THE RENAISSANCE SONNET

Sir Thomas Wyatt

They flee from me

They flee from me, that sometime did me seek,

With naked foot stalking within my chamber:

Once have I seen them gentle, tame, and meek,

That now are wild, and do not once remember,

That sometime they have put themselves in danger

To take bread at my hand ; and now they range

Busily seeking in continual change.

Thanked be Fortune, it hath been otherwise

Twenty times better ; but once especial,

In thin array, after a pleasant guise,

When her loose gown did from her shoulders fall,

And she me caught in her arms long and small,

And therewithal sweetly did me kiss,

And softly said, ' Dear heart, how like you this?'

It was no dream ;I lay broad awaking:

But all is turn'd now through my gentleness,

Into a bitter fashion of forsaking;

And I have leave to go of her goodness;

And she also to use newfangleness.

But since that I so kindely am served:

I fain would know what she hath deserved.

Sir Philip Sidney

Sonnet 1 (from Astrophel and Stella)

Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show,

That she, dear she, might take some pleasure of my pain,

Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know,

Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain, —

I sought fit words to paint the blackest face of woe;

Studying inventions fine, her wits to entertain,

Oft turning others' leaves to see if thence would flow

Some fresh and fruitful showers upon my sun-burned brain.

But words came halting forth, wanting invention's stay;

Invention, nature's child, fled step-dame Study's blows,

And others' feet still seemed but strangers in my way.

Thus, great with child to speak, and helpless in my throes,

Biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite,

Fool, said my muse to me, look in thy heart and write.

Sonnet 31 (from Astrophel and Stella)

With how sad steps, O Moon, thou climb'st the skies !

How silently, and with how wan a face !

What, may it be that even in heavenly place

That busy archer his sharp arrows tries?

Sure, if that long with love-acquainted eyes

Can judge of love, thou feel'st a lover's case;

I read it in thy looks; thy languisht grace

To me that feel the like, thy state descries.

Then, even of fellowship, O Moon, tell me,

Is constant love deemed there but want of wit?

Are beauties there as proud as here they be?

Do they above love to be loved, and yet

Those lovers scorn whom that love doth possess?

Do they call virtue there, ungratefulness?

Edmund Spenser

Sonnet 75

ONE day I wrote her name upon the strand,

but came the waues and washed it away:

agayne I wrote it with a second hand,

but came the tyde, and made my paynes his pray.

Vayne man, sayd she, that doest in vaine assay,

a mortall thing so to immortalize

for I my selue shall lyke to this decay,

and eek my name bee wyped out lykewize.

Not so, (quod I) let baser things deuize,

to dy in dust, but you shall liue by fame:

my verse your vertues rare shall eternize,

and in the heuens wryte your glorious name.

Where whenas death shall all the world subdew,

our loue shall liue, and later life renew.

William Shakespeare

Sonnet 18

Shall I compare thee to a Summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And Summer's lease hath all too short a date:

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And oft' is his gold complexion dimm'd;

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd:

But thy eternal Summer shall not fade

Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;

Nor shall Death brag thou wanderest in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou growest:

So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Sonnet 130

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;

Coral is far more red than her lips' red;

If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;

If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.

I have seen roses damasked, red and white,

But no such roses see I in her cheeks;

And in some perfumes is there more delight

Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.

I love to hear her speak, yet well I know

That music hath a far more pleasing sound;

I grant I never saw a goddess go;

My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.

And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare

As any she belied with false compare.

THE ENGLISH BAROQUE

John Donne

The flea

Mark but this flea, and mark in this,

How little that which thou deniest me is;

It suck'd me first, and now sucks thee,

And in this flea our two bloods mingled be.

Thou know'st that this cannot be said

A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead;

Yet this enjoys before it woo,

And pamper'd swells with one blood made of two;

And this, alas! Is more than we would do

O stay, three lives in one flea spare,

Where we almost, yea, more than married are.

This flea is you and I, and this

Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is.

Though parents grudge, and you, we're met,

And cloister'd in these living walls of jet.

Though use make you apt to kill me,

Let not to that self-murder added be,

And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.

Cruel and sudden, hast thou since

Purpled thy nail in blood of innocence?

Wherein could this flea guilty be,

Except in that drop which it suck'd from thee?

