The Passionate Man's Pilgrimage.

FINIS.

Non Amori sed Virtuti.

The Passionate Man's Pilgrimage.

Supposed to be written by one at the point of death.

Ive me my Scalop Shell of quiet,

My Staff of faith to walk upon,

My Scrip of joy, immortal diet!

My Bottle of salvation,

My Gown of glory, hope's true gage,

And thus I'll take my Pilgrimage!

Blood must be my body's balmer,

No other balm will there be given!

Whilst my Soul, like a white Palmer,

Travels to the land of heaven,

Over the silver mountains,

Where spring the nectar fountains:

And there I'll kiss

The bowl of bliss,

And drink my eternal fill

On every milken hill!

My Soul will be a dry before;

But, after it, will ne'er thirst more!

And by the happy blissful way,

More peaceful pilgrims I shall see

That have shook off their gowns of clay,

And go apparelled fresh like me.

I'll bring them first

To slake their thirst,

And then to taste those nectar suckets

At the 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 holy paths we'll travel,

Strewed with rubies thick as gravel,

Ceilings of diamonds, sapphire floors,

High walls of coral, and pearl bowers.

From thence, to Heaven's bribeless Hall,

Where no corrupted voices brawl.

No conscience molten into gold;

Nor forged accusers bought and sold.

No cause deferred, nor vain spent journey;

For there, Christ is the King's Attorney,

Who pleads for all without degrees;

And he hath angels, but no fees!

When the grand twelve million Jury,

Of our sins and sinful fury,

'Gainst our souls, black verdicts give:

Christ pleads his death, and then we live!

Be thou, my speaker, taintless Pleader!

Unblotted Lawyer! true Proceeder!

Thou movest salvation, even for alms!

Not with a bribèd lawyer's palms.

And this is my eternal Plea,

To Him that made heaven, earth, and sea;

Seeing 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.

FINIS.

Michael Drayton.
Odes.
[1606, and 1619.]

To the Reader.

ODes I have called these, the first of my few Poems; which how happy soever they prove, yet Criticism itself cannot say, That the name is wrongfully usurped. For (not to begin with Definitions, against the Rule of Oratory; nor ab ovo, against the Prescript of Poetry in a poetical argument: but somewhat only to season thy palate with a slight description) an Ode is known to have been properly a Song moduled to the ancient harp: and neither too short-breathed, as hastening to the end; nor composed of [the] longest verses, as unfit for the sudden turns and lofty tricks with which Apollo used to menage it.

They are, as the Learned say, divers:

Some transcendently lofty; and far more high than the Epic, commonly called the Heroic, Poem—witness those of the inimitable Pindarus consecrated to the glory and renown of such as returned in triumph from [the Games at] Olympus, Elis, Isthmus, or the like.

Others, among the Greeks, are amorous, soft, and made for chambers; as others for theatres: as were Anacreon's, the very delicacies of the Grecian Erato; which Muse seemed to have been the Minion of that Teian old man, which composed them.

Of a mixed kind were Horace's. And [we] may truly therefore call these mixed; whatsoever else are mine: little partaking of the high dialect of the first

Though we be all to seek

Of Pindar, that great Greek,

nor altogether of Anacreon; the Arguments being amorous, moral, or what else the Muse pleaseth.

To write much in this kind neither know I how it will relish: nor, in so doing, can I but injuriously presuppose ignorance or sloth in thee; or draw censure upon myself for sinning against the decorum of a Preface, by reading a Lecture, where it is enough to sum the points. New they are, and the work of Playing Hours: but what other commendation is theirs, and whether inherent in the subject, must be thine to judge.

But to act the Go-Between of my Poems and thy applause, is neither my modesty nor confidence: that, oftener than once, have acknowledged thee, kind; and do not doubt hereafter to do somewhat in which I shall not fear thee, just. And would, at this time, also gladly let thee understand what I think, above the rest, of the last Ode of the number; or, if thou wilt, Ballad in my book. For both the great Master of Italian rymes Petrarch, and our Chaucer, and others of the Upper House of the Muses, have thought their Canzons honoured in the title of a Ballad: which for that I labour to meet truly therein with the old English garb, I hope as ably to justify as the learned Colin Clout his Roundelay.

