love poem

I SAMUEL, XV .

" Surely the bitterness of death is past, "
Cried he whose safety Saul the sovereign willed
When all the blood of Amalek else was spilled
And at his nation's grave he stood, the last.
But Samuel came with countenance overcast,
With wrath aroused and charity all chilled,
And there before the Lord was Agag killed,
Hewed into pieces by the Enthusiast.

Death has ordained thee out of all my dreams
And dealt me bitter check to my pursuit;
My sunlight fails while tears are absolute,
And night falls ever chill, with scanty gleams
From clouded stars that mock the dull moon's beams.
My summer land, long fair with flowers and fruit,
Far cumbered lies with rotted branch and root,
In dismal fields by hopeless stagnant streams.
Death has redeemed thee out of toilsome days
And bound thy harvest in a single sheaf,
While I went forward over saddened ways

Once Reason, calm, majestic maid,
Thro' bosky gloom of garden strayed —
A garden planned in every part
To please the mind yet scarce the heart.
'Tis true the level walks, the bowers,
Were gemmed with all the fairest flowers
That royal Nature's bounteous hand
Had flung upon that radiant land,
Where Summer kisses Summer's lips,
And all the year the brown bee sips
His nectar from the chain of flowers
That stretches o'er those sunny hours,
And finds no missing link of bloom
To cloud his busy life with gloom.

There beat a heart whose life was grown
A thing by Grief made all its own;
Which felt Affliction's heavy power,
Each minute of each weary hour,
And counted every day that pass'd,
By being bitt'rer than the last.
Then came full many a lovely thing,
A comfort to his woe to bring,
And tried by smile, and play, and jest,
To melt the icebands from his breast
Mirth, with her eye half hid below
The archly-drooping lid of snow,
Danc'd near with feet as quick and bright
As glances from the wave the light,

Said Love to Hate, " I shall destroy you yet;
Around my throne your servitors shall stand
To gaze on me, till they your name forget,
And you, yourself, shall bid my foes disband. "

Said Love to Hate, " I shall destroy you yet;
Around my throne your servitors shall stand
To gaze on me, till they your name forget,
And you, yourself, shall bid my foes disband. "

To myne honest as louing friend Mr Mitchaell Drayton

M ICHAELL , where art thou? what's become of thee?
Haue the nyne wenches stolne thee from thy selfe?
Or from their conuersation dost thou flee,
Sith they are rich in science not in pelfe?
Bee not vnconstant (Michaell) in thy loue
To girles so gracefull in the hart and face;
Although thereby thou maist a poet proue,
(That's poore as Iob) yet euer those embrace
By whome thou dost enioy a heau'n on earth;

To my most honest louing and wel-deseruing friend and country-man Mr Iohn Gwillim.

What I haue sedd of thee and of thy booke,
Is extant; yet I haue not thee forsooke
In loue, but whensoeuer time doth serue
To giue thy guifts their due, that out Ile kerue
From Fames rich stock: then Guillim thou art bee
That armes hast made (perforce) to honour thee;
But armes nor force can honour thee so much
As thy good heart, Integrities none such.

To my louing and iuditious friend Mr Francis Wye.

Wye was the nimphe neere which I first did breath.
And Wye's the man with whome I loue to liue;
The first, is apt to nourish life and death,
The last, but comforts sweete, to life doth giue:
Then Wye I pree thee runne with righter course
To mee then Wye doth wandring from her sourse.

To my truly louing and beloued friend Mr William Wall.

Well , be so still; be (as thou art) a Wall
For thy friends saueguard and thine owne withall;
Be thou thyselfe and thou thyselfe wilt bee
Desirde of all that rightly value thee:
For if my loue my iudgement blinde not, then
Thou art more worth then many wealthy men.

T HERE was a time, yea, yea, a time there was,

(But that that was, the Fryer neuer lou'd)
When he was held a beast that was an asse,
But now an asse is often best approu'd:

To my most louing and intirely beloued Pupill, Mr Arthur De la-vale, attending the right honourable and most happy Earle of Dunbarre.

Thy name is of the Vale: thy nature, not:
For it is kinde and truly generous:
As are thy worthy brothers (well I wou)
Then is thy nature highly vertuous:
Yet being lowly too as is the Dale,
Thy name thy nature fits, deere De la-Vale.