Yet thou triumph'st, and say'st that thou

Find'st not thyself nor me the weaker now.

'Tis true ; then learn how false fears be ;

Just so much honour, when thou yield'st to me,

Will waste, as this flea's death took life from thee.

A Valediction” Forbidding Mourning

As virtuous men pass mildly away,

And whisper to their souls to go,

Whilst some of their sad friends do say,

"Now his breath goes," and some say, "No."

So let us melt, and make no noise, 5

No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move;

'Twere profanation of our joys

To tell the laity our love.

Moving of th' earth brings harms and fears;

Men reckon what it did, and meant; 10

But trepidation of the spheres,

Though greater far, is innocent.

Dull sublunary lovers' love

—Whose soul is sense—cannot admit

Of absence, 'cause it doth remove 15

The thing which elemented it.

But we by a love so much refined,

That ourselves know not what it is,

Inter-assurèd of the mind,

Care less, eyes, lips and hands to miss. 20

Our two souls therefore, which are one,

Though I must go, endure not yet

A breach, but an expansion,

Like gold to aery thinness beat.

If they be two, they are two so 25

As stiff twin compasses are two;

Thy soul, the fix'd foot, makes no show

To move, but doth, if th' other do.

And though it in the centre sit,

Yet, when the other far doth roam, 30

It leans, and hearkens after it,

And grows erect, as that comes home.

Such wilt thou be to me, who must,

Like th' other foot, obliquely run ;

Thy firmness makes my circle just, 35

And makes me end where I begun.

Elegy XX

To his Mistress Goig to Bed

Come, Madam, come, all rest my powers defy;

Until I labour, I in labour lie.

The foe ofttimes, having the foe in sight,

Is tired with standing, though he never fight.

Off with that girdle, like heaven's zone glittering,

But a far fairer world encompassing.

Unpin that spangled breast-plate, which you wear,

That th' eyes of busy fools may be stopp'd there.

Unlace yourself, for that harmonious chime

Tells me from you that now it is bed-time.

Off with that happy busk, which I envy,

That still can be, and still can stand so nigh.

Your gown going off such beauteous state reveals,

As when from flowery meads th' hill's shadow steals.

Off with your wiry coronet, and show

The hairy diadems which on you do grow.

Off with your hose and shoes; then softly tread

In this love's hallow'd temple, this soft bed.

In such white robes heaven's angels used to be

Revealed to men ; thou, angel, bring'st with thee

A heaven-like Mahomet's paradise ; and though

Ill spirits walk in white, we easily know

By this these angels from an evil sprite;

Those set our hairs, but these our flesh upright.

Licence my roving hands, and let them go

Before, behind, between, above, below.

O, my America, my Newfoundland,

My kingdom, safest when with one man mann'd,

My mine of precious stones, my empery;

How am I blest in thus discovering thee!

To enter in these bonds, is to be free ;

Then, where my hand is set, my soul shall be.

Full nakedness! All joys are due to thee;

As souls unbodied, bodies unclothed must be

To taste whole joys. Gems which you women use

Are like Atlanta's balls cast in men's views;

That, when a fool's eye lighteth on a gem,

His earthly soul might court that, not them.

Like pictures, or like books' gay coverings made

For laymen, are all women thus array'd.

Themselves are only mystic books, which we

—Whom their imputed grace will dignify—

Must see reveal'd. Then, since that I may know,

As liberally as to thy midwife show

Thyself ; cast all, yea, this white linen hence ;

There is no penance due to innocence :

To teach thee, I am naked first ; why then,

What needst thou have more covering than a man?

Holly Sonnet X

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee

Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;

For those, whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow,

Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.

From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,

Much pleasure, then from thee much more must flow,

And soonest our best men with thee do go,

Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.

Thou'rt slave to Fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,

And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,

And poppy, or charms can make us sleep as well,

And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?

One short sleep past, we wake eternally,

And Death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.

Edward Herbert

The Collar

I struck the board, and cried, „No more;

I will abroad.

What? Shall I ever sigh and pine?

My lines and life are free; free as the rode,

Loose as the wind, as large as store.

Shall I be still in suit?

Have I no harvest but a thorn

To let me blood, and not restore

What I have lost with cordial fruit?

