Classic Poem

Thrice had the pale-fac'd Cynthia fill'd her horris,
And through the circling zodiac, which adorns
Heaven's goodly frame, the horses of the sun
A fourth part of their race had fiercely run,
Since fair Marina left her gentle flock;
Whose too untimely loss the watchful cock
No oft'ner gave a summons to the day,
Then some kind shepherd on the fertile ley
Took a sad seat, and, with a drowned eye,
Bemoan'd in heart far more than elegy.

Here sits a shepherd whose mellifluous tongue
On shaded banks of rivers whilom sung
Many sweet lays to her harmonious ear;
Recounting former joys, when she liv'd there,
With present woes, and every pleasure gone
Tells with a hundred tears, and, those drops done,
A thousand sighs ensue, and gives not o'er
Until he faints, and so can sigh no more.
Yonder, another, on some swelling hill,
Records her sweet praise to a gentle rill
Which, in requital, takes no little pain
To roll her silver sands up to the swain;
And almost wept that time would not permit
That beauteous maid to bathe herself in it;
Whose touch made streams, and men, and plants more proud
Than he that clasp'd the Juno-seeming cloud.
Amongst the rest (that ere the sun did shine
Sought the thick groves) neglectful Celadyne
Was come abroad; and underneath a tree
Dead as his joys, and from all moisture free
As were the fountains of his lovely eyes,
With lavish weeping, discontented lies.

Now, like a prodigal, he minds in vain
What he hath lost, and cannot lose again.
Now thinks he on her eyes, like some sad wight,
Which new struck blind bemoans the want of light.
Her cheeks, her lips, to mind he doth recall,
As one in exile clean bereav'd of all.
Her modest graces, her affection more,
That wounds him most which only can restore.
And lastly to his pipe (which woods nor plains
Acquainted not, but with the saddest strains,
Yet he more sad than song or places can)
Varied his plaints, and thus anew began: —

Marina's gone, and now sit I,
As Philomela (on a thorn,
Turn'd out of nature's livery),
Mirthless, alone, and all forlorn:
Only she sings not, while my sorrows can
Breathe forth such notes as fit a dying swan.

So shuts the marigold her leaves
At the departure of the sun;
So from the honeysuckle sheaves
The bee goes when the day is done;
So sits the turtle when she is but one,
And so all woe, as I, since she is gone.

To some few birds, kind Nature hath
Made all the summer as one day;
Which once enjoy'd, cold winter's wrath,
As night, they sleeping pass away.
Those happy creatures are, that know not yet
The pain to be depriv'd or to forget.

I oft have heard men say there be
Some, that with confidence profess
The helpful Art of Memory;
But could they teach forgetfulness,
I'd learn, and try what further art could do,
To make me love her and forget her too.

Sad melancholy, that persuades
Men from themselves, to think they be
Headless, or other bodies' shades,
Hath long and bootless dwelt with me;
For could I think she some idea were,
I still might love, forget, and have her here.

But such she is not: nor would I,
For twice as many torments more,
As her bereaved company
Hath brought to those I felt before,
For then no future time might hap to know
That she deserv'd, or I did love her so.

Ye hours, then, but as minutes be!
(Though so I shall be sooner old)
Till I those lovely graces see,
Which, but in her, can none behold;
Then be an age! that we may never try
More grief in parting, but grow old and die.

Here ceas'd the shepherd's song, but not his woe;
Grief never ends itself. And he doth know
Nothing but time or wisdom to allay it;
Time could not then; the other should not stay it.

Thus sits the hapless swain: now sighs, now sings:
Sings, sighs, and weeps at once. Then from the springs
Of pity begs his pardon. Then his eye,
Wronging his oraisons, some place hard by
Informs his intellect, where he hath seen
His mistress feed her flock, or on the green
Dance to the merry pipe: this drives him thence
As one, distracted with the violence
Of some hot fever, casts his clothes away,
Longs for the thing he loath'd but yesterday,
And fondly thinking 'twill his fits appease,
Changeth his bed, but keeps still the disease.
Quitting the plains to seek the gloomy springs,
He, like a swan that on Meander sings,
Takes congey of his mates with ling'ring haste,
To find some stream where he may sing his last.

So have I left my Tavy's flow'ry shore,
Far-flowing Thamesis, and many more
Attractive pleasures which sweet England yields,
Her peopled cities and her fertile fields,
For Amphitrite's plains; those hath mine eye
Chang'd for our whilom fields of Normandy;
For Seine those have I left; for Loire, the Seine;
And for the Thoüe changed Loire again;
Where to the nymphs of Poitou now I sing
A stranger note (yet such as ev'ry spring
Rolls smiling to attend): for none of those
Yet have I lessen'd or exchang'd my woes.
Dear, dearest isle, from thee I pass'd away
But as a shadow, when the eye of day
Shines otherwhere; for she whose I have been,
By her declining makes me live unseen.
Nor do I hope that any other light
Can make me her's; the pallid queen of night
And Venus, or some err, may with their rays
Force an observing shade; but none of these,
Meteors to my set sun, can ever have
That power thou hadst. Sweet soul, thy silent grave
I give my best verse, if a shepherd's wit
Can make a dead hand capable of it.
Chaste were our loves, as mutual; nor did we
Hardly dream otherwise; our secrecy
Such as I think the world hath never known
I had a mistress, till that I had none.

Poor Celadyne and I (but happier he)
Only in dreams meet our felicity;
Our joys but shadows are; our constant woes
The day shows real; O, unhappy those,
Thrice, thrice unhappy, who are ever taking
Their joys in sleep, but are most wretched waking!