Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.
Samuel Daniel. 15621619113. Beauty, Time, and Love Sonnets.
FAIR is my Love and cruel as she ‘s fair; | |
Her brow-shades frown, although her eyes are sunny. | |
Her smiles are lightning, though her pride despair, | |
And her disdains are gall, her favours honey: | |
A modest maid, deck’d with a blush of honour, | 5 |
Whose feet do tread green paths of youth and love; | |
The wonder of all eyes that look upon her, | |
Sacred on earth, design’d a Saint above. | |
Chastity and Beauty, which were deadly foes, | |
Live reconcilèd friends within her brow; | 10 |
And had she Pity to conjoin with those, | |
Then who had heard the plaints I utter now? | |
For had she not been fair, and thus unkind, | |
My Muse had slept, and none had known my mind. | |
My spotless love hovers with purest wings, | 15 |
About the temple of the proudest frame, | |
Where blaze those lights, fairest of earthly things, | |
Which clear our clouded world with brightest flame. | |
My ambitious thoughts, confinèd in her face, | |
Affect no honour but what she can give; | 20 |
My hopes do rest in limits of her grace; | |
I weigh no comfort unless she relieve. | |
For she, that can my heart imparadise, | |
Holds in her fairest hand what dearest is; | |
My Fortune’s wheel ‘s the circle of her eyes, | 25 |
Whose rolling grace deign once a turn of bliss. | |
All my life’s sweet consists in her alone; | |
So much I love the most Unloving one. | |
And yet I cannot reprehend the flight | |
Or blame th’ attempt presuming so to soar; | 30 |
The mounting venture for a high delight | |
Did make the honour of the fall the more. | |
For who gets wealth, that puts not from the shore? | |
Danger hath honour, great designs their fame; | |
Glory doth follow, courage goes before; | 35 |
And though th’ event oft answers not the same— | |
Suffice that high attempts have never shame. | |
The mean observer, whom base safety keeps, | |
Lives without honour, dies without a name, | |
And in eternal darkness ever sleeps.— | 40 |
And therefore, Delia, ’tis to me no blot | |
To have attempted, tho’ attain’d thee not. | |
When men shall find thy flow’r, thy glory, pass, | |
And thou with careful brow, sitting alone, | |
Receivèd hast this message from thy glass, | 45 |
That tells the truth and says that All is gone; | |
Fresh shalt thou see in me the wounds thou mad’st, | |
Though spent thy flame, in me the heat remaining: | |
I that have loved thee thus before thou fad’st— | |
My faith shall wax, when thou art in thy waning. | 50 |
The world shall find this miracle in me, | |
That fire can burn when all the matter ‘s spent: | |
Then what my faith hath been thyself shalt see, | |
And that thou wast unkind thou may’st repent.— | |
Thou may’st repent that thou hast scorn’d my tears, | 55 |
When Winter snows upon thy sable hairs. | |
Beauty, sweet Love, is like the morning dew, | |
Whose short refresh upon the tender green | |
Cheers for a time, but till the sun doth show, | |
And straight ’tis gone as it had never been. | 60 |
Soon doth it fade that makes the fairest flourish, | |
Short is the glory of the blushing rose; | |
The hue which thou so carefully dost nourish, | |
Yet which at length thou must be forced to lose. | |
When thou, surcharged with burthen of thy years, | 65 |
Shalt bend thy wrinkles homeward to the earth; | |
And that, in Beauty’s Lease expired, appears | |
The Date of Age, the Calends of our Death— | |
But ah, no more!—this must not be foretold, | |
For women grieve to think they must be old. | 70 |
I must not grieve my Love, whose eyes would read | |
Lines of delight, whereon her youth might smile; | |
Flowers have time before they come to seed, | |
And she is young, and now must sport the while. | |
And sport, Sweet Maid, in season of these years, | 75 |
And learn to gather flowers before they wither; | |
And where the sweetest blossom first appears, | |
Let Love and Youth conduct thy pleasures thither. | |
Lighten forth smiles to clear the clouded air, | |
And calm the tempest which my sighs do raise; | 80 |
Pity and smiles do best become the fair; | |
Pity and smiles must only yield thee praise. | |
Make me to say when all my griefs are gone, | |
Happy the heart that sighed for such a one! | |
Let others sing of Knights and Paladines | 85 |
In agèd accents and untimely words, | |
Paint shadows in imaginary lines, | |
Which well the reach of their high wit records: | |
But I must sing of thee, and those fair eyes | |
Authentic shall my verse in time to come; | 90 |
When yet th’ unborn shall say, Lo, where she lies! | |
Whose beauty made him speak, that else was dumb! | |
These are the arcs, the trophies I erect, | |
That fortify thy name against old age; | |
And these thy sacred virtues must protect | 95 |
Against the Dark, and Time’s consuming rage. | |
Though th’ error of my youth in them appear, | |
Suffice, they show I lived, and loved thee dear. |