All the workes of Iohn Taylor the Water-Poet Being Sixty and three in Number. Collected into one Volume by the Author [i.e. John Taylor]: With sundry new Additions, corrected, reuised, and newly Imprinted |
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| Certaine Sonnets: variously composed vpon diuers subiects. |
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 | All the workes of Iohn Taylor the Water-Poet |  |
Certaine Sonnets: variously composed vpon diuers subiects.
Sonnet. 1 True Nobility.
Great is the glory of the Noble minde,Where life and death are equall in respect:
If fates be good or bad, vnkinde or kinde,
Not proud in freedome, nor in thrall deiect;
With courage scorning fortunes worst effect,
And spitting in foule Enuies cankred face.
True honour thus doth baser thoughts subiect,
Esteeming life a slaue, that serues disgrace.
Foule abiect thoughts, become the mind that's base,
That deemes there is no better life then this,
Or after death doth feare a worser place,
Where guilt is paid the guerdon of Amisse.
But let swolne enuy swell vntill shee burst,
The Noble minde defies her to her worst.
Sonnet. 2. Enuy and Honour.
Could Enuy dye, if Honour were deceast?She could not liue, for Honour's Enuie's food:
She liues by sucking of the Noble blood,
And scales the loftie top of Fames high Crest.
Base thoughts compacted in the abiect brest,
The Meager Monster doth nor harme, nor good:
But like the wane, or waxe, of ebbe or flood,
She shunnes as what her gorge doth most detest,
Where heau'n-bred honour in the Noble minde,
From out the Cauerns of the brest proceeds:
There hell-borne Enuy shewes her hellish kind,
And Vulturlike vpon their actions feeds.
But here's the ods, that Honour's tree shall grow,
When Enuie's rotten stump shall burne in woe.
Sonnet. 3. Beauties luster.
Dew drinking Phœbus hid his golden head,Balm-breathing Zephyrus lay close immur'd:
The silly Lambs and Kyds lay all as dead,
Skies, earth, and seas, all solace had abiur'd.
Poore men and beasts, to toylesome tasks inur'd,
In dropping manner spent the drowzy day:
All but the Owle, whose safety night assur'd,
She gladly cuts the ayre with whooting lay.
When lo, the blossome of my blooming May,
From out her Coach maiestickly doth rise:
Then Tytan doth his radiant beames display,
And clouds are vanisht from the vaulty skies.
Sweet Zephryis gales reuiueth beasts and men,
Madge-Howlet scuds vnto her nest agen.
Sonnet. 4. Hope and Despaire.
Domestick broyles my tortur'd heart inuadesTwixt wau'ring Hope, and desp'rate black Despaire:
To prosecute my sute the one perswades,
259
Hope sets me on, infer's shee's fayrest faire,
How dire disdaine doth dwell in foulest Cels,
And fell despaire calls beauty Enuies heire:
Which torments me more then ten thousand hels.
Loe, thus my former hope despaire expels:
Mid'st which extremes whats best for me to doe:
In open armes, despaire 'gainst me rebels,
Hope traytor-like giues free consent thereto.
And till these traytors twaine consume my citty,
I restlesse rest, to rest vpon her pitty.
Sonnet. 5. Three blinde Commanders.
Blinde fortune, sightlesse loue, and eyelesse death,Like Great Triumue'rs swayes this earthly roome,
Mans actions, affections, and very breath:
Are in subiection to their fatall doome.
Ther's nothing past, or presen, or to come,
That in their purblinde power is not comprizde:
From Crowne, to cart, from cradle to the toome,
All are by them defamde, or eternizde:
Why should we then esteeme this doating life
(Thats in the guideance of such blind-fold rule)
Whose chiefest peace, is a continuall strife,
Whose gawdy pompes the pack, and man the Mule,
Which liues long day, he beares, as he is able,
Til deaths blacke night, doth make the graue his stable?
Sonnet. 6. In the praise of musicke.
Twas Musick fetch'd Euridice from hell,And rap'd grim Pluto with harmonious straines:
Renowned Orpheus did with Musick quell
The fiends, and ease the tortur'd of their paines.
The Dolphin did account it wondrous gaines,
To heare Arion play as hee did ride:
Gods, fiends, fish, fowles, & shepheards on the plains
Melodious Musicke still hath magnifide:
And ancient records plainely doe decide,
How braue Orlando, Palatine of France,
When he was raging mad for Meadors bride,
Sweet Musicke cur'd his crazed wits mischance.
For Musick's only fit for heau'ns high quire,
Which though men cannot praise enough, admire.
Sonnet. 7. The Map of misery.
Like to the stone thats cast in deepest waue,That rests not till the bottome it hath found,
So I (a wretch) inthrald in sorrowes caue,
With woe and desperations fetters bound:
The captiue slaue imprison'd vnder ground
Doom'd, thereby fates t' expire his wofull daies,
With care o'rwhelmd, with grief & sorrow drownd
Makes mournfull moanings and lamenting layes,
Accusing, and accursing fortunes playes,
Whose wither'd Autumne leauelesse leaues his tree,
And banning death for his too long delayes,
Remaines the onely poore despised hee.
If such a one as this, the world confine,
His mischiefes are his his sport compar'd with mine.
Sonnet. 8. Another in prayse of musicke.
No Poet crownd with euerliuing bayes(Tho art like floods should frō his knowledge flow)
He could not write enough in Musicks praise:
To which, both man and Angels loue doe owe,
If my bare knowledge ten times more did know,
And had ingrost all arte from Pernas hill:
If all the Muses should their skils bestow
On me, to amplifie my barren skill:
I might attempt in shew of my good will,
In Musicks praise, some idle lines to write:
But wanting iudgement, and my accent ill,
I still should be vnworthy to indite,
And run my wit on ground like ship on shelfe:
For musicks praise consisteth in it selfe.
| All the workes of Iohn Taylor the Water-Poet | |