Were thy heart soft as thou art fair,
Thou wer't a wonder past compare:
But frozen Love and fierce disdain
By their extremes thy graces stain.
Cold coyness quenches the still fires
Which glow in lovers' warm desires;
And scorn, like the quick lightning's blaze,
Darts death against affections gaze.
O Heavens, what prodigy is this
When Love in Beauty buried is! 10
Or that dead pity thus should be
Tomb'd in a living cruelty.
[_Were thy heart, &c._] This is not much inferior
except as concerns the metre.]
_Sonnet._
Go, thou that vainly dost mine eyes invite
To taste the softer comforts of the night,
And bid'st me cool the fever of my brain
In those sweet balmy dews which slumber pain;
Enjoy thine own peace in untroubled sleep,
Whilst my sad thoughts eternal vigils keep.
O couldst thou for a time change breasts with me,
Thou in that broken glass shouldst plainly see
A heart which wastes in the slow smoth'ring fire
Blown by Despair, and fed by false Desire, 10
Can only reap such sleeps as sea-men have,
When fierce winds rock them on the foaming wave.
[_Go, thou that, &c._] What made the excellent
Archdeacon-to-be select this in preference to 'Tell me no
more' as a specimen of King's presumed 'juvenile productions'
it is difficult to discover. But
Blown by Despair, and fed by false Desire
is certainly a fine line.]
_Sonnet. To Patience._
Down, stormy passions, down; no more
Let your rude waves invade the shore
Where blushing reason sits, and hides
Her from the fury of your tides.
Fit only 'tis, where you bear sway,
That fools or frantics do obey;
Since judgement, if it not resists,
Will lose itself in your blind mists.
Fall easy, Patience, fall like rest
Whose soft spells charm a troubled breast: 10
And where those rebels you espy,
O in your silken cordage tie
Their malice up! so shall I raise
Altars to thank your power, and praise
The sovereign vertue of your balm,
Which cures a tempest by a calm.
[_To Patience._] So also he gave this very
commonplace 'production' and the next, which is a little
better.]
_Silence. A Sonnet._
Peace, my heart's blab, be ever dumb,
Sorrows speak loud without a tongue:
And, my perplexed thoughts, forbear
To breathe yourselves in any ear:
'Tis scarce a true or manly grief,
Which gads abroad to find relief.
Was ever stomach that lack'd meat
Nourish'd by what another eat?
Can I bestow it, or will woe
Forsake me, when I bid it go? 10
Then I'll believe a wounded breast
May heal by shrift, and purchase rest.
But if, imparting it, I do
Not ease myself, but trouble two,
'Tis better I alone possess
My treasure of unhappiness:
Engrossing that which is my own
No longer than it is unknown.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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