Made by Sir Philip Sidney, upon his meeting with his two worthy friends and fellow poets, Sir Edward Dyer and M. Fulke Greville.

Join mates in mirth to me,
Grant pleasure to our meeting;
Let Pan, our good god, see
How grateful is our greeting.
Join hearts and hands, so let it be,
Make but one mind in bodies three.

Ye hymns and singing skill
Of god Apollo’s giving,
Be pressed our reeds to fill
With sound of music living.
Join hearts and hands, so let it be,
Make but one mind in bodies three.

Sweet Orpheus’ harp, whose sound
The stedfast mountains moved,
Let there thy skill abound,
To join sweet friends beloved.
Join hearts and hands, so let it be,
Make but one mind in bodies three.

My two and I be met,
A happy blessed trinity,
As three more jointly set
In firmest band of unity.
Join hearts and hands, so let it be,
Make but one mind in bodies three.

Welcome my two to me,
The number best beloved,
Within my heart you be
In friendship unremoved.
Join hearts and hands, so let it be,
Make but one mind in bodies three.

Give leave your flocks to range,
Let us the while be playing;
Within the elmy grange,
Your flocks will not be straying.
Join hearts and hands, so let it be,
Make but one mind in bodies three.

Cause all the mirth you can,
Since I am now come hither,
Who never joy, but when
I am with you together.
Join hearts and hands, so let it be,
Make but one mind in bodies three.

Like lovers do their love,
So joy I in you seeing:
Let nothing me remove
From always with you being.
Join hearts and hands, so let it be,
Make but one mind in bodies three.

And as the turtle dove
To mate with whom he liveth,
Such comfort fervent love
Of you to my heart giveth.
Join hearts and hands, so let it be,
Make but one mind in bodies three.

Now joinÉd be our hands,
Let them be ne’er asunder,
But link’d in binding bands
By metamorphosed wonder.
So should our severed bodies three
As one for ever joinÉd be.

DISPRAISE OF A COURTLY LIFE.

Walking in bright Phoebus’ blaze,
Where with heat oppressed I was,
I got to a shady wood,
Where green leaves did newly bud;
And of grass was plenty dwelling,
Decked with pied flowers sweetly smelling.

In this wood a man I met,
On lamenting wholly set;
Ruing change of wonted state,
Whence he was transformÉd late,
Once to shepherds’ God retaining,
Now in servile court remaining.

There he wand’ring malecontent,
Up and down perplÉxed went,
Daring not to tell to me,
Spake unto a senseless tree,
One among the rest electing,
These same words, or this affecting:

“My old mates I grieve to see
Void of me in field to be,
Where we once our lovely sheep
Lovingly like friends did keep;
Oft each other’s friendship proving,
Never striving, but in loving.

“But may love abiding be
In poor shepherds’ base degree?
It belongs to such alone
To whom art of love is known:
Seely shepherds are not witting
What in art of love is fitting.

“Nay, what need the art to those
To whom we our love disclose?
It is to be usÉd then,
When we do but flatter men:
Friendship true, in heart assured,
Is by Nature’s gifts procured.

“Therefore shepherds, wanting skill,
Can Love’s duties best fulfil;
Since they know not how to feign,
Nor with love to cloak disdain,
Like the wiser sort, whose learning
Hides their inward will of harming.

“Well was I, while under shade
Oaten reeds me music made,
Striving with my mates in song;
Mixing mirth our songs among.
Greater was the shepherd’s treasure
Than this false, fine, courtly pleasure.

“Where how many creatures be,
So many puffed in mind I see;
Like to Juno’s birds of pride,
Scarce each other can abide:
Friends like to black swans appearing,
Sooner these than those in hearing.

“Therefore, Pan, if thou may’st be
Made to listen unto me,
Grant, I say, if seely man
May make treaty to god Pan,
That I, without thy denying,
May be still to thee relying.

“Only for my two loves’ sake,
In whose love I pleasure take;
Only two do me delight
With their ever-pleasing sight;
Of all men to thee retaining,
Grant me with those two remaining.

“So shall I to thee always
With my reeds sound mighty praise:
And first lamb that shall befall,
Yearly deck thine altar shall,
If it please thee to be reflected,
And I from thee not rejected.”

So I left him in that place,
Taking pity on his case;
Learning this among the rest,
That the mean estate is best;
Better fillÉd with contenting,
Void of wishing and repenting.

