However yet they me despise and spight,
I feed on sweet contentment of my thought,
And please my self with mine own-self delight, 525
In contemplation of things heavenly wrought:
So loathing earth I look up to the sky,
And being driven hence, I thither fly.
Thence I behold the misery of men,
Which want the bliss that wisdom would them breed,
And like brute beasts do lie in loathsom den
Of ghostly darkness and of ghastly dreed;
For whom I mourn, and for my self complain,
And for my sisters eke, whom they disdain.
With that she wept and wail'd so piteously,
As if her eyes had been two springing wells;
And all the rest, her sorrow to supply,
Did throw forth shrikes, and cries, and drery yells. So ended she, and then the next in rew
Began her mournful plaint, as doth ensue.
A DOLEFUL case desires a doleful song,
Without vain art or curious complements,
And squallid fortune into baseness flong,
Doth scorn the pride of wonted ornaments:
Then fittest are these ragged rimes for me,
To tell my sorrows, that exceeding be.
For the sweet numbers and melodious measures
With which I wont the winged words to ty,
And make a tuneful diapase of pleasures,
Now being let to run at liberty
By those which have no skill to rule them right,
Have now quite lost their natural delight.
Heaps of huge words uphoorded hideously,
With horrid sound, though having little sense,
They think to be chief praise of poetry,
And thereby wanting due intelligence,
Have marr'd the face of goodly Poesie,
And made a monster of their fantasie.
Whilom in ages past none might profess,
But princes and high priests, that secret skill; 560
The sacred laws therein they wont express,
And with deep oracles their verses fill;
Then was she held in sovereign dignity,
And made the noursling of nobility.
But now nor prince nor priest doth her maintain, 565 But suffer her prophaned for to be
Of the base vulgar, that with hands unclean
Dares to pollute her hidden mysterie,
And treadeth under foot her holy things,
Which was the care of kesars and of kings.
One only lives, her age's ornament,
And mirror of her Maker's majesty,
That with rich bounty and dear cherishment,
Supports the praise of noble Poesie;
Ne only favours them which it profess,
But is her self a peerless poetress.
Most peerless prince, most peerless poetress!
The true Pandora of all heavenly graces,
Divine Eliza, sacred emperess!
Live she for ever, and her royal places
Be fill'd with praises of divinest wits,
That her enternize with their heavenly writs.
Some few beside this sacred skill esteem,
Admirers of her glorious excellence,
Which being lightned with her beauty's beam, 585
Are thereby fill'd with happy influence,
And lifted up above the worldes gaze,
To sing with angels her immortal praize.
But all the rest, as born of salvage brood,
And having been with acorns always fed,
Can no whit savour this celestial food,
But with base thoughts are into blindness led,
And kept from looking on the lightsom day,
For whom I wail and weep all that I
Eftsoons such store of tears she forth did powre,
As if she all to water would have gone,
And all her sisters, seeing her sad stowre,
Did weep and wail, and made exceeding mone,
And all their learned instruments did break;
The rest untold, no living tongue can speak. 600
Ye heavenly Spirits! whose ashy cinders lie
Under deep ruines, with huge walls opprest,
But not your praise, the which shall never die
Through your fair verses, ne in ashes rest;
If so be shrilling voice of wight alive
May reach from hence to depth of darkest hell,
Then let those deep abysses open rive,
That ye may understand my shrieking yell.
Thrice having seen, under the heaven's veil,
Your tombs devoted compass over all,
Thrice unto you with loud voice I appeal,
And for your antique fury here do call,
The whiles that I with sacred horror sing
Your glory, fairest of all earthly thing.
Great Babylon her haughty walls will praise,
And sharped steeples high shot up in air;
Greece will the old Ephesian buildings blaze,
And Nylus' nurslings their pyramids fair;
The same yet vaunting Greece will tell the story
Of Jove's great image in Olympus placed,
Mausolus' work will be the Carians' glory,
And Crete will boast the Labyrinth now raced:
The antique Rhodian will likewise set forth
The great Coloss, erect to memory;
And what else in the world is of like worth,
Some greater learned wit will magnify :
But I will sing, above all moniments,
"en Roman hills, the world's seven wonderments.
Thou Stranger! which for Rome in Rome here seek-
And nought of Rome in Rome perceiv'st at all, 30
These same old walls, old arches, which thou seest,
Old palaces, is that which Rome men call.
Behold what wreck, what ruine, and what waste,
And how that she, which with her mighty powre
Tam'd all the world, hath tam'd her self at last, 35
The prey of Time, which ali things doth devoure.
Rome now of Rome is th' only funerall,
And only Rome of Rome hath victory;
Ne ought save Tyber, hastning to his fall,
Remains of all. O world's inconstancy!
That which is firm doth flit and fall away,
And that is flitting doth abide and stay.
She, whose high top above the stars did sore,
One foot on Thetis, th' other on the Morning,
One hand on Scythia, th' other on the More,
Both heaven and earth in roundness compassing;
Jove fearing, least if she should greater grow,
The giants old should once again uprise, [now
Her whelm'd with hills, these seven hills, which be
Tombs of her greatness, which did threat the skies :
Upon her head he heapt Mount Saturnal,
Upon her belly th' antique Palatine,
Upon her stomack laid Mount Quirinal,
On her left hand the noysome Esquiline,
And Cælian on the right; but both her feet
Mount Viminal and Aventine do meet.
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