伊利亚随笔续集_SONNETS OF SIR PHILIP SYDNEY_查尔斯·兰姆_九九藏书网

This is loving in a strange fashion; and it requires some candour of construction (besides the slight darkening of a dead language) to cast a veil over the ugly appearance of something very like blasphemy in the last two verses. I think the Lover would have been staggered, if he had gone about to express the same thought in English. I am sure, Sydney has no flights like this. His extravaganzas do not strike at the sky, though he takes leave to adopt the pale Dian into a fellowship with his mortal passions.

Upon thy cheerful face, Joys livery wear,

What! may it be, that even in heavenly place

-------Swee９9lｉｂ•neｔt pillows, sweetest bed;

I saw thyself, with many a smiling line

Aut Deus, aut vacui certe mens tertia coeli,

With thanks and wishes, wishing thankfully.

O heavnly Fool, thy most kiss-worthy lips

Yet Pride, I think, doth not my soul possess,

And beauty reard above her height.

Holds my young brain captivd in gold cage.

They deem, and of their doom the rumour flies,

When Cupid, having me (his slave) descried

His praise to sleight, which from good use doth rise;

Nor blamd for blood, nor shamed for sinful deed.

Do they above love to be loved, and yet

Take thou of me sweet pillows, sweetest bed,

To hear him speak, and sweetly smile,

No more, my dear, no more these counsels try;

And fain those Aeols youth there would their stay

A chamber deaf to noise, and blind to light;

Are beauties there as proud as here they be

Upon the crystal liquid brook,

Of all my thoughts hath neither stop nor start,

Sent forth the beams which made so fair my race.

But they are not rich in words only, in vague and unlocalised feelings -- the failing too much of some poetry of the present day they are full, material, and circumstantiated. Time and place appropriates every one of them. It is not a fever of passion wasting itself upon a thin diet of dainty words, but a transcendent passion pervading and illuminating action, pursuits, studies, feats of arms, the opinions of contemporaries and his judgment of them. An historical thread runs through them, which almost affixes a date to them; marks the when and where they were written.

Love still a boy, and oft a wanton, is,

Some do I hear of Poets fury tell,

That makes me oft my best friends overpass,

Which erst approved in his song,

Some, that know how my spring I did address,

Do they call virtue there -- ungratefulness?

Let all the earth with scorn recount my case --

But only, for this worthy knight durst prove

Move not thy heavy grace, thou shalt in me,

One hand forgot to rule, thother to fight;

The curious wits, seeing dull pensiveness

A chamber deaf to noise, and blind to light,

8th Sonnet

Edward, named Fourth, as first in praise I name,

And, and by Mars could yet mad Mars so tame,

And that pure love will do no wrong.

But harder judges judge, ambitions rage,

Of highest wish, I wish you so much bliss,

I read it in thy looks; thy languisht grace

VIII

A thousand graces one might count

In sport I suckd, while she asleep did lie,

The indifferent judge between the high and low,

O happy Thames, that didst my STELLA bear,

Others, because of both sides I do take

Of those fierce darts despair at me doth throw,

And of some sent fro9９ｌiｂ•nｅtm that sweet enemy -- France,

To Her, where I my heart safe left shall meet,

Sweet, it was saucy Love, not humble I.

And on the mountain Partheny,

Seem most alone in greatest company,

Now blessed You bear onward blessed Me

You knew -- who knew not Astrophel?

And that my Muse, to some ears not unsweet,

Who hard by made a window send forth light.

In beautys throne -- see now, who dares come near

Look here, I say." I lookd, and STELLA spied,

Livelier than elsewhere, Stellas image see.

Anger invests with such a lovely grace,

Those scarlet judges, threatning bloody pain?

To them that would make speech of speech arise,

How far they shot awry! the true cause is,

Those lovers scorn, whom that love doth possess?

Tempers her words to trampling horses feet,

The last line of this poem is a little obscured by transposition. He means, Do they call ungratefulness there a virtue?

Youth, luck, and praise, even filld my veins with pride --

Nor aught do care, though some above me sit;

Nor that he could, young-wise, wise-valiant, frame

First did with puffing kiss those locks display.

