LXV

Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,

But sad mortality o'er-sways their power, How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea, Whose action is no stronger than a flower? O, how shall summer's honey breath hold out Against the wreckful siege of battering days, When rocks impregnable are not so stout, Nor gates of steel so strong, but Time decays?

O fearful meditation! where, alack,

Shall Time's best jewel from Time's chest lie hid?

Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back?

Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid?

O, ncne, unless this miracle have might, That in black ink my love may still shine bright.

LXVI

Tired with all these, for restful death I cry,

As, to behold desert a beggar born,
And needy nothing trimm'd in jollity,
And purest faith unhappily forsworn,
And gilded honor shamefully misplaced,
And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted,
And right perfection wrongfully disgraced,
And strength by limping sway disabled,
And art made tongue-tied by authority,
And folly doctor-like controlling skill,
And simple truth miscall'd simplicity,
And captive good attending captain ill:
Tired with all these, from these would I be
gone,

Save that, to die, I leave my love alone.

LXXIII

That time of year thou mayst in me behold When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang

Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,

Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet

birds sang.

In me thou see'st the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take

away,

Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire,

Consumed with that which it was nourish'd by.

This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong,

To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

CVII

Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul Of the wide world dreaming on things to come,

Can yet the lease of my true love control, Supposed as forfeit to a confined doom. The mortal moon hath her eclipse endured And the sad augurs mock their own presage; Incertainties now crown themselves assured And peace proclaims olives of endless age. Now with the drops of this most balmy time My love looks fresh, and Death to me subscribes,

Since, spite of him, I'll live in this poor rhyme,

While he insults o'er dull and speechless tribes:

And thou in this shalt find thy monument, When tyrants' crests and tombs of brass are spent.

CXVI

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O, no! it is an ever-fixèd mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height

be taken.

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle's compass come; Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

CXLVI

Poor soul, the center of my sinful earth,
[Amidst] these rebel powers that thee array,
Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth,
Painting thy outward walls so costly gay?
Why so large cost, having so short a lease,
Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend?
Shall worms, inheritors of this excess,
Eat up thy charge? is this thy body's end?
Then, soul, live thou upon thy servant's loss,

Where spring the nectar fountains.
There will I kiss

The bowl of bliss;
And drink mine everlasting fill
Upon every milken hill.

My soul will be a-dry before;
But, after, it will thirst no more.

Then by that happy blissful day

More peaceful pilgrims I shall see, That have cast off their rags of clay, And walk apparelled fresh like me. I'll take them first, To quench their thirst And taste of nectar suckets, At those clear wells

Where sweetness dwells,

Drawn up by saints in crystal buckets.

And when our bottles and all we Are filled with immortality, Then the blessèd paths we'll travel, Strowed with rubies thick as gravel; Ceilings of diamonds, sapphire floors, High walls of coral, and pearly bowers.

From thence to Heaven's bribeless hall, Where no corrupted voices brawl; No conscience molten into gold; No forged accuser bought or sold; No cause deferred, no vain-spent journey, For there Christ is the King's Attorney, Who pleads for all, without degrees, And he hath angels but no fees.

And when the grand twelve million jury Of our sins, with direful fury, Against our souls black verdicts give, Christ pleads his death; and then we live.

Be Thou my speaker, taintless Pleader! Unblotted Lawyer! true Proceeder! Thou giv'st salvation, even for alms, Not with a bribèd lawyer's palms.

And this is mine eternal plea

To Him that made heaven and earth and

sea:

That, since my flesh must die so soon,
And want a head to dine next noon,
Just at the stroke, when my veins start and
spread,

Set on my soul an everlasting head!

Then am I ready, like a palmer fit,

To tread those blest paths; which before I writ.

THE LAST PAGES OF "THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD"

SIR WALTER RALEIGH

For the rest, if we seek a reason of the succession and continuance of this boundless ambition in mortal men, we may add to that which hath been already said, that the kings and princes of the world have always laid before them the actions, but not the ends, of those great ones which preceded them. They are always transported with the glory of the one, but they never mind the misery of the other, till they find the experience in themselves. They neglect the advice of God, while they enjoy life, or hope it; but they follow the counsel of Death upon his first approach. It is he that puts into man all the wisdom of the world, without speaking a word, which God, with all the words of his law, promises, or threats, doth not infuse. Death, which hateth and destroyeth man, is believed; God, which hath made him and loves him, is always deferred; I have considered, saith Solomon, all the works that are under the sun, and, behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit; but who believes it, till Death tells it us? It was Death, which opening the conscience of Charles the Fifth, made him enjoin his son Philip to restore Navarre; and king Francis the First of France, to command that justice should be done upon the murderers of the protestants in Merindol and Cabrieres, which till then he neglected. It is therefore Death alone that can suddenly make man to know himself. He tells the proud and insolent, that they are but abjects, and humbles them at the instant, makes them cry, complain, and repent, yea, even to hate their forepast happiness. He takes the account of the rich, and proves him a beggar, a naked beggar, which hath interest in nothing but in the gravel that fills his mouth. He holds a glass before the eyes of the most beautiful, and makes them see therein their deformity and rottenness, and they acknowledge it.

O eloquent, just, and mighty Death! whom none could advise, thou hast persuaded; what none hath dared, thou hast done; and whom all the world hath flattered, thou only hast cast out of the world and despised; thou hast drawn together all the far-stretched greatness, all the pride, cruelty, and ambition of man, and covered it all over with these two narrow words, Hic jacet!