 | The Works of Michael Drayton |  |
THE LADY GERALDINE, TO HENRY HOWARD, EARLE OF SURREY.
The like to thee thy Geraldine commends;
A Maidens thoughts do check my trembling hand,
On other Termes or Complements to stand,
Which (might my Speech be as my Heart affords)
Should come attyred in farre richer Words:
But all is one, my Faith as firme shall prove,
As hers that makes the greatest shew of Love.
Whose Lectures oft we practise in our Lookes,
Nor ever did suspitious rivall Eye
Yet lye in wait my Favours to espie;
My Virgin Thoughts are innocent and meeke,
As the chaste Blushes sitting on my Cheeke:
As in a Feaver, I doe shiver yet,
Since first my Pen was to the Paper set.
If I doe erre, you know my Sexe is weake,
Feare proves a Fault, where Maids are forc'd to speake.
Doe I not ill? Ah sooth me not herein;
O, if I doe, reprove me of my sinne:
Chide me in faith, or if my Fault you hide,
My Tongue will teach my selfe, my selfe to chide.
Nay, Noble Surrey, blot it if thou wilt,
Then too much Boldnesse should returne my Guilt:
For that should be ev'n from our selves conceal'd,
Which is disclos'd, if to our Thoughts reveal'd;
For the least Motion, more the smallest Breath,
That may impeach our Modestie, is Death.
(Me thinkes) should marvell at my strange demand:
For till he blush'd, I did not yet espie
The nakednesse of my Immodestie,
But that my Fanne I quickly put betweene;
Yet scarcely that my inward Guilt could hide,
“Feare seeing all, feares it of all is spy'd.
Like to a Taper lately burning bright,
But wanting matter to maintaine his Light;
The Blaze ascending, forced by the smoke,
Living by that which seekes the same to choke;
The Flame still hanging in the Ayre, doth burne,
Untill drawne downe, it backe againe returne:
Then cleare, then dim, then spreadeth, and then closeth,
Now getteth strength, and now his brightnesse loseth;
As well the best discerning Eye may doubt,
Whether it yet be in, or whether out:
Thus in my Cheeke my sundry Passions shew'd,
Now ashie pale, and now againe it glow'd.
It's you alone, who are the cause I love;
It's you bewitch my Bosome, by mine Eare;
Unto that end I did not place you there:
Ayres to asswage the bloudie Souldiers mind,
Poore Women, we are naturally kind.
Perhaps you'le thinke, that I these termes inforce,
For that in Court this kindnesse is of course;
Or that it is that Honey-steeped Gall,
We oft are said to bait our Loves withall;
That in one Eye we carrie strong desire,
In th'other, drops, which quickly quench that fire.
Ah, what so false can Envie speake of us,
But it shall find some vainely credulous?
I doe not so, and to adde proofe thereto,
I love in faith, in faith, sweet Lord I doe;
Nor let the envie of invenom'd Tongues,
Which still is grounded on poore Ladies Wrongs,
Thy Noble Brest disasterly possesse,
By any doubt to make my love the lesse.
Nor from those Geralds clayme I to descend;
That I receive from Desmond, or Kildare:
Nor adde I greater worth unto my Bloud,
Then Irish Milke to give me Infant-food;
Nor better Ayre will ever boast to breathe,
Then that of Lemster, Munster, or of Meath;
Nor crave I other forraine farre Allies,
The cost of many Kings, which from time to time have adorned the Castle at Windsor with their Princely Magnificence, hath made it more Noble, then that it need to be spoken of now, as though obscure; and I hold it more meet, to referre you to our vulgar Monuments, for the Founders and Finishers thereof, then to meddle with matter nothing neere the purpose. As for the Family of the Fitz-Geralds, of whence this excellent Lady was lineally descended, the originall was English, though the Branches did spread themselves into distant Places, and Names nothing consonant, as in former times it was usuall to denominate themselves of their Manours, or Fore-names: as may partly appeare in that which ensueth; the light whereof proceeded from my learned and very worthie Friend, Master Francis Thinne. Walter of Windsor, the sonne of Oterus, had to issue William, of whom, Henry, now Lord Windsor, is descended, and Robert of Windsor, of whom, Robert, the now Earle of Essex, and Gerald of Windsor, his third sonne, who married the daughter of Rees, the great Prince of Wales, of whom came Nesta, Paramour to Henry the first: Which Gerald had Issue, Maurice Fitz-Gerald, Ancestor to Thomas Fitz-Maurice, Justice of Ireland, buried at Trayly; leaving Issue, John his eldest sonne, first Earle of Kildare, Ancestor to Geraldine, and Maurice his second sonne, first Earle of Desmond.
It is enough to leave unto my Heires,
If they but please t'acknowledge me for theirs.
But that the House gives matter to my Love?
