Epitaph

EVEN such is time, which takes in trust

Our youth, our joys, and all we have,

And pays us but with age and dust,

Who in the dark and silent grave

When we have wandered all our ways

Shuts up the story of our days,

And from which earth, and grave, and dust

The Lord will raise me up, I trust.

Sir Walter Raleigh

The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd

IF all the world and love were young,

And truth in every shepherd's tongue,

These pretty pleasures might me move

To live with thee and be thy love.

Time drives the flocks from field to fold

When rivers rage and rocks grow cold,

And Philomel becometh dumb;

The rest complains of cares to come.

The flowers do fade, and wanton fields

To wayward winter reckoning yields;

A honey tongue, a heart of gall,

Is fancy's spring, but sorrow's fall,

Thy gowns, thy shoes, thy beds of roses,

Thy cap, thy kirtle, and thy posies

Soon break, soon wither, soon forgotten--

In folly ripe, in reason rotten.

Thy belt of straw and ivy buds,

Thy coral claps and somber studs,

All these in me no means can move

To come to thee and be thy love.

But could youth last and love still breed,

Had joys no date nor age no need,

Then these delights my mind might move

To live with thee and be thy love.

Sir Walter Raleigh

The Lie

GO, Soul, the body's guest,

Upon a thankless arrant:

Fear not to touch the best;

The truth shall be thy warrant:

   Go, since I needs must die,

   And give the world the lie.

Say to the court, it glows

And shines like rotten wood;

Say to the church it shows

What's good, and doth no good:

   If church and court reply,

   Then give them both the lie.

Tell potentates, they live

Acting by others' action;

Not loved unless they give,

Not strong but by affection:

   If potentates reply,

   Give potentates the lie.

Tell men of high condition

That manage the estate,

Their purpose is ambition,

Their practice only hate:

   And if they once reply,

   Then give them all the lie.

Tell them that brave it most

They beg for more by spending,

Who, in their greatest cost,

Seek nothing but commending:

   And if they make reply,

   Then give them all the lie.

Tell zeal it wants devotion,

Tell love it is but lust;

Tell time it metes but motion,

Tell flesh it is but dust:

   And wish them not reply,

   For thou must give the lie.

Tell age it daily wasteth;

Tell honour how it alters;

Tell beauty how she blasteth;

Tell favour how it falters;

   And as they shall reply,

   Give every one the lie.

Tell wit how much it wrangles

In tickle points of niceness;

Tell wisdom she entangles

Herself in over-wiseness:

   And when they do reply,

   Straight give them both the lie.

Tell physic of her boldness;

Tell skill it is pretension;

Tell charity of coldness;

Tell law it is contention;

   And as they all reply,

   So give them still the lie.

Tell fortune of her blindness;

Tell nature of decay;

Tell friendship of unkindness;

Tell justice of delay;

   And if they will reply,

   Then give them all the lie.

Tell arts they have no soundness,

But vary by esteeming;

Tell schools they want profoundness,

And stand too much on seeming:

   If arts and schools reply,

   Give arts and schools the lie.

Tell faith it's fled the city;

Tell how the country erreth;

Tell manhood shakes off pity

And virtue least preferreth:

   And if they do reply,

   Spare not to give the lie.

So when thou hast, as I

Commanded thee, done blabbing

--Although to give the lie

Deserves no less than stabbing--

   Stab at thee he that will,

   No stab thy soul can kill.

Sir Walter Raleigh

The Passionate Man's Pilgrimage

GIVE me my scallop-shell of quiet,

My staff of faith to walk upon,

My scrip of joy, immortal diet,

My bottle of salvation,

My gown of glory, hope's true gage,

And thus I'll make my pilgrimage.

Blood may be my body's balmer,

No other balm will there be given,

Whilst my soul like a white palmer

Travels to the land of heaven,

Where spring the nectar fountains;

And there I'll kiss

The bowl of bliss,

And drink my eternal fill

On every milken hill.

My soul will be a-dry before,

But after it will ne'er thirst more.

And by the happy blissful way

More peaceful pilgrims shall I see,

That have shook off their gowns of clay

And go apparelled fresh like me.

I'll bring them first

To slake their thirst,

And then to taste those nectar suckets,

At the clear wells

Where sweetness dwells,

Drawn up by saints in crystal buckets.

And when our bottles and all we

Are filled with immortality,

Then the holy paths we'll travel,

Strewed with rubies thick as gravel,

Ceilings of diamonds, sapphire floors,

High walls of coral and pearl bowers.

From thence to heaven's bribeless hall

Where no corrupted voices brawl,

No conscience molten into gold,

Nor forged accusers bought and sold,

No cause deferred, nor vain-spent journey,

For there Christ is the King's Attorney,

Who pleads for all without degrees,

And he hath angels, but no fees.

When the grand twelve million jury

Of our sins with sinful fury

'Gainst our souls black verdicts give,

Christ pleads his death, and then we live.

Be thou my speaker, taintless pleader,

Unblotted lawyer, true preeceder;

Thou movest salvation even for alms,

Not with a bribed lawyer's palms.

And this is my eternal plea

To him that made heaven, earth and sea:

Seeing my flesh must die so soon,

And want a head to dine next noon,

Just at the stroke when my veins start and spread,

Set on my soul an everlasting head.

Then am I ready, like a palmer fit,

To tread those blest paths which before I writ.