DIRGE.

Ring out your bells, let mourning shows be spread,
For Love is dead:
All Love is dead, infected
With plague of deep disdain:
Worth, as nought worth, rejected,
And faith fair scorn doth gain.
From so ungrateful fancy;
From such a female frenzy;
From them that use men thus,
Good Lord, deliver us.

Weep, neighbours, weep, do you not hear it said
That Love is dead:
His death-bed, peacock’s folly:
His winding-sheet is shame;
His will, false-seeming holy,
His sole executor, blame.
From so ungrateful fancy;
From such a female frenzy;
From them that use men thus,
Good Lord, deliver us.

Let dirge be sung, and trentals rightly read,
For Love is dead:
Sir Wrong his tomb ordaineth
My mistress’ marble heart;
Which epitaph containeth,
“Her eyes were once his dart.”
From so ungrateful fancy;
From such a female frenzy;
From them that use men thus,
Good Lord, deliver us.

Alas! I lie: rage hath this error bred;
Love is not dead,
Love is not dead, but sleepeth
In her unmatchÉd mind:
Where she his counsel keepeth
Till due deserts she find.
Therefore from so vile fancy,
To call such wit a frenzy:
Who Love can temper thus,
Good Lord, deliver us.

STANZAS TO LOVE.

Ah, poor Love, why dost thou live,
Thus to see thy service lost;
If she will no comfort give,
Make an end, yield up the ghost!

That she may, at length, approve
That she hardly long believed,
That the heart will die for love
That is not in time relieved.

Oh, that ever I was born
Service so to be refused;
Faithful love to be forborn!
Never love was so abused.

But, sweet Love, be still awhile;
She that hurt thee, Love, may heal thee;
Sweet! I see within her smile
More than reason can reveal thee.

For, though she be rich and fair,
Yet she is both wise and kind,
And, therefore, do thou not despair
But thy faith may fancy find.

Yet, although she be a queen
That may such a snake despise,
Yet, with silence all unseen,
Run, and hide thee in her eyes:

Where if she will let thee die,
Yet at latest gasp of breath,
Say that in a lady’s eye
Love both took his life and death.

A REMEDY FOR LOVE.

Philoclea and Pamela sweet,
By chance, in one great house did meet;
And meeting, did so join in heart,
That th’ one from th’ other could not part:
And who indeed (not made of stones)
Would separate such lovely ones?
The one is beautiful, and fair
As orient pearls and rubies are;
And sweet as, after gentle showers,
The breath is of some thousand flowers:
For due proportion, such an air
Circles the other, and so fair,
That it her brownness beautifies,
And doth enchant the wisest eyes.

Have you not seen, on some great day,
Two goodly horses, white and bay,
Which were so beauteous in their pride,
You knew not which to choose or ride?
Such are these two; you scarce can tell,
Which is the daintier bonny belle;
And they are such, as, by my troth,
I had been sick with love of both,
And might have sadly said, ‘Good-night
Discretion and good fortune quite;’
But that young Cupid, my old master,
Presented me a sovereign plaster:
Mopsa! ev’n Mopsa! (precious pet)
Whose lips of marble, teeth of jet,
Are spells and charms of strong defence,
To conjure down concupiscence.

How oft have I been reft of sense,
By gazing on their excellence,
But meeting Mopsa in my way,
And looking on her face of clay,
Been healed, and cured, and made as sound,
As though I ne’er had had a wound?
And when in tables of my heart,
Love wrought such things as bred my smart,
Mopsa would come, with face of clout,
And in an instant wipe them out.
And when their faces made me sick,
Mopsa would come, with face of brick,
A little heated in the fire,
And break the neck of my desire.
Now from their face I turn mine eyes,
But (cruel panthers!) they surprise
Me with their breath, that incense sweet,
Which only for the gods is meet,
And jointly from them doth respire,
Like both the Indies set on fire:

Which so o’ercomes man’s ravished sense,
That souls, to follow it, fly hence.
No such-like smell you if you range
To th’ Stocks, or Cornhill’s square Exchange;
There stood I still as any stock,
Till Mopsa, with her puddle dock,
Her compound or electuary,
Made of old ling and young canary,
Bloat-herring, cheese, and voided physic,
Being somewhat troubled with a phthisic,
Did cough, and fetch a sigh so deep,
As did her very bottom sweep:
Whereby to all she did impart,
How love lay rankling at her heart:
Which, when I smelt, desire was slain,
And they breathed forth perfumes in vain.
Their angel voice surprised me now;
But Mopsa, her Too-whit, Too-whoo,
Descending through her oboe nose,
Did that distemper soon compose.