Sure there was wine,

Before my sighs did dry it: there was corn

Before my tears did drown it.

Is the yeare onely lost to me?

Have I no bays to crown it?

No flowers, no garlands gay? All blasted ?

All wasted?

Not so, my heart: but there is fruit,

And thou hast hands.

Recover all thy sigh-blown age

On double pleasures: leave thy cold dispute

Of what is fit, and not. Forsake thy cage,

Thy rope of sands,

Which petty thoughts have made, and made to thee

Good cable, to enforce and draw,

And be thy law,

While thou didst wink and wouldst not see.

Away; take heed:

I will abroad.

Call in thy death's-head there: tie up thy fears.

He that forbears

To suit and serve his need,

Deserves his load.”

But as I raved and grew more fierce and wild,

At every word,

Methoughts I heard one calling, Child:

And I replied, My Lord.

The Pulley

When God at first made man,

Having a glass of blessings standing by;

„Let us” said he „pour on him all we can:

Let the world's riches, which dispersed lie,

Contract into a span.”

So strength first made a way;

Then beauty flowed, then wisdom, honour, pleasure:

When almost all was out, God made a stay,

Perceiving that alone, of all his treasure,

Rest in the bottom lay.

„ For if I should” said he

„Bestow this jewel also on my creature,

He would adore my gifts instead of me,

And rest in Nature, not the God of Nature:

So both should losers be.

„Yet let him keep the rest,

But keep them with repining restlesnesse:

Let him be rich and wearie, that at least,

If goodnesse leade him not, yet wearinesse

May tosse him to my breast.”

Paradise

I Bless thee, Lord, because I GROW

Among thy trees, which in a ROW

To thee both fruit and order OW.

What open force, or hidden CHARM

Can blast my fruit, or bring me HARM,

While the inclosure is thine ARM.

Inclose me still for fear I START.

Be to me rather sharp and TART,

Then let me want thy hand and ART.

When thou dost greater judgments SPARE,

And with thy knife but prune and PARE,

Ev'n fruitfull trees more fruitful ARE.

Such sharpnes shows the sweetest FREND:

Such cuttings rather heal then REND:

And such beginnings touch their END.

Andrew Marvell

Bermudas

Where the remote Bermudas ride,

In the ocean's bosom unespied,

From a small boat, that rowed along,

The listening winds received this song:

"What should we do but sing His praise

That led us through the watery maze,

Unto an isle so long unknown,

And yet far kinder than our own?

Where He the huge sea-monsters wracks,

That lift the deep upon their backs; 10

He lands us on a grassy stage,

Safe from the storms, and prelate's rage.

He gave us this eternal spring,

Which here enamels every thing,

And sends the fowls to us in care,

On daily visits through the air;

He hangs in shades the orange bright,

Like golden lamps in a green night,

And does in the pomegranates close

Jewels more rich than Ormus shows; 20

He makes the figs our mouths to meet,

And throws the melons at our feet;

But apples plants of such a price,

No tree could ever bear them twice;

With cedars chosen by His hand,

From Lebanon, He stores the land,

And makes the hollow seas, that roar,

Proclaim the ambergris on shore;

He cast (of which we rather boast)

The Gospel's pearl upon our coast, 30

And in these rocks for us did frame

A temple where to sound His name.

Oh ! Let our voice His praise exalt,

Till it arrive at Heaven's vault,

Which, thence (perhaps) rebounding, may

Echo beyond the Mexique Bay."

Thus sung they, in the English boat,

An holy and a cheerful note;

And all the way, to guide their chime,

With falling oars they kept the time. 40

The Garden

How vainly men themselves amaze
To win the palm, the oak, or bays;
And their uncessant labors see
Crowned from some single herb or tree,
Whose short and narrow-vergèd shade
Does prudently their toils upbraid;
While all the flowers and trees do close
To weave the garlands of repose.

Fair Quiet, have I found thee here,
And Innocence, thy sister dear!
Mistaken long, I sought you then
In busy companies of men:
Your sacred plants, if here below,
Only among the plants will grow;
Society is all but rude,
To this delicious solitude.