Thus requesting thee, in thy better judgment, to correct such faults as have escaped in the printing; I bid thee farewell.

[M. Drayton.]

ODES.
[1606.]

ODE I.

To Himself, and the Harp.

Nd why not I, as he

That's greatest, if as free,

(In sundry strains that strive,

Since there so many be),

Th' old Lyric kind revive?

I will, yea; and I may:

Who shall oppose my way?

For what is he alone,

That of himself can say,

He's Heir of Helicon.

Apollo and the Nine

Forbid no man their shrine,

That cometh with hands pure;

Else, they be so divine,

They will not him endure.

For they be such coy things;

That they care not for Kings,

And dare let them know it:

Nor may he touch their Springs

That is not born a Poet.

Pyrenæus, King of Phocis attempting to ravish the Muses.

The Phocean it did prove,

Whom when foul lust did move

Those Maids, unchaste to make;

Fell as with them he strove,

His neck and justly brake.

That instrument ne'er heard,

Struck by the skilful Bard,

It strongly to awake;

But it th' infernals scared,

And made Olympus quake.

I Samuel xvi.

As those prophetic strings,

Whose sounds with fiery wings

Drave fiends from their abode;

Touched by the best of Kings,

That sang the holy Ode.

Orpheus the Thracian Poet. Caput, Hebre, lyramque excipis, &c. Ovid. Metam. xi.

So his, which women slew:

And it int' Hebrus threw;

Such sounds yet forth it sent,

The banks to weep that drew,

As down the stream it went.

Mercury, inventor of the harp, as Horace. Ode 10, Lib. I., curvæque lyræ parentem.

That by the tortoise shell,

To Maya's son it fell,

The most thereof not doubt:

But sure some Power did dwell

In him who found it out.

The wildest of the field,

And air, with rivers t' yield,

Thebes feigned to have been raised by music.

Which moved; that sturdy glebes,

And mossy oaks could wield,

To raise the piles of Thebes.

And diversely though strung,

So anciently We sung

To it; that now scarce known,

If first it did belong

To Greece, or if our own.

The ancient British Priests, so called of their abode in woods.

The Druids embrued

With gore, on altars rude

With sacrifices crowned,

In hollow woods bedewed,

Adored the trembling sound.

Pindar, Prince of the Greek Lyrics, of whom Horace, PINDARUM quisquis studet, &c. Ode 2, Lib. IV.

Though we be all to seek

Of Pindar, that great Greek,

To finger it aright;

The soul with power to strike:

His hand retained such might.

Horace, first of the Romans in that kind.

Or him that Rome did grace,

Whose Airs we all embrace:

That scarcely found his peer;

Nor giveth Phœbus place,

For strokes divinely clear.

The Irish Harp.

The Irish I admire,

And still cleave to that Lyre

As our Music's mother:

And think, till I expire,

Apollo's such another.

As Britons that so long

Have held this antique Song;

And let all our carpers

Forbear their fame to wrong:

Th'are right skilful harpers.

Soowthern, an English Lyric. [His PANDORA was published in 1584.]

Soowthern, I long thee spare;

Yet wish thee well to fare,

Who me pleasedst greatly:

As first, therefore more rare,

Handling thy harp neatly.

To those that with despite

Shall term these Numbers slight;

Tell them, Their judgment's blind!

Much erring from the right.

It is a noble kind.

Nor is 't the Verse doth make,

That giveth, or doth take:

'Tis possible to climb,

An old English Rhymer.

To kindle, or to slake;

Although in Skelton's rhyme.

ODE 2.

To the New Year.

Ich statue double faced!

With marble temples graced,

To raise thy godhead higher;

In flames where, altars shining,

Before thy Priests divining,

Do od'rous fumes expire.

Great Janus, I thy pleasure,

With all the Thespian treasure,

Do seriously pursue:

To th' passed year returning,

As though the Old adjourning;

Yet bringing in the New.