And, therefore, O thou precious owl,
The wise Minerva’s only fowl;
What, at thy shrine, shall I devise
To offer up a sacrifice?
Hang Æsculapius, and Apollo,
And Ovid, with his precious shallow.
Mopsa is love’s best medicine,
True water to a lover’s wine.
Nay, she’s the yellow antidote,
Both bred and born to cut Love’s throat:
Be but my second, and stand by,
Mopsa, and I’ll them both defy;
And all else of those gallant races,
Who wear infection in their faces;
For thy face (that Medusa’s shield!)
Will bring me safe out of the field.

To the tune of the Spanish song, “Si tu seÑora no ducles de mi.”

O fair! O sweet! when I do look on thee,
In whom all joys so well agree,
Heart and soul do sing in me.
This you hear is not my tongue,
Which once said what I conceived;
For it was of use bereaved,
With a cruel answer stung.
No! though tongue to roof be cleaved,
Fearing lest he chastised be,
Heart and soul do sing in me.

O fair! O sweet! when I do look on thee,
In whom all joys so well agree,
Just accord all music makes;
In thee just accord excelleth,
Where each part in such peace dwelleth,
One of other beauty takes.
Since then truth to all minds telleth,
That in thee lives harmony,
Heart and soul do sing in me.

O fair! O sweet! when I do look on thee,
In whom all joys so well agree,
They that heaven have known do say,
That whoso that grace obtaineth,
To see what fair sight there reigneth,
ForcÉd are to sing alway:
So then since that heaven remaineth
In thy face, I plainly see,
Heart and soul do sing in me.

O fair! O sweet! when I do look on thee,
In whom all joys so well agree,
Sweet, think not I am at ease,
For because my chief part singeth;
This song from death’s sorrow springeth:
As to swan in last disease:
For no dumbness, nor death, bringeth
Stay to true love’s melody:
Heart and soul do sing in me.

TRANSLATION.

From Horace, Book II. Ode X., beginning “Rectius vives, Licini,” &c.

You better sure shall live, not evermore
Trying high seas; nor, while sea’s rage you flee,
Pressing too much upon ill-harboured shore.

The golden mean who loves, lives safely free
From filth of foreworn house, and quiet lives,
Released from court, where envy needs must be.

The wind most oft the hugest pine tree grieves:
The stately towers come down with greater fall:
The highest hills the bolt of thunder cleaves.

Evil haps do fill with hope, good haps appall
With fear of change, the courage well prepared:
Foul winters, as they come, away they shall.

Though present times, and past, with evils be snared,
They shall not last: with cithern silent Muse,
Apollo wakes, and bow hath sometime spared.

In hard estate, with stout shows, valour use,
The same man still, in whom wisdom prevails;
In too full wind draw in thy swelling sails.

A SONNET BY SIR EDWARD DYER.

Prometheus, when first from heaven high
He brought down fire, till then on earth not seen;
Fond of delight, a satyr, standing by,
Gave it a kiss, as it like sweet had been.

Feeling forthwith the other burning power,
Wood with the smart, with shouts and shrieking shrill,
He sought his ease in river, field, and bower;
But, for the time, his grief went with him still.

So silly I, with that unwonted sight,
In human shape an angel from above,
Feeding mine eyes, th’ impression there did light;
That since I run and rest as pleaseth love:
The difference is, the satyr’s lips, my heart,
He for a while, I evermore, have smart.

SIR PHILIP SIDNEY’S SONNET IN REPLY.

A satyr once did run away for dread,
With sound of horn which he himself did blow:
Fearing and feared, thus from himself he fled,
Deeming strange evil in that he did not know.

Such causeless fears when coward minds do take,
It makes them fly that which they fain would have;
As this poor beast, who did his rest forsake,
Thinking not why, but how, himself to save.

Ev’n thus might I, for doubts which I conceive
Of mine own words, my own good hap betray;
And thus might I, for fear of may be, leave
The sweet pursuit of my desirÉd prey.
Better like I thy satyr, dearest Dyer,
Who burnt his lips to kiss fair shining fire.

