Sonnet to Delia. Care-charmer Sleepe, sonne of the sable Night, Brother to Death, in silent darknes borne, Relieve my languish, and restore the light, With darke forgetting of my care, returne. And let the day be time enough to mourne The shipwracke of my ill-adventured youth ; Let waking eyes suffice to waile their scorne, Without the torments of the night's untruth. Cease, dreames, the images of day desires, To model forth the passions of to-morrow; Never let rising Sunne approve you liers. To add more grief to aggravate my sorrow. Still let me sleepe, imbracing clouds in vaine, And never wake to feele the dayes disdaine. Ulisses and the Syren. Syren. Come, worthy Greeke, Ulisses, come, The windes and Seas are troublesome, Here may we sit and view their toile And joy the day in mirth the while, And spend the night in sleepe. Ulisses. Fair Nimph, if fame or honor were To be atteynd with ease, Then would I come and rest with thee, Becomes not men of worth. Our peace, and to beguile (The best thing of our life) our rest, And give us up to toil! Ulisses. Delicious Nimph, suppose there were No honour, or report, Yet manlines would scorne to weare The time in idle sport: For toyle doth give a better touche To make us feele our joy; And ease finds tediousnesse as much As labour yeelds annoy. Syren. Then pleasure likewise seemes the shore, And perish oft the while. Who may disporte them diversly, Finde never tedious day; And ease may have varietie, As well as action may. Ulisses. But natures of the noblest frame And with the thoughts of actions past When pleasure leaves a touch at last Syren. That doth opinion onely cause, That's out of custome bred; No widdowes waile for our delights, Ulisses. But yet the state of things require And these great spirits of high desire Seem borne to turne them best : Syren. Well, well, Ulisses, then I see T'undoo or be undonne. See Dr Grosart's edition of Daniel's works in the Huth Library (3 vols. 1885-87), and H. C. Beeching's Selections from the Poetry of S. Daniel and M. Drayton (1899). Michael Drayton, born in 1563 at Hartshill, near Atherstone in Warwickshire, at the age of ten was made page to a person of quality— possibly Sir Henry Goodere, to whom he says he owed the most of his education. There is nothing to prove whether he went to a university. His first work, The Harmonie of the Church (1591), was a metrical translation of parts of the Scriptures, but gave offence to the authorities and was destroyed. In 1593 Drayton published a collection of his pastorals or 'eglogs ;' in 1594, a collection of sonnets or 'quatorzains' (which helped to fix the specific English form of the sonnet); and in 1596, the first form of what, much altered, appeared as The Barons' Wars, originally in a seven-line stanza, finally in 'ottava rima.' It has fine passages, but is not everywhere interesting. England's Heroicall Epistles (1597), on the model of Ovid's Heroides, is polished but unequal. On the accession of James I. in 1603, Drayton acted as esquire to Sir Walter Aston at his investiture as Knight of the Bath. The poet expected patronage from the new sovereign, but was disappointed. The Poems Lyric and Heroic (1606) contain the famous martial lyric, The Ballad of Agincourt. He published the first part of his most elaborate work, the Polyolbion, in 1612, and the second in 1622, the whole forming a poetical 'chorographicall' description of England, in thirty songs or books. The Polyolbion, unlike any other work in English poetry, is full of topographical and antiquarian details, allusions to remarkable events and persons, local sports and customs; yet the inevitable prolixity and monotony of such a scheme is atoned for by the beauty of Drayton's descriptions, the skill of his treatment, the brightness of his fancy, and the delightfulness of his melody, as well as by the multifariousness of his information-information in general so accurate that the poem is quoted as an authority by Wood and Hearne. In 1619 Drayton collected all his poems (but Polyolbion) that he wanted preserved, and in 1627 published a new volume containing the whimsical and delightful Nymphidia, The Quest of Cynthia, and The Battaile of Agincourt (distinct from the Ballad). In conjunction with Chettle, Dekker, Munday, Webster, and others he had a share in many plays, notably Sir John Oldcastle. His last work, The Muses Elizium (1630), deals with Noah's flood, the birth of Moses, David and Goliath ; and the great sonnet, Since there's no help,' first MICHAEL DRAYTON. From the Portrait in the National Portrait Gallery. published in the 1619 folio, was pronounced by Rossetti as almost the best in the language, if not quite.' On his death in 1631, Drayton was buried in Westminster Abbey. From 'Polyolbion.' Morning in Warwickshire-a Stag-hunt. My native country then, which so brave spirits hast bred, When Phoebus lifts his head out of the winters wave, No sooner doth the earth her flowerie bosome brave, At such time as the Yeere brings on the pleasant Spring, As though the other birds shee to her tunes would draw. And but that nature, by her all-constraining law, The Yellow pate; which though shee hurt the blooming Of all the beasts which we for our veneriall name, rove At many a cruell beast, and with thy darts to pierce The lion, panther, ounce, the bear, and tiger fierce; And following thy fleet game, chaste mighty Forrests queen, With thy disheveld nymphs attyred in youthful greene, About the Launds hast scowred, and wastes both farre and neere, Brave huntress; but no beast shall prove thy quarries heere Save those the best of chase, the tall and lusty Red, Is fitt'st to hunt at force. For whom when with his hounds The laboring hunter tufts the thick unbarbed grounds, The often-bellowing hounds to vent his secret lair, As though up