Thy ancient Vigils yearly,

I have observèd clearly;

Thy Feasts yet smoking be!

Since all thy store abroad is;

Give something to my goddess,

As hath been used by thee!

Give her th' Eoan Brightness!

Winged with that subtle lightness

That doth transpierce the air;

The Roses of the Morning!

The rising heaven adorning,

To mesh with flames of hair;

Those ceaseless Sounds, above all,

Made by those orbs that move all;

And ever swelling there:

Wrapped up in Numbers flowing,

Them actually bestowing

For jewels at her ear.

O rapture great and holy,

Do thou transport me wholly

So well her form to vary!

That I aloft may bear her

Where as I will insphere her

In regions high and starry.

And in my choice Composures,

The soft and easy Closures

So amorously shall meet,

That every lively Ceasure

Shall tread a perfect measure,

Set on so equal feet.

That spray to fame so fert'le,

The lover-crowning myrtle,

In wreaths of mixèd boughs;

Within whose shades are dwelling

Those beauties most excelling,

Enthroned upon her brows.

Those parallels so even,

Drawn on the face of heaven,

That curious Art supposes;

Direct those gems, whose clearness

Far off amaze by nearness,

Each globe such fire encloses.

Her bosom full of blisses,

By Nature made for kisses;

So pure and wondrous clear:

Where as a thousand Graces

Behold their lovely faces,

As they are bathing there.

O thou self-little Blindness!

The kindness of unkindness,

Yet one of those Divine:

Thy Brands to me were lever,

Thy Fascia, and thy Quiver,

And thou this Quill of mine.

This heart so freshly bleeding,

Upon its own self feeding;

Whose wounds still dropping be:

O Love, thyself confounding,

Her coldness so abounding,

And yet such heat in me.

Yet, if I be inspirèd,

I'll leave thee so admirèd

To all that shall succeed;

That were they more than many,

'Mongst all there is not any

That Time so oft shall read.

Nor adamant ingravèd,

That hath been choicely savèd,

Idea's name outwears:

So large a dower as this is;

The greatest often misses,

The diadem that bears.

ODE 3.

[To Cupid.]

Aidens, why spare ye?

Or whether not dare ye

Correct the blind Shooter?'

"Because wanton Venus,

So oft that doth pain us,

Is her son's tutor.

"Now in the Spring,

He proveth his wing;

The field is his Bower:

And as the small bee,

About flyeth he,

From flower to flower.

"And wantonly roves

Abroad in the groves,

And in the air hovers;

Which when it him deweth,

His feathers he meweth

In sighs of true Lovers.

"And since doomed by Fate

(That well knew his hate)

That he should be blind;

For very despite,

Our eyes be his White:

So wayward his kind!

"If his shafts losing

(Ill his mark choosing)

Or his bow broken;

The moan Venus maketh,

And care that she taketh,

Cannot be spoken.

"To Vulcan commending

Her love; and straight sending

Her doves and her sparrows,

With kisses, unto him:

And all but to woo him

To make her son arrows.

"Telling what he hath done;

Saith she,'Right mine own son!'

In her arms she him closes.

Sweets on him fans,

Laid in down of her swans;

His sheets, leaves of roses.

"And feeds him with kisses;

Which oft when he misses,

He ever is froward.

The mother's o'erjoying

Makes, by much coying,

The child so untoward."

Yet in a fine net,

That a spider set,

The Maidens had caught him.

Had she not been near him,

And chancèd to hear him;

More good they had taught him!

To my worthy friend Master John Savage of the Inner Temple.

ODE 4.

Pon this sinful earth,

If Man can happy be,

And higher than his birth,

Friend, take him thus of me:

Whom promise not deceives,

That he the breach should rue;

Nor constant reason leaves

Opinion to pursue.

To raise his mean estate,

That soothes no Wanton's sin:

Doth that preferment hate,

That virtue doth not win

Nor bravery doth admire:

Nor doth more love profess

To that he doth desire,

Than that he doth possess.

Loose humour nor to please,

That neither spares nor spends;

But by discretion weighs

What is to needful ends.