MUST LOVE LAMENT?

My mistress lowers, and saith I do not love:
I do protest, and seek with service due,
In humble mind, a constant faith to prove;
But for all this, I cannot her remove
From deep vain thought that I may not be true.

If oaths might serve, ev’n by the Stygian lake,
Which poets say the gods themselves do fear,
I never did my vowÉd word forsake:
For why should I, whom free choice slave doth make,
Else-what in face, than in my fancy bear?

My Muse, therefore, for only thou canst tell,
Tell me the cause of this my causeless woe?
Tell, how ill thought disgraced my doing well?
Tell, how my joys and hopes thus foully fell
To so low ebb that wonted were to flow?

O this it is, the knotted straw is found;
In tender hearts, small things engender hate:
A horse’s worth laid waste the Trojan ground;
A three-foot stool in Greece made trumpets sound;
An ass’s shade e’er now hath bred debate.

If Greeks themselves were moved with so small cause,
To twist those broils, which hardly would untwine:
Should ladies fair be tied to such hard laws,
As in their moods to take a ling’ring pause?
I would it not, their metal is too fine.

My hand doth not bear witness with my heart,
She saith, because I make no woeful lays,
To paint my living death and endless smart:
And so, for one that felt god Cupid’s dart,
She thinks I lead and live too merry days.

Are poets then the only lovers true,
Whose hearts are set on measuring a verse?
Who think themselves well blest, if they renew
Some good old dump that Chaucer’s mistress knew;
And use but you for matters to rehearse.

Then, good Apollo, do away thy bow:
Take harp and sing in this our versing time,
And in my brain some sacred humour flow,
That all the earth my woes, sighs, tears may know;
And see you not that I fall low to rhyme.

As for my mirth, how could I but be glad,
Whilst that methought I justly made my boast
That only I the only mistress had?
But now, if e’er my face with joy be clad,
Think Hannibal did laugh when Carthage lost.

Sweet lady, as for those whose sullen cheer,
Compared to me, made me in lightness sound;
Who, stoic-like, in cloudy hue appear;
Who silence force to make their words more dear;
Whose eyes seem chaste, because they look on ground:

Believe them not, for physic true doth find,
Choler adust is joyed in woman-kind.

A DIALOGUE BETWEEN TWO SHEPHERDS.

Uttered in a Pastoral Show at Wilton.

Will. Dick, since we cannot dance, come, let a cheerful voice
Show that we do not grudge at all when others do rejoice.

Dick. Ah Will, though I grudge not, I count it feeble glee,
With sight made dim with daily tears another’s sport to see.
Whoever lambkins saw, yet lambkins love to play,
To play when that their lovÉd dams are stolen or gone astray?
If this in them be true, as true in men think I,
A lustless song forsooth thinks he that hath more lust to cry.

Will. A time there is for all, my mother often says,
When she, with skirts tucked very high, with girls at football plays
When thou hast mind to weep, seek out some smoky room:
Now let those lightsome sights we see thy darkness overcome.

Dick. What joy the joyful sun gives unto blearÉd eyes;
That comfort in these sports you like, my mind his comfort tries.

Will. What? Is thy bagpipe broke, or are thy lambs miswent;
Thy wallet or thy tar-box lost; or thy new raiment-rent?

Dick. I would it were but thus, for thus it were too well.

Will. Thou see’st my ears do itch at it: good Dick thy sorrow tell.

Dick. Hear then, and learn to sigh: a mistress I do serve,
Whose wages make me beg the more, who feeds me till I starve;
Whose livery is such, as most I freeze apparelled most,
And looks so near unto my cure, that I must needs be lost.

Will. What? These are riddles sure: art thou then bound to her?

Dick. Bound as I neither power have, nor would have power, to stir.

Will. Who bound thee?

Dick. Love, my lord.

Will. What witnesses thereto?

Dick. Faith in myself, and Worth in her, which no proof can undo.

Will. What seal?

Dick. My heart deep graven.

Will. Who made the band so fast?

Dick. Wonder that, by two so black eyes the glitt’ring stars be past.

Will. What keepeth safe thy band?

Dick. Remembrance is the chest
Lock’d fast with knowing that she is of worldly things the best.

Will. Thou late of wages plain’dst: what wages may’sh thou have?

