Sonnets and Canzonets

The eager Bachelors, on lucre bent,
Or life voluptuous; even the studious few,
Oblivious mostly, if they ever knew
What Nature mirrored and fair learning meant;
Thou, better taught, on worthier aims intent,
Short distance from the Pilgrims’ sea-washed street
Thine orchard planted; grove and garden there,
And sheltering coppice hide thy mansion neat,
By winding alley reached, and gay parterre;
Where cordial welcome chosen friends shall meet,
From courteous host and graceful lady fair;
Then thy choice fruits we taste, thy wisdom hived,
England’s rare Evelyn in thee revived.

“Thou art not gone, being gone, – where’er thou art,
Thou leav’st in him thy watchful eyes, in him thy loving heart.”

    Donne.

XVI

Bright visions of my sprightlier youthful days,
With sunny gleams of answering friendliness,
Thou brought’st me, maiden, in delightful ways,
In conversation, letters, frank address;
And these attractions did me so possess,
The moments all were thine, and thou in sight
By day’s engagements, and in dreams by night.
Wished I the spell dissolved, or ever less?
Ne’er may advancing years remove one tint
From memory’s tablet of that happy time;
And if thus tamely that romance I hint,
Forgive my poor endeavor in this rhyme,
Nor warrant give me now, my cherished friend,
To add the more, lest I the more offend.

Άστὴρ πρὶν μὲν ἔλαμπες ὲνὶ ζωοῒσιν ἑᾣος,
Νὔν δἑ θαννὡ λἀνπεις Έσπερος έν φθιμένοις.

“Thou wert a morning star among the living
Ere thy fair light had fled;
Now, being gone, thou art as Hesperus, giving
New lustre to the dead.”

    Plato.

XVII

Sweet saint! whose rising dawned upon the sight
Like fair Aurora chasing mists away;
Our ocean billows, and thy western height
Gave back reflections of the tender ray,
Sparkling and smiling as night turned to day: —
Ah! whither vanished that celestial light?
Suns rise and set, Monadnoc’s amethyst
Year-long above the sullen cloud appears,
Daily the waves our summer strand have kissed,
But thou returnest not with days and years:
Or is it thine, yon clear and beckoning star,
Seen o’er the hills that guarded once thy home?
Dost guide thy friend’s free steps that widely roam
Toward that far country where his wishes are?

“Thus sing I to cragg’d clifts and hills,
To sighing winds, to murmuring rills,
To wasteful woods, to empty groves,
Such things as my dear mind most loves.”

    Henry More.

XVIII

Adventurous mariner! in whose gray skiff,
Dashing disastrous o’er the fretful wave,
The steersman, subject to each breeze’s whiff,
Or blast capricious that o’er seas doth rave,
Scarce turns his rudder from the fatal cliff, —
Scorning his craft or e’en himself to save.
Ye Powers of air, that shift the seaman’s grave,
Adjust the tackle of his right intent,
And bring him safely to the port he meant!
Long musing there on that divinity
Who to his hazard had assistance lent,
He verses cons, oft taken by surprise
In diverse meanings, and shrewd subtlety,
That pass quaint Donne, and even Shakespeare wise.

“But else, in deep of night, when drowsiness
Hath locked up mortal sense, then listen I
To the celestial Syrens’ harmony
That sit upon the nine infolded spheres,
And sing to those that hold the vital shears,
And turn the adamantine spindle round,
On which the fate of gods and men is wound.”

    Milton.

XIX

Romancer, far more coy than that coy sex!