To him deserving not,

Not yielding: nor doth hold

What is not his: doing what

He ought, not what he could.

Whom the base tyrants' will

So much could never awe

As him, for good or ill,

From honesty to draw.

Whose constancy doth rise

'Bove undeservèd spite;

Whose valuers to despise

That most doth him delight.

That early leave doth take

Of th' World, though to his pain,

For Virtue's only sake;

And not till need constrain.

No man can be so free,

Though in imperial seat;

Nor eminent: as he

That deemeth nothing great.

ODE 5.

[An Amouret Anacreontic.]

Ost good! most fair!

Or thing as rare!

To call you's lost;

For all the cost

Words can bestow

So poorly show

Upon your praise,

That all the ways

Sense hath, come short.

Whereby Report

Falls them under:

That when Wonder

More hath seized;

Yet not pleased

That it, in kind,

Nothing can find,

You to express.

Nevertheless

As by globes small

This mighty ALL

Is shewed, though far

From life; each star

A World being:

So we seeing

You, like as that,

Only trust what

Art doth us teach.

And when I reach

At Moral Things,

And that my strings

Gravely should strike;

Straight some mislike

Blotteth mine Ode;

As, with the Load,

The Steel we touch:

Forced ne'er so much;

Yet still removes

To that it loves,

Till there it stays.

So to your praise

I turn ever:

And though never

From you moving;

Happy so loving.

ODE 6.

[Love's Conquest.]

Er 't granted me to choose,

How I would end my days,

Since I this life must lose;

It should be in your praise:

For there are no Bays

Can be set above You.

S'impossibly I love You;

And for You sit so high

(Whence none may remove You)

In my clear Poesy,

That I oft deny

You so ample merit.

The freedom of my spirit

Maintaining, still, my cause;

Your sex not to inherit,

Urging the Salic Laws:

But your virtue draws

From me every due.

Thus still You me pursue,

That nowhere I can dwell;

By fear made just to You,

Who naturally rebel;

Of You that excel

That should I still endite.

Yet will You want some rite.

That lost in your high praise,

I wander to and fro;

As seeing sundry ways:

Yet which the right not know

To get out of this Maze.

ODE 7.

[An Ode written in the Peak.]

His while we are abroad,

Shall we not touch our Lyre?

Shall we not sing an Ode?

Shall that holy fire,

In us that strongly glowed,

In this cold air expire?

Long since the Summer laid

Her lusty bravery down;

The Autumn half is weighed,

And Boreas 'gins to frown:

Since now I did behold

Great Brute's first builded town.

Though in the utmost Peak,

A while we do remain;

Amongst the mountains bleak,

Exposed to sleet and rain:

No sport our hours shall break,

To exercise our vein.

What though bright Phœbus' beams

Refresh the southern ground;

And though the princely Thames

With beauteous Nymphs abound;

And by old Camber's streams

Be many wonders found:

Yet many rivers clear

Here glide in silver swathes;

And what of all most dear,

Buxton's delicious baths,

Strong ale, and noble cheer,

T'assuage breem Winter's scathes.

Those grim and horrid caves,

Whose looks affright the day;

Wherein nice Nature saves

What she would not bewray:

Our better leisure craves,

And doth invite our Lay.

In places far, or near,

Or famous, or obscure;

Where wholesome is the air,

Or where the most impure;

All times, and everywhere,

The Muse is still in ure.

ODE 8.

Ing we the Rose!

Than which no flower there grows

Is sweeter;

And aptly her compare

With what in that is rare:

A parallel none meeter.

Or made posies,

Of this that encloses

Such blisses:

That naturally flusheth,

As she blusheth

When she is robbed of kisses.

Or if strewed,

When with the morning dewed;

Or stilling;

Or how to sense exposed:

All which in her enclosed,

Each place with sweetness filling.

That most renowned

By Nature richly crowned

With yellow;

Of that delicious lair:

And as pure her hair,

Unto the same the fellow.

Fearing of harm;

Nature that flower doth arm

From danger:

The touch gives her offence,

But with reverence

Unto herself, a stranger.