Bewray itself in my long-settled eyes,

How falls it then, that with so smooth an ease

*****

Above all others this is he,

O heavnly Fool, thy most kiss-worthy face

That taught him sing, to write, and say.

With idle pains, and missing aim, do guess.

Nor ever did in shade of Tempe sit,

Did never Muse inspire beneath

That witty Lewis to him a tribute paid.

"What now, Sir Fool!" said he; "I would no less:

To me, that feel the like, thy state descries.

SYDNEYS Sonnets -- I speak of the best of them -- are among the very best of their sort. They fall below the plain moral dignity, the sanctity, and high yet modest spirit of self-approval, of Milton, in his compositions of a similar structure. They are in truth what Milton, censuring the Arcadia, says of that work (to which they are a sort of after-tune or application), "vain and amatorious" enough, yet the things in their kind (as he confesses to be true of the romance) may be "full of worth and wit." They savour of the Courtier, it must be allowed, and not of the Commonwealthsman. But Milton was a Courtier when he wrote the Masque at Ludlow Castle, and still more a Courtier when he composed the Arcades. When the national struggle was to begin, he becomingly cast these vanities behind him; and if the order of time had thrown Sir Philip upon the crisis which preceded the Revolution, there is no reason why he should not have acted the same part in that emergency, which has glorified the name of a later Syd九_九_藏_书_网ney. He did not want for plainness or boldness of spirit. His letter on the French match may testify, he could speak his mind freely to Princes. The times did not call him to the scaffold.

Not for his fair outside, nor well-lined brain --

He wrote of Love with high conceit,

Nor trumpets sound I heard, nor friendly cries.

Bends all his powers, even unto Stellas grace.

Let Fortune lay on me her worst disgrace;

Have made; but, forced by nature still to fly,

5th Sonnet,

Things known permit me to renew --

When for so soft a rod dear play he try?

Having this day, my horse, my hand, my lance,

Unseen, unheard, -- while thought to highest place

Schoold only by his mothers tender eye;

Think Nature me a man of arms did make.

Although less gifts imp feathers oft on Fame.

Upon his lovely chearful eyne.

Can judge of love, thou feelst a lovers case;

And that you know, I envy you no lot

Within these woods of Arcady

And yet to break more staves did me address,

I cannot Say -- you hear -- too much.

A full assurance given by looks;

How silently; and with how wan a face!

But one worse fault -- Ambition -- I confess,

Both by the judgment of the English eyes

O make in me those civil wars to cease:

With sight thereof cried out, O fair disgrace,

My lips are sweet, inspired with STELLAs kiss.

When he descended down the mount,

Is constant love deemd there but want of wit?

Think, that I think state errors to redress,

With dearth of words, or answers quite awry,

My Muse and I must you of duty greet

Nor that he made the Floure-de-luce so `fraid,

Nor hope, nor wish, another course to frame,

And Muses scorn with vulgar brains to dwell;

Hundreds of years you STELLAS feet may kiss.

Obtigit aetheriis ales ab ordinibus.

To love a man of virtuous name.

Fawn on myself, and others do despise,

Nam tua praesentem vox sonat ipsa Deum?

2nd Sonnet

STELLA lookd on, and from her heavenly face

And if these things, as being thine by right,

Townsfolk my strength, a daintier judge applies

Of him you know his merit such,

Deem that my muse some fruit of knowledge plies,

VII

What wonder then, if he his lesson miss,

Thou art my wit, and thou my virtue art.

While with the peoples shouts (I must confess)

That poison foul of bubbling Pride doth lie

Sweet Saints, it is no Sin or blame

While wanton winds, with beauty so divine

-------That sweet enemy, -- France --

Nor do aspire to Caesars bleeding fame;

Guided so well that I obtained the prize,

She, so dishevelld, blushd; from window I

The lineaments of Gospel books --

In Marss livery, prancing in the press,

Ravishd, stayd not, till in her golden hair

Horsem

九_九_藏_书_网en my skill in horsemanship advance,

And this I swear by blackest brook of hell,

Till that her blush made me my shame to see.

