limbs
Within the crystal of a pearl-bright brook,
Paved with the dainty pebbles to the brims,
Or clear, wherein thyself thyself mayst look,
We'll go to Ladon, whose still trickling noise
Will lull thee fast sleep amidst thy joys.

Or if thou'lt go unto the river side
To angle for the sweet fresh-water fish,
Armed with thy implements that will abide
(Thy rod, hook, line) to take a dainty dish;
Thy rods shall be of cane, thy lines of silk,
Thy hooks of silver, and thy baits of milk.

Or if thou lov'st to hear sweet melody,
Or pipe a round upon an oaten reed,
Or make thyself glad with some mirthful glee,
Or play them music whilst thy flock doth feed;
To Pan's own pipe I'll help my lovely lad,
Pan's golden pipe which he of Syrinx had.

Or if thou dar'st to climb the highest trees
For apples, cherries, medlars, pears, or plums,
Nuts, walnuts, filberts, chestnuts, services,
The hoary peach, when snowy winter comes;
I have fine orchards full of mellowed fruit,
Which I will give thee to obtain my suit.

Not proud Alcinous himself can vaunt
Of goodlier orchards or of braver trees
Than I have planted; yet thou wilt not grant
My simple suit; but like the honey bees
Thou suck'st the flower till all the sweet be gone,
And lov'st me for my coin till I have none.

Leave Gwendolen (sweet-heart). Though she is fair
Yet is she light; not light in virtue shining,
But light in her behaviour, to impair
Her honour in her chastity's declining.
Trust not her tears, for they can wantonise,
When tears in pearl are trickling from her eyes.

If thou wilt come and dwell with me at home,
My sheep-cote shall be strowed with new green rushes;
We'll haunt the trembling prickets as they roam
About the fields, along the hawthorn bushes.
I have a piebald cur to hunt the hare:
So we will live with dainty forest fare.

Nay more than this, I have a garden-plot,
Wherein there wants nor herbs, nor roots, nor flowers
(Flowers to smell, roots to eat, herbs for the pot),
And dainty shelters when the welkin lowers:
Sweet-smelling beds of lilies and of roses,
Which rosemary banks and lavender encloses.

There grows the gillyflower, the mint, the daisy
(Both red and white), the blue-veined violet;
The purple hyacinth, the spike to please thee;
The scarlet-dyed carnation bleeding yet;
The sage, the savory, and sweet marjoram,
Hyssop, thyme, and eye-bright, good for the blind and dumb.

The pink, the primrose, cowslip, and daffadilly,
The harebell blue, the crimson columbine,
Sage, lettuce, parsley, and the milk-white lily,
The rose, and speckled flowers called sops-in-wine,
Fine pretty king-cups, and the yellow boots
That grows by rivers and by shallow brooks.

And many thousand moe I cannot name
Of herbs and flowers that in gardens grow
I have for thee; and coneys that be tame,
Young rabbits, white as swan and black as crow,
Some speckled here and there with dainty spots;
And more I have two milch and milk-white goats.

All these, and more, I'll give thee for thy love,
If these, and more, may tice thy love away.
I have a pigeon-house, in it a dove,
Which I love more than mortal tongue can say.
And last of all, I'll give thee a little lamb
To play withal, new-weaned from her dam.

But if thou wilt not pity my complaint,
My tears, nor vows, nor oaths, made to thy beauty,
What shall I do? But languish, die, or faint,
Since thou dost scorn my tears and my soul's duty;
And tears contemned, vows and oaths must fail,
For where tears cannot, nothing cannot prevail.

Compare the love of fair Queen Gwendolin
With mine, and thou shalt see how she doth love thee:
I love thee for thy qualities divine,
But she doth love another swain above thee.
I love thee for thy gifts, she for her pleasure;
I for thy virtue, she for beauty's treasure.

And always (I am sure) it cannot last,
But sometime Nature will deny those dimples:
Instead of beauty (when thy blossom's past)
Thy face will be deformed, full of wrinkles.
Then she that loved thee for thy beauty's sake,
When age draws on, thy love will soon forsake.

But I that loved thee for thy gifts divine,
In the December of thy beauty's waning,
Will still admire, with joy, those lovely eyne,
That now behold me with their beauties baning.
Though January will never come again,
Yet April years will come in showers of rain.

When will my May come, that I may embrace thee?
When will the hour be of my soul's joying?
Why dost thou seek in mirth still to disgrace me?
Whose mirth's my health, whose grief's my heart's annoying.
Thy bane my bale, thy bliss my blessedness,
Thy ill my hell, thy weal my welfare is.

Thus do I honour thee that love thee so,
And love thee so, that so do honour thee
Much more than any mortal man doth know
Or can discern by love or jealousy.
But if that thou disdain'st my loving ever,
Oh happy I, if I had loved never.