Whilst in this manner I remaine,
Like to the statue of some one that's dead,
Strange tyrants in my bosom raigue,
A field of fancies fights within my head:
Yet if the tongue were true,
We boldly might pursue
That diamantine hart;
But when that it's restrain'd,
As doom'd to be disdain'd,
My sighes show how I smart.
No wonder then although I wracke,
By them betray'd in whom I did confide,
Since tongue, heart, eyes, and all gave backe,
She justly may my childishnesse deride.
Yet that which I conceale
May serve for to reveale
My fervencie in love.
My passions were too great
For words t'expresse my state,
As to my paines I prove.
Oft those that do deserve disdaine
For forging fancies get the best reward;
Where I, who feele what they do faine,
For too much love am had in no regard.
Behold my proofe, we see
The gallant living free,
His fancies doth extend;
Where he that is orecome,
Rein'd with respects stands dumbe,
Still fearing to offend.
My bashfulnesse when she beholds,
Or rather my affection out of bounds,
Although my face my state unfolds,
And in my hue discovers hidden wounds:
Yet jeasting at my wo,
She doubts if it be so,
As she could not conceive it.
This grieves me most of all,
She triumphs in my fall,
Not seeming to perceive it.
Then since in vaine I plaints impart
To scornfull eares, in a contemned scroule;
And since my toung betrayes my hart,
And cannot tell the anguish of my soule;
Henceforth I'll hide my losses,
And not recompt the crosses
That do my joyes orethrow:
At least to senselesse things,
A SPEECH OF COELIA.
(FROM THE TRAGEDY OF CROESUS.)
Fierce tyrant, Death, who in thy wrath didst take
One half of me, and left one half behind,
Take this to thee, or give the other back,
Be wholly cruel, or be no way kind!
But whilst I live, believe, thou canst not die--
O! e'en in spite of death, yet still my choice!
Oft with the inward all-beholding eye
I think I see thee, and I hear thy voice.
And to content my languishing desire,
To ease my mind each thing some help affords Thy fancied form doth oft such faith acquire, That in all sounds I apprehend thy words.
Then with such thoughts my memory to wound,
I call to mind thy looks, thy words, thy grace-
Where thou didst haunt, yet I adore the ground
And where thou slept, O, sacred seems tha
place!
My solitary walks, my widow'd bed,
My dreary sighs, my sheets oft bath'd with tears,
These shall record what life by me is led
Since first sad news breath'd death into min
Though for more pain yet spar'd a space by deat
Thee first I lov'd, with thee all love I leave;
For my chaste flames, which quench'd were wit
thy breath,
Can kindle now no more but in thy grave!
I swear, Aurora, by thy starry eyes,
And by those g lden locks, whose lock no
slips,
And by the coral of thy rosy lips,
And by the naked snows which beauty dyes;
I swear by all the jewels of thy mind,
Whose like yet never worldly treasure boug
Thy solid judgment, and thy generous thoug
Mounts, vales, woods, flouds, and springs, Which in this darkened age have clearly shin
I shall them onely show.
Ah! unaffected lines,
True models of my heart,
The world may see that in you shines
The power of passion more than art.
I swear by those, and by my spotless love,
And by my secret, yet most fervent fires,
That I have never nurst but chaste desires,
And such as modesty might well approve.
Then since I love those virtuous parts in th
Shouldst thou not love this virtuous mind in 1