Michael Drayton

Couentry, that do'st adorne[1]
The Countrey wherein I was borne,
Yet therein lyes not thy prayse
Why I should crowne thy Tow'rs with Bayes:
'Tis not thy Wall, me to thee weds
Thy Ports, nor thy proud Pyrameds,
Nor thy Trophies of the Bore,[2]
But that Shee which I adore,
Which scarce Goodnesse selfe can payre,
First their breathing blest thy Ayre;
IDEA, in which Name I hide
Her, in my heart Deifi'd,
For what good, Man's mind can see,
Onely her IDEAS be;
She, in whom the Vertues came
In Womans shape, and tooke her Name,
She so farre past Imitation,
As but Nature our Creation
Could not alter, she had aymed,
More then Woman to haue framed:
She, whose truely written Story,
To thy poore Name shall adde more glory,

The Muse should be sprightly,
Yet not handling lightly
Things graue; as much loath,
Things that be slight, to cloath
Curiously: To retayne
The Comelinesse in meane,
Is true Knowledge and Wit.
Not me forc'd Rage doth fit,
That I thereto should lacke
Tabacco, or need Sacke,
Which to the colder Braine
Is the true Hyppocrene;
Nor did I euer care
For great Fooles, nor them spare.
Vertue, though neglected,
Is not so deiected,
As vilely to descend
To low Basenesse their end;
Neyther each ryming Slaue
Deserues the Name to haue
Of Poet: so the Rabble
Of Fooles, for the Table,
That haue their Iests by Heart,
As an Actor his Part,
Might assume them Chayres
Amongst the Muses Heyres.
Parnassus is not clome
By euery suc...

A briefe Prologue to the verses following.

Deare Tom, thy booke was like to come to light,
Ere I could gaine but one halfe howre to write;
They go before whose wits are at their noones,
And I come after bringing Salt and Spoones.

Many there be that write before thy Booke,
For whom (except here) who could euer looke?
Thrice happy are all wee that had the Grace
To haue our names set in this liuing place.
Most worthy man, with thee it is euen thus,
As men take Dottrels, so hast thou ta'n vs.
Which as a man his arme or leg doth set,
So this fond Bird will likewise counterfeit:
Thou art the Fowler, and doest shew vs shapes
And we are all thy Zanies, thy true Apes.
I saw this age (from what it was at first)
Swolne, and so bigge, that it was like to burst...

Reade heere (sweet Mayd) the story of my wo,
The drery abstracts of my endles cares,
With my liues 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 liues complaint in doleful Elegies,
With so pure loue as tyme could neuer boast.
Receaue 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 oblation to thy sacred name:
    Which name my Muse to highest heauen shal raise
    By chast desire, true loue, and vertues praise.

Oft taking pen in hand, with words to cast my woes,
Beginning to account the sum of all my cares,
I well perceiue my griefe innumerable growes,
And still in reckonings rise more millions of dispayres.
And thus, deuiding of my fatall howres,
The payments of my loue I read, and reading crosse,
And in substracting set my sweets vnto my sowres;
Th' average of my ioyes directs me to my losse.
And thus mine eyes, a debtor to thine eye,
Who by extortion gaineth all theyr lookes,
My hart hath payd such grieuous vsury,
That all her wealth lyes in thy Beauties bookes;
    And all is thine which hath been due to mee,
    And I a Banckrupt, quite vndone by thee.

Thine eyes taught mee the Alphabet of loue,
To con my Cros-rowe ere I learn'd to spell;
For I was apt, a scholler like to proue,
Gaue mee sweet lookes when as I learned well.
Vowes were my vowels, when I then begun
At my first Lesson in thy sacred name:
My consonants the next when I had done,
Words consonant, and sounding to thy fame.
My liquids then were liquid christall teares,
My cares my mutes, so mute to craue reliefe;
My dolefull Dypthongs were my liues dispaires,
Redoubling sighes the accents of my griefe:
    My loues Schoole-mistris now hath taught me so,
    That I can read a story of my woe.