Dick. Her heavenly looks, which more and more do give me cause to crave.

Will. If wages make you want, what food is that she gives?

Dick. Tear’s drink, sorrow’s meat, wherewith not I, but in me my death lives.

Will. What living get you then?

Dick. Disdain; but just disdain;
So have I cause myself to plain, but no cause to complain.

Will. What care takes she for thee?

Dick. Her care is to prevent
My freedom, with show of her beams, with virtue, my content.

Will. God shield us from such dames! If so our dames be sped,
The shepherds will grow lean I trow, their sheep will be ill-fed.
But Dick, my counsel mark: run from the place of woo:
The arrow being shot from far doth give the smaller blow.

Dick. Good Will, I cannot take thy good advice; before
That foxes leave to steal, they find they die therefore.

Will. Then, Dick, let us go hence lest we great folks annoy:
For nothing can more tedious be than plaint in time of joy.

Dick. Oh hence! O cruel word! which even dogs do hate:
But hence, even hence, I must needs go; such is my dogged fate.

SONG.

To the tune of “Wilhelmus van Nassau,” &c.

Who hath his fancy pleased,
With fruits of happy sight,
Let here his eyes be raised
On Nature’s sweetest light;
A light which doth dissever,
And yet unite the eyes;
A light which, dying, never
Is cause the looker dies.

She never dies, but lasteth
In life of lover’s heart;
He ever dies that wasteth
In love his chiefest part.
Thus is her life still guarded,
In never dying faith;
Thus is his death rewarded,
Since she lives in his death.

Look then and die, the pleasure
Doth answer well the pain;
Small loss of mortal treasure,
Who may immortal gain.
Immortal be her graces,
Immortal is her mind;
They, fit for heavenly places,
This heaven in it doth bind.

But eyes these beauties see not,
Nor sense that grace descries;
Yet eyes deprivÉd be not
From sight of her fair eyes:
Which, as of inward glory
They are the outward seal,
So may they live still sorry,
Which die not in that weal.

But who hath fancies pleasÉd,
With fruits of happy sight,
Let here his eyes be raisÉd
On Nature’s sweetest light.

THE SMOKES OF MELANCHOLY.

I.

Who hath e’er felt the change of love,
And known those pangs that losers prove,
May paint my face without seeing me,
And write the state how my fancies be,
The loathsome buds grown on Sorrow’s tree.

But who by hearsay speaks, and hath not fully felt
What kind of fires they be in which those spirits melt,
Shall guess, and fail, what doth displease,
Feeling my pulse, miss my disease.

II.

O no! O no! trial only shows
The bitter juice of forsaken woes;
Where former bliss, present evils do stain;
Nay, former bliss adds to present pain,
While remembrance doth both states contain.
Come, learners, then to me, the model of mishap,
IngulphÉd in despair, slid down from Fortune’s lap;
And, as you like my double lot,
Tread in my steps, or follow not.

III.

For me, alas! I am full resolved
Those bands, alas! shall not be dissolved;
Nor break my word, though reward come late;
Nor fail my faith in my failing fate;
Nor change in change, though change change my state:

But always own myself, with eagle-eyed Truth, to fly
Up to the sun, although the sun my wings do fry;
For if those flames burn my desire,
Yet shall I die in Phoenix’ fire.

ODE.

When, to my deadly pleasure,
When to my lively torment,
Lady, mine eyes remainÉd
JoinÉd, alas! to your beams.

With violence of heavenly
Beauty, tied to virtue;
Reason abashed retirÉd;
Gladly my senses yielded.

Gladly my senses yielding,
Thus to betray my heart’s fort,
Left me devoid of all life.

They to the beamy suns went,
Where, by the death of all deaths,
Find to what harm they hastened.

Like to the silly Sylvan,
Burned by the light he best liked,
When with a fire he first met.

Yet, yet, a life to their death,
Lady you have reservÉd;
Lady the life of all love.

For though my sense be from me,
And I be dead, who want sense,
Yet do we both live in you.

TurnÉd anew, by your means,
Unto the flower that aye turns,
As you, alas! my sun bends.

Thus do I fall to rise thus;
Thus do I die to live thus;
Changed to a change, I change not.

Thus may I not be from you;
Thus be my senses on you;
Thus what I think is of you;
Thus what I seek is in you;
All what I am, it is you.