No white nor red was ever seen
So amorous as this lovely green;
Fond lovers, cruel as their flame,
Cut in these trees their mistress' name.
Little, alas, they know or heed,
How far these beauties hers exceed!
Fair trees! wheresoe'er your barks I wound
No name shall but your own be found.

When we have run our passion's heat,
Love hither makes his best retreat:
The gods who mortal beauty chase,
Still in a tree did end their race.
Apollo hunted Daphne so,
Only that she might laurel grow,
And Pan did after Syrinx speed,
Not as a nymph, but for a reed.

What wondrous life is this I lead!
Ripe apples drop about my head;
The luscious clusters of the vine
Upon my mouth do crush their wine;
The nectarine and curious peach
Into my hands themselves do reach;
Stumbling on melons as I pass,
Insnared with flowers, I fall on grass.

Meanwhile the mind, from pleasure less,
Withdraws into its happiness:
The mind, that ocean where each kind
Does straight its own resemblance find;
Yet it creates, transcending these,
Far other worlds, and other seas;
Annihilating all that's made
To a green thought in a green shade.

Here at the fountain's sliding foot,
Or at some fruit-tree's mossy root,
Casting the body's vest aside,
My soul into the boughs does glide :
There like a bird it sits and sings,
Then whets and combs its silver wings ;
And, till prepared for longer flight,
Waves in its plumes the various light.

Such was that happy garden-state,
While man there walked without a mate :
After a place so pure and sweet,
What other help could yet be meet!
But 'twas beyond a mortal's share
To wander solitary there :
Two paradises 'twere in one
To live in Paradise alone.

How well the skillful gard'ner drew
Of flowers and herbs this dial new ;
Where from above the milder sun
Does through a fragrant zodiac run ;
And, as it works, th' industrious bee
Computes its time as well as we.
How could such sweet and wholesome hours
Be reckoned but with herbs and flowers!

To his Coy Mistress

Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, lady, were no crime.
We would sit down and think which way
To walk, and pass our long love's day;
Thou by the Indian Ganges' side
Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the Flood;
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires, and more slow.
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast,
But thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart.
For, lady, you deserve this state,
Nor would I love at lower rate.

        But at my back I always hear
Time's winged chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found,
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song; then worms shall try
That long preserv'd virginity,
And your quaint honour turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust.
The grave's a fine and private place,
But none I think do there embrace.

        Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may;
And now, like am'rous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour,
Than languish in his slow-chapp'd power.
Let us roll all our strength, and all
Our sweetness, up into one ball;
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Thorough the iron gates of life.
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.

Robert Herrick

To the Virgis, to Make much of Time

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
    Old time is still a-flying:
And this same flower that smiles to-day
    To-morrow will be dying.

The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,
    The higher he's a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
    And nearer he's to setting.

That age is best which is the first,
    When youth and blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
    Times still succeed the former.

Then be not coy, but use your time,
    And while ye may go marry:
For having lost but once your prime
    You may for ever tarry.

John Milton

Paradise Lost (Book I, lines 1-49)

1. Of Man's first disobedience, and the fruit

2. Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste

3. Brought death into the World, and all our woe,

4. With loss of Eden, till one greater Man

5. Restore us, and regain the blissful seat,

6. Sing, Heavenly Muse, that, on the secret top

7. Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire

8. That Shepherd who first taught the chosen seed

9. In the beginning how the heavens and earth

10. Rose out of Chaos: or, if Sion hill

11. Delight thee more, and Siloa's brook that flowed

12. Fast by the oracle of God, I thence

13. Invoke thy aid to my adventurous song,

14. That with no middle flight intends to soar

15. Above th' Aonian mount, while it pursues

16. Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme.

