Love is a Sickness

LOVE is a sickness full of woes,

All remedies refusing;

A plant that with most cutting grows,

Most barren with best using.

            Why so?

More we enjoy it, more it dies;

If not enjoyed, sighing cries

            Heigh Ho!

Love is a torment of the mind,

A tempest everlasting;

And Jove hath made it of a kind

Not well, nor full, nor fasting.

            Why so?

More we enjoy it, more it dies;

If not enjoyed, sighing cries

            Heigh Ho!

Samuel Daniel

To the Lady Margaret, Countess of Cumberland

HE that of such a height hath built his mind,

And reared the dwellings of his thoughts so strong,

As neither fear nor hope can shake the frame

Of his resolvëd powers, nor all the wind

Of vanity or malice pierce to wrong

His settled peace, or to disturb the same,

What a fair seat hath he, from whence he may

The boundless wastes and wilds of man survey.

And with how free an eye doth he look down

Upon these lower regions of turmoil

Where all the storms of passions mainly beat

On flesh and blood; where honor, power, renown,

Are only gay afflictions, golden toil,

Where greatness stands upon as feeble feet

As frailty doth, and only great doth seem

To little minds, who do it so esteem.

He looks upon the mightiest monarchs' wars

But only as on stately robberies,

Where evermore the fortune that prevails

Must be the right, the ill-succeeding mars

The fairest and the best-faced enterprise;

The great pirate, Pompey, lesser pirates quails.

Justice, he sees, as if seducëd, still

Conspires with power, whose cause must not be ill.

He sees the face of right t' appear as manifold

As are the passions of uncertain man,

Who puts it in all colors, all attires,

To serve his ends and make his courses hold;

He sees that let deceit work what it can,

Plot and contrive base ways to high desires,

That the all-guiding Providence doth yet

All disappoint, and mocks this smoke of wit.

Nor is he moved with all the thunder-cracks

Of tyrants' threats, or with the surly brow

Of power, that proudly sits on others' crimes,

Charged with more crying sins than those he checks;

The storms of sad confusion that may grow

Up in the present, for the coming times,

Appal not him, that hath no side at all

But of himself, and knows the worst can fall.

Although his heart, so near allied to earth,

Cannot but pity the perplexëd state

Of troublous and distressed mortality,

That thus make way unto the ugly birth

Of their own sorrows, and do still beget

Affliction upon imbecility;

Yet seeing thus the course of things must run,

He looks thereon, not strange, but as foredone.

And whilst distraught ambition compasses

And is encompassed, whilst as craft deceives

And is deceived, whilst man doth ransack man,

And builds on blood, and rises by distress,

And th' inheritance of desolation leaves

To great-expecting hopes, he looks thereon

As from the shore of peace with unwet eye,

And bears no venture in impiety.

Thus, madam, fares that man that hath prepared

A rest for his desires, and sees all things

Beneath him, and hath learned this book of man,

Full of the notes of frailty, and compared

The best of glory with her sufferings,

By whom I see you labor all you can

To plant your heart, and set your thoughts as near

His glorious mansion as your powers can bear;

Which, madam, are so soundly fashionëd

By that clear judgment that hath carried you

Beyond the feeble limits of your kind,

As they can stand against the strongest head

Passion can make, inured to any hue

The world can cast, that cannot cast that mind

Out of her form of goodness, that doth see

Both what the best and worst of earth can be.

Which makes that, whatsoever here befalls,

You in the region of yourself remain,

Where no vain breath of th' impudent molests;

That hath secured within the brazen walls

Of a clear conscience that without all stain

Rises in peace, in innocency rests,

Whilst all what malice from without procures

Shows her own ugly heart, but hurts not yours.

And whereas none rejoice more in revenge

Than women use to do, yet you well know

That wrong is better checked by being contemned

Than being pursued, leaving to him t' avenge

To whom it appertains; wherein you show

How worthily your clearness hath condemned

Base malediction, living in the dark,

That at the rays of goodness still doth bark.

Knowing the heart of man is set to be

The center of this world, about the which

These revolutions of disturbances

Still roll, where all th' aspects of misery

Predominate, whose strong effects are such

As he must bear, being powerless to redress;

And that unless above himself he can

Erect himself, how poor a thing is man!

And how turmoiled they are that level lie

With earth, and cannot lift themselves from thence;

That never are at peace with their desires,

But work beyond their years, and even deny

Dotage her rest, and hardly will dispense

With death; that when ability expires,

Desire lives still, so much delight they have

To carry toil and travail to the grave.