Sir Walter Raleigh

Life

WHAT is our life? A play of passion,

Our mirth the music of division,

Our mother's wombs the tiring-houses be,

Where we are dressed for this short comedy.

Heaven the judicious sharp spectator is,

That sits and marks still who doth act amiss.

Our graves that hide us from the setting sun

Are like drawn curtains when the play is done.

Thus march we, playing, to our latest rest,

Only we die in earnest, that's no jest.

Sir Walter Raleigh

A Farewell to False Love

FAREWELL, false love, the oracle of lies,

A mortal foe and enemy to rest,

An envious boy, from whom all cares arise,

A bastard vile, a beast with rage possessed,

A way of error, a temple full of treason,

In all effects contrary unto reason.

A poisoned serpent covered all with flowers,

Mother of sighs, and murderer of repose,

A sea of sorrows whence are drawn such showers

As moisture lend to every grief that grows;

A school of guile, a net of deep deceit,

A gilded hook that holds a poisoned bait.

A fortress foiled, which reason did defend,

A siren song, a fever of the mind,

A maze wherein affection finds no end,

A raging cloud that runs before the wind,

A substance like the shadow of the sun,

A goal of grief for which the wisest run.

A quenchless fire, a nurse of trembling fear,

A path that leads to peril and mishap,

A true retreat of sorrow and despair,

An idle boy that sleeps in pleasure's lap,

A deep mistrust of that which certain seems,

A hope of that which reason doubtful deems.

Sith* then thy trains my younger years betrayed,            [since]

And for my faith ingratitude I find;

And sith repentance hath my wrongs bewrayed*,            [revealed]

Whose course was ever contrary to kind*:            [nature]

False love, desire, and beauty frail, adieu.

Dead is the root whence all these fancies grew.

Sir Walter Raleigh

Praised Be Diana's Fair and Harmless Light

PRAISED be Diana's fair and harmless light;

Praised be the dews wherewith she moists the ground;

Praised be her beams, the glory of the night;

Praised be her power, by which all powers abound.

Praised be her nymphs, with whom she decks the woods;

Praised be her knights, in whom true honor lives;

Praised be that force, by which she moves the floods;

Let that Diana shine, which all these gives.

In heaven queen she is among the spheres;

In aye she mistress-like makes all things pure;

Eternity in her oft change she bears;

She beauty is; by her the fair endure.

Time wears her not, she doth his chariot guide;

Mortality below her orb is placed.

By her the virtue of the stars down slide,

In her is virtue's perfect image cast.

A knowledge pure it is her worth to know;

With Circes let them dwell that think not so.

Sir Walter Raleigh

Farewell to the Court

LIKE truthless dreams, so are my joys expir'd,

And past return are all my dandled days;

My love misled, and fancy quite retir'd--

Of all which pass'd the sorrow only stays.

My lost delights, now clean from sight of land,

Have left me all alone in unknown ways;

My mind to woe, my life in fortune's hand--

Of all which pass'd the sorrow only stays.

As in a country strange, without companion,

I only wail the wrong of death's delays,

Whose sweet spring spent, whose summer well-nigh done--

Of all which pass'd only the sorrow stays.

Whom care forewarns, ere age and winter cold,

To haste me hence to find my fortune's fold.

Sir Walter Raleigh

To His Love When He Had Obtained Her

NOW Serena be not coy,

Since we freely may enjoy

Sweet embraces, such delights,

As will shorten tedious nights.

Think that beauty will not stay

With you always, but away,

And that tyrannizing face

That now holds such perfect grace

Will both changed and ruined be;

So frail is all things as we see,

So subject unto conquering Time.

Then gather flowers in their prime,

Let them not fall and perish so;

Nature her bounties did bestow

On us that we might use them, and

'Tis coldness not to understand

What she and youth and form persuade

With opportunity that's made

As we could wish it. Let's, then, meet

Often with amorous lips, and greet

Each other till our wanton kisses

In number pass the day Ulysses

Consumed in travel, and the stars

That look upon our peaceful wars

With envious luster. If this store

Will not suffice, we'll number o'er

The same again, until we find

No number left to call to mind

And show our plenty. They are poor

That can count all they have and more.

Sir Walter Raleigh

Nature That Washed Her Hands in Milk

NATURE, that wahed her hands in milk,

And had forgot to dry them,

Instead of earth took snow and silk,

At Love's request to try them,

If she a mistress could compose

To please Love's fancy out of those.

Her eyes he would should be of light,

A violet breath, and lips of jelly;

Her hair not black, nor overbright,

And of the softest down her belly;

As for her inside he'd have it

Only of wantonness and wit.

At Love's entreaty such a one

Nature made, but with her beauty

She hath fram'd a heart of stone;

So as Love, by ill destiny,

Must die for her whom Nature gave him

Because her darling would not save him.

But Time, which Nature doth despise

And rudely gives her love the lie,

Makes hope a fool, and sorrow wise,

His hands do neither wash nor dry;

But being made of steel and rust,

Turns snow and silk and milk to dust.

The light, the belly, lips, and breath,

He dims, discolors, and destroys;

With those he feeds but fills not death,

Which sometimes were the food of joys.

Yea, Time doth dull each lively wit,

And dries all wantonness with it.

Oh, cruel Time, which takes in trust

Our youth, or joys, and all we have,

And pays us but with age and dust;

Who in the dark and silent grave

When we have wandered all our ways

Shuts up the story of our days.

Sir Walter Raleigh