The red, or white,

Or mixed, the sense delight,

Beholding,

In her complexion:

All which perfection,

Such harmony infolding,

That divided,

Ere it was decided

Which most pure,

Began the grievous War

Of York and Lancaster,

That did many years endure.

Conflicts as great

As were in all that heat,

I sustain:

By her, as many hearts

As men on either parts,

That with her eyes hath slain.

The Primrose flower,

The first of Flora's bower

Is placed:

So is She first, as best:

Though excellent the rest;

All gracing, by none graced.

ODE 9.

[A Skeltoniad.]

He Muse should be sprightly;

Yet not handling lightly

Things grave: as much loath

Things that be slight, to cloathe

Curiously. To retain

The Comeliness in mean

Is true Knowledge and Wit.

Nor me forced rage doth fit,

That I thereto should lack

Tobacco, or need Sack;

Which to the colder brain

Is the true Hippocrene.

Nor did I ever care

For Great Fools, nor them spare.

Virtue, though neglected,

Is not so dejected

As vilely to descend

To low baseness, their end:

Neither each rhyming slave

Deserves the name to have

Of Poet. So, the rabble

Of Fools, for the table,

That have their jests by heart,

As an Actor his part,

Might assume them chairs

Amongst the Muses' heirs.

Parnassus is not clomb

By every such Mome:

Up whose steep side who swerves,

It behoves t'have strong nerves.

My resolution such

How well, and not how much,

To write. Thus do I fare

Like some few good, that care

(The evil sort among)

How well to live, and not how long.

ODE 10.

[His Defence against the idle Critic.]

He Ryme nor mars, nor makes;

Nor addeth it, nor takes,

From that which we propose:

Things imaginary

Do so strangely vary

That quickly we them lose.

And what's quickly begot,

As soon again is not;

This do I truly know.

Yea, and what's born with pain;

That, Sense doth long'st retain,

Gone with a greater flow.

Yet this Critic so stern,

(But whom, none must discern

Nor perfectly have seeing)

Strangely lays about him,

As nothing without him

Were worthy of being,

That I myself betray

To that most public way;

Where the World's old bawd

Custom, that doth humour,

And by idle rumour,

Her dotages applaud.

That whilst she still prefers

Those that be wholly hers,

Madness and Ignorance;

I creep behind the Time,

From spertling with their crime;

And glad too with my chance.

O wretched World the while,

When the evil most vile

Beareth the fairest face;

And inconstant lightness,

With a scornful slightness,

The best things doth disgrace!

Whilst this strange knowing beast,

Man; of himself the least,

His envy declaring,

Makes Virtue to descend,

Her title to defend

Against him; much preparing.

Yet these me not delude,

Nor from my place extrude,

By their resolvèd hate;

Their vileness that do know:

Which to myself I show,

To keep above my fate.

ODE 11.

To the Virginian Voyage.

Ou brave heroic minds,

Worthy your country's name,

That Honour still pursue;

Go and subdue!

Whilst loitering hinds

Lurk here at home with shame.

Britans, you stay too long;

Quickly aboard bestow you!

And with a merry gale

Swell your stretched sail!

With vows as strong

As the winds that blow you.

Your course securely steer,

West-and-by-South forth keep!

Rocks, Lee-shores, nor Shoals,

When Eolus scowls,

You need not fear!

So absolute the deep.

And cheerfully at sea,

Success you still entice,

To get the pearl and gold;

And ours to hold,

Virginia,

Earth's only Paradise.

Where Nature hath in store

Fowl, venison, and fish:

And the fruitful soil;

Without your toil,

Three harvests more,

All greater than your wish.

And the ambitious vine

Crowns, with his purple mass,

The cedar reaching high

To kiss the sky.

The cypress, pine,

And useful sassafras.

To whose, the Golden Age

Still Nature's laws doth give:

No other cares that tend,

But them to defend

From winter's age,

That long there doth not live.

When as the luscious smell

Of that delicious land,

Above the seas that flows,

The clear wind throws,

Your hearts to swell,

Approaching the dear strand.

