C
Ome forth ye nymphs! come forth! forsake your watery bowers!
Forsake your mossy caves; and help me to lament.
Help me to tune my doleful notes to gurgling sound
Of Liffey's tumbling streams. Come let salt tears of ours,
Mix with his waters fresh. O come let one consent
Join us to mourn with wailful plaints the deadly wound
Which fatal clap hath made, decreed by higher powers;
The dreary day in which they have from us yrent
The noblest plant that might from East to West be found.
Mourn! mourn great Philip's fall! mourn we his woeful end,
Whom spiteful death hath plucked untimely from the tree;
While yet his years in flower did promise worthy fruit.
Ah, dreadful Mars! why didst thou not thy knight defend?
What wrathful mood, what fault of ours hath moved thee,
Of such a shining light to leave us destitute?
Thou with benign aspect sometime didst us behold.
Thou hast in Britons' valour ta'en delight of old,
And with thy presence oft vouchsafed to attribute
Fame and renown to us, for glorious martial deeds:
But now their ireful beams have chilled our hearts with cold.
Thou hast estranged thyself and deignest not our land:
Far off to others now, thy favour, honour breeds;
And high disdain doth cause thee shun our clime, I fear.
For hadst thou not been wroth, or that time near at hand;
Thou wouldst have heard the cry that woeful England made:
Eke Zealand's piteous plaints, and Holland's toren hair
Would haply have appeased thy divine angry mind.
Thou shouldst have seen the trees refuse to yield their shade
And wailing to let fall the honour of their head,
And birds in mournful tunes lamenting in their kind.
Up from his tomb, the mighty Corineus rose,
Who cursing oft the fates that this mishap had bred,
His hoary locks he tare, calling the heavens unkind.
The Thames was heard to roar, the Rhine, and eke the Meuse,
The Scheldt, the Danow self this great mischance did rue:
With torment and with grief, their fountains pure and clear
Were troubled; and with swelling floods declared their woes.
The Muses comfortless, the nymphs with pallid hue;
The sylvan gods likewise came running far and near;
And all, with hearts bedewed, and eyes cast up on high,
"O help! O help, ye gods!" they ghastly 'gan to cry,
"O change the cruel fate of this so rare a wight
And grant that nature's course may measure out his age!"
The beasts their food forsook, and trembling fearfully,
Each sought his cave or den. This cry did them so fright.
Out from amid the waves, by storm then stirred to rage,
This cry did cause to rise th'old father Ocean hoar,
Who grave with eld, and full of majesty in sight,
Spake in this wise, "Refrain," quoth he, "your tears and plaints!
Cease these your idle words! Make vain requests no more!
No humble speech nor moan may move the fixèd stint
Of destiny or death. Such is His will that paints
The earth with colours fresh, the darkest skies with store
Of starry lights: and though your tears a heart of flint
Might tender make; yet nought herein will they prevail."
Whiles thus he said, the noble Knight, who 'gan to feel
His vital force to faint, and death with cruel dint
Of direful dart his mortal body to assail:
With eyes lift up to heaven, and courage frank as steel;
With cheerful face where valour lively was exprest,
But humble mind, he said, "O LORD! if ought this frail
And earthly carcass have Thy service sought t'advance;
If my desire have been still to relieve th'opprest;
If Justice to maintain, that valour I have spent
Which Thou me gav'st; or if henceforth I might advance
Thy name, Thy truth: then spare me, LORD! if Thou think best;
Forbear these unripe years! But if Thy will be bent,
If that prefixèd time be come which Thou hast set:
Through pure and fervent faith, I hope now to be placed
In th'everlasting bliss; which with Thy precious blood
Thou purchase didst for us." With that a sigh he fet,
And straight a cloudy mist his senses overcast.
His lips waxed pale and wan, like damask rose's bud
Cast from the stalk; or like in field to purple flower
Which languisheth, being shred by culter as it past.
A trembling chilly cold ran through their veins, which were
With eyes brimful of tears to see his fatal hour:
Whose blustering sighs at first their sorrow did declare;
Next, murmuring ensued; at last they not forbear
Plain outcries; all against the heavens that enviously
Deprived us of a sprite so perfect and so rare.
The sun his lightsome beams did shroud, and hide his face
For grief; whereby the earth feared night eternally:
The mountains eachwhere shook, the rivers turned their streams;
And th'air 'gan winter-like to rage and fret apace:
And grisly ghosts by night were seen; and fiery gleams
Amid the clouds with claps of thunder, that did seem
To rent the skies; and made both man and beast afraid:
The birds of ill presage this luckless chance foretold
By dernful noise; and dogs with howling made man deem
Some mischief was at hand: for such they do esteem
As tokens of mishap; and so have done of old.
Ah, that thou hadst but heard his lovely Stella plain
Her grievous loss, or seen her heavy mourning cheer;
Whilst she, with woe oppressed, her sorrows did unfold.