Some Atheist or vile Infidell in loue,
When I doe speake of thy diuinitie,
May blaspheme thus, and say I flatter thee,
And onely write my skill in verse to proue.
See myracles, ye vnbeleeuing! see
A dumbe-born Muse made to expresse the mind,
A cripple hand to write, yet lame by kind,
One by thy name, the other touching thee.
Blind were mine eyes, till they were seene of thine,
And mine eares deafe by thy fame healed be;
My vices cur'd by vertues sprung from thee,
My hopes reuiu'd, which long in graue had lyne:
    All vncleane thoughts, foule spirits, cast out in mee
    By thy great power, and by strong fayth in thee.

Cleere Ankor, on whose siluer-sanded shore
My soule-shrinde Saint, my faire Idea, lyes;
O blessed Brooke! whose milk-white Swans adore
The christall streame refined by her eyes:
Where sweet Myrh-breathing Zephyre in the spring
Gently distils his Nectar-dropping showers;
Where Nightingales in Arden sit and sing
Amongst those dainty dew-empearled flowers.
Say thus, fayre Brooke, when thou shall see thy Queene:
Loe! heere thy Shepheard spent his wandring yeeres,
And in these shades (deer Nimphe) he oft hath been,
And heere to thee he sacrifiz'd his teares.
    Fayre Arden, thou my Tempe art alone,
    And thou, sweet Ankor, art my Helicon.

Looking into the glasse of my youths miseries,
I see the ugly face of my deformed cares,
With withered browes, all wrinckled with dispaires,
That for my mis-spent youth the tears fel from my eyes.
Then, in these teares, the mirror of these eyes,
Thy fayrest youth and Beautie doe I see
Imprinted in my teares by looking still on thee:
Thus midst a thousand woes ten thousand joyes arise.
Yet in those joyes, the shadowes of my good,
In this fayre limned ground as white as snow,
Paynted the blackest Image of my woe,
With murthering hands imbru'd in mine own blood:
    And in this Image his darke clowdy eyes,
    My life, my youth, my loue, I heere Anotamize.

Now, Loue, if thou wilt proue a Conqueror,
Subdue thys Tyrant euer martyring mee;
And but appoint me for her Tormentor,
Then for a Monarch will I honour thee.
My hart shall be the prison for my fayre;
Ile fetter her in chaines of purest loue,
My sighs shall stop the passage of the ayre:
This punishment the pittilesse may moue.
With teares out of the Channels of mine eyes
She'st quench her thirst as duly as they fall:
Kinde words vnkindest meate I can deuise,
My sweet, my faire, my good, my best of all.
Ile binde her then with my torne-tressed haire,
And racke her with a thousand holy wishes;
Then, on a place prepared for her there,
Ile execute her with a thousand kisses.
    Thus will I crucifie, my cruell shee;
    Thus Ile plague her which hath so plagu...

Vertues Idea in virginitie,
By inspiration, came conceau'd with thought:
The time is come deliuered she must be,
Where first my loue into the world was brought.
Vnhappy borne, of all vnhappy day!
So luckles was my Babes nativity,
Saturne chiefe Lord of the Ascendant lay,
The wandring Moone in earths triplicitie.
Now, or by chaunce or heauens hie prouidence,
His Mother died, and by her Legacie
(Fearing the stars presaging influence)
Bequeath'd his wardship to my soueraignes eye;
Where hunger-staruen, wanting lookes to liue,
Still empty gorg'd, with cares consumption pynde,
Salt luke-warm teares shee for his drink did giue,
And euer-more with sighes he supt and dynde:
    And thus (poore Orphan) lying in distresse
    Cryes in his pangs, God helpe the mothe...

If euer wonder could report a wonder,
Or tongue of wonder worth could tell a wonder thought,
Or euer ioy expresse what perfect ioy hath taught,
Then wonder, tongue, then ioy, might wel report a wonder.
Could all conceite conclude, which past conceit admireth,
Or could mine eye but ayme her obiects past perfection,
My words might imitate my deerest thoughts direction,
And my soule then obtaine which so my soule desireth.
Were not Inuention stauld, treading Inuentions maze,
Or my swift-winged Muse tyred by too hie flying;
Did not perfection still on her perfection gaze,
Whilst Loue (my Phoenix bird) in her owne flame is dying,
    Inuention and my Muse, perfection and her loue,
    Should teach the world to know the wonder that I proue.