In kenning of the shore

(Thanks to God first given!)

O you, the happiest men,

Be frolic then!

Let cannons roar!

Frightening the wide heaven.

And in regions far,

Such heroes bring ye forth

As those from whom We came!

And plant our name

Under that Star

Not known unto our North!

And as there plenty grows

Of laurel everywhere,

Apollo's sacred tree;

You it may see

A Poet's brows

To crown, that may sing there.

Thy Voyages attend,

Industrious Hakluyt!

Whose reading shall inflame

Men to seek fame;

And much commend

To after Times thy wit.

ODE 12.

To the Cambro-Britans and their Harp, his Ballad of Agincourt.

[Besides this Ballad: Michael Drayton published, in 1627, a much longer Poem upon this celebrated Battle.]

Air stood the wind for France,

When we our sails advance;

Nor now to prove our chance

Longer will tarry.

But putting to the main;

At Caux, the mouth of Seine,

With all his martial train

Landed King Harry.

And taking many a fort

Furnished in warlike sort,

Marcheth towards Agincourt

In happy hour;

Skirmishing, day by day,

With those that stopped his way,

Where the French General lay

With all his Power.

Which, in his height of pride,

King Henry to deride;

His ransom to provide,

To the King sending.

Which he neglects the while,

As from a nation vile;

Yet, with an angry smile,

Their fall portending.

And turning to his men,

Quoth our brave Henry then:

"Though they to one be ten

Be not amazèd!

Yet have we well begun:

Battles so bravely won

Have ever to the sun

By Fame been raised!"

"And for myself," quoth he,

"This my full rest shall be:

England ne'er mourn for me,

Nor more esteem me!

Victor I will remain,

Or on this earth lie slain:

Never shall She sustain

Loss to redeem me!

"Poitiers and Cressy tell,

When most their pride did swell,

Under our swords they fell.

No less our skill is,

Than when our Grandsire great,

Claiming the regal seat,

By many a warlike feat

Lopped the French lillies."

The Duke of York so dread

The eager Vanward led;

With the Main, Henry sped

Amongst his henchmen:

Exeter had the Rear,

A braver man not there!

O Lord, how hot they were

On the false Frenchmen!

They now to fight are gone;

Armour on armour shone;

Drum now to drum did groan:

To hear, was wonder.

That, with cries they make,

The very earth did shake;

Trumpet, to trumpet spake;

Thunder, to thunder.

Well it thine age became,

O noble Erpingham!

Which didst the signal aim

To our hid forces:

When, from a meadow by,

Like a storm suddenly,

The English Archery

Stuck the French horses.

With Spanish yew so strong;

Arrows a cloth-yard long,

That like to serpents stung,

Piercing the weather.

None from his fellow starts;

But, playing manly parts,

And like true English hearts,

Stuck close together.

When down their bows they threw;

And forth their bilbowes [swords] drew

And on the French they flew:

Not one was tardy.

Arms were from the shoulders sent

Scalps to the teeth were rent,

Down the French peasants went:

Our men were hardy.

This while our noble King,

His broad sword brandishing,

Down the French host did ding

As to o'erwhelm it.

And many a deep wound lent;

His arms with blood besprent,

And many a cruel dent

Bruisèd his helmet.

Gloucester that Duke so good,

Next of the royal blood,

For famous England stood

With his brave brother.

Clarence, in steel so bright,

Though but a Maiden Knight;

Yet in that furious fight,

Scarce such another!

Warwick, in blood did wade;

Oxford, the foe invade,

And cruel slaughter made,

Still as they ran up.

Suffolk his axe did ply;

Beaumont and Willoughby

Bare them right doughtily:

Ferrers, and Fanhope.

Upon Saint Crispin's Day,

Fought was this noble Fray;

Which Fame did not delay

To England to carry.

O when shall English men

With such acts fill a pen?

Or England breed again

Such a King Harry?

FINIS.

PREFACE TO THE ADDITIONAL ODES OF 1619.

To the worthy Knight, and my noble friend,
Sir Henry Goodere, a Gentleman of
His Majesty's Privy Chamber.