English

Stay, stay, sweet Time, behold or ere thou passe
From world to world, thou long hast sought to see,
That wonder now wherein all wonders be,
Where heaven beholds her in a mortall glasse.

Nay, looke thee Time in this Celestiall glasse,
And thy youth past, in this faire mirror see:
Behold worlds Beautie in her infancie,
What shee was then, and thou or ere shee was.

Now passe on Time, to after-worlds tell this,
Tell truelie Time what in thy time hath beene,
That they may tel more worlds what Time hath seene,

In one whole world is but one Phaenix found,
A Phaenix thou, this Phaenix then alone,
By thy rare plume thy kind is easly knowne,
With heavenly colours dide, with natures wonder cround,

Heape thine own vertues seasoned by their sunne,
On heavenlie top of thy divine desire:
Then with thy beautie set the same on fire,
So by thy death, thy life shall be begunne.

Thy selfe thus burned in this sacred flame,
With thine owne sweetnes al the heavens perfuming,
And stil increasing as thou art consuming,

Since holy Vestall lawes have been neglected,
The Gods pure fire hath been extinguisht quite:
No Virgine once attending on that light,
Nor yet those heavenly secrets once respected.

Till thou alone to pay the heavens their dutie,
Within the Temple of thy sacred name,
With thine eyes kindling that Celestial flame,
By those reflecting Sun-beames of thy beautie.

Here Chastity that Vestall most divine,
Attends that Lampe with eye which never sleepeth,
The volumes of Religions lawes shee keepeth,

My faire, had I not erst adornd my Lute,
With those sweet strings stolne from thy golden hayre,
Unto the world had all my joyes been mute,
Nor had I learn'd to descant on my faire.

Had not mine eye seene thy Celestiall eye,
Nor my hart knowne the power of thy name,
My soule had ne'r felt thy Divinitie,
Nor my Muse been the trumpet of thy fame.

But thy divine perfections by their skill,
This miracle on my poore Muse have tried:
And by inspiring, glorifide my quill,
And in my verse thy selfe art deified.

My thoughts bred up with Eagle-birds of love,
And for their vertues I desierd to know,
Upon the nest I set them, forth to prove,
If they were of the Eagles kinde or no.

But they no sooner saw my Sunne appeare,
But on her rayes with gazing eyes they stood,
Which proov'd my birds delighted in the ayre,
And that they came of this rare kinglie brood.

But now their plumes full sumd with sweet desire,
To shew their kinde, began to clime the skies:
Doe what I could my Eaglets would aspire,

My fayre, if thou wilt register my love,
More then worlds volumes shall thereof arise,
Preserve my teares, and thou thy selfe shalt prove
A second flood downe rayning from mine eyes.

Note but my sighes, and thine eyes shal behold,
The Sun-beames smothered with immortall smoke:
And if by thee my prayers may be enrold,
They heaven and earth to pitty shall provoke.

Looke thou into my breast, and thou shalt see
Chaste holy vowes for my soules sacrifice:
That soule (sweet Maide) which so hath honored thee,

Reade heere (sweet Mayd) the story of my wo,
The drery abstracts of my endles cares:
With my lives sorow enterlyned so,
Smok'd with my sighes, and blotted with my teares.

The sad memorials of my miseries,
Pend in the griefe of myne afflicted ghost:
My lives complaint in doleful Elegies,
With so pure love as tyme could never boast.

Receave the incense which I offer heere,
By my strong fayth ascending to thy fame,
My zeale, my hope, my vowes, my praise, my prayer,
My soules oblations to thy sacred name.

Ankor tryumph, upon whose blessed shore,
The sacred Muses solemnize thy name:
Where the Arcadian Swaines with rytes adore
Pandoras poesy, and her living fame.

Where first this jolly Sheepheard gan rehearse,
That heavenly worth, upon his Oaten reede,
Of earths great Queene: in Nectar-dewed verse,
Which none so wise that rightly can areede.

Nowe in conceite of his ambitious love,

Vouchsafe to grace these rude unpolish'd rymes,
Which long (deer friend) have slept in sable night,
And come abroad now in these glorious tymes,
Can hardly brooke the purenes of the light.

But sith you see their desteny is such,
That in the world theyr fortune they must try,
Perhaps they better shall abide the tuch,
Wearing your name theyr gracious livery.

VALEDICTORY

O swifter than the fawn my days have fled,
A dream of shadows; one look, wild, misleading,
Sums up my whole delight: come, end the reading,
With little sweet, with bitter surfeited!
O wretched world, of doubt and darkness bred,
Who trusts in thee is lost! My love, my pleading,
My hopes were thine: all dead with my heart bleeding,
With her heart dust among the indifferent dead!
The flesh outmoded, still she burns, and still
In her high heaven, a bright and deathless flower,