by the roots the bushes he would rive. When after goes the Cry, with yellings lowd and deepe, Each followes, as his horse were footed with the wind. Doth beat the brooks and ponds for sweet refreshing soyle; That serving not, then proves if he his scent can foyle, And makes amongst the heards and flocks of shag-wool'd sheep, Them frighting from the guard of those who had their keepe. But when as all his shifts his safety still denies, Put quite out of his walke, the wayes and fallowes tries; Whom when the Plowman meets, his teame he letteth stand, Tassaile him with his goad: so with his hooke in hand, Until the noble Deere, through toil bereaved of strength, He turnes upon his foes, that soone have him inclos'd. With his sharp-poynted head he dealeth deadly wounds. The woosell is the ouzel; the tydie, a golden-crested wren or a titmouse; nope, the bullfinch; hecco is a name for a woodpecker that assumes some thirty forms as various as hickwall, ickle, yuckel, hee-haw, and heigh-ho; greave is an old form of grove; emboss or imboss, said of a hunted animal, is to take shelter in a thicket; rechating is a particular measure on the horn. Coleridge notes as admirable a passage on the cutting down of the old English forests: Our trees so hacked above the ground, That where their lofty tops the neighbouring countries crowned, Their trunks, like aged folks, now bare and naked stand, As for revenge to Heaven each held a withered hand. Ballad of Agincourt. Faire stood the wind for France, When we our Sayles advance, Nor now to prove our chance Longer will tarry; But putting to the Mayne Landed King Harry. And taking many a fort, With all his power. Which in his hight of pride, To the King sending. Their fall portending. And turning to his men, Be not amazed. By Fame beene raysed. And for myselfe (quoth he), Losse to redeeme 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, Clayming the regall seate, By many a warlike feate, Lop'd the French lillies. The Duke of Yorke so dread, The eager vaward led; With the maine Henry sped, Amongst his hench-men. Excester had the rere, A braver man not there, O Lord, how hot they were They now to fight are gone, To heare was wonder; Thunder to thunder. Well it thine age became, To our hid forces; When from a medow by, The English archery Stuck the French horses. With Spanish Ewgh so strong, None from his fellow starts, Stuck close together. When downe their bowes they threw, Not one was tardie; Armes were from shoulders sent, As to o'r whelme it; And many a deepe wound lent, Bruised his helmet. Gloster, that duke so good, With his brave brother; Scarce such another. When as the luscious smell Above the seas that flowes, In kenning of the shore Let cannons roare, And in regions far Such heroes bring yee forth, As those from whom we came, And plant our name Under that starre Not knowne unto our North. The canzonet, 'To his Coy Love,' that begins : I pray thee, leave: love me no more, Call home the hart you gave me; That can but will not save me. These poore halfe kisses kill me quite ; Amidst an ocean of delight For pleasure to be sterved contains the ingenious conceit : O Tantalus! thy paines ne'er tell, and ends : Come nice thing, let thy heart alone, Most famous of Drayton's short poems is the Valediction. Since ther's no helpe, come let us kiss and part! Now if thou wouldst, when all have given him over, The following (modernised in spelling) describes the setting out of Mab, Queen of the Fairies, to visit Pigwiggin, 'a fairy knight': From the 'Nymphidia.' Her chariot ready straight is made; Her chariot of a snail's fine shell, She mounts her chariot with a trice, Until her maids, that were so nice, To wait on her were fitted; But ran herself away alone; Which when they heard, there was not one But hasted after to be gone, As she had been diswitted. Hop and Mop, and Drab so clear, Her special maids of honour; Upon a grasshopper they got, But after her they hie them: There is a memoir by Payne Collier in his volume of poems by Drayton for the Roxburghe Club (1856); in 1876 the Rev. R. Hooper edited the Polyolbion; A. H. Bullen published Selections from the poems in 1883; the Rev. C. Beeching, Selections from Daniel and Drayton in 1899; and since 1885 the Spenser Society has issued the Polyolbion in 3 vols. folio, and also four quarto volumes of his poems. Josua Sylvester (1563-1618), translator of Du Bartas, was the son of a Kentish clothier, was put to trade against his will, wrote numberless poems and dedications, was groom of the chamber to Prince Henry, and in 1613 became secretary to the English merchants at Middelburg in Holland, where he died. He is now only remembered in a shadowy way as the translator of the Divine Weeks and Works of the French poet Du Bartas. The translation - or rather paraphrase — was highly popular, and earned for him among his contemporaries the epithet of 'silver-tongued Sylvester.' Drayton, Drummond, Bishop Hall, Izaak Walton, and others praise the work, and Milton has been credited with copying some of its expressions. Charles Dunster even said (in 1800) that Sylvester's Du Bartas contains the prima stamina of Paradise Lost; but this is much too unqualified a statement, though no doubt Milton read Sylvester's poem in his youth, and may have got suggestions therein. Dryden in youth preferred Sylvester to Spenser, but by-and-by came to look on his verse as 'abominable fustian.' Satan's Temptation of Eve. As a false Lover that thick snares hath laid T' intrap the honour of a fair young Maid, When she (though little) listning ear affords To his sweet, courting, deep-affected words, Feels some asswaging of his freezing flame, And sooths himselfe with hope to gain his game; And, rapt with joy, upon this point persists, That parley'ng Citie never long resists: |