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قراءة كتاب Elizabethan Sonnet-Cycles: Delia - Diana
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اللغة: English
الصفحة رقم: 5
class="stanza">Happy in sleep, waking content to languish,
Embracing clouds by night, in daytime mourn,
My joys but shadows, touch of truth my anguish,
Griefs ever springing, comforts never born;
And still expecting when she will relent,
Grown hoarse with crying, "mercy, mercy give,"
So many vows and prayers having spent
That weary of my life I loathe to live;
And yet the hydra of my cares renews
Still new-born sorrows of her fresh disdain;
And still my hope the summer winds pursues,
Finding no end nor period of my pain;
This is my state, my griefs do touch so nearly,
And thus I live because I love her dearly.
XVII
Why should I sing in verse? Why should I frame
These sad neglected notes for her dear sake?
Why should I offer up unto her name,
The sweetest sacrifice my youth can make?
Why should I strive to make her live for ever,
That never deigns to give me joy to live?
Why should m'afflicted Muse so much endeavour
Such honour unto cruelty to give?
If her defects have purchased her this fame,
What should her virtues do, her smiles, her love?
If this her worst, how should her best inflame?
What passions would her milder favours move?
Favours, I think, would sense quite overcome;
And that makes happy lovers ever dumb.
These sad neglected notes for her dear sake?
Why should I offer up unto her name,
The sweetest sacrifice my youth can make?
Why should I strive to make her live for ever,
That never deigns to give me joy to live?
Why should m'afflicted Muse so much endeavour
Such honour unto cruelty to give?
If her defects have purchased her this fame,
What should her virtues do, her smiles, her love?
If this her worst, how should her best inflame?
What passions would her milder favours move?
Favours, I think, would sense quite overcome;
And that makes happy lovers ever dumb.
XVIII
Since the first look that led me to this error,
To this thoughts' maze to my confusion tending,
Still have I lived in grief, in hope, in terror,
The circle of my sorrows never ending;
Yet cannot leave her love that holds me hateful;
Her eyes exact it, though her heart disdains me.
See what reward he hath that serves th'ungrateful?
So true and loyal love no favour gains me.
Still must I whet my young desires abated,
Upon the flint of such a heart rebelling;
And all in vain; her pride is so innated,
She yields no place at all for pity's dwelling.
Oft have I told her that my soul did love her,
And that with tears; yet all this will not move her.
To this thoughts' maze to my confusion tending,
Still have I lived in grief, in hope, in terror,
The circle of my sorrows never ending;
Yet cannot leave her love that holds me hateful;
Her eyes exact it, though her heart disdains me.
See what reward he hath that serves th'ungrateful?
So true and loyal love no favour gains me.
Still must I whet my young desires abated,
Upon the flint of such a heart rebelling;
And all in vain; her pride is so innated,
She yields no place at all for pity's dwelling.
Oft have I told her that my soul did love her,
And that with tears; yet all this will not move her.
XIX
Restore thy tresses to the golden ore,
Yield Cytherea's son those arks of love;
Bequeath the heavens the stars that I adore,
And to the orient do thy pearls remove;
Yield thy hands' pride unto the ivory white;
T'Arabian odours give thy breathing sweet;
Restore thy blush unto Aurora bright;
To Thetis give the honour of thy feet.
Let Venus have the graces she resigned,
And thy sweet voice give back unto the spheres;
But yet restore thy fierce and cruel mind
To Hyrcan tigers and to ruthless bears;
Yield to the marble thy hard heart again;
So shalt thou cease to plague, and I to pain.
Yield Cytherea's son those arks of love;
Bequeath the heavens the stars that I adore,
And to the orient do thy pearls remove;
Yield thy hands' pride unto the ivory white;
T'Arabian odours give thy breathing sweet;
Restore thy blush unto Aurora bright;
To Thetis give the honour of thy feet.
Let Venus have the graces she resigned,
And thy sweet voice give back unto the spheres;
But yet restore thy fierce and cruel mind
To Hyrcan tigers and to ruthless bears;
Yield to the marble thy hard heart again;
So shalt thou cease to plague, and I to pain.
XX
What it is to breathe and live without life;
How to be pale with anguish, red with fear,
T'have peace abroad, and nought within but strife:
Wish to be present, and yet shun t'appear;
How to be bold far off, and bashful near;
How to think much, and have no words to speak;
To crave redress, yet hold affliction dear;
To have affection strong, a body weak,
Never to find, yet evermore to seek;
And seek that which I dare not hope to find;
T'affect this life and yet this life disleek,
Grateful t'another, to myself unkind:
This cruel knowledge of these contraries,
Delia, my heart hath learned out of those eyes.
How to be pale with anguish, red with fear,
T'have peace abroad, and nought within but strife:
Wish to be present, and yet shun t'appear;
How to be bold far off, and bashful near;
How to think much, and have no words to speak;
To crave redress, yet hold affliction dear;
To have affection strong, a body weak,
Never to find, yet evermore to seek;
And seek that which I dare not hope to find;
T'affect this life and yet this life disleek,
Grateful t'another, to myself unkind:
This cruel knowledge of these contraries,
Delia, my heart hath learned out of those eyes.
XXI
If beauty thus be clouded with a frown,
That pity shines no comfort to my bliss,
And vapours of disdain so overgrown,
That my life's light wholly indarkened is,
Why should I more molest the world with cries,
The air with sighs, the earth below with tears,
Since I live hateful to those ruthful eyes,
Vexing with untuned moan her dainty ears!
If I have loved her dearer than my breath,
My breath that calls the heaven to witness it!—
And still hold her most dear until my death,
And if that all this cannot move one whit,
Yet sure she cannot but must think apart
She doth me wrong to grieve so true a heart.
That pity shines no comfort to my bliss,
And vapours of disdain so overgrown,
That my life's light wholly indarkened is,
Why should I more molest the world with cries,
The air with sighs, the earth below with tears,
Since I live hateful to those ruthful eyes,
Vexing with untuned moan her dainty ears!
If I have loved her dearer than my breath,
My breath that calls the heaven to witness it!—
And still hold her most dear until my death,
And if that all this cannot move one whit,
Yet sure she cannot but must think apart
She doth me wrong to grieve so true a heart.
XXII
Come Time, the anchor hold of my desire,
My last resort whereto my hopes appeal;
Cause once the date of her disdain t'exspire,
Make her the sentence of her wrath repeal.
Rob her fair brow, break in on beauty, steal
Power from those eyes which pity cannot spare;
Deal with those dainty cheeks, as she doth deal
With this poor heart consumèd with despair.
This heart made now the pròspective of care
By loving her, the cruelst fair that lives,
The cruelst fair that sees I pine for her,
And never mercy to thy merit gives.
Let her not still triumph over the prize
Of mine affections taken by her eyes.
My last resort whereto my hopes appeal;
Cause once the date of her disdain t'exspire,
Make her the sentence of her wrath repeal.
Rob her fair brow, break in on beauty, steal
Power from those eyes which pity cannot spare;
Deal with those dainty cheeks, as she doth deal
With this poor heart consumèd with despair.
This heart made now the pròspective of care
By loving her, the cruelst fair that lives,
The cruelst fair that sees I pine for her,
And never mercy to thy merit gives.
Let her not still triumph over the prize
Of mine affections taken by her eyes.