Some, when in ryme they of their Loues doe tell,
With flames and lightning their exordiums paynt:
Some inuocate the Gods, some spirits of Hell,
And heauen, and earth doe with their woes acquaint.
Elizia is too hie a seate for mee:
I wyll not come in Stixe or Phlegiton;
The Muses nice, the Furies cruell be,
I lyke not Limbo, nor blacke Acheron,
Spightful Erinnis frights mee with her lookes,
My manhood dares not with foule Ate mell:
I quake to looke on Hecats charming bookes,
I styll feare bugbeares in Apollos cell.
    I passe not for Minerua nor Astræa.
    But euer call vpon diuine Idea.

If those ten Regions, registred by Fame,
By theyr ten Sibils haue the world controld,
Who prophecied of Christ or ere he came,
And of his blessed birth before fore-told;
That man-god now, of whom they did diuine,
This earth of those sweet Prophets hath bereft,
And since the world to iudgement doth declyne,
Instead of ten, one Sibil to vs left.
Thys pure Idea, vertues right Idea,
Shee of whom Merlin long tyme did fore-tell,
Excelling her of Delphos or Cumæa,
Whose lyfe doth saue a thousand soules from hell:
    That life (I meane) which doth Religion teach,
    And by example true repentance preach.

My fayre, if thou wilt register my loue,
More then worlds volumes shall thereof arise;
Preserue my teares, and thou thy selfe shall proue
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 heauen and earth to pitty shall prouoke.
Looke thou into my breast, and thou shall see
Chaste holy vowes for my soules sacrifice:
That soule (sweet Maide) which so hath honoured thee,
Erecting Trophies to thy sacred eyes;
    Those eyes to my heart shining euer bright,
    When darknes hath obscur'd each other light.

Reading sometyme, my sorrowes to beguile,
I find old Poets hylls and floods admire:
One, he doth wonder monster-breeding Nyle,
Another meruailes Sulphure Aetnas fire.
Now broad-brymd Indus, then of Pindus height,
Pelion and Ossa, frosty Caucase old,
The Delian Cynthus, then Olympus weight,
Slow Arrer, franticke Gallus, Cydnus cold.
Some Ganges, Ister, and of Tagus tell,
Some whir-poole Po, and slyding Hypasis;
Some old Pernassus where the Muses dwell,
Some Helycon, and some faire Simois:
    A, fooles! thinke I, had you Idea seene,
    Poore Brookes and Banks had no such wonders beene.

Letters and lynes, we see, are soone defaced,
Mettles doe waste and fret with cankers rust;
The Diamond shall once consume to dust,
And freshest colours with foule staines disgraced.
Paper and yncke can paynt but naked words,
To write with blood of force offends the sight,
And if with teares, I find them all too light;
And sighes and signes a silly hope affoords.
O, sweetest shadow! how thou seru'st my turne,
Which still shalt be as long as there is Sunne,
Nor whilst the world is neuer shall be done,
Whilst Moone shall shyne by night, or any fire shall burne:
    That euery thing whence shadow doth proceede,
    May in his shadow my Loues story reade.

My hart, imprisoned in a hopeless Ile,
Peopled with Armies of pale iealous eyes,
The shores beset with thousand secret spyes,
Must passe by ayre, or else dye in exile.
He framd him wings with feathers of his thought,
Which by theyr nature learn'd to mount the skye;
And with the same he practised to flye,
Till he himself thys Eagles art had taught.
Thus soring still, not looking once below,
So neere thyne eyes celesteall sunne aspyred,
That with the rayes his wafting pyneons fired:
Thus was the wanton cause of his owne woe.
    Downe fell he, in thy Beauties Ocean drenched,
    Yet there he burnes in fire thats neuer quenched.