Her hair hung loose neglect about her shoulders twain:
And from those two bright stars to him sometime so dear,
Her heart sent drops of pearl; which fell in foison down
'Twixt lily and the rose. She wrung her hands with pain
And piteously 'gan say, "My true and faithful pheer!
Alas, and woe is me! why should my fortune frown
On me thus frowardly to rob me of my joy?
What cruel envious hand hath taken thee away;
And with thee, my content, my comfort and my stay?
Thou only wast the ease of trouble and annoy:
When they did me assail, in thee my hopes did rest.
Alas, what now is left but grief that night and day
Afflicts this woeful life, and with continual rage
Torments ten thousand ways my miserable breast?
O greedy envious heaven! what needed thee to have
Enriched with such a jewel this unhappy age;
To take it back again so soon? Alas, when shall
Mine eyes see ought that may content them, since thy grave
My only treasure hides, the joy of my poor heart?
As here with thee on earth I lived, even so equal
Methinks it were, with thee in heaven I did abide:
And as our troubles all, we here on earth did part;
So reason would that there, of thy most happy state
I had my share. Alas, if thou my trusty guide
Were wont to be: how canst thou leave me thus alone
In darkness and astray; weak, weary, desolate,
Plunged in a world of woe—refusing for to take
Me with thee, to the place of rest where thou art gone?"
This said, she held her peace, for sorrow tied her tongue:
And instead of more words, seemed that her eyes a lake
Of tears had been, they flowed so plenteously therefrom:
And with her sobs and sighs th'air round about her rung.
If Venus when she wailed her dear Adonis slain,
Ought moved in thy fierce heart, compassion of her woe:
His noble sister's plaints, her sighs and tears emong;
Would sure have made thee mild, and inly rue her pain.
Aurora half so fair, herself did never show;
When from old Tithon's bed, she weeping did arise.
The blinded archer-boy, like lark in shower of rain,
Sat bathing of his wings, and glad the time did spend
Under those crystal drops which fell from her fair eyes;
And at their brightest beams him proined in lovely wise.
Yet sorry for her grief, which he could not amend;
The gentle boy 'gan wipe her eyes, and clear those lights:
Those lights through which his glory and his conquests shine.
The Graces tuckt her hair, which hung like threads of gold
Along her ivory breast, the treasure of delights.
All things with her to weep, it seemèd did incline;
The trees, the hills, the dales, the caves, the stones so cold.
The air did help them mourn, with dark clouds, rain and mist;
Forbearing many a day to clear itself again:
Which made them eftsoons fear the days of Pyrrha should
Of creatures spoil the earth, their fatal threads untwist.
For Phœbus' gladsome rays were wishèd for in vain,
And with her quivering light Latona's daughter fair;
And Charles' Wain eke refused to be the shipman's guide.
On Neptune, war was made by Æolus and his train.
Who letting loose the winds, tost and tormented th'air,
So that on every coast, men shipwreck did abide,
Or else were swallowed up in open sea with waves:
And such as came to shore were beaten with despair.
The Medway's silver streams that wont so still to slide,
Were troubled now and wroth; whose hidden hollow caves
Along his banks, with fog then shrouded from man's eye,
Aye "Philip" did resound, aye "Philip" they did cry.
His nymphs were seen no more, though custom still it craves,
With hair spread to the wind, themselves to bathe or sport;
Or with the hook or net, barefooted wantonly
The pleasant dainty fish to entangle or deceive.
The shepherds left their wonted places of resort,
Their bagpipes now were still, their lovely merry lays
Were quite forgot; and now their flocks, men might perceive
To wander and to stray, all carelessly neglect:
And in the stead of mirth and pleasure, nights and days
Nought else was to be heard, but woes, complaints and moan.
But thou, O blessèd soul! dost haply not respect
These tears we shed, though full of loving pure affect;
Having affixt thine eyes on that most glorious throne,
Where full of majesty, the high Creator reigns.
In whose bright shining face thy joys are all complete,
Whose love kindles thy sprite, where happy always one,
Thou liv'st in bliss that earthly passion never stains;
Where from the purest spring the sacred nectar sweet
Is thy continual drink: where thou dost gather now
Of well-employed life, th'estimable gains.
There Venus on thee smiles, Apollo gives thee place;
And Mars in reverent wise doth to thy virtue bow,
And decks his fiery sphere, to do thee honour most.
In highest part whereof, thy valour for to grace,
A chair of gold he sets to thee, and there doth tell
Thy noble acts arew; whereby even they that boast
Themselves of ancient fame, as Pyrrhus, Hannibal,
Scipio and Cæsar, with the rest that did excel
In martial prowess; high thy glory do admire.
All hail! therefore, O worthy Philip immortal!
The flower of Sidney's race, the honour of thy name.
Whose worthy praise to sing, my Muses not aspire.
But sorrowful and sad these tears to thee let fall:
Yet wish their verses might so far and wide thy fame
Extend, that Envy's rage nor time might end the same.