Of the foregoing, the first, the second, and the last sonnet, are my favourites. But the general beauty of them all is, that they are so perfectly characteristical. The spirit of "learning and of chivalry, -- "of which union, Spenser has entitled Sydney to have been the "president," -- shines through them. I confess, I can see nothing of the "jejune "or "frigid" in them; much less of the "stiff" and "cumbrous " -- which I have sometimes heard objected to the Arcadia. The verse runs off swiftly and gallantly. It might have been tuned to the trumpet; or tempered (as himself: expresses it) to "trampling horses feet." They abound in felicitous phrases --

That angers self I needs must kiss again.

So in my swelling breast, that only I

And yet my STAR, because a sugard kiss

You were in Paradise the while,

He chief delight and pleasure took;

Be you still fair, honourd by public heed,

They did themselves (O sweetest prison) twine.

Let me no steps, but of lost labour, trace;

The Muses met him every day,

(That I should live to say I knew,

In any mortal breast before:

I have dwelt the longer upon what I conceive the merit of these poems, because I have been hurt by the wantonness (I wish I could treat it by a gentler name) with which W. H. takes every occasion of insulting the memory of Sir Philip Sydney. But the decisions of the Author of Table Talk, &c., (most profound and subtle where they are, as for the most part, just) are more safely to be relied upon, on subjects and authors he has a partiality for, than on such as he has conceived an accidental prejudice against. Milton wrote Sonnets, and was a kinghater; and it was congenial perhaps to sacrifice a courtier to a patriot. But I was unwilling to lose a fine idea from my mind. The noble images, passions, sentiments, and poetical delicacies of character, scattered all over the Arcadia (spite of some stiffness and encumberment), justify to me the character which his contemporaries have left us of the writer. I cannot think with the Critic, that Sir Philip Sydney was that opprobrious thing which a foolish nobleman in his insolent hostility chose to term him. I call to mind the epitaph made on him, to guide me to juster thoughts of him; and I repose upon the beautiful lines in the "Friends Passion for his Astrophel," printed with the Elegies of Spenser and others.

But (God wot) wot not what they mean by it;

That wwｗ.9９liｂ.nｅtbusy Archer his sharp arrows tries?

Which looks too oft in his unflattering glass:

I trow that countnance cannot lye,

My thoughts I speak, and what I speak doth flow

But do not will me from my love to fly.

But that which once may win thy cruel heart:

Continual comfort in a face,

Or let any one read the deeper sorrows (grief running into rage) in the Poem, -- the last in the collection accompanying the above, -- which from internal testimony I believe to be Lord Brookes, -- beginning with "Silence augmenteth grief,"and then seriously ask himself, whether the subject of such absorbing and confound regrets could have been that thing which Lord Oxford termed him.

Serpit agens, facilisque docet mortalia corda

Whence those same fumes of melancholy rise,

Highway, since you my chief Parnassus be;

Some lucky wits impute it but to chance;

My foe came on, and beat the air for me --

IN TE UNA LOQUITUR, CAETERA MUTUS HABET.

A Poets brain with finer store.

My blood from them, who did excel in this,

His sires revenge, joind with a kingdoms gain;

By no encroachment wrongd, nor time forgot;

The boat for joy could not to dance forbear,

III

Angelus unicuique suus (sic credite gentes)

The Sonnets which we oftenest call to mind of Milton were the compositions of his maturest years. Those of Sydney, which I am about to produce, were written in the very hey-day of his blood. They are stuck full of amorous fancies -- far-fetched conceits, befitting his occupation; for True Love thinks no labour to send out Thoughts upon the vast, and more than Indian voyages, to bring home rich pearls, outlandish wealth, gums, jewels, spicery, to sacrifice in self-depreciating similitudes, as shadows of true amiabilities in the Beloved. We must be Lovers -- or at least the cooling touch of time, the circum praecordia frigins, must not have so damped our faculties, as to take away our recollection that we were once so -- before we can duly appreciate the glorious vanities, and graceful hyperboles of the passion. The images which lie before our feet (though by some accounted the only natural) are least natural for the high Sydnean love to express its fancies by. They may serve for the loves of Tibullus, or the dear Author of the Schoolmistress; for passions that creep and whine in Elegies and Pastoral Ballads. I am sure Milton never loved at this rate. I am afraid some of his addresses (ad Leonoram I mean) have rather erred on the farther side; and that the poet came not much short of a religious indecorum, when he could thus apostrophise a singing-girl: --

And have not in possession still!) --