Sonnets and Canzonets

Fly faster o’er my page, impassioned quill,
Signing this note of mine with tenderer touch!
Say I no measure find to mete my will,
Say that I love, but cannot tell how much;
Let time and trouble the full story tell:
I cannot love thee more, I know I love thee well.

“Let raptured fancy on that moment dwell
When thy dear vows in trembling accents fell,
When love acknowledged waked the tender sigh,
Swelled thy full breast, and filled the melting eye.”

    Langhorne.

IX

Now I no longer wait my love to tell,
As ’twere a weakness love should not commit;
E’en did avowal my fond hope dispel,
My passion would of weakness me acquit.
Enamoured thus and holden by its spell,
Evasive words disloyal were, unfit
To emphasize the exquisite happiness
My boldest accents falteringly express;
Here, take my hand, and, life-long wedded, lead
Me by thy side; and, with my hand, my heart
Given thee long since in thought, given now in deed;
My life, my love, shall play no faithless part.
Blest be that hour, when, meeting face to face,
Our vows are plighted, ours the dear embrace!

“Venus, thy eternal sway
All the race of men obey.”

    Euripides.

X

Unconquerable and inviolate
Is Love; servant and sov’reign of man’s wit:
Though the light-wingèd fancy changeful flit,
She rules unswervingly her fair estate,
O’erbears mischance and error, envy and hate;
High intellect, ambition, passion, pride,
Endowments that capricious Fortune brings,
By her disfranchisements are set aside;
The mistress she alike of slaves and kings,
Empress of Earth’s dominions, far and wide,
Eldest of potentates, and latest born.
Of all in Heaven above or Earth below,
No being so illustrious or forlorn,
That to Love’s sceptre doth not gladly bow.

“Ye tradeful merchants! that with weary toil
Do seek most precious things to make your gain,
And both the Indies of their treasure spoil,
What needeth you to seek so far in vain?
For, lo! my love doth in herself contain
All this world’s riches that may far be found;

But that which fairest is, but few behold,
Her mind adorned with virtues manifold.”

    Spenser.

XI

Ancestral tendencies far down descend;
They bless or blame for generations long;
They prick us forward toward our destined end,
Alike the weak, the sluggish, and the strong.
When her grave ancestor, of Winthrop’s date,
Did with the rich mint-master’s daughter join
In wedlock, he, sagacious magistrate,
Gained more in sterling worth than silver coin:
So, when King’s Chapel saw, in gladsome May,
The mild schoolmaster lead his willing bride,
And the courtly warden give her hand away,
Mintage of like worth had no land beside.
True love alone nobility doth outvie,
And character’s the sterling currency.

“How still the sea! behold, how calm the sky!
And how, in sportive chase, the swallows fly!
Sweet breathe the fields, and now a gentle breeze
Moves every leaf and trembles through the trees.”

    Phillips.

XII

Hither, the gray and shapely church beside,
At sandy Hingham, by the sounding sea,
From the disturbing town escaped thus wide,
I’m come, from all encumbering care set free,
To raise the choral song, with friends discourse,
Roam the wide fields for flowers, or seaward sail,
Or to Cohasset’s strand repair, where hoarse
Tumultuous surges chant their ceaseless tale;
Or poesy entertain, grave Wordsworth’s lays,