Read Ebook: Minor Poems of Michael Drayton by Drayton Michael Brett Cyril Editor

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Ebook has 503 lines and 142200 words, and 11 pages

PAGE

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE iv

INTRODUCTION v

SONNETS 1

SONNETS 28

SONNETS 42

SONNETS 47

SONNETS 51

ODES 56

ODES 85

ELEGIES 88

NIMPHIDIA 124

THE QUEST OF CYNTHIA 144

THE SHEPARDS SIRENA 151

THE MUSES ELIZIUM 161

SONGS FROM THE SHEPHERD'S GARLAND 231

SONGS FROM THE SHEPHERD'S GARLAND 240

SONGS FROM THE SHEPHERD'S GARLAND 242

NOTES 257

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE OF DRAYTON'S LIFE AND WORKS

c. 1574 Anne Goodere born?

INTRODUCTION

Probably before Drayton went up to London, Sir Henry Goodere saw that he would stand in need of a patron more powerful than the master of Polesworth, and introduced him to the Earl and Countess of Bedford. Those who believe Drayton to have been a Pope in petty spite, identify the 'Idea' of his earlier poems with Lucy, Countess of Bedford; though they are forced to acknowledge as self-evident that the 'Idea' of his later work is Anne, Lady Rainsford. They then proceed to say that Drayton, after consistently honouring the Countess in his verse for twelve years, abruptly transferred his allegiance, not forgetting to heap foul abuse on his former patroness, out of pique at some temporary withdrawal of favour. Not only is this directly contrary to all we know and can infer of Drayton's character, but Mr. Elton has decisively disproved it by a summary of bibliographical and other evidence. Into the question it is here unnecessary to enter, and it has been mentioned only because it alone, of the many Drayton-controversies, has cast any slur on the poet's reputation.

Thy Bowe, halfe broke, is peec'd with old desire; Her Bowe is beauty with ten thousand strings....

As a man Drayton would seem to have been an excellent type of the sturdy, clear-headed, but yet romantic and enthusiastic Englishman; gifted with much natural ability, sedulously increased by study; quietly humorous, self-restrained; and if temporarily soured by disappointment and the disjointed times, yet emerging at last into a greater serenity, a more unadulterated gaiety than had ever before characterized him. It is possible, but from his clear and sane balance of mind improbable, that many of his light later poems are due to deliberate self-blinding and self-deception, a walking in enchanted lands of the mind.

Of Drayton's three known portraits the earliest shows him at the age of thirty-six, and is now in the National Portrait Gallery. A look of quiet, speculative melancholy seems to pervade it; there is, as yet, no moroseness, no evidence of severe conflict with the world, no shadow of stress or of doubt. The second and best-known portrait shows us Drayton at the age of fifty, and was engraved by Hole, as a frontispiece to the poems of 1619. Here a notable change has come over the face; the mouth is hardened, and depressed at the corners through disappointment and disillusionment; the eyes are full of a pathos increased by the puzzled and perturbed uplift of the brows. Yet a stubbornness and tenacity of purpose invests the features and reminds us that Drayton is of the old and sound Elizabethan stock, 'on evil days though fallen.' Let it be remembered, that he was in 1613, when the portrait was taken, in more or less prosperous circumstances; it was the sad degeneracy, the meanness and feebleness of the generation around him, that chiefly depressed and embittered him. The final portrait, now in the Dulwich Gallery, represents the poet as a man of sixty-five; and is quite in keeping with the sunnier and calmer tone of his later poetry. It is the face of one who has not emerged unscathed from the world's conflict, but has attained to a certain calm, a measure of tranquillity, a portion of content, who has learnt the lesson that there is a soul of goodness in things evil. The Hole portrait shows him with long hair, small 'goatee' beard, and aquiline nose drawn up at the nostrils: while the National portrait shows a type of nose and beard intermediate between the Hole and the Dulwich pictures: the general contour of the face, though the forehead is broad enough, is long and oval. Drayton seems to have been tall and thin, and to have been very susceptible of cold, and therefore to have hated Winter and the North. He is said to have shared in the supper which caused Shakespeare's death; but his own verses breathe the spirit of Milton's sonnet to Cyriack Skinner, rather than that of a devotee of Bacchus.

CYRIL BRETT. ALTON, STAFFORDSHIRE.

SONNETS

Amour 1

Amour 2

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 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.

Amour 3

My thoughts bred vp with Eagle-birds of loue, And, for their vertues I desiered to know, Vpon the nest I set them forth, to proue 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 proou'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, Straight mounting vp to thy celestiall eyes. And thus my thoughts away be flowne, And from my breast into thine eyes be gone.

Amour 4

My faire, had I not erst adorned my Lute With those sweet strings stolne from thy golden hayre, Vnto the world had all my ioyes 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'er felt thy Diuinitie, Nor my Muse been the trumpet of thy fame. But thy diuine perfections, by their skill, This miracle on my poore Muse haue tried, And, by inspiring, glorifide my quill, And in my verse thy selfe art deified: Thus from thy selfe the cause is thus deriued, That by thy fame all fame shall be suruiued.

Amour 5

Amour 6

Amour 7

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 heauen beholds her in a mortall glasse. Nay, looke thee, Time, in this Celesteall 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, And heauen may ioy to think on past worlds blisse. Heere make a Period, Time, and saie for mee, She was the like that neuer was, nor neuer more shalbe.

Amour 8

Vnto the World, to Learning, and to Heauen, Three nines there are, to euerie one a nine; One number of the earth, the other both diuine, One wonder woman now makes three od numbers euen. Nine orders, first, of Angels be in heauen; Nine Muses doe with learning still frequent: These with the Gods are euer resident. Nine worthy men vnto the world were giuen. My Worthie one to these nine Worthies addeth, And my faire Muse one Muse vnto the nine; And my good Angell, in my soule diuine, With one more order these nine orders gladdeth. My Muse, my Worthy, and my Angell, then, Makes euery one of these three nines a ten.

Amour 9

Beauty sometime, in all her glory crowned, Passing by that cleere fountain of thine eye, Her sun-shine face there chaunsing to espy, Forgot herselfe, and thought she had been drowned. And thus, whilst Beautie on her beauty gazed, Who then, yet liuing, deemd she had been dying, And yet in death some hope of life espying, At her owne rare perfections so amazed; Twixt ioy and griefe, yet with a smyling frowning, The glorious sun-beames of her eyes bright shining, And shee, in her owne destiny diuining, Threw in herselfe, to saue herselfe by drowning; The Well of Nectar, pau'd with pearle and gold, Where shee remaines for all eyes to behold.

Amour 10

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.

Amour 11

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.

Amour 12

Amour 13

Amour 14

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.

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