17. And chiefly thou, O Spirit, that dost prefer

18. Before all temples th' upright heart and pure,

19. Instruct me, for Thou know'st; Thou from the first

20. Wast present, and, with mighty wings outspread,

21. Dove-like sat'st brooding on the vast Abyss,

22. And mad'st it pregnant: what in me is dark

23. Illumine, what is low raise and support;

24. That, to the height of this great argument,

25. I may assert Eternal Providence,

26. And justify the ways of God to men.

27. Say first--for Heaven hides nothing from thy view,

28. Nor the deep tract of Hell--say first what cause

29. Moved our grand parents, in that happy state,

30. Favoured of Heaven so highly, to fall off

31. From their Creator, and transgress his will

32. For one restraint, lords of the World besides.

33. Who first seduced them to that foul revolt?

34. Th' infernal Serpent; he it was whose guile,

35. Stirred up with envy and revenge, deceived

36. The mother of mankind, what time his pride

37. Had cast him out from Heaven, with all his host

38. Of rebel Angels, by whose aid, aspiring

39. To set himself in glory above his peers,

40. He trusted to have equalled the Most High,

41. If he opposed, and with ambitious aim

42. Against the throne and monarchy of God,

43. Raised impious war in Heaven and battle proud,

44. With vain attempt. Him the Almighty Power

45. Hurled headlong flaming from th' ethereal sky,

46. With hideous ruin and combustion, down

47. To bottomless perdition, there to dwell

48. In adamantine chains and penal fire,

49. Who durst defy th' Omnipotent to arms.

On his Blindness

When I consider how my light is spent
Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide
Lodg'd with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest he returning chide,
”Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?”
I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies: “God doth not need
Either man's work or his own gifts: who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed
And post o'er land and ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and wait.”

Slender

Fickleness

Naturally, but with an ironic suggestion of the modern meaning of „kindly”

One of six sonnets in the sequence written in hexameters.

Desirous.

Prop.

Stripped of gay apparel.

Ownest.

When in [this] immortal poetry you become even with time.

The boast of immortality for one's verse was a Renaissance convention and goes back to the classics. It implies, not egotism on the part of the poet, but faith in the permanence of poetry.

An anti-Petrarchan sonnet. All of details commonly attributed by other Elizabethan sonneteers to their ladies are here denied to the poet's mistress.

Variegated. The damaska rose (supposedly from Damascus, originally) is pink.

Walk.

Admirable, extraordinary.

Misrepresented.

I.e.' we, alas, don't dare hope for this consummation of our love, which the flea freely accepts. The idea of swelling suggests pregnancy.

Habit.

Like Herod, Donne's mistress has slaughtered the inncocents and is now clothed in imperial purple.

The particularrly serious and steady tone of this poem may be due to the circumstances of its composition. Izaak Walton tells us it was adressed to Donne's wife on the occasion of his trip to the Continent in 1611. Donne had many forebodings of misfortune, which were verified when his wife gave birth to a stillborn child during his absence. Still, Walton's linkage of there events with this poem is only a speculation

Earthquakes cause damage and were thiught portentous. „Trepidation” (in the Ptolemaic cosmology, an oscillation of the ninth or „crystalline” sphere, imparted to all the inner spheres), though a vastly greater motion than an earthquakem is neither destructive nor sinister.

Beneath the moon, therefore mundane and subject to change.

Essence.

Composed.

I.e. drawing compasses - an emblem of constancy inchange, as the circle they produce signifies perfection. This simile is the most famous exapmle of the „metaphysical conceit”.

Labor in the senses of „get to work” and „distress”.

The zodiac.

Bodice.

Populated by seductive houris, for the delectation of the faithful.

The jokes mingle law with sex: having signed the document with his hand, he will now seal it, and in the bonds of her arms will find freedom.

Atlanta, running a race against her suitor Hippomenes , was beaten when he dropped golden balls (apples_ for her to pick up. Donne reverser the story.

By granting favors to their lovers, women impute to them grace that they don't deserve, as God imputes grace to undeserving sinner. Laymen can only look at the covers of mystic books (women), but `we' who have saving grace can read them.

An alternative reading is „Here is no penance, much less innocence”

i.e., to find rest for their bones and freedom („delivery”) for their souls.

Opium.

Why do you puff with pride?

Table

In attendance, waiting on someone for a favor. „Store”: abundance.

Giving heart's ease, restorative.

The poet's laurel wreath, here used as a general symbol of festivity.

Christian restrictions on behavior, which the „petty thoughts” of the docile believer have made „good cable” i;e. strong.

Shut your eyes (to the real weakness of the church's injunctions)

The skull that reminds the penitent of approaching death.

„Rest” in the poem has two senses („remainder” and „repose”); Herbert works them against one another. This balance of forces suggests the pulley, which can draw us to God on way or other.

Shipwrecks, destroys.

Stroms at sea are quietly e

---