Whose ends you see, and what can be the best

They reach unto, when they have cast the sum

And reckonings of their glory, and you know

This floating life hath but this port of rest--

A heart prepared, that fears no ill to come.

And that man's greatness rests but in his show,

The best of all whose days consumëd are

Either in war, or peace conceiving war.

This concord, madam, of a well-tuned mind

Hath been so set by that all-working hand

Of heaven, that though the world hath done his worst

To put it out by discords most unkind,

Yet doth it still in perfect union stand

With God and man, nor ever will be forced

From that most sweet accord, but still agree,

Equal in fortunes in equality.

And this note, madam, of your worthiness

Remains recorded in so many hearts,

As time nor malice cannot wrong your right

In th' inheritance of fame you must possess;

You that have built you by your great deserts,

Out of small means, a far more exquisite

And glorious dwelling for your honored name

Than all the gold that leaden minds can frame.

Samuel Daniel

Ulysses and the Siren

Sir. COME, worth Greek, Ulysses, come,

Possess these shores with me;

The winds and seas are troublesome,

And here we may be free.

    Here may we sit and view their toil

That travail on the deep,

And joy the day in mirth the while,

And spend the night in sleep.

Ulys. Fair nymph, if fame or honor were

To be attained with ease,

Then would I come and rest with thee,

And leave such toils as these,

    But here it dwells, and here must I

With danger seek it forth;

To spend the time luxuriously

Becomes not men of worth.

Sir. Ulysses, O be not deceived

With that unreal name;

This honor is a thing conceived,

And rests on others' fame.

    Begotten only to molest

Our peace, and to beguile

The best thing of our life, our rest,

And give us up to toil.

Ulys. Delicious nymph, suppose there were

Nor honor nor report,

Yet manliness would scorn to wear

The time in idle sport.

    For toil doth give a better touch,

To make us feel our joy;

And ease finds tediousness, as much

As labor, yields annoy.

Sir. Then pleasure likewise seems the shore

Whereto tends all your toil,

Which you forgo to make it more,

And perish oft the while.

    Who may disport them diversly,

Find never tedious day,

And ease may have variety

As well as action may.

Ulys. But natures of the noblest frame

These toils and dangers please,

And they take comfort in the same

As much as you in ease,

    And with the thoughts of actions past

Are recreated still;

When pleasures leave a touch at last

To show that it was ill.

Sir. That doth opinion only cause

That's out of custom bred,

Which makes us many other laws

Than ever nature did.

    No widows wail for our delights,

Our sports are without blood;

The world we see, by warlike wights

Receives more hurt than good.

Ulys. But yet the state of things require

These motions of unrest,

And these great spirits of high desire

Seem born to turn them best,

    To purge the mischiefs that increase

And all good order mar;

For oft we see a wicked peace

To be well changed for war.

Sir. Well, well, Ulysses, then I see

I shall not have thee here,

And therefore I will come to thee,

And take my fortunes there.

    I must be won that cannot win,

Yet lost were I not won;

For beauty hath created been

T' undo, or be undone.

Samuel Daniel

Sonnet 54

From Sonnets to Delia

CARE-CHARMER sleep, son of the sable night,

Brother to death, in silent darkness born,

Relieve my languish and restore the light;

With dark forgetting of my care, return.

And let the day be time enough to mourn

The shipwreck of my ill-adventured youth;

Let waking eyes suffice to wail their scorn

Without the torment of the night's untruth.

Cease, dreams, th' images of day-desires,

To model forth the passions of the morrow;

Never let rising sun approve you liars,

To add more grief to aggravate my sorrow.

Still let me sleep, embracing clouds in vain,

And never wake to feel the day's disdain.

Samuel Daniel

An Ode

NOW each creature joys the other,

Passing happy days and hours;

One bird reports unto another,

In the fall of silver showers,

Whilst the earth our common mother

Hath her bosom deckt with flowers.

Whilst the greatest torch of heaven

With bright rays warms _Flora_'s lap,

Making nights and days both even,

Cheering plants with fresher sap,

My field of flowers quite bereaven

Wants refresh of better hap.

Echo, daughter of the air,

Babbling guest of rocks and hills,

Knows the name of my fierce Fair

and sounds the accents of my ills.

Each thing pities my despair,

Whilst that She her lover kills.

Whilst that she, O cruel Maid,

Doth me and my true love despise,

My life's flourish is decay'd

That depended on her eyes;

But her will must be obey'd,

And well he'ends for love who dies.

Samuel Daniel