At Windsor still I see thee sit, and walke,
There mount thy Courser, there devise, there talke;
The Robes, the Garter, and the state of Kings,
Into my Thoughts thy hoped Greatnesse brings:
None-such, the Name imports (me thinkes) so much,
None such as it, nor as my Lord, none such;
In Hamptons great Magnificence I find
The lively Image of thy Princely Mind;
Faire Richmonds Tow'rs like goodly Trophies stand,
Rear'd by the pow'r of thy victorious Hand;
White-Halls triumphing Galleries are yet
Adorn'd with rich Devices of thy Wit;
In Greenwich still, as in a Glasse, I view,
Where last thou bad'st thy Geraldine adiew:
How are my Thoughts confus'd with Joyes and Woes;
As through a Gate, so through my longing Eares
Passe to my Heart whole multitudes of Feares.
O, in a Map that I might see thee show
The place where now in danger thou do'st goe!
Whilst we discourse, to travell with our Eye
Romania, Tuscan, and faire Lumbardy;
Or with thy Pen exactly to set downe
The Modell of that Temple, or that Towne;
And to relate at large where thou hast beene,
As there, and there, and what thou there hast seene:
How Naples lyes, how Florence faire doth stand;
Or as the Grecians finger dip'd in Wine,
Drawing a River in a little Line,
And with a drop, a Gulfe to figure out,
To modell Venice, moted round about;
Then adding more, to counterfet a Sea,
And draw the Front of stately Genoa.
These from thy Lips were like harmonious Tones,
Which now doe sound like Mandrakes dreadfull Grones.
Leave here their Good, and bring home others Ill;
Which seeme to like all Countries but their owne,
Affecting most, where they the least are knowne;
Their Leg, their Thigh, their Back, their Neck, their Head,
As they had beene in sev'rall Countries bred;
In their Attyre, their Gesture, and their Gate,
Found in each one, in all Italionate;
So well in all deformitie in fashion,
Borrowing a Limbe of ev'ry sev'rall Nation;
And nothing more then England hold in scorne,
So live as Strangers whereas they were borne:
But thy returne in this I doe not reade,
Thou art a perfect Gentleman indeed;
O God forbid that Howards Noble line,
From ancient Vertue should so farre decline;
The Muses traine (whereof you selfe are chiefe)
Onely to me participate their griefe:
To sooth their humors, I doe lend them eares.
“He gives a Poet, that his Verses heares.
Till thy returne, by hope they only live;
Yet had they all, they all away would give:
The world and they, so ill according be,
That wealth and Poets never can agree.
Few live in Court that of their good have care,
The Muses friends are every-where so rare;
Onely because the better sort doe so,
Then it doth please the greatest to commend;
So great an ill upon desert doth chance,
When it doth passe by beastly ignorance.
Why art thou slacke, whilst no man puts his hand
Alluding to the sumptuous House which was afterward builded by him upon Leonards Hill, right against Norwich; which, in the Rebellion of Norfolke, under Ket, in King Edward the sixts time, was much defaced by that impure Rabble. Betwixt the Hill and the Citie, as Alexander Nevel describes it, the River of Yarmouth runnes, having West and South thereof, a Wood, and a little Village, called Thorpe, and on the North, the Pastures of Mousholl, which containe about six miles in length and breadth. So, that besides the stately greatnesse of Mount-Surrey, which was the Houses Name, the Prospect and Sight thereof was passing pleasant and commodious; and no where else did that increasing evill of the Norfolke Furie enkennell it selfe then, but there, as it were for a manifest token of their intent, to debase all high things, and to prophane all holy.
Or who the groundsill of that worke doth lay,
Whilst like a Wand'rer thou abroad do'st stray,
Clip'd in the Armes of some lascivious Dame,
When thou shouldst reare an Ilion to thy Name?
To be the Citie of the learned Well?
Or Phœbus Altars there with Incense heap'd,
As once in Cyrrha, or in Thebe kept?
Or when shall that faire hoofe-plow'd Spring distill
From great Mount-Surrey, out of Leonards hill?
Till thou returne, the Court I will exchange
For some poore Cottage, or some Country Grange,
Where to our Distaves, as we sit and Spin,
My Maide and I will tell what things have bin,
Our Lutes unstrung shall hang upon the Wall,
Our Lessons serve to wrap our Towe withall,
And passe the Night, whiles Winter tales we tell,
Of many things, that long agoe befell;
Or tune such homely Carrols as were sung
In Country sport, when we our selves were yong,
In pretty Riddles to bewray our Loves,
In questions, purpose, or in drawing Gloves.
The Noblest Spirits, to Vertue most inclin'd,
These here in Court thy greatest want doe find;
Others there be, on which we feed our Eye,
Such was he whom Juvenal taxeth in this manner:
Nullo quippe alio vincis discrimine, quam quod
Illi marmoreum caput est, tua vivit Imago.
Seeming to be borne for nothing else but Apparell, and the outward appearance, intituled Complement: with whom, the ridiculous Fable of the Ape in Æsope sorteth fitly; who comming into a Carvers house, and viewing many Marble Workes, tooke up the Head of a Man, very cunningly wrought: who greatly, in praysing, did seeme to pittie it, that having so comely an out-side, it had nothing within; like emptie Figures, walke and talke in every place: at whom, the Noble Geraldine modestly glanceth.
Many of us desire Queene Kath'rines state,
But very few her Vertues imitate.
Then, as Ulysses Wife, write I to thee,
Make no reply, but come thy selfe to mee.
| The Works of Michael Drayton | |